Truth be told, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Harambee visit, nor quite how relevant it would be to the course content, but it turned out to be an incredibly insightful part of our trip and one that I revisited mentally several times during later school visits (particularly at Lebone II where teachers make it a mission to teach soft skills from grade R). I have a vivid recollection of watching one young man present his vision board--an experience that reminded me how important our ability to narrate our hopes and desires is to making them realities. Intentionality comes to mind here as critically important.
Another thing the Harambee visit helped me do was to connect the manner in which our soft skills and socialization connect to our ability to transition successfully to the workplace. This is notably critical in South Africa because schools and communities vary so distinctly across the country, especially where available resources are concerned. Though the connection between socialization and transition was not new to me, it was so clearly articulated at Harambee as to help me better connect my own experience as a first generation college student to some of my early difficulties as an undergraduate navigating the challenges of school and work. And I was far more privileged than many of the students seeking out the services of Harambee. Finally, while it may at first seem unrelated, Harambee also brought the importance of our readings and discussions of culturally responsive pedagogy and the brain to the fore for me. To my mind, Harambee serves to connect some of the gaps in education that result from a lack of culturally responsive pedagogy, demonstrating its importance not just to academic performance, but to lifelong measures of success.
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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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