Miss Vicky's Children's Education Fund: Teacher's First Report from Cape Town!

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.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Teacher's First Report from Cape Town!

I have been extremely busy doing demonstration lessons in classrooms grades 2-7, working with teachers, writing lesson plans, teaching reading strategies, observations, researching topics for learning, and helping them with completing checklists for teaching reading and literacy across the curriculum in listening, speaking, reading and writing. I decided that I would concentrate at night on developing curriculum/lessons with the teachers since this is my first priority. I know that you are anxiously awaiting news via the blog but due to the time I am spending in the classroom working with students and teachers and the hours I am spending on curriculum development and class preparation at night there are not enough hours in the day to do everything.

I can not wait until I return so that I can speak with you in person regarding all that I have learned here.

Finally, Fran has been an invaluable assistant since he is able to take lots of classroom pictures and he has been uploading these pictures for teachers to their directories (time permitting he will upload some of these pictures on the blog). Unfortunately, this can not be done at school since there is no Internet access. He has also been busy printing out all the materials I am developing on a daily basis. Having a male presence in the class with me at times helps students see his as a good role model since many of them only have a mother in their homes. He has spent lots of time copying and collating materials since their are not enough resources available, etc. etc.

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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.