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.