full o' shuga

So it’s 10:46 on a Tuesday night and I’m still up. Perhaps high on the sugar of the colorful chuckles chocolate candy or because I am officially in love. Gasp! Not with just one person, however, multiples of small children in the most heart-fully pure ways.

I have never taught anyone to full-on read before, minus my sister with the occasional late night bedtime story a couple decades ago. It is grueling, it requires tapping into any entirely new level of patience I never knew I held within. And honestly, I haven’t been doing it quite long enough to see the results but it is soooo exciting!

In my most recent blog lapses of slight negativity and frustration, I forgot to update you on my teaching experiences. It is going well at the school. The organization that put me there is M.I.A. but I’m glad because they were more of a hindrance than a help. The faculty and staff at the school totally make up for the shortcomings of the organization that brought us together. Very supportive and very appreciative and their energy and encouragement make all the difference for what I’m doing.

I had started out teaching full English classes to all classes in grades 4 & 5 and found it to be a disciplinary nightmare. After a few weeks of feeling discouraged with my reach in class sizes of 45 and realizing more than half the students were “below average”, I spoke to the principal about taking on smaller groups instead. So now I work with Grades 3 - 5 and teach groups of 8 learners at a time, seven times a day. I‘m dealing mostly with those who are below average and/or who are recent immigrants. I am also working with a couple of groups of accelerated students to provide them with a challenge.

I was amazed to find that some of the students who were quoted “below average” actually can barely read at all, at ages 9 and up. I’d be pressed to say about half of a class of 45 is below average. Incredible. Incredibly difficult and profoundly heart breaking. But what is mending in the whole situation is that I am here for a whole year and have enough time to give a little TLC to these few students and maybe, just maybe, push them up a notch or two on the scale.

So another awesome factor of success at St. Pauls Primary is that my students like me! Part of which contributes to this so-called love affair for I feel we’re building a connection with one another. I’m not entirely swooney, I promise! But they all seem to find their time special, coming to a small group and getting stickers as rewards (have any cool stickers? Send them my way!) and more-than-likely getting the one-on-one attention they’ve been needing for years. I went against school regs and sent a student home with a book because he doesn’t have any at home - you should have seen the high-five he gave me!

It’s patchy for me, how to do all this. No one has taught me how to teach. Especially English. Especially South African English where I’m constantly adapting my accent to better teach the students the language they must learn to know. It’s very different to teaching art, as well. When teaching art you know it is necessary - but unfortunately, even I cannot say it is the milk and bread of education. Without literacy, how can one be prepared to take on the future of adulthood? So teaching art, fleetingly, as a workshop suffices. You might be disheartened that your students don’t know their primary colors, but at the end of the day, so what - all that matters is that they have this very moment to be creative. With reading, it’s ongoing, it’s endless and if someone else doesn’t reinforce it at home it’s close to a loss.

At the very least I am finding ways to pull my creative side into the classroom - singing goofy songs and holding my tongue while talking to demonstrate the importance of vowels. For now, I’m still going by the books a bit, however, try to refine my students’ basic understanding of phonetics before going any further. Teachers out there, if you have any tips, I’m all ears! And in the meantime, I’ve also dipped into another side project to re-organize the library. It’s quite full of Afrikaans books but I have found very few books in English and most of them are way out of date - say 1950s to 70s. Even found an American book talking about “Negro Segregation.” Yikes - so it’s quite a project to tackle (lots of mold), but once I can assess what we have we can begin asking churches and wealthier schools for donations.

Friends, family - please do note this picture of valentine’s cards and notes! I have never displayed my cards before, but my goodness it seemed in order! Thank you for your lovely heart messages and sweet tokens, they have found me well and are filling this already cluttered space with a hint of home for me.
PHOTOS: So to start with there are 2 pictures of views of Cape Town from the school property.
Then 4 images of students and teachers from Monday, a day where school sport was celebrated at a local competition amongst other Primary Schools. St. Paul's came in 2nd - I was just amazed by their running abilities - in bare feet too! Then a couple images of home-life to see as well.