Finishing Up

We finished teaching finally and I have to say that I'm relieved. The students were aware of the amount of time they have with us and started to get a sort of spring fever. My bookmaking class was still as adorable as ever but the mural painting kids were getting rowdy as were the ninth graders in the day class. I've been having dreams about American celebrities a lot lately and I think it's because the students treat us as if we're famous. We walk through the school and they all want to say hello, to touch our hair, to hold our hands. It's beginning to feel uncomfortable because I know that I don't deserve the attention and that's it's only because I'm blonde and white and American.

I also spent yesterday morning and all of today visiting other schools in the area. On Thursday I went to Settlarspark, an elementary school that is made up of mostly black students. The woman who facilitated the visit told us that many Black families now send their children to former Colored schools and Colored families send their students to what were White schools and the White families are paying large sums to send their students to the most prestigious and non-mixed schools. Granted, this is a generalization but certainly seemed to be the truth.

Settlarspark is a well-maintained school with great resources and most of the teachers, and student teachers, speak English, Afrikaans and Xhosa. They have an art teacher who produces beautiful work with the students.


We also visited Khumbulani High School which has 849 students and only 24 teachers. Most of the classes have 50-60 students and the teachers often leave them alone to their own devices just as they do at Sivuyiseni. Despite the school's 91% pass rate, one of the highest in the district, they cannot get funding to fix the school's bathrooms or to repair crumbling walls. Khumbulani was formerly a white primary school and the toilets, cabinets, etc were all made to accommodate smaller and fewer students.


Lastly, we went to Ethembeni Enrichment Center which is run by a white principal for black students. The school is run strictly but fairly it seems. They have 356 students and 16 teachers which is a far better ratio than Khumbulani!

If Pratt goes forward with an official study abroad program, undergrad and graduate students will likely do some teaching at all three schools in addition to working at Sivuyiseni.

Today we went to Pearson High which was exactly like an American high school except for the Harry Potteresque uniforms.

It was interesting to see the school but I doubt we'll do an exchange with them. The students are already receiving extensive studio and art history instruction.