The second half of my trip, here in Port Elizabeth, I have been working with the university which has a substantial project placing computers in impoverished schools. In South Africa not only is there a national curriculum, there is a national sequence of topics. That means everyone is teaching how to solve linear equations at the same time across the country. Many poor and rural schools lack qualified teachers, especially in math and science. It makes sense to take advantage of technology to help fill the gap. That might mean watching a video, a live internet broadcast lesson, or using interactive software. Is a computer as good as a teacher? Nope. But it is a lot better than no teacher. The best is a combination of both.
Several people have asked what I'm doing (aside from the beach). I guess you could say the theme of this venture is, "Technology and Education." The first half of my trip I was visiting schools that are doing innovative things with math and technology, particularly with a view towards developing a partnership between South African and Ithaca High School students. I think I've made good progress on that front. The second half of my trip, here in Port Elizabeth, I have been working with the university which has a substantial project placing computers in impoverished schools. In South Africa not only is there a national curriculum, there is a national sequence of topics. That means everyone is teaching how to solve linear equations at the same time across the country. Many poor and rural schools lack qualified teachers, especially in math and science. It makes sense to take advantage of technology to help fill the gap. That might mean watching a video, a live internet broadcast lesson, or using interactive software. Is a computer as good as a teacher? Nope. But it is a lot better than no teacher. The best is a combination of both. I spend a lot of time at one particular school, Sandisulwazi, which has not had a math teacher for more than a year. This is rural poverty at its worst. You never escape this life if you don't get a high school degree, you don't get a degree if you don't pass a major math exam at the end of senior year, and without a math teacher the odds of passing are pretty low. The school is so impoverished that they don't have enough furniture for the rooms. (The five broken desks you see in the photo are all there is for a class of 30, most of whom sit on the floor). I have to bring my own chalk, because there isn't any at the school. There are not enough books for the students, and most of them don't have calculators (and yet they still have to learn trigonometry and logarithms). The thing is, there are a lot students in this school who have outstanding ability and motivation. But thanks to this project, they do have a functioning computer lab with internet access. (It's also the only room with enough chairs.) So on days when I'm not there I can give them assignments to watch videos on specific lessons and to do problems with online software. It doesn't replace a full time teacher, but it keeps them in the game.
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So at the risk of losing the sympathy of my audience I will show you some pictures of Port Elizabeth. As the name suggests, it is on the ocean (the Indian) right at the "bottom" of Africa. The city itself is quite large, and like every other city in South Africa, it has extensive satellite townships. However the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), where I am currently housed, is right on the edge of the bay. Long story short: I hear the ocean from my bedroom, it's about a mile to a long stretch of beautiful and deserted beach (except for a bunch of frolicking dolphins). The weather tends to be moderated by the ocean, so year-round it's in the 70°- 85° range. It rains sometimes, but the duration is generally measured in hours, not weeks (as in Ithaca). I will just say on my behalf that I chose to go to NMMU first, and then learned of its idyllic setting later. Sunrise on my beach...
So I have to say, I seem to be an elephant magnet. From the moment I entered the park I kept encountering elephants (when I drove in the gate they said no one had spotted one yet that day). One thing about elephants is that although they are capable of great speed, they generally move pretty slowly (they have lots of time on their hands), so you need to be patient. At one point I was watching one elephant eating his lunch, and then suddenly three more came over the hill, then five more. They just kept coming and moving around me (in my car). Eventually I was surround by a herd of about 25 elephants. They were a bunch of goofballs, stealing food out of each other's mouths, pushing each other around. I was a little nervous that someone was going to get knocked right into my car. One of my favorite African sayings is: "When the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers." This first clip shows a juvenile sharing food with it's mother, then a little rough housing between adolescents, some babies, and then an adult giving me the eye. (Unfortunately it was windy and the sound is bad). I have lots of footage, too much to upload, but this second clip is pretty good. This young bull just came out of nowhere and started walking down the road. I love the way they walk, they know they are the coolest thing. I just let the car roll in neutral for a while while we checked each other out. I feel we had a moment of connection. I finally went to a game preserve yesterday (Addo National park). Contrary to popular belief, township students do not live with lions and elephants in their backyards. Most of my students have never seen these animals. Nonetheless, the park is actually only 25 kilometers from Sandisulwazi school, where I have been teaching. Hopefully this will work. Here is an interactive map of my travels. If you click on the names it will give you more information. You can also zoom in and change the base map to a satellite version. Basically I have been traveling from North to South. So my last stop is Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth. I will be staying here for a while, working with members of the Education department -- one of the largest in the country. The focus of my collaboration is providing support to rural and township schools by providing computers and internet service. (I will go into more detail on that later.) It is very different living in my own apartment on a modern (and racially integrated) university campus. I get the best of both worlds, really, because I will still be working in a township school during the day, but I get to come home to my own place. Warning in English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa. One of the first things I was told when I got to campus was to keep my windows closed so the monkeys don't come in during the day. I thought it was a joke, but apparently not. For some reason I am quite amused by the unruly monkey population that inhabits the campus. I don't know if any of them have ever graduated, but they certainly seem to be mocking us from the trees. It helps one keep a healthy perspective. So in addition to the other aspects of my cultural adjustment there is the thrill of driving on the left-hand side (a legacy of English influence in South Africa). Sometimes I don't even think about it, and sometimes I suddenly look around and think, "Yikes, I'm on the wrong side, oh wait, no I'm not." In some sense most things are just reflected: steering wheel, shift, etc. (and once you get used to it, it is easier to steer with your right hand and shift with your left - if you are a righty). But somethings are translated, not reflected, like turn signals and the pedals. And traffic circles go clockwise instead of counterclockwise. Probably no one thinks about this but me, but for the first week every time I wanted to indicate a turn I switched on the windshield wipers instead. As a pedestrian you also have to learn to look to the right for oncoming traffic, not the left.
Other notes: traffic lights are called "robots." Someone told me to turn left at the next robot and I thought, how cool, they have robots directing traffic. Also, South Africans like to drive fast, a limit of 120 kph is common (that's about 73 mph). There are also lots of vehicles that definitely would not pass inspection, so on the highway speeds range from about 80 to 150 kph. FYI the conversion between kph and mph is the golden ratio (more or less). So in the middle of nowhere in the Free State is the small rural school of Unicom. Of all the schools I've visited, Unicom is the especially well suited to partner with Ithaca High School. Their grounds and buildings are over a hundred years old, but because of their excellent exam results they have been given a lot of attention by the province and the University of the Free State. Consequently they have a very modern computer lab, and a very knowledgeable leader in my host and fellow math teacher, Victor Fekefeke. A lot of the students actually live on campus in dorms because they come from distant farms. The school has beautiful grounds and they raise their own cattle and chickens. It's a nice break from the townships: quiet, crime-free and peaceful. My next stop is Tweespruit in the Free State (one of South Africa's nine provinces). I am taking a break from the urban township scene and moving on to a tiny little rural school called Unicom. More on that later. You might guess from the name, Free State, that this province played a supporting role in the fight against apartheid, but that would be wrong. The name actually derives from the 1800's when the Boers (Afrikaners) established a haven from the English with whom they were generally at war. In 1880 almost half the population in this area was Afrikaans. That's no coincidence, this is some of the most fertile terrain in South Africa and supplies 70% of the country's grain, as well as a lot of its beef. It's also some of the most beautiful terrain in South Africa. In Tuispreet, the plains start to run into the Drakensberg Mountains. It kind of reminds me of the American West. There is a long history of one group of people trying to take this chunk of land from another: Bushmen, Tswana, Zulu, Boers and English. Honestly, I wouldn't mind a little section for myself. My Soweto host, Mashinini, at a buy 'n' braii. Several people have asked how the food is. If South Africa has a weak point it might be the cuisine, at least from my perspective. There is a heavy emphasis on meat, across all cultural and geographic lines. There is lots of beef, and lamb along with the more exotic kudu, impala, etc. A popular Afrikaans contribution is boervoers, which is a type of sausage packed with fat. In fact Afrikaaners are known to "lard" their meat, which means adding fat in case the meat is not rich enough. (South Africa is also where the first heart transplant was performed in 1967.) The braii, which is basically a barbeque, is the preferred method of cooking. Since the climate is so nice, you can pretty much braii year-round. A common sight in the townships is a "Buy and Braii," where you can buy a hunk of meat and grill it, right on the premises. Pap and boervoers Other township staples include pap, also known as mielie-miel, made from ground maize. Picture a lump of white play-doh and you get the idea of the consistency, although the flavor is slightly better. I've grown to like it (on occaision) and it has this going for it: if you eat a lump of pap, you are set for the day in terms of satisfying your hunger -- which I guess is the point. An absolute favorite meal, which I can barely tolerate, is pap and mogodu, which is tripe. I have tried to like it, but it just pushes my limits too far. Vegetables tend to be squash, pumpkin or cabbage. If you want a salad (and I've been craving them) you need to find an upscale restaurant. Lettuce does not fair too well in this climate (although there are nice ripe tomatoes and avocados year-round). My hosts in Soweto disdainfully referred to eating a salad as "eating grass." If there is a silver lining in the food scene it is the fruits. There are lots of fresh fruits like pineapple, papaya, mango, guava and bananas (which are way better than what we get in the US). Often times a meal is finished with fresh fruit. |
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