I’m going to break a rule here and combine these schools into one blog for two reasons: 1) so as to give myself room for a final reflective blog at the end, and 2) because I realize, in retrospect, that I’ve cognitively categorized these schools together--not because they were identical experiences: by contrast, they were not--but because, together, they enhanced my understanding of the secondary education system in South African townships as a whole. In this way, their differences were as important as their similarities.
So, broadly, what was the same about these schools?
Broadly, what was different about these schools?
Did these schools each have a different “feel” to them? Yes. Alas, I am left with a sense that even for their differences, they face many of the same concerns. This is a theme, of course, that is increasingly apparent to me where U.S. and South African schools are juxtaposed as well. My overall takeaway, however, is this: The schools themselves aside, the students of each of the classrooms in which I spent time lived such varied lives and had such varied needs that I almost can’t imagine teaching them without the assistance of the CRSTP. The sheer number of languages that these students spoke was such that teaching them without knowledge of those languages and the cultures attached to them would have felt nearly impossible. I realize that we cannot know all aspects of our students’ lives, but the CRSTP provided us with critical information for a group of stunningly diverse students. The necessity of a tool of this nature as part of a culturally responsive toolkit is more and more apparent by the day.
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AuthorI'm Kelly. I teach English as a Second Language, business English, and writing. I eat poems for dinner. Archives
January 2019
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