Daunting Tasks and the Future...

Regarding daunting tasks:

I would like to preface the following by saying: I want my blog readers to know that I have a profound respect for the educators with which I work. They cannot help that they were trained under the apartheid regime who PURPOSEFULLY instructed these teachers to use the Bantu Education System, which was designed to keep the ‘blacks’ out of white society. Their methods are poor and it’s frustrating when my job is to correct those habits, but I find it pertinent to reiterate that I truly respect the work these educators are trying to do. For, in all honesty, they simply do not know better because no one has told them they CAN be better. All that to say, please continue to listen to my ‘venting’ (because I surely need listening ears!) but understand that it’s not these people’s fault. And please understand that the reason I am even at these schools is because they want to try to become better educators. With that I digress…

It seems that the more time I spend in my schools the more overwhelmed I become! You peel back one problem and are bombarded by a plethora of others. Today it seemed that the only reason teaching was happening at the school was because I was there. I observed four intermediate phase teachers at my key school (grades 4-7). Every time I entered the classroom at the scheduled time I’d find several teachers sitting together in the front of the room chatting while the students tore the school apart around them. Each time the teacher I was to observe saw I had arrived he or she would leisurely finish their conversation and then begin class. It makes me worried about what happens when I am not at the school?

One of the classes I observed was 6th grade Science. The teacher was going over photosynthesis, chlorophyll, etc. The teacher explained how plants take in the carbon dioxide in the air and release clean oxygen (as an aside: when my father first taught this fact to me he told me that in order to be nice to the plants that are giving us oxygen we should breathe on them…thus I began walking down streets stopping to breathe heavily on the bushes as I passed…laugh it up dad!). Anyway she then asked the students if they knew how photosynthesis worked at night. No one did, and to be honest I was a bit curious myself…well, suspicious is more like it.

“At night the process is reversed. At night plants take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide. This is why we do not sleep with plants in our bedrooms because they will steal all your air and you will die.”

What the?!?!

The longer I am here and the more misinformation I hear passed down from one generation to the next the easier it is for me to understand the prevalence of madrassas in the Middle East. It’s also easier to believe how families in rural Niger would refuse free Polio vaccinations for their children because they were told Polio vaccines administered by white people are actually the west’s way to give little children Polio and kill off all the blacks. It’s also easy to understand why in South Africa there is a predominant belief that to cure oneself from HIV/AIDS one must sleep with a virgin, thus explaining the vast amount of girls under the age of 12 who are raped each year.

Education is power and those who hold the keys to education hold the power. Thus we can see how apartheid was able to flourish for so long, the whites held the keys to education and as such capitalized on that power. I’m glad to be here and act as a catalyst to perhaps help, in whatever way possible, to increase teacher’s subject content knowledge so they can teach the truth instead of perpetuating the cycle of poor education.

Regarding the future:

Jason and I meet with our three school principals on Wednesday to draw a sketchy plan for next school year. I am currently working on a mini-presentation to assist them in visualizing some of our more ‘abstract’ project ideas.

Potential project list:

Number One:
I am currently soliciting help form an organization called the “International Language Program.” This is the group that originally took me to Moscow. They have developed a revolutionary methodology designed to teach children English through immersion. I have had countless hours training/experience teaching this ‘Duo-Lingual Methodology” but am bound by a contract I signed in 2003 stating I will not use the methodology in any setting for 5 years.

All that to say, I am in the very BEGINNING stages of trying to see if a partnership can’t be established between ILP and South Africa, for the last time I spoke with ILP’s director he said they were interested in expanding their program to Africa but did not have the resources or contacts needed.

This project would assist in eradicating the EXTREME problem faced by learners who are taught in their native tongue (which here is Setswana) until grade 4 at which point they switch entirely to English – a language they know very little about in the rural areas. Thus they are being taught new material in a language they do not understand using textbooks written for 4th graders whose native tongue is English. The cycle of disadvantage will not be broken until the language barrier is.

Number Two:
I am going to start a girl’s empowerment group (unless for some reason the principals stop me, which I highly doubt). I want it to be for the girls in grades 6 and 7 at all three schools. I am going to pick 7 or 8 key ‘values’ that the girls need to ‘pass off’ in order to ‘graduate’ into young women who know what they’re worth. I am busy working out the kinks but I would like to have the club meet one day a week (each school will have its own club) for 2 to 3 hours after school. There we will tackle each one of these values (my short list will sound familiar to some) individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity…more to come. Anyway, I will find creative ways to teach about these topics and start a discussion with the girls. I then want to devote the second half of the meeting to actually practicing the newly imparted value…so for example when we’re doing good works we will do community service. The girls and I will have to keep track of what they do and then at the end of the club’s run each school year I want to give the girls something (maybe a necklace?) that they can have to show they finished and something that will remind them of what they learned. I am EXTREMELY excited about this one and feel it could be the biggest contribution I make to my village (even if they don’t all see it that way).

Number Three:
We are putting together a year-long series of workshops for the educators at our schools. We are thinking about dedicating each month of the school year to a different area in which the schools are struggling. We will hold the workshop and then visit the teachers one-on-one or in the classroom to help them each individually implement what we’re working on.

Some example workshops will focus on: lesson planning, alternatives to corporal punishment, classroom management, IQMS, NCS, LO/DOs and other intricacies of South Africa’s education system. I’m excited about this but know it will be the most challenging thing we do while we’re here. By far.

Number Four:
There are a series of classes we are going to teach at the center (remember we have 3 schools and the edu center). They include: computer literacy courses (first for interested educators, then the community), content knowledge courses (‘advanced’ English grammar for educators, science, math, etc), management courses (for the principals), and personal finance (for the educators and community). We are obviously not qualified to teach most of the content knowledge courses and the management courses, so for those we will be bringing in other PCVs to help!

These last few are some other ideas we’ve been kicking around and will try to do before we leave:

1. eyeglass drive (ABSOLUTELY NO children in any school I’ve EVER been to in SA have eye glasses…I started wearing glasses in 2nd grade…I know many cannot see the board)!
1 ½. Debate club – Jason wants to start this at one of the local high schools…originally I wanted to also, but I think the girl’s club will take up all of my extra time – this is a great way to approach serious issues like women’s rights, HIV/AIDS, human rights, etc etc and it’s a great way to get the high schoolers to think for themselves. Plus it teaches them how to research, speak confidently, and look at an issue for all sides. Cool idea!
2. HIV/AIDS community testing day
3. community clean-up (there’s SO much trash and garbage and glass everywhere here, it’s awful)
4. community HIV/AIDS awareness classes

and other such ideas…

The future is bright and I’m terribly excited to pitch our ideas to the principals. I’ll keep this blog updated on the progress of the afore mentioned projects.

:)!