“I live life with the joys that I can find. Teaching children was and still is a joy even after 32 years of teaching. I would not change my career for anything or any amount of money.”
This issue’s Educator’s Corner features a very special teacher, a teacher who always has a big smile on his face, a teacher whose passion for music is unmatched and a teacher who you will never see wearing a sober tie.
This week’s educator is none other than Mr. Axel Rodericks, GEMS Modern Academy’s Head of the Music Department. For the past 32 years, Mr. Rodericks has taught thousands of children the truly beautiful and majestic art of music as he learnt it, throughout primary, middle, and senior school.
Music definitely was not his first choice. Believe it or not, Mr. Rodericks only started his music career at the age of 21, after initially wanting to pursue a career in surgical medicine. He graduated with a degree in software engineering, then took on a part time job teaching music to primary students at his local church. It was during that time that he realised that that was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He then took the mighty decision to quit his “nightmare” computer software job and started to pursue his greatest passion, music.
While his friends and family thought he was insane for switching from a Rs. 5000 job to a Rs. 600 job, the utter and unmatched joy that teaching music to children brought him told him, for certain, that he was never going to regret his decision. He says, “Anything to do with music will gladden your heart.”
BONUS!
Axel sir is best known around school for his entertaining ties filled with cartoons, movie characters and so much more. When I asked Mr. Axel how he came to wear such ties, he told us that when he started teaching, he taught mainly primary students and when he wore these ties, they absolutely loved them. As he moved up and taught higher grades in middle school, they also loved the ties and the same goes for the senior school students and all the teachers in school. So, Axel sir became the teacher with the funny ties. Even today, Axel sir still keeps apart a little bit of his income just to buy these beloved ties that we see him wearing every day.
– Natasha Luktuke, 9I