Overview: " My Bryden peers and I were at an advantage right off the bat"
Image: Lewis Nhongonhema
Lewis Nhongonhema
My name is Lewis Nhongonhema, and I was a member of the Bryden class of 2012. I started my journey at Bryden in 2008 in grade 3.
Bryden gave me the opportunity to explore my potential in more ways than just academic. I was exposed to sports such as cricket, hockey and cross-country...
"..which is where I found my affinity to be, breaking a few records on the cross-country and 800m tracks.."
and was a member of:
the orchestra,
school choir and
drama club.
Those are just some of the activities I partook and excelled in, but the breadth of opportunities for students to find their niche at Bryden is truly enormous.
My experiences at Bryden provided me with a great foundation to continue building up on in high school, of which I attended Peterhouse Boys High School in Marondera.
My Bryden peers and I were at an advantage right off the bat compared to some of our form 1 mates because of our prior experience with many of the activities we were being introduced to at Peterhouse. A great example is how for French class, all the boys who had taken Mrs. Peters’ Grade 7 French club regularly scored marks in the top percentile having been among the only ones to have had any prior exposure to French.
The same went for many of the sports, with the Bryden boys having experience in most of the sports they were being introduced to. In that sense, one can say Bryden puts its pupils one step ahead of the competition in most aspects of High School life.
At Peterhouse, I represented 1st team athletics and cross country, and was a member of the school choir and LEO club. I received full-academic colors following my IGCSE results and continued to perform at a high level academically until I finished my high school studies, eventually being accepted to study at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada on an academic scholarship.
Before I began my university studies, I worked as a Junior Master at Bryden for 2 terms in 2019. Being in the same environment that nurtured my growth as a primary school student to now being on the other side of the looking glass was a revelatory experience that gave me invaluable insight on the inner workings of the relationship between student and teacher.
This also gave me a newfound respect for the work that teachers do in educating our children. It most definitely is not easy work. Kudos to the teachers for being students’ parents away from home and having the immeasurable patience to deal with our nonsense day-in and day-out for years on end. I know having the roles reversed for a brief period during the COVID-19 pandemic has opened many parents’ eyes to the love and patience it takes to walk children through the steps of learning and has hopefully increased our collective appreciation and respect for the role of teacher.
I am now in Canada pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and hope to have it completed by the end of 2024.