Teaching English

When I thought about my last three months in the Peace Corps I imagined they would be full of stress free work: transferring my remaining project responsibilities from myself to my South African counterparts, and taking my time to wrap up and say goodbye.  I imagined it would be relaxed.  In true Peace Corps fashion the unexpected came along and I’m busier than I’ve been in possibly my whole service.  I am currently volunteering as a full time English teacher at one of the two high schools in my town - Alexandria High School. 

The situation came about because since the beginning of the new school year in January, Alexandria High has been short ten teachers (in which is an already understaffed school).  The Department of Education has some internal issues which have resulted in schools across the Eastern Cape not receiving the number of teachers they are supposed to have.  Therefore schools like Alexandria High find themselves in desperate situations with children coming to school and no one to teach them various subjects.  The children come to school and go to class if they have a teacher.  If they don’t, they go to sit in the school hall for that period.  Most classes are sitting in the hall for multiple periods a day. 

A few weeks into the school year I met with the Principle and offered to help if I could.  They asked if I could teach English and I agreed.  A month into the school year the students hadn’t had a single English class.  I began right away and started with six different classes grades 8-11.  Most of the students take English as their “First Additional Language”, and their “Home Language” is Afrikaans.  They couldn’t believe that I can’t speak or understand Afrikaans and it’s quite a departure for some of them, especially the younger students, to be expected to speak English all the time. 

In the last few weeks my students and I dove in head first as we try to accomplish as many required “tasks” as possible for all the classes so they can have grades for the first term.  I am enjoying teaching, the challenge, and getting the chance to spend time with some of the community youth I didn’t know before.  On the first day of class I explained how I’m from the United States and allowed questions.  The best questions were: do I have Rick Ross’s phone number, am I friends with Demi Lovato, and in the United States do I drive a Bugatti.  To their disappointment the answers to all of those questions was no.    

Being back in a high school classroom everyday has me thinking a lot about my own experiences and noticing the things that are similar and different.  It makes me appreciate my education and the opportunities I had more than ever.  The challenges the school, teachers, and learners face can feel overwhelming to me but they push through and do the best they can with what they have.  Some differences between Alex High and its learners from my own experiences in high school are: required uniforms, no lunch periods or cafeteria, no passing periods or lockers, and no gym class.  They don’t have regular use of technology in their classes no teachers have computers or TVs in their classrooms.  The support staff is very small with two administrative staff, a few grounds and cleaning staff, and a part time “Learner Support Agent” who deals with counseling.  The extracurricular activity options are really limited which is the opposite of how it was at my high school.    

The similarities are numerous but have more to do with the teachers and learners than anything else.  The students love participating in sports, the big ones here are rugby, soccer, and netball which is a no-dribble version of basketball that’s considered a “girls sport.”  The students remind me of high school students anywhere in the world.  They are trying to figure out who they are and in that process can show many different sides.  They can be overly confident, insecure, quiet, talkative, shy, outgoing, inquisitive, and unsure but mostly they are funny.  They love to laugh and tell jokes, and as long as it doesn’t take up too much time I don’t mind.  Some are eager to learn, others aren’t.  Some are very well behaved, others…not so much.  They are high school students and they are fun.        

On Valentine’s Day there was a school dance and I volunteered to be a monitor.  It was so fun to see what a school dance is like in a small town in Africa!  The grade eleven students were responsible for running it.  They had to bring food and refreshments for the tables they decorated, and help clean up afterwards.  Before the dance a group of students who weren’t actually attending had come to the school and were sitting outside.  When I asked them if they were going to go in they said they had just come to see the different dresses – it was like they were there to see celebrities! 

A DJ from the community was brought in and played the most popular current dance songs - mostly “house music” by different African DJs.  One of my favorite moments was at the end of the dance when they played Gangnam Style and everyone got on the dance floor and did the moves.  It made me laugh, and I imagined the same thing happening at high school dances all over the world.  Not even tiny Alexandria, South Africa can escape the phenomena Gangnam Style.

 

I don’t know what’s going to happen when I leave in a few weeks if the school hasn’t found another volunteer or been approved to hire the ten teachers that they desperately need.  In the meantime I’ll try and teach them as much about English as I can and hope that my brief time with them has helped a little! 

Random story:

Even though my time here is almost done, I still have new experiences happening!  The other day there was a larger than normal group of kids standing outside my room watching me boil water for my bath (HOW they can possibly think staring at me while I do these completely normal tasks is interesting is still beyond me).  I needed to brush my hair so I did and then cleaned out my brush of the broken hairs.  As I dropped the tangle of hairs into my yard a gust of wind blew my hair into the air at which point all I heard was “MLUNGU HAIR!!!!!” (white hair!) and a race ensued to grab my discarded hairs.

Once they got them, they proceeded to sniff (I mean, really, really sniff) them, rub them on their faces, and put them on top of their own heads.  It was both slightly disturbing, and hilarious all rolled into one “is this happening?” moment.  I’m going to miss this place.