I suspect that the Soweto Bike Tour will end up having been one of the most impactful experiences of this trip. I don’t think that I’m alone with that sentiment based on conversations with many of my peers. There are those who, without context, might consider this type of activity akin to “disaster tourism.” I disagree with that stance. I cannot change the privileges I have access to. I can’t erase them or dilute them or pretend they don’t benefit me every single day of my life. What I can do is open my eyes to the complexities of the world and develop my understanding of the chasms between us all. I can try to understand how those chasms were forged and why they often continue to flourish.
If we had only visited schools in South Africa, I might have suspected I understood how students lived, but my understanding would have been thin and superficial. And how would that benefit me? Understanding the superficial aspects of culture only gets you so far. In Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, Hammond (2015) spoke to why superficial understandings of culture, often promoted as a push toward multiculturalism, are not enough. To be truly culturally responsive, I need more than knowledge about the "surface cultures" of my students: I need to dig deeper into their cultural ideologies and ways of living and seeing the world. One evening in the car, we commented on the vast differences between the wealthy beach town where were had just had dinner and the township we had visited earlier in the day. Afterward, we commented on the importance of seeing as much of a country as one can if one is to try to understand it (in whatever sense one can “understand” a country after a few weeks). I thought of the Soweto Bike Tour in that moment. I thought of how it reshaped my understanding of South Africa. We cannot ignore major demographics of a country if we are to try to make sense of the educational system in which those demographics are suspended. We cannot teach if we pretend our students all live the same lives and see the world the same way. Hammond, Z. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Corwin.
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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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