This post is the sixth in a series about my experience while teaching and traveling this summer in South Africa. Here are the links to the previous posts: Impact of Caring: Post 1 – Faaidah and Mahavia Impact of Caring: Post 2 – Fiona and Cheryl Impact of Caring: Post 3 – Kannemeyer Primary School Impact of Caring: Post 4 – Julika Falconer Impact of Caring: Post 5 – Desiree Sometimes the words, “thank you” don’t seem to emphasize the depth of thanks I feel for the actions of others who have helped me. The generosity of Phuti and her husband is a perfect example. For the past three years, Phuti has been a central force in my Books to Africa Partnership. We met in Barcelona, Spain at the Microsoft Global Forum and struck up a friendship based on a mutual belief that all children deserve the best. When I went to South Africa in 2015, for a week, I visited her school, Pula Madibogo Primary School near Polokwane, in the northern Limpopo Province. Phuti was the principal there and would pick me up each morning and bring me to school where I helped teach lessons or worked with kids on their reading skills. We had been sending her books for over a year and I could see the benefit of our actions. Kids came to her office to check out books and take them home. Fellow teachers had started a Reading Club and the school was on its way toward emphasizing the importance of reading in children’s daily lives. Fast forward two years and I visited Phuti again, but this time a few things changed. First, she and her husband were gracious and allowed me to stay in their home while I visited her. Phuti is also now retired from her principal post, but remains steadfast in her commitment to literacy education. A few weeks ago, she sent letters to neighbors about the Saturday literacy and tech program she was starting. It would be a free weekly two hour commitment for the children. Within days she had more positive replies than she could accept! Children started coming to her home each Saturday morning to have reading lessons and learn how technology could be used as an educational tool. The community reading club was born! I was fortunate when I came to Phuti’s home because I was able to participate in the grand opening of this community reading project. With books we have been sending her this year and others she gathered, the students have been reading and extending their learning on Saturdays. For the grand opening, she had the students prepare the agenda, make a plan for the activities, invite local parents and participate in the events. It was a wonderful morning of celebrating literacy with oral reading, poems, songs, speeches and delicious food! We had conversations about reading and books and the importance of education. I loved seeing books that my students had signed in the hands of a new set of readers. I was truly honored to be able to participate and see the level of commitment Phuti and these families and children have toward reading literacy.
If you would like to read more about my visit with Phuti , her family and my experiences ona donkey cart and eating Mopani worms, please visit my library blog.
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This post is the fifth in a series about my experience while teaching and traveling this summer in South Africa. Here are the links to the previous posts:
Impact of Caring: Post 1 - Faaidah and Mahavia Impact of Caring: Post 2 - Fiona and Cheryl Impact of Caring: Post 3 - Kannemeyer Primary School Impact of Caring: Post 4 - Julika Falconer Des Thoughtful, dedicated, generous, sincere and a true friend – these are just a few of the words I can use to describe Des. She and her husband Rod welcomed me into their home two years ago, and once again they opened their home to me, for which I am so completely grateful. While we live the world away from each other, we are lifelong friends. From sunset beach walks in Durban, a Bunnychow dinner, interesting political discussions, long drives to Johannesburg and Limpopo Province, as well as an unforgettable Safari experience, my trip would not have happened without their help. I can’t thank them enough for sharing their time, home and willingness to transport me near and far to help make my trip come together. Des has been my liaison with Highbury Preparatory Primary School for many years. This private school believes in helping other less fortunate area schools and my Books to Africa project has been able to contribute to this relationship. Des recently retired from her technology teaching position there, but she remains committed to helping the teachers and students with reading at Inchanga Primary School. This government school in the Valley of a Thousand Hills serves a very disadvantaged community with high needs for extra support. Des has been providing guidance and support for the administration and teachers who have started the school’s very first library. We have been able to donate some of the books for this library. Having a library at a school with over 1,000 students and classrooms of at least 50-60 students brings a different set of issues to solve. The room is small, so 50 students can’t come at the same time with their teacher. There isn’t a librarian to oversee the children when they come without their teacher either. With some mobile carts or boxes and a willingness to figure it out, I know these teachers and Des will find a solution because they care. Reading and literacy is key in ensuring that these students have a quality primary education and a solid foundation for secondary school. This post is the fourth in a series about my experience while teaching and traveling this summer in South Africa. Here are the links to the previous posts:
Impact of Caring: Post 1 - Faaidah and Mahavia Impact of Caring: Post 2 - Fiona and Cheryl Impact of Caring: Post 3 - Kannemeyer Primary School Julika Falconer I am very fortunate because I have enough food to eat on a daily basis. I have a job that pays enough for my shelter, food and extras that I need. However, there are thousands of children who wake up hungry everyday. According to a 2014 blog post published by Bordon Project, a nonprofit agency that addresses poverty and hunger, over 11 million South African children are unsure when or where they will get their next meal. Jobs are scarce or pay very little and directly influence the amount of food parents can provide for their children. When children come to school undernurished or suffer from the effects of a lack of proper nutrients, it makes learning even more difficult. Without proper nutrition, the full capacity of what a child can achieve educationally is dramatically reduced. I had the great fortune to meet a person who have devoted a major portion of her life helping feed vulnerable and impoverished children. I believe she is a lifesaver for many needy children. Julika Falconer is the CEO of FutureLife Foundation, the charity arm of FutureLife, a company which has supplied over 9 million nutritious meals to needy children since 2009. She has been instrumental in finding financial sponsors so the children at Inchanga Primary School where I visited can begin their day with a nutritious breakfast. Having breakfast has positively impacted the learning for the children at Inchanga. Instead of starting their day hungry, they are able to have a quick nutritious meal and then have the capacity to concentrate on their lessons and do better in school. What was most striking about the food packet was that nothing else was needed to eat. Children didn't need a separate spoon, cup or dish. They could simply compress the packet to open the middle seal, rub the pouch, tear open a corner and drink the contents. The plastic bags are then collected, recycled and made into hard plastic benches which are donated back to the school. The program is a winner from all sides of the table. I look forward to working more closely with the staff at Inchanga knowing that they are linking forces with as many agencies as possible to make sure their students can achieve their full potential. This blog post is also cross-posted on my library blog: http://bellbulldogreaders.edublogs.org
he Kannemeyer Primary School Staff
Half of my trip to South Africa this time was spent in Grassy Park, a suburb community of Cape Town. I spent two weeks at Kannemeyer Primary School volunteering with teachers, students and the school librarian with the organization Volunteering Solutions and SASTS Working Solutions. I demonstrated some different ways to share literature with students and got quickly known by the students as the “Pigeon Lady” because I had my pigeon puppet with me for most lessons. I observed teachers using techniques we use here in the US in the lower grades. Children were engaged in their learning and eager to raise their hands and share what they knew. The classes were very interactive and unlike others I'd observed in the different schools where students had to sit quietly and copy words off the board. During one lesson in the 2nd grade class, the children were reading a story in Afrikaans. As I listened, I suddenly realized even though I don't know Afrikaans, this story seemed familiar. I looked more closely at the text. The children were reading The Three Little Pigs in Afrikaans! While I was there everyone painted a rock to be placed in the Inspiration Pathway. Headmaster Mr. Samodien and Deputy Headmaster Mrs. Ross work hard to create a school with a positive culture where children want to come to learn. The rocks were placed in an area with seats and trees where the children could sit quietly if they needed a moment alone. There are signs around the grounds with positive messages and colorful play areas. Most of the classrooms have gorgeously painted murals. He also strongly believes in the importance of having a school wide reading culture. Just the fact that the school even has a library is a huge indicator of the commitment the administration has in ensuring that their students get the best possible opportunities despite the huge financial constraints they face. I loved helping Mrs. Willemse in the library. She quickly put me to work sorting through and re-organizing the fiction section so students could more readily find books to read. I spent one day in the computer lab with the Tech teacher Mrs. Beukes. At the surface level it was terrific seeing that the school had a computer lab, white board and projector. Yet the reality is that the CPUs were running Windows XP and barely able to withstand the daily use from running even the most basic of programs. The result was that sometimes when students came to the lab to work on a project were more often frustrated by the experience than learning. The teacher and technician used all of their combined skills to keep the computers functioning. However, when you are running computers with only 512 RAM, and outdated operating systems, there are only so many bandaids you can apply before the system breaks down. I hope that soon they will find a benefactor who will donate some new or almost new computers to the school. Technology is a complicated arena in underfunded government schools. I had many conversations with different teachers around South Africa about this subject. The biggest factors are lack of funding, old equipment, and poor or expensive internet connections. I saw multiple schools where computers were donated, but the continued support and a budget was not. Without a qualified technician to keep the equipment working and a budget to make sure this happens, working computer labs don't last long. It takes a three-pronged approach for technology to work in the long run- quality computers, a qualified technician and a budget to pay for the costs of the equipment and internet costs. On my last afternoon at Kannemeyer, I met with Mr. Samodien and Mrs. Ross where we talked about the future of Kannemeyer. We discussed ways to deepen the reading culture at the school. Many of their students do not come from homes where reading has been nurtured at a family level. As a result, school is the first experience children have had with literacy and reading. I encouraged them to keep up the great work they are doing. After our conversation, I am happy to announce that our Books to Africa program has added Kannemeyer to our Books to Africa partnership. We also hope to be able to Skype together in the future and build a partnership between our schools. I left Kannemeyer with some new novels to read aloud to classes and some favorite pictures books and one very popular Pigeon puppet. I am also hopeful about how we can work together in the future. This post is part 2 in a series of blog posts about the people who made my trip to South Africa so amazing and memorable. The people I met all share a common trait. They care. This simple act of caring is having a longstanding impact on many people.. That may not sound so profound, but the reality is huge. By talking to parents, volunteers, teachers and students, I witnessed first hand the difficulties they face everyday. Huge class sizes, lack of resources, old computers, no internet, no paper or pens, and hunger are daily problems. Yet, in the schools and places I visited, I saw multitudes of people who care and by doing so are making a difference in the future of their country. They are the future of South Africa. Fiona and Cheryl- These ladies are part of my Microsoft Educator Network and shared their time and homes with me. I am so fortunate to be part of this organization where I can go across the world and meet up with friends. Fiona entertained me on my first night in Cape Town and made sure I wasn’t homesick. Our friendship dates back to 2011 when we met through blogging. I had started my Bulldog Reader Blog and was meeting different people around the blogging world. Fiona also had a blog, and a comment here and a response there, led to a friendship across the miles. We first met in person in 2011 when she came to Seattle with the Microsoft in Education program. We met again at an ISTE conference in San Diego. Now we were meeting on her turf in Cape Town! Our love for technology kept our conversation going for hours. I loved hearing how Fiona's desire to help others is taking her around the country leading technology training with teachers. Cheryl and I met in Budapest at the Microsoft Global Educator Conference. She teaches Biology at a private school near Cape Town. Cheryl took me around her school where I could see how they are integrating the Global Sustainable Development Goals at a school level. She inspired me to introduce the program at my school. I think it's important to teach our students the impact they can have on their world. I think with the work that our school is doing with education already, learning about the goals is a natural fit.
We also had great conversations about the work the students are doing at school regarding water conservation. In the Pacific Northwest with our abundance of rain ALL WINTER LONG, it's a completely different mindset to think about how you preserve this resource. We have too much and they have not enough. The students have brainstormed and created posters to hang around the school reminding everyone about water conservation. Cheryl and her husband also showed me around the Constantia wine farms which are known throughout the world. Even though it is winter and not much was in bloom, it was easy to imagine how beautiful the grounds must look in the summer. I was very amused by the baboon sign. Not really something you see in Seattle! Words are usually my friend, but I'm finding it difficult to write down my thoughts about my trip to South Africa. As I was thinking about how to write about this experience, I realized what made this trip so amazing was about the people I encountered along the way. I have decided to share my trip through a series of blog posts about the people who made my trip memorable. The people I met all share a common trait. They care. This simple act of caring is having a longstanding impact on many people.. That may not sound so profound, but the reality is huge. By talking to parents, volunteers, teachers and students, I witnessed first hand the difficulties they face everyday. Huge class sizes, lack of resources, old computers, no internet, no paper or pens, and hunger are daily problems. Yet, in the schools and places I visited, I saw multitudes of people who care and by doing so are making a difference in the future of their country. They are the future of South Africa. Faaidah and Mahavia Faaidah and Mahavia opened their home to me and 13 other volunteers while I stayed in Cape Town. Their belief that it’s important to give back to others drives them to give people opportunities to help in their community. Our conversations filled in the gaps of knowledge I had about the history of Cape Town during the apartheid years where thousands of people were displaced from their homes and forcibly moved to new areas. She made sure we experienced the joys of a sunset on top of Signal Hill and the beaches at Murzenburg Beach. She urged us to visit Robben Island to understand about the history of Nelson Mandela's life. We learned about the politics of the Cape Town region and the complexities of racism that still exist in both of our countries. They took another volunteer and I to one of the squatter camps where we passed out pens, books and other materials to children living there. Children pushed and shoved to make sure they could get something and were disappointed when we ran out of supplies. I spent the rest of the day contemplating the reality of this living situation and wondering how it could change. Obviously if there was an easy solution to get families out of squalid living conditions, it would have already been accomplished. I was saddened by the reality of the fact that there are no easy solutions. Seeing how down I felt about the experience, Faaidah shared that she heard one boy walk away with a book and a pen saying, "This is enough for me." At that moment in time, I hope it was enough, but I also hope the future will bring him more. We also talked about religion. While I have met many Muslim people, I had never had the opportunity to really talk in depth to a Muslim about their faith. Faaidah opened her heart and faith with all of us, renewing my belief that it's not a person's faith that defines them necessarily. What matters is within the person's heart and soul. I left Faaidah's home knowing that while we might be different on the outside, our commonalities on the inside matter more. Her family's desire to make sure volunteers have a safe place to live while they work in the area speaks volumes about their desire to care. Week one if now over! My volunteering experience began on Tuesday at Kannemeyer Primary School in Grassy Park, a suburb of Cape Town. There are three of us at the school. One volunteer from Holland, one from Belgium and myself. Each of us is assigned to a teacher to assist. I have been working with the 6th and 2nd grade teachers. In 6th grade I have helped with English lessons and assisting students who are having trouble with the grammar exercises. I also had a chance to observe an Afrikaans lesson. All students at this school learn both English and Afrikaans. Because I have a passion for the little ones, I've also been working in second grade. I brought a variety of Mo Willems books and Pigeon puppet. I've been doing an author study showing the students how to read both the words and pictures to comprehend the story. They love Mo Willems' books just as much here as they do at home! I also spent a day in the technology lab and library. The school has a computer lab with 30 desktops and a full time technology teacher. They also have a library where students come for lessons regularly and can check out books. Next week I hope to have time to talk with the librarian and share lesson ideas. I believe we could have a great partnership with the teachers at this school. its Saturday, July 22nd and my first full day in Cape Town. I spent to day touring and the Cape Peninsula seeing the major sites from Cape Town to the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Point ( the most southern tip of the African continent to seeing a colony of South African penguins! Tomorrow I meet the other volunteers and find out more about my teaching assignment. And I'm off! I'm not traveling very light as you can see, but one suitcase is filled with warm jackets, books, and school supplies. It's not even coming back home.
The trip I have anticipated for so many months is finally here. My head is swirling in a mass of emotions - excitement, anticipation, fear of the unknown. However, I have a wonderful support system here in Washington as well as in South Africa. Thanks to the Microsoft Expert Educator network, I have friends in Cape Town, Durban and Polokwane who will take expert care of me in the event I have any issues. They will also be the ones who will help me learn about their wonderful country. So Friday evening when I finally arrive in Cape Town, I know I will be in good hands. Plus, the good news is that according to my weather app, it's supposed to be sunny on Saturday! When you are traveling from the sunny, warm, summer days of Seattle to winter in Cape Town, SUN is a big deal!
I participated in a Skype book club meeting this week with some girls at the Anglican Girls Grammar School in Abuja, Nigeria. Their teacher Samuel Eshiet and I have connected through the Microsoft Expert Educator community. This year we sent them some boxes of books and the girls wanted to talk to me about them.
We had a great discussion about Dan Gemeinhart's book Scar Island, as well as Artemus Fowl, Amber Brown and others. It was very clear that the girls enjoyed reading fantasy genre books! As I was sitting outside, I walked around in my back yard and showed them what it looks like in Washington. People are always amazed by huge trees and lush green landscapes. At the end of our call, the girls attempted to teach me how to count to ten in one of the Nigerian languages - Igbo.
According to Wikipedia, "The Igbo people are an ethnic group native to the present-day south-central and southeastern Nigeria. Geographically, the Igbo homeland is divided into two unequal sections by the Niger River – an eastern and a western section. The Igbo people are one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa." The website, Igbo Guide explains more about the culture and customs. I tried my best, but I know I butchered the pronunciation of all the numbers! Here is a short video of my tutorial.
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Julie HembreeI am Julie Hembree, a teacher librarian in the greater Seattle area. I am passionate about providing children in need with quality reading resources. The opinions expressed in this Blog are strictly those of Julie Hembree and its contributors. They do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of any other entity. Archives
September 2017
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