Andrea raises many questions

I’ve been a camp counselor, a nanny and a tutor, but I’ve never really seen myself pursuing a career that involves kids on a daily basis. But when we were given the choice of working in a pre-school during our weekend homestay in Oceanview, or working at an afterschool program for adolescents, I figured ‘why not’, and chose to work at a pre-school. And I’m glad I did.

I haven’t rearranged my priorities in life and switched to pre-teaching, I’m just awed by the experience. Although I am definitely a people-person, it wasn’t my typical cup of tea. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. My emotions fell somewhere in the middle. Going along with the ‘terrible beauty’ trend of Africa, it’s easiest to classify my feelings as mixed.

The kids were absolutely adorable and so full of life and excitement. They were so happy to be at school and surrounded by friends that it was mildly contagious. I didn’t know any of them at all but I too was excited as more and more kids were dropped off one-by-one for the day. There were four “teachers”, forty-five children, three separate class levels, one building and two old, rusted, splintering playscapes. I stayed with the youngest kids at the pre-school – the two and three year olds, and one 1-year old. Our day began at eight with free-play outside, followed by a breakfast of porridge, more play time outside, yogurt inside, more play time outside, a quick fruit break indoors, even more play time outside, a hot-dog with tomato paste and juice for lunch, and finally naptime. Because it was a Friday, the kids’ parents came to pick them up around 2:00pm to go home.

It wasn’t just the lack of structure and learning that astonished me, I mean, I know the children were really young – maybe too young to start learning numbers or the alphabet – but there was nothing. For some reason, because the walls were plastered with questions like ‘what is today’s weather?’ and ‘what season is it?’ I figured their teacher would sit them down in a circle at some point and try to get something across. But they never did. The only unified activity seemed to be praying before each snack break. It took me a while to figure out how I felt about the day, but in the end, it just made me really sad.

The children would play outside on the rusted-metal or splintering-wooden play sets, climbing to heights that made my heart skip in fear for their well-being. Two children did get bloody lips after smacking their heads into the structures at different times and even more children (running barefoot) complained about stepping on sharp things – glass in the sand, which was everywhere. One of the owners told me she wants to get turf for the playground, but they can’t as it’s four-hundred dollars per square meter, and though the school is privately owned and funded by tuition the kids pay, the reality is the turf is far to expensive to become a reality. Safety was too expensive to become a reality. The EMT inside me cringed.

But still it wasn’t just the lack of safety that depressed me. It was the lack of everything. There was no structure, focus or discipline. When a two-foot tall child would climb to the top of the eight-foot structure and cling to the top bars using their weak 3-three-year-old muscles and a teacher would yell at them to come down, the child wouldn’t obey. When Aiden would push Phoebe, the teacher would only half-heartedly try to coax an apology out of Aiden, and when it he wasn’t forthcoming, she shrugged it off and walked away. When Ashley slapped Ricardo the same thing would happen. Commands went unnoticed, violence went ignored and apologies were non-existent. I sat there in awe at the teacher’s lack of concern, but then realized they were victims of the system too. They may have never been taught about child development psychology, conditioning, or even heard of techniques we take for granted. There’s no certification necessary to work at a preschool to be a “teacher” there and three of the four teachers I talked with there wanted to go to school so they could move on and do something else. To be brutally honest, it didn’t seem like anyone was invested in the children. Everything seemed so wasted and I couldn’t help but feel the kids were being set up to fail.

How, with no focus or discipline could the learners take school seriously? How would their future teachers control their classrooms when none of them would take their threats seriously – seeing them only as empty threats? Wouldn’t their lack of structure and apparent foundation hinder their progress going forward? I’ve only taken one psychology course at UConn, but wasn’t everything going wrong at this school?

All this said, I like to think the absolute lack of structure could be because there were two white American girls visiting for the day, but I’m not sure that’s true. Regardless, the lack of focus and discipline depressed me. The spirit and enthusiasm of the kids gives me hope that perhaps regardless of their environment, they’ll find a way to be passionate about learning and do well with themselves in the world and their education. My time at the school was certainly eye-opening and enlightening – if nothing else, I’m glad I took the risk and tried something new because it’s a side of South Africa I probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise.