Busman's Holiday

Tuesday, July 25

Yesterday I got to my first school, an all-girls' public school in the town of Stellenbosch. It is the school that Nora and Maria went to, of course those were apartheid days. it is a public school with fees. I am still not sure exactly how that works. The teacher who drove me back into town at the end of the day said that she was paid by the school (from school fees) while other teachers are paid by the state. It is by having these extra teachers that they can keep class sizes down -- about 23-25 in the classes I was in.

The girls where uniforms and the day started with an assembly that included religious prayer on the theme of new beginnings. For those of you who are Poly readers, you can imagine I couldn't help smiling that the universality of the theme of the clean slate.

The school is 160 years old, originally started by missionaries, but I get the sense that it was always in the tradition of British "public" -- e.g. private schools, with prefects and head girl and all of that. The students were interested that we didn't have prefects. During morning assembly students were given awards for having gained an average of 75% on their end-of-term exam. I gather that there is no grade inflation here, but I didn't get a very clear explanation of marks.

I spent most of the day with the history teacher. The first class was on the Italian Renaissance and students were asked to do a map activity from an British books which we actually use at Poly in the 8th grade, so I felt right at home. Indeed when I walked in the room there was a timeline on the board which I could well have created myself, but for the omission of 1492 as a significant date in the story of the Renaissance.

In each class I spent a few minutes introducing myself and saying something about how or what I teach. In the fourth hour there was a class for the matric, their term for seniors. While all the other girls where blue sweaters with their uniforms, the matrics have the status of white. The teacher said she was going to introduce the Truman Doctrine as a way of getting into the cold war. I asked her if she would like me to chime in. She suggested I could teach the whole lesson, and of course, since it doesn't take much prodding for me to get up in front of a class, I happily did..

Rhenish is now an integrated school, with a colored population of about 25-30 percent, so the classes didn't seem that different from Poly in ethnic terms, though it was my guess that they were all colored, no blacks (see yesterdays discussion) and that has to do with geography -- blacks live on the other side of town, and also on fees. Ten minutes for before the end of the last class four colored students got up, and it was explained that they travel by train, and therefore must leave early (I assume every day) which is certainly a major handicap.
The day was structured with six classes and two twenty-minute breaks, so there was no specific lunch break. Students bring food from home, or get it at the "tuck shop" similar to our snack bar. There were hot dogs, muffins, tea and hot chocolate, chips and sweets as they would call it. I got on the end of the line (having brought no lunch myself) and was assured by some older student in the neighboring line that I could cut. I said, no, teachers don't cut at my school, so I will wait here, too. They thought that was "amazing" and we chatted on-line until the women behind the counter saw me and refused to serve any of the girls until they served me, so I had no choice.

One interesting class I attended was a Latin class, taught by a man, with only one boy as a pupil. Yes, this was an all-girls school, but in certain subjects like Latin and German, it combines with the neighboring boys school. it just so happened that this was the only student taking Latin at this level. A girl was "sitting in on the class" to work on her English. She had just arrived from Germany and was more advanced in Latin, so she was there to learn cognates. I was very impressed by this teacher's knowledge of German English and Africans as well as Latin, and his ability to use all three to make different points.

The last class I visited was quite puzzling. it was and English class, reading the Great Gatsby, and the teacher seemed to welcome me freely enough, but then made didn't include me in the discussion in any way. The main direction of the lesson came from a hand-out which looked like Cliff Notes which she had given to all the students. She then proceeded to read aloud the handout, stopping and having students comment. The students all seemed to have read the book and most joined in the discussion, but not a single person, including the teacher had a copy of Gatsby on their desks. Cudos to her, however, for thanking the very chunky-clunk disks and managing to get them into a circle.

This turned out to be the first day that student teachers from two local universities came for observation and some practice teaching. A number of them were for history, so my host was going to have them in her classes for the next five weeks. I spent the second break talking to the two colored teachers who were there for history. They seemed so shy and hesitant, I wondered just how one would go about helping them develop a real teaching style. At first the history teacher and I had discussed working together with them, but then we decided they weren't ready for that much input, so she will let them watch her for a while. If I come back again, then we might work something out in early August before I leave on the 13th.!

I get bits of American news by via satellite dish, feel free to send me any news or comments you think I might be missing.

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