Education in South Africa

                I hope the focus of my work is in teacher training, and to be effective in this realm, one needs to know where teachers are coming from.  Since I hope you follow this blog, I want to keep you in the loop.

                During the Apartheid years, the black population received what was known as Bantu education.  Tribes went to schools in their own respective areas.  Students did not receive Math, English, or any critical thinking subjects because those were seen as topics for people destined to jobs in the service sectors, in which blacks were not expected to fill.  I am not sure what subjects were actually learned, but I know the language used was Afrikaans (look it up please).  Their educators were from within the tribe for the most part.  These educators were predominately female and did not need a high school degree.  They just need to go to 3 years of teacher college at a school in their “homeland”.

                This all changed in 1994 when Mandela rose to presidency.  As you can imagine, it is pretty tough to teach an old dog new tricks and much of the bad teaching habits live on in schools today.  So if there is a post later on where I am super pumped about getting a teacher to get her students to genuinely analyze material or a teacher effectively teaches a rigorous lesson, you will know why.
               

Day 2 of School

                This was the day we were actually supposed to shadow a teacher.  Initially I was bummed they switched classrooms on me because I wanted to talk more to the 33 year veteran teacher.  I entered the new 5^th grade class and was warmly greeted.  I sat down and observed an English class.  This teacher took a more student centered approach, and again, the students’ eagerness was present but there seemed to be more genuine thought going on.  The teacher allowed students’ time for thinking and asked created questions outside of the presented text.

                It was clear that this teacher really wanted to improve her craft through her efforts of trying approaches outside of the book.  After the lesson, she approached me and asked me how I thought the lesson went.  I gave her some feedback and seemed receptive to the feedback.  When I found out she had only been teaching three years, I could clearly see why she seemed more flexible. 

First Day of School

               Here’s some background on Peace Corps South Africa 24.  There are 56 of us working in the education sector.  We have been told we will each have two schools to work with in our village.  Our backgrounds vary from tutoring experience to 33 years teaching to college professor.  It is quite a solid mix.

                This past Wednesday was our first day in schools.  I visited a Quintile 4 school, which means it pulls from a population that earns an income in the lower 40% of the population.  We rolled up and saw students scurrying around to get the school cleaned up before 1^st period.  This day was meant to be a get to know your school day and its’ leaders, but luckily we had a cool principal who sped this process up and let us shadow a classroom teacher.

                I was with a 6^th grade teacher who taught Social Science and English.  After hearing horror stories of teacher negligence and poor performance, I was taken aback by how energetic the teacher I was observing was.  She had a very teacher centered approach filled with a lot of predictable responses by students and plowing through the text.  The students clearly enjoyed this teacher and were glued to her.  There was a 1^st grader eagerness in these 6^th graders.  I saw no side chattering, no lack of attention, and fairly high participation.

                After spending 8 periods with this teacher (she teaches 46 out of 50 for the week ), I was energized to give her feedback.  I shared some thoughts, though we were told not to.  I would have loved to have been able to make this my permanent school just because it felt so awesome to help a 33 year veteran.

Nothing Big, Just Making Gravel

                One of the first sights that hit me at my homestay was waking up to Alfred at work.  Alfred is a Zimbabwean that works for my homestay mom doing labor intensive odd jobs to make money for his family back in Zimbabwe.  The first job I witnessed was making gravel.  Alfred takes a large metal pole with a metal plate on the bottom and smashes large rocks to make gravel.  He does this from 6am to 12pm, when the water shuts off.  As I mentioned above, this is why I pour my bucket bath water on the rocks.  Now I imagine the water makes a difference, but smashing rocks is smashing rocks. 

What is Development?

            During my first classroom visit, the Social Science topic for the day was development and the image of Alfred popped in my mind.  After talking about transitioning from subsistence farming to commercial farming, the students looked at a chart that broke down countries by percentage of the population in agrarian, industrial, and service sectors.  The USA was one of the options pinned against 6 African countries, China, and India. 

                After the students concluded that what African countries are good at is an agrarian lifestyle, I felt the urge to ask a question about production and shyly asked the teacher I was supposed to just be observing if I could pose a question to the learners.  I asked the students which country they thought produced the most food.  I let them think in pairs then raise their hands when they had an answer.  Every student I called on picked the African nation Tanzania and said because they have the highest percentage of its’ population working in the agrarian sector. 

                Initially, I was just glad to see them think and justify their answers, but then I let them know that the USA produced more food.  I should have given them another thinking moment, but I felt like I was taking more time that I was allowed to, and informed them that this was because of our use of machinery.  They were pretty confused, but taking their environment into the classroom will be key.  Showing them Alfred’s tool and how a jackhammer works would blow their mind.

Glad to be Malome in SA

                                                     (top)  Me making pap with Gogo.  (bottom)  Roro chillin'
                                                         at the table.  I need to get a picture of Mascheba.


                “Malome” is Setswana means “uncle” and that is what I am called at my homestay.  I was jealous of my friends that got names like “Dineo” meaning “gift” because I just thought they were giving me an easy, practical name.  Then I thought about how important it is for Roro and Mascheba to have a Malome.  I have never met their father nor have I heard any word of him.  I met my first male relative this past weekend.  There is no interaction with males in the neighborhood besides peer interaction.  So how does a child in this situation growing up learn how a male acts?  I’m not sure.  In a country plagued with unemployment, alcoholism, children out of wedlock, and many other complex situations, I am proud to be called Malome. 

Note:  I am also very proud to be a Malome in the USA.  My sister would kill me if I did not add this note.  Hi Aiden!

H2Woah

                                                                        The bucket bath.

*Disregard references to pictures in the text below.  I did not upload the new pictures to my jump drive before leaving to the mall.  Maybe I will get back here in a month and will update this post.

               If you didn’t know, just like green is the new black, water will soon be/is the new oil.  Blue gold.  My homestay and time in South Africa has been filled with many great learning lessons, but I must say water has been the greatest. 

                When I first got here, they told us we are expected to bathe every morning and it is a good idea to do it at night too.  Your cleanliness is very important in South Africa.  I thought this was super wasteful.  In the States, I always try to save water whenever possible, i.e. not drinking pop, turning off the water when lathering, stretching my laundry day, etc.  The idea of showering twice a day seemed so wasteful to someone that prides themselves on showering, at most, 3 times a week.

                Do you see the picture of the bucket above?  That is what Gogo (my homestay mom) calls my “septic tank”.  After I take a bucket bath, brush my teeth, or wash clothes, I dump the water in the septic tank then dump it on the rocks to make them softer to smash for gravel (another story in itself…post idea!).  On an average day, I fill up the tank about half way.  On a clothes washing day (once a week because I wash some items in used bucket bath water), I probably fill the entire bucket.  Now one of the engineers in my corps (yes, there are multiple ones and their brains have been much welcomed), told me the average shower head uses 3 gallons of water per minute.  If you didn’t catch it, my septic tank looks like the 5 gallon buckets you get from Home Depot. 

                Do the math.  That means I use about 3 gallons of water a day or take a 1 minute shower.  Do I take a 1 minute shower in the States?  Does anyone?  After talking to fellow volunteers, my usual 5 minute shower is a pretty quick shower in USA terms.  This means if I lived the same lifestyle, I would have to fill and dump my septic tank 5 times a day just for a shower. 

                I collect the water every night from a spicket (also above).  I do it at night because the water is shutoff from 12-7 everyday and some days it is shut off longer.  It takes about 4 trips of walking about 100 feet from the kitchen to the front yard with two buckets to fill the family’s water bucket collection.  I kind of think this is a lot of work but Gogo says “this is great”.  20 years ago, during Apartheid, Gogo had to walk 5 km one way to fetch water, put the large bucket on her head, and walk it back.  She said she did this 3 times a day. 

                Mandela Day was July 18^th.  It is not a holiday from work, rather it is a regular day of work per Mandela’s wishes.  That is quite a motivating message from a man that was incarcerated for 27 years.  Despite all the injustices that were created by the old way of doing things, Mandela tells all to dig in deeper and build a nation together. 

 *Since I originally wrote this, Gogo had a bath tub installed in the house.  She is incredibly proud.

My Placement in South Africa

                Exciting news for those that want to visit and have a tropical experience.  I am going to be learning the Tshivenda language (it is a sweet language).  This language is spoken within the Limpopo province and only amongst 15% of the 5,000,000 inhabitants of Limpopo.  The Venda region is in the northeast section of Limpopo right next to Kruger National Park.  This means picking fruit from trees and safaris. 
 
                If you are pumped for the stereotypical trip to “Africa”, I will be your man for the next two years.  I will be exploiting your technical skills, language abilities, and joy for the benefit of my village in return for housing, food, translating, and unforgettable experiences.

                Brush up on presenting your technical skills by starting your own free tutoring class at your church, neighborhood, family gathering, in place of TV watching, local school, or anywhere that will give you space!       

Disclaimer

This blog is not a representation of the Peace Corps and is reflexive of my experience alone.  Peace Corps requires us to say this, and I think it is a good policy.  Every volunteer's experience is unique.  I hope my blog sheds some positive light on the Peace Corps, but please do not let it be your only perception.  Read up.  It is a great organization and a positive example of the US.

-Sean