#missionvale

When Nelson Mandela was freed from prison, people wanted some way to commemorate his birthday. Many suggested grand parades or festivals. Mandela disagreed. The way he wanted to be remembered is by what he was remembered for—his years of service in fighting for freedom and justice. He humbly asked his fellow South Africans to honor him on this day by spending 67 minutes, commensurate with the…

 What challenges did you experience while volunteering and how are you planning to overcome them?

Today I said “goodbye” to my kids. Despite all of the challenges I have encountered throughout the semester, this has been the most challenging day at service learning. I started the morning by singing with the choir. The kids sang better today than they have any other day this semester. In my math lessons with the fourth and fifth graders, I taught the final multiplication song. I was proud to see them catch on so quickly. In these ways, it felt like a normal day. However, it was far from a normal day.

I feel like I said “goodbye” a thousand times today. Reality set in at a few different points, and I choked up a few times throughout the morning. Between the never-ending picture requests during recess, the numerous times children told me “I’m going to miss you,” and the countless hugs accompanied by “I love you,” I know that I have touched these kids’ lives, and it is hard for all of us to say goodbye.

Several of my kids asked, “When will you be back?” It broke my heart to tell them, “I don’t know.” I do not know whether or not I will come back to South Africa and have an opportunity to see my kids again. If I’m being realistic, I know that I probably will not see these kids, who had such a significant impact on my South African experience. Sometimes my realistic self frustrates me.

I printed out pictures for each of my students. They received either a class photo or a picture of themselves with me. I wrote a goodbye/thank you note to each kid. As I handed a picture to each excited kid, I told them that these pictures are meant to help them remember me and their classmates. I also said, “I have each of these pictures on my computer, so I can remember your faces and all of the lessons I learned from you.” We might not get to see each other face-to-face, and today’s goodbyes might mean forever. However, I know my kids will be with me in my heart and my memories.

During the ride home from service learning, I listened to “My Wish” by the Rascal Flatts. Some of the lyrics that really hit me are I hope the days come easy and the moments pass slow and may your dreams stay big, your worries stay small. I realize now that the days are rarely easy for the impoverished people in Missionvale. I may have been the only person to ever encourage these children to dream big. Their worries are not so small; they have good reason to worry about whether or not they will eat tomorrow. These thoughts caused me to tear up and my heart to ache.

I do not worry about whether or not the kids will remember me in the future. Regardless of whether they remember my name, where I am from, and my birthday, I know that I have helped them learn to multiply, read, and sing. These are skills they will use for the rest of their lives. I hope they will remember that I helped them hone these skills, but it is not important that my legacy remains in their memories. Imparting knowledge and understanding is more than enough or a legacy.

What areas for growth have you identified in yourself this week?

On Monday, I worked with the choir and taught math to the fourth and fifth graders. I was hoping that the choir kids would behave as well as they did last Monday, but they acted worse than usual. We let them listen to our own recorded music and then tried to record videos of them singing the songs they have been practicing. We encouraged them to listen, pay attention, and follow directions by telling them they could watch their videos at the end of class if we accomplished everything. This didn’t really work, though. We barely managed to record each of the songs, and we only accomplished this after reminding the kids that we have only see them once more. This hour with the choir helped me realize I need to work on being both more patient and more assertive. I want to become more understanding; I must remember that at the end of the day, they’re still kids, and sometimes they’re going to be squirmy. Also, I think our teamwork could be improved by not interrupting each other as much as we tend to do.

Teaching the fifth grade math lesson went pretty well. I taught them about length and units of measurement. They weren’t listening very well at first, but I managed to remedy that. I was able to get them to write quickly for a change. It is interesting how the South African tendency to lack a sense of urgency spills into the classroom. I have emphasized the need for speed and efficiency in math all semester, and I am glad to finally see this take root in the kids’ minds and show through in their daily work. At the same time, I think I could benefit from adopting South Africans’ relaxed approach to life. I try to do so much and sometimes do not take enough time to savor the important moments. South Africans seem to do a better job of this. I hope to find a happy medium.

The fourth grade teacher was not at school, so I found the next lesson in their textbook and taught the students about 2-dimensional shapes. Days like this keep me acting on my toes, and I have grown immensely from these experiences. I have become more flexible, and I can continue to grow more so.

During break, I let Leche and her best friend, Leona, play with my hair. This pushes me to relax and to be more carefree. I’m not one to focus on my appearance, but letting children give me new hair styles is making me even less concerned about how I look. Besides, the kids know the truth: you are far more beautiful when children have run their fingers through your hair.

What did you learn while volunteering this week?

            I had an incredibly rewarding experience at service learning this week. On Monday, I was the sole leader of the choir because Joe and Camry had other tasks at Missionvale. (Carl was present as an authority figure.) The kids behaved very well, and I was able to accomplish everything that I wanted to do during choir. We sang the piece that they are preparing for a choir conference, and it sounded better than ever. They did well with dynamics and hand actions, too. I showed a video of the NMMU choir, which the kids loved to watch. The video had a motivating effect on the kids, which is exactly what I was hoping would happen. They paid attention and sang beautifully all morning. They listened to my directions, which allowed me to make great progress with them. Before this week, they sounded pretty good when they sang Siyahamba, but now they now start singing and stepping all together rather than entering at random. After all of this, we still had time to work on a new song and begin to make significant progress with it. I learned that giving kids something to work toward and someone to admire helps give them direction and encourages them to work hard and pay attention.

            The fifth grade teacher needed to share her time between the third grade classroom and the fifth grade classroom because one of the teachers was sick on Monday morning, so she let me take the lead for the math lesson with the fifth graders. At first, they were chatty. I told them that they would lose break time if they didn’t listen, and they listened well. I taught them about fractions and gave them an assignment. It was so rewarding to watch kids progress from knowing nothing about fractions to being able to solve several fraction-based math problems.

            I gave the fourth graders a long pictogram problem to solve and spent the class period answering questions and encouraging the students to keep working on the problem. They also behaved well. I loved seeing their expressions of pride when they successfully finished the assignment. I learned that teaching math in elementary school classrooms is very similar to tutoring college math students at the CSBSJU Math Skills Center. If you continue to encourage students to find the answers and give them several tools to help them find those answers, they will eventually understand at least one of the methods you give them and successfully solve the problems.

            Tuesday was another wonderful day. I discovered that the mother of one of my third graders is Michelle, the netball coach. I talked with Michelle when I delivered the new match netballs. She told me that her daughter, Rochelle, has been speaking English at home. In fact, Rochelle seems to prefer speaking English at home because she her English has improved so much in the last few months. I never would have realized the impact I have made on Rochelle if Michelle hadn’t told me about her daughter’s progress. I am so glad to know that my literacy lessons are effective!

During recess, I had a mob of children surrounding me, playing with my hair (I wore it down this time), and holding my hands.

I showed each of the reading groups a slideshow of pictures from home, and I taught them about Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the USA. All of the kids were very excited to see my pictures, and they were attentive all morning. I think they behaved better today than on any other day of service learning. I don’t think I could count the number of times the kids told me “you’re beautiful,” “America is beautiful,” “your family looks nice,” or “you’re cute,” while they looked at my pictures. I let them listen to a recording of me playing clarinet, and the compliments continued. As I showed them photos from different parts of my life, they made connections between what they saw and what they already know about me. They all remember my age, my middle and last names, and that I have one brother. When they saw pictures in which I was wearing a shirt that they have seen me wear, they excitedly pointed out those shirts. I learned that kids will always surprise you. I have known for a long time that kids absorb an incredible amount of information, but it was really impressive and touching to listen to them recite all of these details.

What areas for growth have you identified in yourself this week?

On Monday, I was very frustrated when I was working with the choir. Carl, the choir director, was sick on Monday, so Joe, Camry, and I were left to control and direct the choir ourselves. When Carl is there, we still do the directing, but Carl is a huge help in maintaining some level of control in the classroom. Without him there, our hour with the choir was chaotic and not nearly as productive as usual. We wasted a lot of time waiting for the kids to listen, attempting to regain their attention, and repeating directions. Eventually, we managed to get through our music by telling them that they could teach us a song if they behaved well enough for us to sing all of our other songs. I need to be more patient while also maintaining authority in the classroom.

When I arrived to the fifth grade classroom, their teacher had them already working on an assignment, so I let the students ask me questions as needed. They were asking a lot more questions than usual, and I eventually discovered that their teacher had not yet taught them how to solve the problems on which they were working. This was frustrating because I had spent a half hour answering individual questions when I could have been much more efficient and begun with a short lesson on how to solve this style of problems. After I gave an explanation, the majority of the kids understood the assignment and got right to work. I need to be better about not making assumptions and instead asking questions before beginning tasks.

Since the fourth grade teacher, Carl, was sick, there was a substitute teacher, who was attempting to simply keep the kids occupied throughout the day. This gave me an opportunity to play a multiplication game, which I designed, with the fourth graders. I used the game to emphasize the importance of learning multiplication tables and to stress the value of quickly coming up with the answer. I think I managed to get these messages across, which encourages me to continue to be creative in my teaching strategies. The kids were quite hyper and distracted each other, so I had to find a way to maintain order in the classroom. I warned them that their teams would lose points each time they stepped out of the queue or fought in line. As soon as the competition was at stake, the kids began to behave much better. I need to continue to find was to creatively keep the kids engaged, quiet, and following directions. This will also help me in the choir.

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to walk through the township community with the gardeners, who were checking on the progress several of the gardens they had already planted. This allowed me to learn more about the community and better understand how these people live. It was an incredibly eye-opening experience. [Side note: most of the gardens are growing very well and are providing food to their owners, but some of them have had no attention from their owners and are filled with weeds and hardened soil.] The homes range in size from smaller than 3 meters by 3 meters to as large as 9 meters by 9 meters. The number of inhabitants in each shack range from two to fourteen people but averages on the higher end of that spectrum. Some of the “homes” are barren and constructed with whatever scraps could be gathered. They are nothing more than dilapidated roofs and walls to shelter residents from some of the elements. Others are homey and comfortable (other than the fact that they have leaky roofs and windows that do not properly seal), have refrigerators and beautiful cabinets, and have uniformly painted exteriors. Though they were built from low-quality materials, their interiors could easily be mistaken for modest middle-class homes and are similar to nice trailer homes in the US. The people here are extraordinarily resourceful. A pile of wood scraps is a bedroom, a crib, or a fence. A stranded, broken-winged flamingo wandering around the township is dinner. A two-liter bottle is a watering can. A tire is a weight for the roof.

The bucket system serves as Missionvale’s “sanitation system” – if you can call it that. Each Wednesday, a truck comes around to empty the buckets, so the residents set the buckets on the side of the road. As one can imagine, it smells horribly in the township on these collection days. Over 90% (and probably closer to 99%) of the electricity used in the township is illegal; it is stolen from the municipality. To steal the electricity, unqualified people connect wires to the power lines. Last year, at least twelve people were electrocuted either while connecting these wires or by accidentally coming in contact with them after they were “installed.” Children naively play near the wires. A young child was recently electrocuted to death when he touched one of these live wires.

Missionvale Township has over 100,000 people in it, but the only sources of running water are the sixteen community taps. When I got home from service learning on Tuesday, I needed to take a shower, but our water wasn’t working. I almost complained, but then I realized that I have no right to complain about a brief period of inconveniently not having access to running water in my flat. People in Missionvale have to walk a long way to retrieve water from community taps every day. All I had to do was walk five meters to an adjacent flat to ask to use their bathroom and shower. I take water for granted, and I need to be more appreciative of what I have.

What did you learn while volunteering this week?

While volunteering at the Missionvale Care Center Academy this week, I learned how important creativity, communication, and consistency are in successfully working with teachers and students. The approach I was taking to reading and literacy lessons was not effective, and I found difficulty holding the kids’ attention. I needed to find a new way to approach reading with the kids so they would not lose focus while they take turns reading with their peers. I made a game out of concentrating on word pronunciation and letter recognition. This held the kids’ attention much better than before, and they were significantly more interested in the book and the session.

This week, I told my teachers that I would sent the kids back to class if they misbehaved during the literacy lesson, giving me the option of following through with this if necessary. Simply having this option helped me to have a clearer mind and better focus on the task at hand.

Last week, I started taking a small group of 5th graders to the library to read. Most of these students are excellent readers, but two of them are far less skilled of readers than the others. When these two students painstakingly slowly read, the other students lose focus and begin to distract their peers. This is not an effective classroom. I told my 5th grade teacher that I think it would be better if these two students stayed behind when I took the other students to the library. Communicating with the teachers is critical to my ability to teach the students, my experience, and the kids’ learning.

At the Missionvale school, there are a bunch of girls who are excited by netball, a netball coach, a lack of equipment, and a dilapidated netball court. One of the netball poles is missing, and the court needs to be painted. The girls play netball with a soccer ball, and they need uniforms. In netball, the jerseys are marked with each player’s position, which is critical to game play.

One of the projects I’ve taken on is to help the Missionvale netball team. An NMMU sports management class recently committed to installing a new netball pole and repainting the court, which is really exciting because it means that more of the project can be completed before I leave.