Friday started at 8 am. Because I'm now in the teaching program, I did not get to sleep in 'til 11 o'clock. Firday morning there as a school assembly where I saw, for the first time, every student in one place at the same time. The assembly was entirely in Xhosa so I have no idea what was said but apparently it was really funny as all the students were laughing hysterically.When the assembly was over, I went with my teacher, Mr. Gobozi, to assist in teaching some basic geography. He had to leave the classroom 10 minutes into period because...(well, I don't konw why, sometimes he can be really hard to understand). I was left with about 40 5th graders starring at me for 20 minutes. Gobozi didn't give me anything to do so I wasn't really sure what to do with them. The noise level started rising as any 5th grade classroom does with nothing to do. However, after about 5 minutes, they all fell silence as one of the students went to the front of the class and started rapping in Xhosa. He was apparently rapping a very popular song because by the end of it, about 10 kids had joined him in singing. Feeling useless, I took the opportunity to start a conversation with the class about music. I asked them what kind of music they like, who their favorite artistes were...etc. The vast majority like rap, R&B, and hip hop. Only a few of the girls deviated from the group and went with gospel as their favorite. Just as the conversation was getting interesting, Gobozi returned and we were off to our next class. Here we did some real teaching and I finally got a sense of where the children were struggling.
The teacher wrote 5 bullet points (in English) on the board and the children vigorously wrote the notes down. The teacher asked some students to read them aloud to the class and for the most part they could read it back.The problem occurred when they had to comprehend the information beyond the words that were written. For example:
The SOURCE is where the river begins.
The SOURCE is in the mountains and rivers run down the mountains.
The MOUTH is where the river ends.
Me: "where does the river begin?"
The Class: "The Source!"
Me: "Is the mouth uphill or downhill from the source?"
The Class:.......blank stares.
After 4th grade, all classes are supposed to be taught in English. My theory is that they do not understand English as much as they should. However, this does not explain why they struggle just as much in Xhosa class. I've only been doing this for two days so I'll try to figure it out a little bit better.
My last activity for the day was administering the March examination in Social Science that I helped type up the day before. It was interesting being on the opposite end of test taking. I've never said "stay in your seats quietly" more times in my life. I don't know if the kids were trying to cheat but they got up out of the desks constantly and it was clear they don't know how to take a test.
I did not grade the exam yet but it appeared as though they struggled. This was disappointing because I really tried to make the exam as easy and straight forward as possible.
After the school day ended, the American volunteers had the basketball game with the Masi basketball team The highlight of the game, from my perspective, was that I did not get injured. All of the volunteers, including myself, played below average basketball and we got beat by about 30 points. The Masi guys aren't really that good at the sport but they are just older, bigger, stronger, and much more athletic. I tried to get so pics but a lot of the kids watched the game and cheered for us but anytime you take out a camera, they swarm.
Friday night we went out into Cape Town. It was our first time into Cape Town in over a week and it was good to get out of Fish Hoek. We went to Assembly. It wasn't really clear what it was trying to be. It was half bar, half club, and half concert. Regardless, it was pretty fun, though the music was very repetitive. Sparks of in-house romance have flown by for some of the volunteers. It could make the house a little awkward but everyone is leaving in a week so I'm sure It'll be fine.
This morning. We went to Spier. It was a picnic area about an hour outside of Cape Town. There was a cheetah and eagle sanctuary there and I got to pet a Cheetah! There were also awesome restaurants. Hopefully we go back before we leave. (Jack, a volunteer from D.C. is taking everyone out to dinner on Thursday for his birthday party.) The place was relaxing and beautiful and it was a great way to spend a Saturday.
As far as I know there are not concrete plans for Sunday so it'll give me a chance to do some administrative things like find my classes for Fall semester. (I have to register on April 1st).
