I'm Goin' Back, Back to School!

Today was our much anticipated school visit in Cape Town. The group met this morning and we were distributed to 4 local schools: a middle school in the Guguletu township, a Math/Science High School, a middle class "ex model c school" (a white school during the Apartheid), and the school I went to: Thandokhoulu - a high school for Xhosa speaking learners. All of the students live in the townships: Guguletu, Khayalitsha, and Langa and commute 1 hr to 1.5 hours by bus each day to and from school which is in a middle class neighborhood in Cape Town. It is the only Xhosa school in the city of Cape Town.

The bus dropped the 7 of us off and we walked into their main offices to discover that they really weren't aware we were all coming. We made our way to the teacher's lounge/lunchroom where we heard the sweet sounds of the copy machine. We chatted with a few of the teachers and with a girl from Canada doing her student teaching. We finally met with Mr. Tsoli, the English Department Head. He gave us some background on the school. The building of the school was a former primary school which was vacant before the school took it over in 1992. At that time, there was no funds to build a sufficient secondary school in Khayalitsha, and since the building in Cape Town was vacant for 7 years due to levels of lead present in the building, the parents, teachers, and students essentially became school "squatters." They met with much police opposition, but eventually negotiated and possess the building today. I assume the "lead" issue still exists today.

Public schooling in South Africa is not free like it is in the United States. Each school maintains it own tuition fees, and in the case of Thandokhoulu (meaning Greater Love in Xhosa), the fees are R350-R400 per year. That equates to about $40-50 per year. The students and required to wear uniforms and must purchase their supplies. Textbooks, although outdated, are supplied through the equivalent of the Dept of Education in Cape Town.


Here are a group of Grade 9 students hamming it up on their break. The students wanted me to take their pictures so they could see themselves on the screen.

As I mentioned, the school was vacant for many years, so as you can probably guess, the school facilities are less than desirable. The school includes grade 8-12. The 8-9 classes are held in "portables" outside of the main building. These portables are falling apart, and in one of them, the floor boards are missing and broken.

Class size is approximately 50-60 students per class. The unique thing about this school is that the students do not travel from class to class as they do in a conventional school in the States. Instead, the students STAY in the same room ALL DAY and the teachers travel from room to room for instruction. I can't imagine how this can possibly be effective. The students would have to go crazy and the teachers do not have a room to keep all of their belongings. I just think about some of my colleagues having to do that....June McCallumore, I'm thinking of you. What would you do without your room to hold all of your posters and knick knacks? :)

The school day runs from 8-3, with a 15 minute morning break 10:15-10:30 where the disadvantaged students get a meal of lentils and rice so they do not go hungry all day long. Lunch is 40 minutes and isn't until 1pm.

The highlight of the day was visiting Ms. Bopi's English classroom. In her lesson plans, she planned to show "Slumdog Millionaire" to her students. While we followed her to where her class was held, she stopped in a conference room of sorts where the only DVD/TV in the school is located. She had a quiet interaction with another staff member who refused to move his meeting out of the room. So, there went her lesson plan to show the film. How we take so much for granted!

We arrived to meet her group of about 50 students. We spent the hour telling them about America and fielding their questions about what it's like to live in America and what school is like for our students. The got most of their information about America from Oprah and of course, they know Obama. Dixie passed out her Obama stickers...we NEHers are sure leaving our Obama imprint upon South Africa. Overall, the class was pretty respectful toward their teacher. It was easy to say that she is the kind of teacher who cares about her students and reaches out to them. They were definitely like any high school kid: chatty and seeking attention from their peers. The English 12 curriculum consisted of mostly poetry and short stories. The grade 12 instruction is equivalent to Grade 9 English at Dakota.

After our classroom visit, we had the chance to sit down with Ms. Bopi in our office. She told us that she teaches 5 classes a day, and sees 240 students per day. 240 STUDENTS!!! I complain about my 150 students... I can't even imagine grading 240 papers!!! Ms. Bopi is truly inspirational...she does all of this: reaching out to her students, giving her students an opportunity to succeed, assessing a whole lot of work (she keeps a writing portfolio for each and every one of them!), all for about $15,000 per year. We asked her when she sleeps...and she just laughed. I no longer have any reason to complain about US teachers being underpaid and overworked.

Here is our group who visited Ms. Bopi's classroom: Kori from Hawaii, Tadashi from NYC, Mr. Tsoli (English Department Head), Me, Chris from D.C., Dixie from MO, and Ms. Bopi.

After our school visit, we headed to the Cecil Rhodes Monument overlooking Cape Town and back to debrief our school experiences. It was fascinating to hear from each of the teachers about their experiences in the three other schools. As a teacher, this was one of the most beneficial moments of the trip. I honestly wish we had more time to visit another school to get another perspective, but I feel fortunate to get a brief glimpse of the life of a Xhosa student and teacher in Cape Town. I now have so much to share with my staff and students - we really do not realize how fortunate we are.

And, just to lighten the mood after our long day...a group of us headed out for Indian Food at this AMAZING restaurant, Bukhari. Instead of napkins, we had to wear bibs! Bring on the food!

Tomorrow we head back to UWC for another day of lectures (FUN FUN FUN!) and then this weekend is jammed packed. Rugby game tomorrow night, followed by a visit to South Africa Wine Country on Saturday! We're going into uber planning mode, trying to fit every last thing we want to do in Cape Town into the next 5 days. How quickly this is all coming to an end!