Miss Vicky's Children's Education Fund: School update

Mission Statement

The mission of Miss Vicky's Children's Education Fund is to finance the airfare from NYC to Cape Town, South Africa for at least one American teacher to donate his/her tutoring services each summer for several weeks to the children and mothers in Khayelitsha Township District "C" and to provide classroom instruction in the local public school to facilitate a learning environment focused on the improvement of overall literacy. Any additional funds raised will be used to establish a dedicated school library for "C" District. Eventually the hope is to provide each child with a school back pack filled with school supplies and their own reading book during the Holidays.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

School update

I've been working in Vuzamanzi Primary School now for several days. I have managed to teach in all sections of grades 4-7 (they have 4 or 5 sections in each grade level). The Principal felt that I could serve them best by rotating each day throughout their English classes. I'm not working with one class, but rather all of the English classes in 4th-7th grades. The school does not begin to teach English until 4th grade so the children have a very difficult time communicating with me. Grades 1-3 are taught in their mother language, Xhosa.

My main goals are helping them with their fluency and also vocabulary. They don't recognize a lot of words, so I clarify the words for them and then explain their meaning. Unfortunately, the kids don't have much paper to write on or pencils to use, so the information i'm teaching is not written down. The children are quite curious though and try their best to talk to me in English. I am learning a bit of Xhosa as well, which they get a kick out of!

The school day begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 2 p.m. for the children. They have 4 classes before their first break, then 3 classes before their second break (lunch), and they finish with 2 classes. Each class is 30 minutes long and the pace is very slow compared to what i'm used to. Today, I shared the letters that my RES kids wrote with the 7th graders. They really enjoyed reading the letters! They are now working on writing letters back to the RES kids.

I should be able to get into each grade 1-2 more times before I leave and will hopefully be able to post another blog at the end of this week.

2 comments:

Unknown said...: So what kind of computers do they have in the classroom? How close is the nearest Applebees?

Seriously, though, keep up the great work. I can't wait 'til you're back home to share your experiences!

Uncle Mark; July 30, 2009 at 5:32 AM
Tanya said...: No Applebees! I wish I had seen this sooner to look at the type of computers they had. They were a different brand than i'm used to seeing and they had the bulky monitors.

Thanks for sharing some comments!! I look forward to telling everyone all about it!; August 8, 2009 at 9:07 AM

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Vusamanzi Primary School

Vuzamanzi Primary is in Site C in the Khayelitsha informal settlement. First established in 1985, the school has served the community as a community hall for meetings and a hiding place from police raids at the height of the apartheid era as well as a place to educate the youth. Over 75% of the parent community of Vuzamanzi Primary are unemployed and illiterate, many eeking out a living in the informal sector where they sell fruit and sweets at the taxi rank and station. Naturally, there is a high percentage of non-fee payment by these parents who simply cannot afford school fees and the school has now been identified as a pilot school for the no payment of school fees in the Western Province.