Week 12: UJ Excursion and Easter Weekend

 

March 25-27^th- Achterbergh Excursion- The first year students at the University of Johannesburg have the privilege of going on a 3 day excursion into the mountains for bonding, pedagogical information, and setting the tone for the next four years of their teaching courses. I was expecting camping…it was more of a resort with a swimming pool, hotel-style rooms for the staff, and dormitories for the students. The students were given different tasks to do on topics like social justice, HIV awareness, storytelling, and addressing issues that affect students’ lives in South Africa. The first assignment had the students create a protective contraption for an egg, then, they dropped the eggs and saw which eggs broke. The students seemed to enjoy the activity and working together to plan their protective barriers. One faculty member was frustrated by how the activity wasted eggs. He had lived in Ethiopia for a while and had seen the extreme poverty. As he mentioned, one egg could give protein to an entire family. He recommended/asked that next year they came up with a different activity that didn’t promote waste of precious commodities. He also mentioned to the students that when they plan activities there are always multiple issues and consequences they have to take seriously. I think by voicing his concerns he was also able to add a culturally responsive component to the excursion…one man’s broken egg is another man’s meal, especially in a country with such extreme financial circumstances of its people, this is an important message.

The next activity was led by the Dean of Education, she read a children’s story to the preservice teachers. She modeled good reading, questions, and responses. I appreciate the fact that she took the time for the first year students to meet her on a personal level and see that she is truly an educator (as well as an administrator). The students seemed to really get into their roles as second graders. The rest of the afternoon was spent in groups, the students each picked a topic affecting South Africa students (child-headed families, losing a loved one, HIV/AIDS in the family, illness, poverty, abuse, etc), then they wrote a play on how they would address these issues with their students. That night we watched an educational movie, The Ron Clark Story.

Day 2 of the excursion began with Lynn Joffe, the author of the Pitterpat the Crazy Caterpiller series, performing (reading, dancing, singing, etc) one of her stories. She is an eccentric author with a gift for creativity, imagination, and adventure! She had the students using homemade instruments and performing their skills.

Students "exchanging liquids"

 

The next activity was a bit more serious. The students were given two cups of clear liquids. They were asked to “exchange” fluids with as many people as they wanted in one cup and to keep the other cup clean (control cup). At the end of the activity the staff went around and added another liquid to each of their cups…the ones that turned pink were “HIV positive,” the ones that stay clear were “HIV negative.” There were only two students who were negative at the end of the fluid exchange (most cups being pink), however, as demonstrated by their “control” cup, most of the students started out negative. This led to a powerful discussion on safe sex, stigma of being HIV positive, support systems if you become infected, etc. It was evident that many of the students had misinformation and misconceptions about sex, AIDS, and even treatment. The faculty leaders ended with asking the students to get more information and directing them to appropriate resources.

After lunch I presented on “Supporting Diverse Learners: A Civil Rights and Social Justice Issue.” I put all 120 students into 10 groups and I started with a warm up:

·         Who was your favorite teacher? Why?

·         What does good teaching look like?

·         What does good learning look like?

Next, I reviewed South Africa’s constitution (yes, I have read the entire thing) and White Paper #6 (policy paper on inclusion/inclusive practices- how educators are expected to support diverse learners). Then I went to the “Diverse Learners Activities.” Each group had a platter with chopsticks, gummy bears, and a cup; photos of South African issues and news stories; and a story written in the cloze method (similar to mad libs- the basics of the story were there, but there were fill in the blanks and the students had to figure out what to put into the blanks). The groups had to work out the activities the best they could, then discuss with the group the reaction they had. As a group, we came together to hear what the groups found.

The gummy bear activity addressed physical issues- I have done this in California and most people are quite skilled at using chopsticks so I ask them to use their “un”dominant hand…but with this group many students had never tried and were unsure what to do with them. I related this to learning new physical skills such as writing with a pencil or even dealing with students who had physical impairments. We discussed frustration points. Next, the individuals who had received the photos gave input about what they saw and how it would affect their learners. One of the pictures were of the miners being hurt by the police, they reflected that if the police are supposed to protect you and they end up hurting you then you would never feel safe. This, I related to emotional and social barriers to learning. Finally, the last activity where they had to find the meaning of the story with missing words, yielded very few results…most students kept it blank because they didn’t know the answers. I spoke about auditory, visual, and language barriers keeping learners from understanding the story and being able to complete comprehension questions. I also noted that most of the words that were missing were nouns and verbs, that if you don’t have the vocabulary to understand your task, your self-esteem and understanding are decreased.
 

Then, we spoke quickly about why different learning needs occur and how we, as educators, can address those issues. I had the students write a pledge on how they will support diverse learners, fight for civil rights and social justice, become life long learners, and give back to their students, families, and community. I told them to start filling their bag of tricks…during the presentation I gave them things out of my bag of tricks. The gifts included: notebook to encourage writing and expression, art supplies to address expression is more than just paper and pencil, food (spices from Seattle) to bring a little of myself into the classroom and also bond as a community, playing cards to learn with games/social opportunities, and modeling behavior and expectations.

 The students’ next activity used guided meditation and imagery to mold a piece of clay (with lavender oil added) into a shape that represented their experience and what they wanted to be as teachers. There was meditative music playing while they created their symbol. Next came the drumming…I had to go rest for a while. That night the students performed their plays. They did an amazing job with creativity, teamwork, and bringing in a cultural song and dance. I was a little surprised by the enthusiastic and overwhelming displays of grief (most students going into convulsion on the floor in tears and screams to dramatize the loss of a loved one). One of the staff explained this was a common way to express grief here in many communities in South Africa- I am learning culturally responsive pedagogy as well.

 
In the evenings (after the room checks), the lecturers would get together to talk. During one conversation, I learned something new. In 1899-1902, the Anglo-Boer wars were going on throughout the country (Anglo being British and Boer being the Dutch and European settlers who had been farming in South Africa beginning in 1650s)- both sides were fighting for the colonial (and mining) rights of South Africa. The British were losing, so they decided to move beyond the battlefield and captured Boer women and children. They were brought to concentration camps where over 27,000 were killed. Of course, the English called them “refugee camps.” By 1900, there were over 100,000 people in the camps suffering from malnutrition, lack of hygiene, disease, and other tragic conditions. Hearing about these camps put some of the pillars of apartheid in perspective for me, the Afrikaans (Boers) had suffered during this time and had fought for survival- they became defenders of their people, culture, language, and pride.
 

Another session in their itinerary was a social justice table. Most students were given a passport and some money (some students were refugees). Then, those with money were given an opportunity to buy food. Unfortunately, some of the African passports did not have enough money to buy anything on the table, the Japanese and American passports were given $100. The students ended up forming alliances to get some of the goodies. A discussion about power, access, justice, and aid came out of this activity. The students finished the 3-day excursion with completing their Harlem Shake video.

March 29- After resting for the next two days, I left early in the morning with Cristines (my new Brazilian friend) to Drakensburg for Easter weekend. We drove about 5 hours to the hotel. We rested when we arrived, then, went out for dinner at a recommended restaurant. The next morning we went for a hike up Castle Mountain area. The hike was called World’s View. We made it up and down with only getting sprinkled on for a while on our way back. Just before the end of the hike, we took a dip in the river we walked near. It reminded me of a green Grand Canyon at the highest point of the hike.

March 31- On Easter Sunday we woke up early and drove to Sani Pass. We had scheduled a guided hike into Lesotho. Just as we were about to get in the vehicles we found out Brazilians need to have a visa to enter Lesotho so we couldn’t go. We went to breakfast and wine tasting instead. We also visited the Nelson Mandela Capture site and museum.  We made it back to the hotel in time to get massages and have dinner…the important thing about traveling is to be flexible when things like visas get in the way of your plans.

April 1- You can tell a lot about a person by how they travel. I knew Cris was a wonderful travel companion when we were driving to Castle Mountain and I said there was a water pump I wanted to take a picture of on the way back and she drove slowly till we found it again. On our drive back to Jo’burg on Sunday, she confirmed this quality. My parents are both from a small town in Wisconsin named Ladysmith. There is also a city called Ladysmith in South Africa. We decided to take a detour and check it out. Unfortunately, it was a public holiday so the museum was closed, but we were able to take pictures beside “the big gun” they had displayed in front. The area is littered with battlefields as well.