Re-Visiting the Projects

This morning a few of us who are interested in teaching at the Primer (Elementary) School for our service projects re-visited the school. If you recall, I was quite ecstatic about teaching the younger grades after our initial visit. But after our second visit, I was more amazed than ecstatic – and by amazed I really mean perplexed. In the second grade classroom I observed, there was one teacher in charge of 42 students, and one student was absent. Typically the teacher has an assistant, she said, but on this day I become the assistant. I am asked to get the children in their seats, quiet, and on-task. The students are not entirely rambunctious, and they prove that they can and do pay attention: When the teacher asked the students to say hello to “Ashley,” I was expecting a “Hi, Ashley!” Instead I was greeted by 42 students of nearly every skin color you could imagine. In unison they said, “Hello, Ashley, and how are you today?”

I have been forewarned many times about being the teacher that is too idealistic and believes that she can make a difference in the life of every student that enters her classroom. But when I enter this particular classroom, I cannot help but think idealistically. And I begin to think about what these students need. I also acknowledge that what they need might not be exactly what I would like to offer them. Obviously I have a lot of observing to do before I can begin to decide how I can address a need in this school. My biggest fear with this program is that I do not want to be viewed as that white girl who thinks she knows better than the others, who are (to the best of my knowledge) non-white. I am certain that my attitude would not cause people to view me this way; if anything, it is the history of xenophobia and oppression in this country that might cause others to adopt this view.

So what can I do? I can be the best human being I can be. I can try my utmost to understand the circumstances and conditions this school is facing. I can look at these students and see what they truly need, and see how I can help them attain this for themselves. That is the thing – I don’t want to do anything for them, per se. I want only to help them recognize what they need and help them realize that they have the strength to go after it themselves. I don’t know what this need is yet, but I’m sure this will become clearer in subsequent visits.

There is also a feeling of… confinement that I sense in this school. It is the confinement of circumstance, and more specifically of socioeconomic status. The Iranian philosopher Ali Shariati describes this circumstance as one of the four prisons in which each of us exist – the prison of our society’s social and economic structure, over which we have virtually no control. And it is true. In reality, no matter how much these students achieve, the odds are stacked against them. They are attending a school that recently had one of the highest rates of gang violence (now they rank second). They don’t have the resources that other students are receiving. As I understand so far, the students are struggling in their academic performance, but it is by no fault of their own. It is because they were born into families who are less well-off than others. It is because they have been oppressed for no other reason than the shade of their skin. And even though this racism is lessening in South Africa, it is an ideology ingrained in people’s minds that skin color can tell you something about a person. Skin color can tell you nothing about a human being.

You know, I honestly don’t know if we as human beings will ever be able to get over all of our differences and focus instead on our similarities. Certainly I would like to think this is possible, but I know that it will not happen in my lifetime. Once again, it is these ideologies that persist through generations. Physical objects and heirlooms passed down from generation to generation can be lost or even broken. This is less true of ideas. Ideas are not easily broken. And the only way to break an existing ideology is to replace it with a new one.

Despite all of the societal factors that are against them, these kids have so much life and energy. When I knelt down to help one of the students, another one touched my dangling earring and asked what it was. Another student kept rubbing the skin of my arm, perhaps trying to find if a darker color existed underneath. And when the boy and the end of the table proclaimed his love for me, I informed him that he did not, and that he should in fact be copying the daily news at the front of the room into his journal.

Tomorrow I will be re-visiting the Masiyela High School, so we’ll see how that goes. More to come tomorrow (as long as there’s wireless!).