A Summary

Firstly, apologies for the lack of posts for the last week or so, but I did not have too much time whilst in Jo'burg before I left due to meetings and fundraising events and have been resting since I returned to the UK.

In this post I though I would summarise the last few days in South Africa, as well as giving an overview of my experiences in and around Alex.

Firstly, just as an update to where the sponsorship I collected earlier in the year went.  Some of it went into the project itself, this year we had expanded to two or three new locations and we intend to expand further and even to new countries next year!  The remainder got spent on buying geometry sets for the mathematics department at KwaBhekilanga to ensure that the first time the learners see a compass or use a protractor is not during their Matric, but in geometry and related lessons as soon as they arrive at the school!  We also bought a collection of revision guides and past papers that will help the teachers better prepare the students for their examinations, offering them a better chance to get the grades they need to improve their situation.  Alongside this, we bought as many educational posters (mainly multiplication tables) to be placed in the Grade 8 classrooms, hopefully combating the reliance on calculators that we found thwarted a significant portion of the lessons we were trying to deliver.

Obviously I cannot yet comment on the effectiveness of these aides, but since they were also identified by the Head of Department who requested we spent our funds in these areas, hopefully there will be a noticeable difference when Warwick in Africa returns next year!

On one of our last evenings in Johannesburg, we visited the headquarters of ABSA Capital (the trading name of the investment division of Barclay's Bank in South Africa) where we had to present to a small group of banking officials, who currently sponsor the project, and the BBC a report on what we felt was good and what could be improved about the scheme.  The point they seemed most interested in was the fact that many schools in Alex close early due to a lack of water, yet a simple and relatively cheap solution such as the installation of water tanks could help combat this.  In fact, they seemed so interested that they commented on how they would try and investigate to see how they could contribute to fixing such a problem.

In KwaBhekilanga, my last few days passed without major incident.  We did have a little party in the Maths Office to say goodbye and most of my pupils told me they would miss me.  Unfortunately, although some of them were brighter than their peers, I ended up not recommending any for IGGY (The International Gateway for Gifted Youth) as although they were smart, this was only in comparison to the remainder of the class so I was not confident that they would benefit from the scheme.

Overall, I felt the project went well and I would definitely consider participating next year, although I might request that I teach older pupils as I believe that the behaviour challenge will not be as problematic!

For the last time this year,

Better be off now - got to go fill in project evaluation forms and submit finance reports...

A Walk on the Wild Side

Today we went on a walk through Alex with some Grade 10 pupils from KwaBhekilanga.  It was fairly interesting as we got to see a lot more than we do from the mini-bus in the mornings.  I almost ended up getting mugged by a guy who grabbed hold of me and shouted "are you a teach?", but the students we were with pulled him off and I continued unharmed.

I handed out more of the government-style tests today and its shocking how badly written they are - I saw one where the layout had failed and another where a question had multiple correct answers.

I pity the kids if this is how their tests are written...

Better be off now - got books to mark...

Go-Karting, Bruises, Governmental Testing and a Lack of Water (Again)

Last night, we went go-karting with the Soweto Warwick in Africa group.  Although I was the worst person on the track by far, I managed to cut my PB lap time from 23.92 seconds to 19.48 seconds in the course of an hour or so on the track, which I think is a fair improvement.
The biggest problem is that I've now got a fairly impressive collection of bruising from where I kept spinning into the course of another kart and getting smashed into.  Nothing broken as far as I'm aware, so it was worth it!

This morning, I had to set a test approved by the government that was to assess key mathematical skills for Grade 8 learners.  After I had collected the tests back in, I asked whether they wanted me to mark them, and was told "It's not our test, so don't waste your time!", which was fairly harsh towards the testing people, but reflective of the attitude that the teachers have that they should not work more then they do within school hours.  It is this reason that results in lessons and worksheets being poorly planned and is one of the biggest things that could be improved at the higher levels.

This afternoon, as is getting more common, we ran out of water.  These patterns of water shortages have revealed though that different schools (even adjacent schools) are on different water supplies as KwaBhekilanga and Realogile both ran out of water on the same days even though they are quite far apart, yet East Bank, which is pretty much right next door to KwaBhekilanga has not.

The early finish did allow me to get some photos from the upper floors of the school and Alex, but I'll probably post them later.  I did get one of the "Chair Graveyard" though!

The Chair Graveyard

Better be off now - got to go get some more school supplies from the mall later.

More Marking

Yesterday, we went out to a local club at MonteCasino that was recommended by the people at alumni event we went to on Friday.  It was a fairly interesting experience, especially seeing that we went with the group from Soweto, but the music was not all that great, which was a bit disappointing.

Today I've been marking another batch of the Ratios and Rates homework that all my Grade 8 classes have now done and am much happier about my performance now.  Out of the 32 learners that handed the homework in, 25 passed, only 2 got a zero, 18 got over 60%, including 1 who got full marks!

So adding this class to the summary:

8A - 6.3% zero - 78.1% pass - 56.3% over 60%

8H - 8.3% zero - 62.5% pass - 12.5% over 60%
8B - 20% zero - 12% pass - 12% over 60%
8G - 12.5% zero - 40.6% pass - 12.5% over 60%

I think I can now say that I've improved the grades the longer I taught the pupils

Better be off now - got a test to make on function machines!

A Class of Two Halves

Firstly, I would like to apologise for the lack of an update yesterday, but Johnny was leaving and we went to Moyo's for dinner and cocktails to say goodbye!

Today was a day of two halves.  Simultaneously.  Each of my classes was easily split into two distinct halves, the half who wanted to learn and paid attention to everything I said, and the half who did not and ended up throwing water bombs and running out of the classroom.  As I've said before, my crowd control is appalling, which is my biggest weakness when it comes to teaching, so I kind of just shrugged it off and just continued teaching the rest of the class who wanted to learn.

Tonight we have a talk with some South African Warwick alumni to try and fundraise for Warwick in Africa.

Better be off now - we are getting picked up soon and I need to go get ready!

No Water, No School

We finished at lunchtime today as Kwabhekilanga ran out of water.  To be fair, it is a valid excuse as it meant that no toilets would flush, and there was nowhere to get water, yet it seems such a petty (and fairly regular) thing to disrupt a day of education over.  I'm not sure why or how they ran out of water, but the problem seemed to affect 3 out of the 5 schools in Alex that Warwick in Africa is teaching at.  This suggests that it is a problem with the mains supply, but according to people whose supply was interrupted the other day, it seems to only last the one day, so it is clearly not something major.

In the lessons I did have today, the pupils impressed me somewhat, although I did have to almost shout at one of my classes who were chatting whilst I was doing examples of the sorts of questions that would be appearing on the homework I was setting them at the end of that lesson.  I basically ended up telling them that they could either pay attention and get decent marks on their homework, or continue chatting, ignore my examples and utterly fail the homework (which contributes to their overall grade for the year, and could influence whether or not they have to repeat the year) which seemed to work as they quickly shut up!

Better be off now - got to go plan lessons by the pool...

A Better Day

Today was considerably better compared to yesterday.  Firstly, I do not have 5 hours of marking to do, and secondly I realised that one of my favourite kids in one of my Grade 8 classes was the one who got the best mark in the entire class.  He is one of my favourites as he always engages with the work, volunteers to answer questions and does all the work on time and correctly.  I am currently considering recommending him for IGGY (The International Gateway for Gifted Youth), yet he is new to the school so I cannot look at his previous grades to fully assess him before recommendation.

In other news, one of the kids asked me for additional help on a topic, so I volunteered to make them a worksheet that helps them and gives them some questions to do to reinforce their skills.

Better be off now - got lesson planning to do and worksheets to make!

Marking

I've just finished marking the tests on graphs that I set Grade 8 earlier today.  The results are quite interesting.  Exactly half of those who sat the test got over the 30% pass mark, but individual marks ranged from 4% all the way up to 92%, indicating that I taught the brighter half of the class well, and the other half either did not pass attention or understand what I was teaching them.

As predicted, several people had copied answers from their neighbours tests.  To be fair there were only 2 or 3 (out of a class of 30) for which it was blatant and on whose tests I wrote a very subtle note saying "This is an answer to a question on someone else's test..."  Hopefully this will get the message across that I do not tolerate cheating!

I'll keep updating this post throughout the evening as I mark more work, so stay tuned!

Update 1:  I've just finished marking one of the Grade 8 classes' assessed assignment on Ratios and Rate (the same one as I did with 8H and referenced in the post "Let's Sing the Grade 8 Classes that I Teach Song - A, B, G, H, J...", where I mentioned that out of 24 pupils, 2 got a zero, 15 passed and 3 got over 60%)
In this class 25 pupils submitted the assignment with 5 getting a zero, only 3 passing and those same 3 getting over 60%.  In other words, they did worse.  Much worse.  And I asked them for 2 hours straight to ask me any questions they had about the assignment, and even when nobody said anything, went through similar questions.  What did I do wrong?


I'll do another update when I have finished marking the other class' copies of this assignment.  Hopefully they will have done better than this class...


Update 2:  I've just finished marking the other class and in this class 32 pupils submitted the assignment with 4 getting a zero, 13 passing and 4 getting over 60%.  Which is at least better than the previous class, but still not great...


So summarising the three classes:


8H - 8.3% zero - 62.5% pass - 12.5% over 60%
8B - 20% zero - 12% pass - 12% over 60%
8G - 12.5% zero - 40.6% pass - 12.5% over 60%


So basically, my best class was the one I taught the least.  I guess that just means that I am an awful teacher...


Better be off now - got to mark their classwork books now...

Blackout

Firstly, apologies for the lack of updates over the weekend, we had another power outage that lasted from late on Friday through to Saturday night.

Over the weekend, we ended up going to the African Buffet on Nelson Mandela Square (which is part of the massive mall that is close to us) with Mary, Patrick and Patrick's two teenage sons.  Mary and Patrick are the people at Warwick who pretty much founded Warwick in Africa, in fact, Patrick contributed the donation that allowed the first pilot scheme to run.
The buffet was a fairly interesting experience.  I ate some ostrich meat, which is surprisingly tender and had an exceptionally long conversation with Patrick about some of the flaws with Warwick in Africa (such as not targeting Grade 7 and below) and just life in general.

On Sunday, we went to the Lion Park which, unlike the Safari did indeed have fences, offered some spectacular photos of the animals (including Cheetahs!) as well as giving us the opportunity to pet lion cubs.

Petting a Lion Cub

At school today, I set my Grade 8s a test on graphs, and to discourage copying, made 4 separate copies with different numbers on them so, even if they tried to copy their neighbours, they would get the wrong answers.  I'll give a bit of an update regarding how this worked when I've marked the tests (as well as the other piles of marking and lesson planning I have to do!)

Better be off now - got 50 tests, 90 books and 100 assignments to mark, all before dinner!

A Successful Day

I finally did it!  I've managed to get Grade 8s to accurately (or close enough) plot graphs with proper axes!  According to people in other schools this is something Grade 11 struggle to do so, if they have managed to learn it, and do remember it, I've made a huge difference.

I've also come to the realisation that the teachers are not as bad as I first thought.  Although they seem not to care that much about the lower Grades, they are perfectly willing to give up their own time to teach extra lessons to Grades 11 and 12, focusing on the topics with which they struggle.

Two of my Grade 8 classes also managed to finish learning ratios including increasing and decreasing in a given ratio.  Even the little kid who sits at the front and struggles with everything managed to do it.

I'm currently debating how mean I should be when setting my Grade 8 graphing test.  I'm planning on making the questions quite nice, but to discourage cheating, I am contemplating writing multiple tests so they pupils cannot just copy off their neighbours, but instead will either have to walk around to get the answer (which I will be able to see) or will end up copying the wrong answers and making it obvious.  Hopefully, this will result in the marks accurately reflecting where the pupils are, rather than where their neighbours are!  The only flaw in my plan is that it will probably lower the class average and make me look like a poor teacher.

Better be off now - heading to an African buffet with live jazz later, hopefully Mary and Patrick (the people behind Warwick in Africa) are going to join us, as well as a few of the people from Witwatersrand!

A Hard Day

Thursdays are always difficult for me due to timetabling.  I am supposed to teach 6 periods of Grade 8 lessons before lunch, then help with 5 periods after lunch and then help at a Grade 12 revision session.

Unfortunately, today was the day that the mathematics department was getting externally moderated, so all the teachers (or educators as they call themselves) from the maths department had to remain in the staff room all day.

Guess who had to cover their lessons?

In total I taught all 11 half hour periods today (5 without planning), followed by helping in a 45 minute revision class, which I think is what anyone would consider a fairly busy day!

Better be off now - dinner is almost ready and I've got to go try and warm up before we freeze (we ran out of gas last night so there is almost no heating!)

*Insert Loud Scream Here*

Just to give an update to the potential cheating situation yesterday, I put an example on the board and, as planned asked the class for the answer, expecting (if they had indeed cheated) the answer would be very slow in coming, or be wrong.  Unexpectedly, they managed to answer it correctly and very quickly, lending support to the argument that most of the class are very intelligent, except for one or two pupils who had failed to pay attention.  I will monitor the situation further, as I still believe it is suspicious for so many pupils to do so well on a worksheet.

One of my other classes today however, clearly fall into the 'not-so-intelligent' category as, although I put several examples on the blackboard and got no response when I asked if there were any questions, I repeatedly got asked whilst walking around to explain what I had on the board.  The most annoying thing, that almost made me scream at how stupid they were, was a pair of girls who repeatedly failed to see that 2/3 of 60 is the same as 2/3 times 60 although I kept pointing at the line above which said 3/4 of 80 is the same as 3/4 times 80.  The amount of times they gave me things such as 78 times 4109 honestly made me get to the stage when I was getting slightly annoyed at them for not seeing that they were going considerably wrong.


Better be off now - it's dinner time!

An Essence of Cheating?

I just have finished marking my last class who had done the exchange rates worksheet and their marks make me feel suspicious.

Although they are the furthest behind in my teaching (due to timetabling), they scored the best overall, with only 6 out of 39 of the students getting below 60%, and 12 getting 100%.  I find this oddly suspicious as the lowest mark in the class was below 10%, which indicates that either that student is very poor and almost the whole of the rest of the class are  genii, or that most people in the class cheated.  I was not in the lesson that the worksheet was set, but in the lesson before, I handed out marked copies to the class next door (which had a much more believable spread of results)!

To try and catch out any cheaters, in the lesson tomorrow, I'm going to put some similar questions on the blackboard and if nobody can answer them easily call out some of the names of the students who got 100% and ask why they cannot do it when they managed it so easily on their worksheets.  I will tell you how this goes tomorrow!

Better be off (again) now - I've got over 45 stars to stick on the worksheets because, although I think they have probably cheated, I've got to stick to the reward system that I am using with my other classes else it would be unfair!

An Exchange of Ideas

I've now given three of the classes I teach the same worksheet and, based on the marks I am seeing from some of them, I think it has been fairly successful.  Although it was a fairly easy sheet (they got 20% just for writing the same thing over and over again), I was pleasantly surprised by the numbers of people getting over 75%, easily a good 25% of the students!  On the other hand, quite a few people barely made the 20% that was pretty much "free", so I really don't know what to take from this.  For most of my classes, this worksheet is almost the end of the chapter, with an assessed homework and a little more on applications of ratios to go, I should be finished by the end of this week or early next week.

On Sunday, we visited the rooftop market in Rosebank, which was quite interesting, I've got a few presents for people, as well as a Djembe (an African drum) and a hand-carved wooden letter-opened for myself.  To be honest, I could have bought a lot more, including a carved giraffe that was taller than myself, but I resisted the urge when I realised how expensive it was and how difficult it would have been to take on a plane!

The power-cut last night was quite fun, although I hope it's the last one we have!  It lasted from 3-ish in the afternoon to almost 9 at night, which made lesson planning and marking work quite difficult to say the least!  We tried going out for dinner (as they couldn't give us anything hot at the guest house), hoping it would be back on when we got back.  Since it didn't we ended up borrowing candles and matches from the neighbours which gave the place quite and interesting atmosphere to say the least!

Better be off now - got quite a bit of marking to do before this evening!

Power

Just a quick post as we've had intermittent power all evening, which has been quite fun to be honest!

Will do a proper post tomorrow with an update for the last few days.

Better be off now - want to get into bed before the power goes again!

Stories and Food

We spend the whole of today visiting people that our contact from the University of Witwatersrand knows and listening to their stories whilst eating their food.

We started at the home of some Cape Malaysians who were descended from slaves brought to Johannesburg from Malaysia.  They showed us newspaper clippings and photographs from the apartheid era and told us of their personal experiences of apartheid.  Prior to this visit, I believed that apartheid was a simple Whites:Non-Whites segregationist policy and that all Non-Whites felt the same about the system.  However, from the talk we were given, I learnt that the system was organised into a much more complicated system placing races in a very strict ordering.  Whites were at the top of the system, followed by Indians and Coloured peoples, with Blacks being placed at the bottom of the system.  This was designed to follow the policy of 'divide and conquer' that was the British policy during our colonial era.  The revolution against apartheid was also not instantaneous.  The middle classes, as with any country, at any time, under any system, prefer to maintain the status quo.  We were told that the middle class youth were the first to take part in the revolt, staging protests and placard demonstrations, usually again the will of their parents.  Their parents only joined in the revolution after the police tried to break up a meeting between pupils at a middle class school violently, leading to an increase in the community anger and the realisation that, although they were the middle class, apartheid was still considerably discriminatory against them.
This talk was followed by traditional food enjoyed by the Cape Malaysians, who had mixed their own flavours from Malaysia, with dishes from their communities in South Africa.

In the second house, we visited someone who went to school and took part in protests with our contact.  She told a story of how they were posting flyers promoting revolution with a coloured friend who was European in appearance.  On the last poster they were caught red-handed by the police yet, due to how their friend looked, the believed her to be White, so did not arrest them in case they offended a person who they thought was White.

We also visited a takeaway where we were learnt how to make only what I can describe as half a loaf of bread, with the inside removed, stuffed with chips, meat and sauces.  The removed bread is then squashed back in to make a cube of bread, which is then eaten.  Later, we visited a house who taught us to do bead-work, before heading to a house where the owner had prepared a three-course dinner.  She told us how she had met Nelson Mandela twice and, although they were a year apart, he remembered her and deliberately sought her out on the second occasion.

I could write quite a lot more, but most of the stories were quite anecdotal and I cannot really do them justice here.

Better be off now - got to let all this food digest over a movie.

Handouts and Casinos

On Thursday night, I spent a great deal of time planning a lesson on percentages for Grade 8G and a worksheet on exchange rates for Grade 8B.  Due to a silly mistake on Friday, this turned out to be in vain as, without realising it, I taught the lesson on percentages to 8B, who had covered them a week or so ago, and gave the worksheet on exchange rates to 8G, who had never seen anything like it before.  Thankfully, the example I gave on the worksheet was good enough that 8G appeared to manage to do the worksheet fairly successfully (I'll post an update when I have marked it!).

Yesterday evening, we went to a proper casino and played some table games.  Unfortunately, although I am a mathematician, I absolutely suck at them and ended up losing R170 over the entire night (about £15), which was the limit I had set myself anyway.

Today we are heading to see some people our contact at the University of Witwatersrand knows, who will tell us of their experiences of apartheid and we've been told that each one will also expect us to eat enough food for a week.  And there are quite a few people we are visiting!

Better be off now - we're leaving in 10 minutes or so and I've got to have a little toast to prepare myself for all the food later!

Reflections on our Impact

For the last few days, I regularly find that teachers are handing more and more control of lessons over to me.  In a way I am glad this is happening as, although it increases my workload, it allows me to correct mistakes in methods that they have taught.  This hopefully helps the students as well as the teacher which in turn improves the education for future years.  The educating of teachers, although not explicitly stated as one of the goals of Warwick in Africa, is probably one of the most important things we can do out here as, although we may not notice it in our short time our here, it significantly improves the education, and thus the prospects, of students for years to come.

Outside of school, and as I posted yesterday, I went to see the South Africa/Burkina Faso match last night.  Atmosphere-wise it was not nearly as impressive as the Soweto Derby as the stadium was less than a quarter full, yet there were goals scored outside of extra time which was quite exciting!  To be fair though, for most of the match Burkina Faso were exceptionally unimpressive and by the time they fully engaged, they were already 3-0 down and it was too late to catch up!  The match finished with a decent 3-0 victory for Bafana Bafana (the nickname give to the South African national team) so we were, of course, very pleased!

Better be off now - I'm posting this a lot later than usual and need to get to sleep!

Behind a Locked Door

Today was quite a disappointing day.  My classes were fine, in fact some of them learnt the material much quicker than I anticipated.  The disappointing thing happened in the staff room during one of my free periods.

Firstly, just to put this into context, corporal punishment in schools has been illegal in South Africa since 1996 and any person caught carrying out such a punishment is liable to be convicted under assault laws.

Needless to say, my experiences today countered this law.  In the staffroom I saw a member of staff slam the door so hard it locked and the handle fell off before picking up a belt and hitting pupils whilst shouting in Xhosa.  I attempted to leave whilst this was happening but due to the door having no handle had to resort to jumping out of a nearby window claiming that I had to go to my next lesson.

So far, this is the worst form of punishment I have seen in the school, but on many occasions I have seen pupils literally being thrown out of classrooms by members of staff, forced to stand on one leg for an hour or even forced to spend the entire lesson on their knees.  Most of these punishments seem to be for the most trivial things and just reinforce my belief that the education system in South Africa (or at least in several schools) requires major reforms.

Sorry to have such a downhearted post.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a lot better.

Better be off now - better go prepare to watch South Africa vs. Burkina Faso later!

Lesson Planning, Gold Reef City and Buffet

Due to today being Woman's Day in South Africa and yesterday being a school holiday, we have had the last two days free to catch up on some lesson planning as well as going out to have some fun!

Lesson planning in South Africa is considerably nicer than in the UK.  Especially when you are working on tables outside in the sunshine by the pool!  I managed to plan all of my classes right through to almost the end of the week as well as reading up on some of the stuff they will be studying later this month.

Lesson Planning in the Sunshine

Today we went to Gold Reef City, a theme park located just outside Jo'burg on the site of an old gold mine.  The rides were fairly fun, although, as always, the best ones had ridiculously long queuing times.  Following this we went to an all-you-can-eat buffet which served the traditional Western cuisine as well as local food such as Ox Heart (which I refused to eat, and those who did said they found it disgusting).

Better be off now - going to view a South African international football game after school tomorrow so need to get some sleep!

Safari and Sun(burn)

Firstly, apologies for not posting over the weekend - we were away from Jo'burg and had no internet.

On Saturday morning, we visited Lesedi Cultural Village which was designed to display the customs and traditions of the major South African tribes.  Apart from the feeling that it was all a little fake, this was a fairly interesting experience.  We got to try pronouncing some words from isiXhosa, which is made especially difficult due to the presence of 'clicks' in the language, for example Xhosa is pronounced as [kǁʰɔsɑ].  Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, amongst others have Xhosa heritage.  In another village we were offered salted caterpillars to try, which I politely refused due to the fact that most of our group were eating them with looks of mild disgust on their faces!  We also got treated to a show highlighting through song their cultures and histories.  There was also a call for a volunteer to take part in a club fight against a Zulu warrior, unfortunately for him, the volunteer was a member of LARPS from Warwick so was actually quite good at that sort of thing.

Traditional Tribal Hut

On Saturday evening and on Sunday morning we went on two safaris - a self-drive on the Saturday, and a guided one at 7am on the Sunday.  Between the two were saw 4 of the Big Five, but to be fair, the park ranger said that there were only two of the one we missed (cheetahs) in the entire park!  Got some fairly decent photos on both days with my zoom lens and will probably end up e-mailing (or whatever) the best ones to people who want them.  Just to say to anyone considering going on a safari, it is absolutely incredible, although to see the animals when they are most active, be prepared to be freezing cold!

Elephant

Rhino

Hippo

Lion

Zebra

Giraffe

On Sunday afternoon we went to Sun City, a water park located near where we went on safari, it would have been perfect except that the water was too cold to properly enjoy, so I just spent a good few hours indulging in idleness on a sunny artificial beach.  Unfortunately, I appeared to have missed some spots when applying the sun cream as I've got blotches of sunburn which make me look like a miscoloured giraffe! 

That's all for now - got to do some lesson planning as we are planning on going to watch South Africa vs. Burkina Faso on Wednesday evening (the most expensive tickets are R100 - about 10 quid!)

Zombies

Today was fairly annoying, I spent 3 hours planning lessons last night, only to find that pretty much all three classes were cancelled.

The first was cancelled due to an extended assembly led by a preacher.  The singing and prayers I didn't mind too much, but when he said that if they were to take anything from that year at school it was that accepting Jesus would lead you to happiness and salvation.  The funniest part was when he claimed that Jesus was returning shortly.  Then went onto claim that the dead who had faith would rise again and walk the Earth.  I interpreted this as: "Zombies are coming. Run for your lives!" and had to restrain myself otherwise I would have burst out laughing!

The second, I had to cancel my original plan upon realising that nobody had any idea of how to calculate percentages from fractions.  Even when I did teach it to them, then pointed out to them that two percentages (that together cover the entire set) add up to 100%, I was still getting answers like 187% of the group are boys, 912% are girls.  WHY?!?

The third lesson was cancelled as, where it was a non-school uniform day (except for the teachers who had to where the standard school uniform) and this lesson was scheduled to be last, by the point I was supposed to teach it, the teachers had lost control of all classes so decided to call school out.

I've now got a 4-day weekend where we are heading off on safari so might not have internet for a day or two.

Better be off now - time to have so drinks by the pool!

Newsflash: Teacher Stays in Room, Takes Notes to Improve

Today I had an incredible "Eureka!" moment (minus the jumping out of the bath and running through the streets of Ancient Greece naked...) - the Grade 8 teacher whose classes I started yesterday and this morning stayed in the ones I did on ratios as they were not sure how to teach it best themselves.  From what I could tell they were taking notes on how I was teaching the subject (and hopefully they will use it in the future to teach better in the future)!  To be fair, in the course of two sets of double periods (about 2 hours in total), I managed to teach half of a topic that should take a good two weeks or so, thus putting them almost back on track for their planned topic timetable.  The most incredible thing is that the kids (appear to) understand it!  Out of the ones I looked at as I was walking around, over half were using the method I had taught them and were getting the right answers, whilst many of the rest just had small mistakes in their understanding of the method (which I rectified).

In my Grade 8 class who had been doing assessed assignments, the teacher decided that the ones who got less than 50% would have to do another assessed assignment to make up for their poor mark.  Nothing wrong with that, I hear you say.  You are wrong.  It's another copy of the same assignment.  Which I have marked.  And given answers to.  Sigh.

Better be off now - dinner has just been served and it smells gooood...

Let's Sing the Grade 8 Classes that I Teach Song - A, B, G, H, J...

Today was a lot better than yesterday - I marked my Grade 8 assessed assignment amongst other things.

Out of the 24 pupils who submitted their assignment, only 2 got a zero, whilst 3 got over 60%!  Taking the school's requirement that pupils must get 30% in mathematics to pass the year, 64% of my class passed!  And this is a topic I taught them!

In other news, I finally sorted out my timetable, however my skills with teaching Ratios have become legendary so I'm teaching them to 3 more Grade 8 classes from tomorrow onwards...

This now means that I'm teaching or assisting with 8 different classes and pretty much have back-to-back lessons from 8am to 3pm everyday!

Better be off now, got some lesson planning to do...

Mistakes

The two classes I taught today we not too bad.

In my Grade 8 class, I attempted to give them examples of how to solve the assignment that counts towards a percentage of their grade for this year.  I say attempted because, although I repeatedly said that it was exceptionally useful, very few students actually paid attention to what I was doing on the board and even fewer copied it into their exercise books.  If they end up failing those questions I think I'm going to write "I went over this on Tuesday" on all their exams...

I taught one of the Grade 11 classes that I work with how to give "proofs" for trigonometric equations, using the trigonometric identities.  This class depressed me somewhat.  Although in large letters at the top of the board it said sin^2(\theta)+cos^2(\theta)=1, almost nobody in the class managed to see how to convert the line sin^2(\theta)+2cos(\theta)sin(\theta)+cos^2(\theta) into the line 1+2cos(\theta)sin(\theta).  I could vaguely understand this but getting things such as (a+b)^2=2+a+b just make me want to cry.  Even the work that they did manage to do had to be literally spoon-fed to them almost word-by-word!


We had a short session for Grade 12 at the end of the day and covered similar work to what we did in Grade 11 earlier, to my eternal embarrassment I made a fairly large mistake on the revision sheet I gave them! To be fair they did not need as much spoon-feeding as the Grade 11s, yet they were still fairly poor.


Hopefully tomorrow will be better - I'm going to be marking the Grade 8 assignments and hopefully I will not get too depressed while marking them...


Apologies for the somewhat down-beat post, but the reality of how poorly-educated most of the students really are has started to sink in...


Better be off now - lessons to plan, dinner to eat.

Head-banging and Hugs

Today was a day of two halves.

My Grade 8 mathematics pupils who I believed were good at ratios suddenly decided to get completely confused when I moved from questions such as "Divide 80 matches in the ratio 1:2:5" onto ones such as "Red paint and blue paint is mixed in the ratio 2:5.   I have 8 litres of red paint.  How much blue paint do I need so as I have no unmixed paint left over?"
This is slightly worrying as, based on my assessment that they were understanding ratios, they have been given an assignment that counts towards their grade for the year.  I am planning on continuing with similar questions tomorrow to help them as much as possible, as well as offering to do an extra after-school session where they can drop in and ask any questions about the assignment that they have before they hand it in the next morning.   (To be fair, I was already planning on doing a Grade 12 revision session, but will tell the Grade 8 pupils where it is and to come and find me if they want help)

Later in the day, I was told by one of my Grade 8 Natural Sciences (think Physics, Chemistry and a bit more...) pupils that I should definitely become a full-time teach as I would be, and I quote, 'the best teacher in the entire world'.  I was fairly touched but also moderately confused by this comment as I have only taught their class for one half-hour period and to be frank I did not teach it at all well!  The only problem with this pupil is that they want to get me some sort of present, which I do not really wish to accept as I think most of the pupils at the school have next-to-nothing themselves.  I have been advised to tell them to make me a card or draw me a picture as it will not cost them anything and will make me feel special.  I was also asked by another pupil when I would be teaching them.  I told the pupil that unfortunately I would not be teaching them, and they looked so disappointed!

Better be off now - just got back from a short 20min run (at 5750ft) and kinda need a shower!

Apartheid in South Africa

To try and help people understand Apartheid in South Africa, I am going to reverse the situation in this post (making it unfairly biased towards non-Whites).  For this reason (if you are reading this post on Facebook or another site that does not support formatting) I recommend that you read it directly from my blog: stepheninsouthafrica.blogspot.com

This attempt will not do justice to the entire situation, I will admit that now, but I thought that this would be an interesting attempt to represent the repression of the system.  I do not mean any disrespect to anyone in this post and if you are offended I sincerely apologise.

If you are non-White, please read the first section below, which will be posted in red. If you are White, please read the section section, which will be posted in blue.

NON-WHITES ONLY
Today we went to a museum documenting the history of Apartheid in South Africa.  Outside the museum there we several large pillars, representing the fundamental rights granted to all citizens in South Africa by the post-Apartheid Constitution, to remind visitors of how South Africa is today.  At the entrance to the museum we were segregated based on which ticket we held (they we randomly allocated) and sent into two corridors separated by a mesh wall.  Although the exhibits on both sides of the wall were the same, the separation based on something seemingly as trivial as a word printed on your entrance ticket seemed very unfair.  Unlike Apartheid in South Africa, this segregation only lasted for the first 25 meters or so of the museum before we could be reunited.  As was to be expected, a large section of the museum was dedicated to Nelson Mandela, including the car he was given upon his release from jail.  The materials for the car were paid for by the senior staff at the factory and the labourers who built it did so for free as a way of thanking Mandela for his sacrifice.  I will not go into the full details of the rest of the museum.  Needless to say it was exceptionally shocking and really made you think as to how one set of human beings could treat another so unfairly.


ALL OTHER CLASSES
Today we went to the Apartheid Museum.  It was interesting.  It made me think.

I'd better be off now, I hope I made you think.

Prisons, Courts, Stadia and Vuvuzelas

Today was a fairly busy day!  In the morning we visited Constitution Hill, the site of the former prison that housed, amongst others, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi.

It was in the prison here that Gandhi's political activism really started.  The prison, which in now a museum, had an exhibit of Gandhi's imprisonment in South Africa.  This was particularly fascinating for me as, although a few years ago now, I have visited the location in India where he spent his final days and was assassinated.  The prison also hit home how difficult it must have been to be non-White in South Africa under apartheid.  In one of the courtyards there was an apple tree.  When apples developed on the tree, prisoners would chose one whilst it ripened then eat it when it was ready.  If prisoners misbehaved, their apple was confiscated when ripe, which must have been completely demoralising.

The site now houses the South African Constitutional Court, the equivalent of the United States Supreme Court.  The courthouse includes part of the old prison as a reminder to all of the past of South Africa, whilst also showing the way forward to a better future.  The courthouse contains significant amounts of South Africa's history, with large sections of the building employing architectural features symbolising the older rural courts that were held in the shade of a large tree.  The building also abides by the principle of transparency, with easy access to the public galleries for all as well as windows from the courtroom directly onto the street outside.  Media access to the building is also surprisingly easy, something I believe that South Africa does significantly better than the United Kingdom as, where it is the court dealing with constitutional matters, the decisions it makes should be as open as possible.

The South African Constitutional Court

After this we went to Soccer City/FNB Stadium which hosted the World Cup final in 2010.  The match was the Soweto Derby between the Kaizer Chiefs and the Orlando Pirates.  Most of our group decided to support the Chiefs, however we lost 4-3 on penalties, which was disappointing as was most the the footballing skill throughout the entire match, yet the atmosphere more than made up for it.  Most people complain about vuvuzelas, yet being in a stadium full of them it was fairly atmospheric!

Soccer City/FNB Stadium

Better be off now - we've ordered takeaway and it should be here soon!

Just a Quick One...

Not much to report today - it was so cold that the school closed early and all the pupils (somewhat telepathically) knew and left simultaneously!

Tomorrow should be more interesting - we are going to Constitution Hill and then going to view the football final between the Pirates and the Chiefs!

Better be off now - got to go get some food!

A Quick Clarification

I've realised that I've been using "Grade     " when referring to the classes I am teaching without explain what the conversion is with the British system.

Based on the average ages in each grade:
Grade 8 is the equivalent of Year 9;
Grade 9 is the equivalent of Year 10;
Grade 10 is the equivalent of Year 11;
Grade 11 is the equivalent of Year 12 and
Grade 12 is the equivalent of Year 13.

In Grade 12 they take what they call the Matric and is their pre-University qualification.

Hope this helps!

Ratios and Reports

Today went significantly better than yesterday (see previous post if you want to compare!) - the teacher I was working with had returned!
I was "officially" given control over Grade 8 and Grade 10 mathematics classes - I was pleasantly surprised by the Grade 8 class as they managed to remember and understand the method I gave them yesterday for sharing things in a ratio between two people.  I say they managed to understand it as when I gave the a ratio today involving three people they managed to give me the answer without any prompting what-so-ever! (I've taught them something they understand - Yay!)
The Grade 10 class wasn't quite so good - I was teaching them Polar and Cartesian co-ordinates and trying to explain how to convert between the two without using Pythagoras' Theorem (which they told me they had never heard of before).  Most seemed to get the method, yet their mental mathematics skills (such as calculating 4 times 0.5, which many gave the answer 4.5 to) were shockingly bad!

The end of the day came a lot quicker as expected.  At the end of the 6th period, without warning, the entire school just decided to walk out of the front gate.  I later learnt that today was "reports day" and to ensure that parents attended the kids were sent home early to go and get them before the end of the school day.  Most other schools also finished early, yet they all seemed to be finishing early because there was some sort of remembrance service for someone in the community later in the afternoon.

I also (finally) got a South African SIM card for my phone - if you need it, I've put it on Facebook, but I doubt I'll get that many people calling it!

Better go now - dinner is being served - Mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables and a main course to come

A Mild Sense of Panic

Well today was interesting! I went to school thinking "I wonder what I'll be doing today?" - my question was answered 5 minutes before the first lesson of the day when I was casually told that the teacher I was assisting was absent and that I was expected to cover all of his lessons.  Without preperation.  Or knowing what they were supposed to be doing.
Needless to say it didn't go fantastically - imagine having 30+ kids staring at you as you try to guess what they were supposed to study on that day and then teach that in a way that they will understand.  Then multiply that by 5 (the number of classes I had).  Then throw in an arguement with another teacher about which lesson a class was supposed to be having (although I could prove I was right using my timetable, he still made me finish early so he could teach).  Then throw in a class that were supposed to be moving onto a chemisty-based chapter with experiments that you had no idea where the equipment was or whether it even existed at all!  Then you get close to how my day was.
To stop this happening again, I'm "half-planning" lessons for everyone tomorrow!  Any suggestions on how to make trigonometric identities fun for Grades 10 and 11?

Better be off now - my laptop has decided it hates connecting to the internet, so I'm using someone else's and they look as though they want to do some work on it!

Impressions of a School

Just finished my first full day of teaching at KwaBhekilanga and I've already managed to identify several problems:

Time-Keeping - Neither the teachers nor the pupils seem to have any concept of time.  Although there is a timetable, nobody seems to know what it is and nobody seems willing to follow it.  Bearing in mind that lessons are only 30 minutes each and this was my first full day, I've already been in a class where the teacher (and I) turned up 20 minutes late, and another where we overran by 25 minutes and actually sent the next teacher away.

Organisation - Rather than the "teachers-having-fixed-rooms" system that I am used to, they students are the ones with the fixed rooms and the teachers move around.  This exacerbates the problem with the time-keeping as the students are used to teachers just walking into their rooms as and when the lesson is supposed to be (to be frank, I don't think the pupils have ever been given a copy of their timetables) and some periods they naturally have free anyway so when a teacher doesn't turn up they don't really notice.  This also contributes (I believe) to poorer behaviour as the teacher is entering their space rather than the other way around.  It also means that a lot of time is wasted as questions must be written on the board upon the teacher's arrival rather than being able to be placed there in advance.

Observation Skills/Attitude - This probably sounds quite harsh, but I feel that a lot of teacher either do not know or do not care that their classes cannot perform simple mathematics.  For example, I was in a class today that knew the Pythagorean Theorem from rote, but could not perform simple addition and multiplication - it took 5 minutes to get a pupil to work out "5 + 5 = ?" and I got the answer "3 x 6 = 16" from another student.

During my time on this scheme, I hope to try and make an impact on some of these issues and, even if I cannot solve them completely, make a difference to the achievement of the pupils.

Most of the classes I was in today were fairly chaotic.  In a few, the teacher either assigned reading from textbooks being shared between 5 or 6 or talked about maths at the class, then set some questions, told the class I would help if they had issues, then left the room!  In a way, and not to be mean to the teacher in any way, I hope that for at least the first week or so after I start teaching properly I am left alone as otherwise I think I would feel somewhat uncomfortable undermining the teacher's method in my first lesson with them watching.  But hey! We'll see what happens!

In somewhat sadder news, some of the WiA students at other schools have got invited to funerals of teachers who had recently died, I'm hoping this doesn't happen at my school.

Better be off now - it's one of the coldest days on record in Jo'burg and I'm starting to lose the feeling in my toes from sitting too long typing!

Being on the BBC and an Introduction to Alex

Today we headed out for our first day in our schools in Alex.  Supposedly we were all supposed to be in our schools by 11-ish, but being the most photogenic group (naturally), we were chosen by the BBC to be filmed entering our schools for the first time.  For those who don't know, a 'school entry' sequence takes about 45 minutes to film. And there were 5 different schools.  Needless to say, it was much later than 11 o'clock by the time we'd reached KwaBhekilanga (my school) - try closer to 1330!
First impressions of the school were fairly positive.  The kids seem nice, teachers are alright and the school even has a (basic) computer lab.  Timetables are fairly manic though!  Each day starts at 0800 and runs until 1415, split into 11 periods of 30mins each.  From my timetable (or the one I'm assuming I'm supposed to follow) I've got two Grade 11, one Grade 10 and one Grade 8 Mathematics class and one Grade 8 Natural Sciences class. Rooms are fairly basic (I say rooms, plural, as the teachers move to the kids, not vica verca), some have three to a table or two to a chair!
Slightly freaky fact: The school is made of the same brick as my secondary school - I wonder what conclusions can be taken from that!

KwaBhekilanga Secondary School

Better be going now - lots to do tomorrow!

Arrivals and Warpaint (Courtesy of the BBC)

First reflections on South Africa, and Johannesburg in particular, is that it appears to be a country of two halves. Our accommodation is a guest house in the same neighbourhood as Nelson Mandela himself (who turned 93 a few days ago), however this itself highlights the difference.  I'm staying in a gated community that locks at 10pm, behind another 10ft high perimeter wall for the guest house itself.  Yet tomorrow I'm heading into the townships to teach maths (and possibly more) to children who have so little.  It really makes you reflect.
I'm not complaining about our accommodation though, I understand why we have to stay here, yet when you walk out of the block we've taken over and see a splash of paradise it really makes you think.

Our Guest House Garden

This difference was also highlighted in the mall we went to for lunch with BBC Worldwide (who are filming us for a documentary), we took over the upper floor of a restaurant and had a lovely 4+ course meal and got out faces painted with African tribal patterns.

Team Alex

That's pretty much all for now.  Better go prepare for teaching tomorrow!

Three Peaks, Thanks and Trains

This post is mainly going to be a general update pre-departure and hopefully one of the last I write without photos of Africa in it somewhere!

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who contributed to my JustGiving page and helped me raise the £250 that will make such a difference to learners in South Africa.

I found out recently that I will be teaching in Kwa Bhekilanga Secondary School - Don't worry if you cannot pronounce or spell that, I'm not even convinced my pronunciation is correct!

From what I can gather the extra-curricula activities they specialise in are football (which I suck at) and debate (which I'm actually fairly decent at).  It also seems that where the school has some land, they are in the middle of building Alex's first rugby grounds and an eight-lane athletics stadium for use by the community!

On our weekends off in Johannesburg, we are going to be spending some time visiting Constitution Hill, which is the location of the Constitutional Court of South Africa as well as The Old Fort Prison where activists opposed to apartheid where held, as well as Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in 1906 and 1962 respectively.

We will also be watching a football game between the Kaizer Chiefs and the Orlando Pirates, a match known as the Soweto Derby.

We will also be visiting the Apartheid Museum as well as going on Safari in the Mankwe Game Reserve, which is on the border with Botswana.

It seems appropriate at this point to mention that I successfully managed to complete the National Three Peaks Challenge in a time of 28 hours and 30 minutes.  Although slower that the target time of 24 hours, this was a respectable time seeing that, where quite a few members of our team suffered from prior injuries, our nickname was Team A&E.

As a final message to people wishing to book trains to Heathrow: Prepare for some face-palming as at no point do the trains and buses that run there make any sense whatsoever!

That's all for now! See you in South Africa!

Donations

If you wish to make a donation to support Warwick in Africa, please do so via the Just Giving page below:

Just Giving: Stephen in South Africa

Introduction

Hey!
As some of you might know, I'm going to be spending 6 weeks (or so) of my summer teaching in Alexandra Township (known as Alex) in Johannesburg as part of the Warwick in Africa scheme.
Pretty much finished most of the courses of vaccinations I need to go out there - 8 jabs in 4 weeks - my arm is pretty painful!
I'm going to be meeting the rest of the people I'm going with later this week, really looking forward to seeing who I'm going with!
Just to let you guys know, I probably won't be making many posts to this blog until I get out there, but I thought I'd set it up early and be ready!

If you want further information about Warwick in Africa or Alex, clickity-click on the links below:
Wikipedia's Page on Alex
Warwick in Africa

If you know of anywhere in or around Jo-burg that you would recommend visiting during out weekends off, feel free to shout!

That's all for now!

Stephen