My First Day of Teaching

This in itself has been an adventure. I am on day 2 and my feet are killing me and all I want to do is apologise to some of my school teachers. I have started with the traditional introduction lesson of “this is me and this is my country”.

The classes are all completely different. Some are interested because their English is bigger, some just sleep, others ask questions, some are dead silent. I have learnt quickly not to judge their interest by the response in class but rather by what happens after when they get to talk to me individually or in smaller groups, which makes things much easier to handle and avoids potential depression. So far I have received a sketch from one student, had my eyelashes touched and examined and the best yet was when on student came to find me afterwards to show me some of her Bleach toys. This was made all the sleeping kids worthwhile as this student particularly hates English and shows no interest in anyway. So never underestimate the power of popular culture.

I am also learning about what they are interested in. One class was intrigued to learn Xhosa. Jacob Zuma more useful than I ever imagined. They love the fact that he has more than one wife and laugh when I say he is Zulu – this particularly funny too me because Zulu in Japanese means “cheat”. And swimming pools. They are amazed that I have a swimming pool at home. Also Hudson’s blazer and crazy uniform is of great interest. They can’t seem to understand why SA doesn’t have sensible summer and winter uniforms like Japan. I am not sure either. In fact I am sure that was a yearly topic of debate. Though I can’t say the new Hudson High uniforms are much better.

Though it seems as though things are looking interesting at least for the next year and hopefully I will get to engage the students as I learn more about them. Jong Steyn still receives smiles of delight and is not a permanent school desk fixture.

After class I took a trip with my supervisor to my second school. I teach there on Tuesdays. It turns out that at a school the size of Hudson, I have 2 classes. One has 6 students that other has 8. When I say the school is the size of Hudson I mean the buildings are. There are 3 classes in the entire school and they only use 3 classrooms. It is somewhat disturbing to see a huge empty building that would usually been filled with voices in noise. The worst part was thinking about the how we in South Africa don’t have enough schools, teachers or facilities. In Japan they have too many schools and not enough students. I would like to propose a student exchange programme where they ship in kids to Japan to study in classes where they have textbooks and teachers that care.

In fact SA could learn some important lessons from the Japanese Education department in honour of Jacob Zuma’s surprise school visits. Here are a few:
Being a teacher is one of the most respected positions in Japan, it is up there with doctors.
Teachers are government employees, paid with tax payers money and therefore have an obligation to earn the money they are paid by the people by working hard and being dedicated to their jobs.
As government employees, teachers have to set an example to others. *
Teachers (and in most jobs) do not take all their paid leave, and usually only take about half. It is considered important to show you dedication to work by spending as much time at school as possible. **

* I do believe in holidays but I think that there are problems with teacher dedication in SA.
** This can be tricky when you can’t j-walk and have to walk half way down the road to get to a zebra crossing.