Joe, Emily, Julian, Dana, Susie, Kayla, Terri, Nicole, Siobhan
I want to start off by saying that I have learned more in the past week than I have in my entire life. This was our first non-orientation week, and I feel like we have finally entered into the real world of South Africa; we have said goodbye to the large tour bus and are now learning the normal ways of life here. I have now created weekly routines involving my internship, classes, house meetings, taco Thursday, and free weekends.
I am interning at Christel House, a kindergarten through grade twelve school in Ottery, Cape Town (about a twenty minute drive from home). Christel deHaan founded the school in 2002 and still contributes to a lot of its funding along with various private donors. Christel House is unique from other schools in South Africa for many reasons. The mission of Christel House is to help children break the cycle of poverty and become self-sufficient, contributing members of society. In order to do this children are selected from areas suffering severe poverty and not oly provided a quality education but also transportation from the townships to the school every day, along with nutritional, substantial meals and snacks. The daily schedule of Christel House also differs; when the school day ends at 3:00 PM, every child must participate in after school activities (usually organized sports that are run by the teachers) until the school buses bring them home at 4:30. This greatly impacts their lives by keeping them out of the townships and away from further harm when their parents or guardians are not home.
For my internship, I am working in the kindergarten room (grade R) on Mondays with the teacher Miss Lauren, and with the social worker Miss Claudia on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. When I first entered the grade R classroom, I was greeted with about twenty hugs and the “Hello Song.” The rest of the day continued to be filled with teaching about colors, working on speaking in English, and drawing different shapes. Although this seems like an ordinary kindergarten classroom, one discussion at the beginning really astonished me. While learning about colors, Miss Lauren asked the children what color their shoes were; in unison, they glanced down at their feet and answered “black.” She then asked the children if they, themselves, were “black.” After examining each other’s skin tones and with few hints from the teacher, they all responded “no.” Miss Lauren then asked the children if they saw any white people in the room. Before the children could turn around and point at me, she told them that white was the color of paper, snow, and the whiteboard in the front of the room. Her lesson was to show her class that there are no “black people” and “white people,” and if anyone calls them a color, they should politely correct them and say “No, I am not black; my shoes are black.” I was dumbfounded that children in kindergarten were learning about race, and also amazed by the impact a little lesson could have on the rest of their lives. Why are there not more conversations like this in American classrooms?
After a great first day, I was even more excited to start working with Miss Claudia on Tuesday. At UConn, I am studying sociology to eventually get my masters in social work, so I was thrilled to get an internship pertaining to my future goals. Yet, I soon realized that this line of work was extremely different than teaching eager students in a classroom. After talking with Claudia for merely a half an hour she explained to me a lot of the hardships that a lot of the children have endured at Christel House, such as extensive poverty, neglect, abuse, and other family issues. Thus, as a part of my internship, I will be helping her with individual students who have endured more horror in their short lives than I could ever imagine, and visiting the environments they live in. On Tuesday and Wednesday I talked to a lot of the children and played games with them so they could familiarize themselves with me. Some of the children opened up about their home life and others were more timid at first. Even though I heard a lot of hard stories, I am so grateful that I am given this much responsibility, and I cannot wait to observe Miss Claudia with different therapy techniques and travel to the children’s homes. I am aware that this line of work can be emotionally wearing, but when the children are still so hopeful and motivated for better futures, it really shows purpose.
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