This morning I started the day filling in for Sarah – she was out with a stomach bug – sounds like there might be something going around! After that, I led a quick workshop on curriculum planning during the staff meeting. I had put together a handout (with John’s help) about the importance of planning and came up with 7 “C’s” (content familiarity, current information, coherence, connection, collaboration, creativity, classroom management—I was proud of the alliteration!) outlining the benefits of thorough planning, while acknowledging that it does take a little extra forethought and energy. The tricky part was that there are many teachers here who do plan well, so I didn’t want to insult their intelligence, or sound condescending, but perhaps just present it as a reminder or affirmation of their planning. And I also recognize that some of the teacher may feel that they plan sufficiently, but in reality, a lot of their planning is coming the day before or even just before class, so I just want to introduce the idea of planning at least a few days before their class (preferably a week), doing multiple levels of planning, and how good planning fosters creativity. There were a lot of other items that needed to be addressed during the meeting so I didn’t get to be as thorough as I would have liked and felt that I rushed the presentation, but we at least were able to talk together and reflect about this topic for a little while and hopefully it was helpful on some level. In the afternoon I met with Orel about the Woman’s Day project and celebration, and we started putting together what we want the program to look like.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
In the morning today I was given the opportunity to tag along with the 10th and 11th grades as they went to a career fair – I originally thought it was a college fair, and though there were a few colleges represented, most of the booths were about trade schools/careers – police, lab techs, etc.
It was a nice event, but I really wish there had been more emphasis on college. I guess it’s different here since the financial support isn’t as extensive as in the US – but it seems like it should still be a big part of the expectation.
The best part was just hanging out with the kids, on the bus and at the fair. We had gotten there a little early so we were put into a big auditorium as a waiting area and ate our snacks of apples and crispy bars. I had a great conversation with Tumi, one of the 10th grade girls in Orel’s class who is so bright and so sweet, about religion, what it’s like being a PK (her mom and dad are both pastors), and about life in general. We were there until lunch and then headed back
The afternoon was spent working on the Women’s day project. I met with Orel, Faith, and Sarah about what the day should look like, how to structure the research paper, etc. I really like how this is shaping up! We will hold the celebration on Saturday, Aug 7. and invite the student’s families to come and share in our celebration. The program includes a look at the contributions of women from the past, inspiring women and men of the present, and how education for girls is key to the future. Here’s how the program is looking right now : Choir, poetry, contributions by women, more poetry, inspiring women, more poetry, panel discussion about education (people from the community being invited to be on the panel), gumboots dance, choir. We also decided to have a potluck (sidenote: they don’t know the term “potluck” here – when I first mentioned it to Orel he gave me the funniest look –so I quickly explained the concept). We will also have a few booths set up, one to get interested parents to start some kind of a PTA and be more involved, and another to hopefully have info about continuing education opportunities for anyone interested. I spent the rest of the day planning for the project – creating topic ideas for their research papers, finding a good article that they can use for their paper.
Tonight we went to see Bucky (Mapolang’s son/John’s new brother) play in an indoor soccer game – for the gold medal of his league. This type of soccer is so much more interesting than regular soccer – much faster paced. It’s played in a huge gym divided into 4 netted off sections -- in two of the sections, soccer is played and in two of the sections indoor cricket is played. The teams are 3 on 3 with a goalie for each team (the goalie for the other team was a beast! He was huge, taking up most of the goal space, and fearless). Unfortunately Bucky’s team lost, so the mood was a little more subdued than it might have been, but we all went to the adjoining bar, had a few drinks, and the mood started to lift. I was so tired at this point, I don’t think I was much fun, though I did have a great conversation with Mapoolang’s other son Camo about South African literature and politics.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Here’s one thing I’ve learned from teaching – how to be flexible.
Orel and I had just talked to the 12th grade about the celebration, as it falls on the Saturday after the Matric Dance (the equivalent to our prom), so we wanted to see what their feelings were regarding whether or not they would be able to attend. The overwhelming response (as might be imagined) was that they would be too tired – that they would be up late, so we told them they did not have to attend, but they were more than welcome if they decided to. The words were barely out of our mouths, when Tabia told us that there had been a mix-up – that all of the 10th and 11th grade girls would be gone on that Saturday at a woman’s conference. That certainly took all of the air out of our little balloon! But we adjusted. We said we would move it to Friday morning, since the Matrics had the day off to prepare for their dance. But then Nialugwa said that the whole 11th grade would be gone at a science event that morning…so we just made it a 10th grade event. It changes a lot of what we had hoped to accomplish, but I think it will still be a nice event – if only for the 10th grade -- and maybe it can be built on for next year. We will still have a panel discussion, poetry reading, music – but no booths, dance, and maybe no sharing of women’s accomplishments since the 11th grade was going to be working on that. Perhaps we could get something together for that since it seems like an important message.
The rest of the day was spent adjusting, and I got to teach part of Orel’s class. The students chose their research topics and then they shared some of their poetry. I realized a few poems into it that most of the boys wrote poems about their girlfriends, really just looking for a reaction from the class. I talked to Orel about it later as I was trying to figure out how to address this, but I decided that I should just talk about the positive and respectful way they talked about their girlfriends and why it’s important to show respect and some of the qualities they admire and if it heads toward the physical, perhaps just challenge them on this a little, try to get them to see the person behind the physical part. I’ll think about this more and see what I can do next week.
We’re going to Pilansburg tomorrow for a little safari overnighter, though there was some back and forth on this leading up to today. Tubi was nice enough to invite us to attend a traditional African ceremony tomorrow and we initially jumped on it, thinking we could go to Pilansberg the following weekend, but they were sold out, and since this is the one big thing we all wanted to do, we decided to skip the ceremony and go to Pilansberg this weekend. We will spend the night in safari tents…I’m so excited!!
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