04-29-2011

About two weeks back, we hit Doppler Effect in Physics. I like the Doppler Effect, especially for my class of 23 rural South African 18-20 year olds. It’s a simple topic, basically one equation with really only two situations the learners have to know. Even more, it’s intuitive – from years of tutoring and classes, I’ve never met someone who doesn’t just get the Doppler Effect. Don’t believe me? Follow my instructions:

1)Stand on side of road. Not TOO close.
2)Wait for car to come.
3)Listen to how the sound the car makes seems to get higher as it gets close to you.
4)Listen to how it drops right back down as it drives away from you.
5)Pat yourself on the back. You are now a Physicist.

So, yeah. As expected, the learners caught the gist of it pretty quickly – like math or music or love, perhaps the Doppler Effect is really just the universal language. And seeing as how it’s good to connect these scientific ideas with applications, I explained that the Doppler Effect is more useful than just watching Mr.Ryan pretend to be a car in front of the room. Wanting to take the lesson a step further, I brought up cosmology. I talked about Edwin Hubble (that guy from the satellite), and galactic redshift – in a nutshell, walking them through how the Doppler Effect explains how the Universe seems to be expanding and offers scientific credence to the Big Bang, something they had never heard of until then. I wanted to get the kids – excuse me, young adults much like myself – talking a bit about the idea of how a scientific theory can have controversial social implications, and when suddenly people started warming up to a discussion…the bell rang. My hour was up, and the next teacher was standing at the door, waiting.

This is a pretty typical (part of a) day in South Africa.

With this post and about five months – crazy that it’s already basically May, by the way – into the school year, I figure I’ll let everyone in on what I’ve been getting up to here. The main focus of my assignment is school development, a vague enough term that essentially allows the volunteer to, within reason, operate as how they and the school see fit. Most volunteers teach, primarily, either with another teacher or on their own in more unfortunate cases. Right now, I’m teaching grade 8 English, and grades 11 and 12 Physical Science. All of these classes are occasionally wonderful – although the grade 8 class has 86 learners. Imagine 86 eighth graders, in a hot African classroom, listening to someone speak in a language they don’t really understand. Pretty scary visual, I bet. The grade 11 and 12 classes are more fun, with only 19 and 23 learners respectively I’ve gotten the chance to get to know most of them by name. Since it’s a subject I feel a little more comfortable teaching than English – I’ve often had to explain to my counterpart English teacher after class that “I don’t know why that sentence is wrong, I just know that it’s wrong” and that “English is really a horrible language to begin with” – the learners and I tend to get a good vibe going in the class. Especially in Grade 11, since Grade 12 is under a lot of pressure to simply cram as much information in as possible before the daunting exams, we can have a lot more fun. Also, we can blow more things up (Zinc + Hydrochloric Acid, anyone?).

With all the stuff that comes with teaching – between grading and lesson planning and evening/Saturday/holiday classes and so on – it gets fairly time consuming, but pretty much all volunteers try to tack on other efforts, known as Secondary Projects, as well. This term, the school garden which another teacher and myself started planning last December, is finally underway. With the help of the Department of Agriculture, nearby villagers and, of course, the learners, we’ve plowed out a sizeable plot to beginning planting some good winter crops. Hopefully, this will help supplement the food scheme for the lunches at school and, if possible, will expand to be fully managed and operated by the students themselves. Still a long term goal though. But everyone, including Mr.Ryan, seems to enjoy plowing barefoot into the weeds (when it’s not hot).

Another project that’s being supported by a local NGO is a Kid’s Club for a small group of OVC qualifying learners. The term OVC stands for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, and these learners are among the neediest of needy. As the social worker at the NGO had once put it, there is even a hierarchy in survival itself. So each week on Monday (only once so far this term, due to holidays), I meet up with about twenty little kids from 6 to 14 years old. After some organizational hurdles, the first meeting we had was terrifying – especially for me. I’m not a social worker, and something about very little kids is just…off putting. Possibly repressed memories of Children of the Corn surfacing. But it went amazingly well – bonding through games and activities, the learners are provided a safe environment after school to do homework and talk with other kids, two grade 12 learners, and myself about any problems they may be facing at school or home. It’s been a great way for me to connect more with the learners in the Primary School, because I feel like I’ve been somewhat absent from there.

The latest project – that has been slower in coming than I thought – has been cleaning and remodeling the school library. The original ‘storage room’ was a nightmare. Piles of books and spilt paint cans three feet high, with rumors of rats (also snakes to eat the rats) living in it like a trash pile out of the Dark Crystal. Over two consecutive Saturdays, the building was not only completely cleaned but repainted as well (some pictures are up on Facebook). It was a great project because it gave an opportunity for the learners that came to help the chance to truly own their school. It was nice because, frankly, I had pretty much nothing to do with it besides some initial pushing – the guys that came out were excited and hardworking. It would not have been done nearly so fast without everyone’s help. Once done, I’ve been working on getting the books back in and (hopefully) getting a carpentry-training NGO I’ve been working with to donate some shelves the trainees have made for practical exercises.

^With this last project in mind, I know I’ve had some people ask if there’s anything I’d like to have sent me from the States. At first, I gave some joke answers – and did, surprisingly, receive quite a bit of Peanut Butter, thanks everyone :-) – but I’ve started to realize that this may be a blessing in disguise. Sending packages doesn’t have to be about me, but offers you the chance to help out the projects directly. I’m not asking for donations, but if people are still thinking about sending boxes or packages, toss some children’s books in there instead. What I’ve seen, especially with the Kid’s Club, is that the books we read as kids – Dr.Seuss, Roald Dahl, etc. – are the same books these kids love to have read to them! Most of them, especially the ones living in the depths of the village and without literate family member, have no access to this. And to live in an environment where books are so rare as to be unknown is heartbreaking. Just a thought.

Well, I hope this gave you a brief overview of what’s been happening. There are a few other projects I’m hoping to get underway, some big and some smaller. For now though, one step at a time.

In one of these posts, I’ll fill in a bit more about travels around South Africa, multiday beach hikes, and croquet with Afrikaner children. Take care until then.

-Ryan