On Tuesday morning Debbie went to another township school. She didn't take me with her this time because she hasn't been working with this school long and she wasn't sure how they would react to her bringing a visitor along....Anyway, one of the classrooms she went to had 74 second graders. 74 students with one teacher. Craziness. I can't imagine how a teacher could teach and be successful with that many students on her own. While Debbie was there she did some reading assessments with random students. 6 out of the 7 students she tested could not read at all. Now lets keep in mind that kids are starting to learn to read as early as Kindergarten in the states and these kids are in second grade. There is no telling how many more students in the class of 74 can't read. Students are being set up to fail with that many classmates and only one teacher. There is no one on one teaching time with the students and I doubt there is any small group work happening. How could it be possible with only one teacher???? I'll get off my soap box now. Its just really gets me worked up to hear these types of situations and there is nothing being done about it.
Tuesday afternoon I went with Debbie to do her book club in another part of the township, Missionvale Catholic school. I got to meet a nice girl named Shannon who volunteers at the reading club. I think she is around 20 years old. We had some nice talks. She said in America, its seems like if you want something all you have to do is push a button and you get it without a problem. I got to meet some high school boys that come to the book club to do art. When they found out I was from America they asked if they could come home with me back to the states. I also got to meet some young girls that went to school at Missionvale. They were wearing Tom's. They played with my hair and talked in Afrikaans and Xhosa, these are 2 out of the 11 official languages in South Africa.
The book club didn't end up working out because the building we were going to use was full and the school had a group from Ireland on a mission trip. They were building more classrooms because the school is adding fourth grade. Was a little sad to send the students away who came to hear the reading, but the school promised to send have a room set up for the book club next week.
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