The Ruler

please note the video pasted at the bottom of this entry!!!

As I've already spoken of Africa Time it seems I've started a theme on measurement. Counting stitches for a stuffed puppet, numbering the shortage of paintbrushes for a 45 head count, ticking off the amount of votes a particular story received.... But how do you measure the slap of a yard stick on a young child's hands?

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I began my first day at another school yesterday (by the time I finish I will have worked at 5), Huntersvlei Primary. It is another farm school - on my first visit to the school I completely passed it by, not realizing that a series of derelict buildings were in fact the school. On my days teaching at the high school I have passed hosts of children walking to school via the nearby dam. I'm not sure what the distance is for these students but I'm assuming at the very least they must walk about 40 minutes each way.

There are 7 grades (1st thru 7th) at this school and there's one teacher for each grade level, meaning some classes have as few as 17 while others have up to 46 pupils. If one teacher is absent, which often seems to be the case, then one class goes unattended for most of the day.

Before the school assembly is called each morning the students rough around all up and down the dirt road. Scrapping, pushing and shoving, it is obvious these children learn to be tough from a very early age. In some ways this enables their survival. For instance, at the high school and their adjacent primary school, students go an entire day without lunch. At Huntersvlei the government provides "mealie meal" (also called samp, something that we'd know as cooked hominy) for lunch - only yesterday lunch was not served. And not one student seemed to complain, although it is certain many of these students depend on that daily supplement for lack of food at home.

The classrooms at Huntersvlei make Niekerksrus High School seem like a royal court. The chairs are all broken and look like they've been through some sort of nuclear meltdown as
the backs of the chairs are all warped and twisted. Some of the desks have fallen to bits and the pieces of the wooden desk tops lie strewn across the floor, whilst some child has only 6 inches of space to complete their work on. The cream walls have been streaked with numerous sweaty, dirty hands and have then collected the dusty winds of the fields and pencil markings of many individuals. The plaster walls and concrete floors have massive faults running through their entirety and the wind constantly threatens to blow the tin roof off the top. The saving grace of these classroom are the wood stoves they each contain - though I wonder how warm the rooms get with the cracked foundations and leaky roofs.

Yesterday I began my work with Huntersvlei by teaching Grades 3, 2 & 1 in that order. By doing a simple symmetry assignment involving stencils and American Crayolas I tried to assess their skill levels. I was quite impressed by the work of the 3rd and 2nd graders but found the 1st graders' (mind you, their school year ends in December) work to be quite tragic. It was almost like working with American kindergardners on their first day of school. However, the difference in the attitude of the 1st grade teacher from the others was blatant. Her English was poor and her translations to the students must have been very off, for as I went around the class to physically "show" the children what to do, she would then shout at the students and tell them to do differently than what I'd prescribed. That in and of itself was quite awful as I had little recourse!

The day got worse from there when the principal announced a mandatory meeting for all teachers and left me with a heap of 2nd & 3rd graders in the adjoining, partitioned classroom plus the 1st graders. It was utter chaos. Over 70 little ones pushing and screaming and shoving crayons at me, jumping on each other and extracting cries of pain in the process. I tried to
gain some control of the class through games but it was quite impossible with that number of students - not to mention, none of them understand English very well. When the teachers returned I let them know about the chaos - specifically I spoke to the 2nd grade teacher I thought I'd made an ally with earlier. I moved to the adjoining 1st grade class to speak with the other teacher....at which point the 2nd grade teacher rapped each of the 2nd and 3rd graders with a yard stick on the palms of their hands. I honestly did not know what to do and felt like such a shit for not being able to commandeer the situation.

I left the school at the end of the day practically in tears, after letting the principal know I found it highly inappropriate to leave me alone on my first day with 70 pupils. As most of you would know, I don't agree with corporal punishment in the least and I'm certainly not for associating art with violent recourse. To say the least, I felt like the anti-violence work I've engaged in was turned upside down and I felt like such a victim to be witness to this account.

I am realizing how difficult this work is to manage alone. The idea behind working with this organization was to be involved with other artists in this process but, unfortunately, I'm the only volunteer here at this time. Understandably, it is a small and very young organization, still trying to make itself known - so I don't blame them for any of this. However, I'm feeling the dregs of how tough this is without having the buffer of others to empathize with and must be honest about that in this writing space. It's a long post, for sure! But please enjoy the video I'm attaching of my students at Niekerksrus planning music for a few of their puppet productions. I was and am amazed at their vocal talents!