“I once said I am in Africa. The truth is, Africa is in me.”

“I once said I am in Africa. The truth is, Africa is in me.”

I read this quote the other day in the comic section of a newspaper and it just stuck with me. I’m not sure the feeling but in a way, I feel that I am a part of Africa and Africa Is a part of me. When I tell people I am from Israel, they call me an African. I take pride in that. It seems the people here have such pride and respect of their continent, not a we are better than you pride either. They never want to speak ill of Africa, but also are aware of the progress that must happen as well. South Africans really know the meaning of progress. Mandela’s birthday was yesterday and everyone was calm, happy and harmonious (or maybe that’s because we were in Durban…more on that later).

Nevertheless, I just have this constant feeling that a part of me will always be here, that a part of will always belong here and will always have a home here. I have never had feeling of connectedness with a country like this before. If you know me, you know about my pride for Israel, it’s just different here. I’m not sure if I can explain it yet or ever, but I will eventually try. Maybe after I go back and reread all that I have written on my blog I will be able to put it all into a concise sentence.

It’s been about a week since I have written. This is because last week was as hectic as ever! It was the first official day of work with all the kids, not the holiday program where John and I built the garden with the kids. It was interesting since I am looked at some mathematical genius. The funny thing is I am not. I thing what makes me a good teacher in mathematics is that I can break down concepts to mathematical roots and theory, but I also leave a lot of room for exploration. It is very different here. Text books are as important as the bible here. It is so textbook driven that they attempt to cover the book from page 1 to the last page by the end of the year. It is literally, “open your books to page 50, lets do questions 1-10 together, and you do the rest. Tomorrow we will work on the next chapter.” I mean really! How can you call this education? There is no math left in math anymore. It is just, step after step after step. Math is supposed to be beautiful and artistic, not stale and metallic.

My first few days I taught 10^th, 11^th and a little 12^th grade math. I observed the teachers for a bit and got the itch to teach. It was so fun. I have never worked with kids so hungry for an education. These kids are kids in the end, but they want to learn. They love coming to school. They know how important an education is to them specifically and they try to progress everyday in a personal way. This is not the motto of the school or anything, it’s just how these learners (what they call themselves, not students) are.

John brought up a good point the other day. On the student end of education, the kids are hungry for knowledge because they want to get away from the current life they have. Most kids are living in shacks with minimal running water and electricity but still scrounge up enough money for their uniforms and school fees. They understand that an education will get them to university and will open up many opportunities for them to get away and improve their current situation. Our kids differ because if our kid fails, their worst situation leads them to being taken care of by the government with food, clothes and shelter. I’m not saying our kids need to forgo education and become homeless and lean on our government, but understand the situation.

This now leads me to the teachers’ role. At the end of the day, teaching can be easy…if you are a shitty teacher. If you come in everyday, give kids enough busy work to kill the hour of class, they may learn something, but they are not being educated. If you come in everyday and are prepared to teach with humility, conviction, and passion, then the education begins. Push all content aside and love your kids, then education begins. Create an environment of thinkers, designers, and creators, and then education begins. Teachers here have a bigger responsibility to offer a good education, not a class to kill time till the end of the day. More responsibility rests of the shoulders of African teachers to attempt to create progression in their country. These kids are the key to a progressive nation and it all starts in our schools.

Enough of my ranting and now more about the week past. After a bit of teaching, I organically fell into a position of working with the 10^th and 11^th grade math teachers Heather and Tumelo. My role has become one where I am working one on two with the two teachers and helping them create projects. Tumelo, the new teacher (which you would know if you are reading this blog) is really open to a new style and is soaking up everything I am offering. Heather is really open too, but a bit more reluctant. Last week after classes we sat for about an hour a day to look at the curriculum and mapped out what they want to teach and when. I finally got them to scrap the scope and sequence and create their own. Financial math is the next topic they “need” to cover…interest, investments, loans, etc.

Through me asking them a lot of questions and te two of them engaging in a lot of dialogue, we developed the “Life after LEAP” project (LEAP is the name of the school). We will be researching careers and universities that will lead them to these careers. We will invest in stocks and look at interest and depreciation in Accounting class. We will look at cost of college and incorporate inflation rates. We will learn to apply for college and how to fill out job applications. We will begin writing college essays in English class too! We are also going to look at loans and understand interest rates. A lot of life skills were developed here and all created by the teachers. The funny thing is that I brought a project exactly like that doe by Dane Theone and Jennie Ganneson at HTM last year. I gave it to them and told them that they just created a well rounded, all inclusive project in 15 minutes and gave them a final product. They were shocked with their outcome and very proud at the same time. We are in the midst of refining the project before they pitch it to them next Monday.

Since then, Tumelo has come up with very creative and doable projects that we will begin to plan out this week. I am still working on Heathers reluctance…but it is really improving.

The kids have been absolutely amazing and they keep surprising me every day with their openness and honesty. At the community meeting last Friday kids would stand up in front of the entire school and confront other kids about issues that are bothering them. The school would have a hand at resolution. It’s simply amazing that the kids can stand up and speak that way.

Wednesday’s staff meeting was a waste of time. The science Heather dominated the meeting and kept commenting how terrible the 11^th grade class. She even said that she told the 11^th graders that they were bothering here and are not going to be successful. Her problem is that she wrote a biology book and they are using her book as the classroom text. She may be brilliant, but an educator she is not. When you tell kids that they suck, the will live to that expectation. If she would focus on the good they do, they will rise up to a higher expectation. She also does a great job of putting down other staff members by commenting on their teaching abilities. I am ready for her during the next staff meeting. Remember when I wrote about what Trevor had said? The problem that black staff members are not talking enough in meetings? I tallied who spoke up in the last meeting and 45 times did a white person speak and 12 times a black person spoke. I am bringing this up at the next meeting.

There is no type of special education going on at all here. The thought by many of the administration is that since they passed the test to get into the school, they don’t have any special needs…ahhh how wrong…I will be bringing this up too.

Now for some fun stuff:

We flew to Durban this past weekend. Amazing! It is easily described by me as the san Diego on the Indian Ocean. There are probably more towns like this too, but this was simply beautiful. The water was warm, the people were friendly and the place was just magnificent. Our hotel was ON THE BEACH! We ate at some great restaurants and went out to a few fun bars. We also went to our first rugby match as well! It was a weekend of a lifetime. Pictures to come…I swear.

This week we are all sleeping at a staff member’s house…it’s called a home stay. I will be staying at Janette’s house. She is the founder of this school and I hear that here house is huge….so not so much of an authentic home stay…but we’ll see! I’ll upload some pictures tomorrow.

Marc

Thoughts:

Microsoft Office spell checks words spelled in SA. “Tire” is incorrect on Word here…it should be spelled “Tyre. “Flavor” should be “Flavour,” and “Color” should be “colour.” Interesting!

There is a big differencebetween White South Africans and Afrikkaners. I just know I am happy I do not look like an Afrikkaner...so I am told.

So many people are lovely here....why does this not happen in the States as much as it does here? or does at and I do not notice it as much.

KFC and McDonalds are new here...it's a hit...unfortunately.

Sodas are made with sugar cane, not corn syrup...delicious!

Windhock is apparently one of the purest beers in the works following some food ordinance from the 1500's....google it.