With You Are Not Just a Teacher, educator-author Masego Zulu Lekgowe turns the classroom into a confidence lab — rewriting the narrative from burnout to bold leadership and giving teachers a long-overdue standing ovation
GAZETTE REPORTER
The bell rings. Students leave. The real work lingers. In her new soul-stirring 54-page release, You Are Not Just a Teacher, Masego Zulu Lekgowe pulls back the curtain on the emotional overtime educators clock daily — the invisible mentoring, the quiet counselling, the life-shaping that never makes the timetable.
FROM JOB TITLE TO POWER TITLE
Lekgowe’s central argument is a remix of identity. Teaching isn’t a fallback, it’s nation-building in sensible shoes.
“More than a motivational book, You Are Not Just a Teacher is a reframing of identity,” she told Time Out turning a profession often boxed into survival mode into a blueprint for leadership and influence.
THE UNSEEN LABOUR, LOUDLY NAMED
Rooted in her own journey from primary school classrooms to advocacy work, Lekgowe gives vocabulary to the emotional math teachers solve daily: purpose plus exhaustion, care minus recognition, impact multiplied by time.
And then she flips the equation from apology to pride.
HEALING IN THE STAFF ROOM
The book reads like a group therapy session disguised as a manifesto. It speaks not just to teachers but to parents, policymakers and anyone shaped by a teacher’s patience. It invites educators to protect their wellbeing, pursue growth and drop the narrative that they are “less than.”
BEYOND THE BELL
Lekgowe refuses the tired trope of noble sacrifice. Instead, she offers sustainability: the idea that teachers can evolve, lead and expand their influence without abandoning the classroom.
At P150, the slim volume carries heavyweight energy — part mirror, part megaphone.
Because sometimes the most revolutionary lesson isn’t on the syllabus. It’s the moment a teacher realises they were never “just” anything.