A Teacher Could Be More Than

Read to Reflect.

By Lisu Khuzwayo

The day was set, but my mood wasn’t. Fifteen years old, full of noise, and utterly unserious. I sat in my 10th-grade English class, acting the fool—detached from the weight of the opportunity in front of me. Academics didn’t matter. I was the class clown, the distraction. The student teachers whispered in staff meetings with tired eyes:

“He’s wasting his potential.”

They assumed I came from chaos—that I had too much freedom and too little guidance. They thought I was lost, drifting without direction or purpose. But the truth? I didn’t know any better. I was figuring life out with the tools I had—imperfect, incomplete, but mine. What looked like chaos was really me trying to find my way, one uncertain step at a time.

In primary school, we worked alone in cubicles, facing the walls. There were no group lessons, no shared pace, and no rhythm to learning. From age seven, we were left to manage ourselves. For me, school became a strange, solitary routine—where doing nothing felt just as valid as doing something. I carried that disconnection with me.

Then my mother made enormous sacrifices to send me to Kearsney College—one of the country’s best all-boys schools. I didn’t understand the privilege. I slept through classes, joked through lessons, and struggled—not just with schoolwork, but with myself. My marks were low, especially in English. I kept my head down and stayed invisible. That silence had protected me before, but here it made me feel small. I didn’t care about my performance—and it showed. I let time slip away.

If you totaled the cost of my high school education over five years, it would have come to over a million rand—and I was throwing it away, one day at a time.

Most teachers let me slip through the cracks...Then came Ms. Jane Curtiss.

On a bright morning at Botha’s Hill, Kearsney’s green campus felt strange. At my old school, I was the only student in the classroom. Now I was one among many—boys who shared the same language, the same jokes, and the same unspoken rules I didn’t know. I didn’t know how to belong. The classroom was chaos as usual. I was asleep at my desk—again.

But this time, Ms. Curtiss had had enough.

She saw right through me.

One day, she pulled me aside and said something I’ll never forget:

“You!” she barked.

I lifted my head.

“You could be that guy, but you keep fucking it up.”

The class went silent. I blinked.

“Me, ma’am?”

“Yes, you. Turn the screws in your head on.”

I was a 40% student in her subject, but at that moment, something shifted. It wasn’t just the rebuke—it was the belief behind it. She didn’t just say I was failing. She believed I could succeed. That day redefined my life.

It woke something dormant inside me.

I began to separate myself from the crowd—to stop blending into the background noise of boys who didn’t care.

I started showing up—not just in class, but in effort, focus, and character. I studied. I practiced. I engaged.

English went from a subject I mocked to one I respected and even enjoyed.

I became an A student in the very class I once slept through.

Looking back, it wasn’t the scolding that changed me.

It was her conviction that I had something—and that I was sabotaging it. That’s what stirred my transformation. Here’s what I’ve come to understand: Criticism is easy. But constructive criticism—the kind that calls you up, not just out—that’s powerful.

Anyone can say, “You’re messing it up.” But it takes a real teacher to say: “You could be that guy.”

That’s not just a reprimand. That’s a challenge. That’s a belief wrapped in tough love. For the first time, I felt seen.

Ms. Curtiss didn’t just teach literature; she taught me.

She revealed the version of myself I had hidden.

What shocked me wasn’t the language. It was the sincerity. She saw me.

She believed in me—not in a generic, “You can do it” way.

She believed I was meant for the better.

That moment changed everything.

From that day on, I began to truly show up. I tried harder.

Passed English.Connected with other teachers.

I realized I wasn’t a failure pretending to be a student.

I was a student who had been pretending to fail.

A teacher does more than teach. They see you when you feel invisible.

They push you when you’re drifting. They remind you who you could become.

There’s a saying: “The idea of perfection implies existence.”

We should spend less time telling young people what they’re not—and more time helping them see what they could become.

Because how can anyone recognize “better” if no one ever teaches them?

Today, I’m pursuing a degree in Political Science and International Studies.

I believe in discipline.

I believe in education.

I believe in the power of being seen before you see yourself.

Ms. Curtiss did that for me.

So no—this isn’t just a thank-you for my self-discipline or determination.

This is a thank-you to the woman who sparked it.

To you, Ms. Jane Curtiss—thank you.

May God bless you.

So I’ll end with a question: Who was your Ms. Curtiss?