Sharing our Stories: Finding your People

I'm going to steal my opening of this blog from the amazing Keynote speech I was lucky enough to attend on Wednesday:

Once upon a time there was a little girl called Monique.

This opening is important, because my theme today is about sharing our stories. It gets a little personal in this post today, ladies and gents.

The theme of storytelling resonated through Lindsay Wesner's Keynote at the EdTechTeam Cape Town summit. She told us to be brave, even if we didn't feel like were brave. She shared her own story and the stories told by her students. She encouraged us to share our teaching journeys on social media and to prove to other educators that great, revolutionary education could be possible here in South Africa.

Lindsay rocking the main stage at the EdTechTeam CT Summit.

After the summit was over, I was at a braai (barbeque for non SAians) with some other teachers who had also attended. My friend, Barbara, and I were wrapping our heads around the idea of sharing our stories - we wanted to find a platform for local teachers to do that. Earlier that day, Barbara had presented a session on using G Suite for Primary Maths and we had been in a conversation with the people attending, sharing hashtags like #gafe4littles and #primaryrocks where they could find more activities like the one Barbara had been demonstrating. We were giving them direct links to social media in order to connect and engage with other educators.

Then it hit me. We needed a hashtag. South African teachers needed a hashtag to rally around, to have a place to share their story and to promote good, local practice. After the braai I did some searching and found out two things:

1) #SAedu was already used, albeit infrequently, by South Austrailian educators
2) I also found out that back in my early, experimental days of Twitter I had started a list of SA teachers on Twitter. It was called ZA Edu. I checked the hashtag and found that #ZAedu was essentially unused.

And so #ZAedu was born.

I will be the first one to admit that Twitter didn't grab me in the beginning. I remember saying that Tweeting felt like standing on a box and shouting at a room of people who were having their own conversations. Sometimes it still feels a bit like that to me. In terms of building up a PLN (personal learning network), though, it is absolutely invaluable. The brevity of Twitter, which frustrates me, means that you have to be succinct to get your idea across. Over time I have come to see the value of Twitter more and more, as it allows instant connection with your peers. That is the magical part.

I never really enjoyed school as a child. I found it difficult to connect with other children. My mum kept me going with my very own mantra, that one day I would go to university and then I would find my people. I was the first person in my family to go to university, and I did indeed find my people. Through finding those peers, those people who thought and strived for the same things I did, I also found myself.

The same thing happened to me this week when I attended the Cape Town summit. Even though I was nervous and had to be brave every time I spoke to someone, I felt at home. My crazy ideas were not crazy! Instead of looking at me blankly, they validated my opinion, or, even better, asked a question. I had found my people. Twitter and social media is an irreplaceable way for us to find our people online, too, and hashtags are a great way to filter through the spaghetti tangle that is the internet.

And so Monique found her people.

My crumpled, well-worn lanyard.

I hope that we can use #ZAedu as a digital space to share authentic, enthusiastic teaching in South Africa. I know that is happening in other classrooms because I had the privilege to attend the summit. Not all of our SA teachers can go to a summit, so this can be our way of connecting. I want to see what is happening in SA classrooms on that hashtag. I want you to share your bright ideas and madcap methods. Show me the amazing work that your students and colleagues are doing. Sharing these moments with other educators will give them inspiration to be that force of change in their own environments. As a wise woman once said, we are those that can shape the narrative of education in South Africa.

Wrap-Up and Moving On: A Photo Essay

What happened at the end of the second term:

In English, my Grade 7s excitedly read Roald Dahl's excellent Lamb to the Slaughter. Afterwards, we ran a mock trial to determine whether Mary was actually guilty of murder. My girls got to test out their acting chops and even brought in costumes. Our characters, prosecutors, defense and jury all put their heart and soul into trying to sell their case to me, the judge.

The defense team lawyer, in costume, questioning a character.

I also got to meet my nephew for the first time in person when I flew down to Cape Town and attended his christening.

My nephew and his mum.

What happened in the third term:

Production! Our school play devoured the term. While I was originally just involved in the writing of the script, this morphed into directing along with other dedicated teachers. It ended up being a heck of a lot of fun. All 400 girls participated in one way or another, with about 30 of them in acting roles. The 30 speaking parts and I became very close due to the many afternoons we spent together, running lines and endlessly going over scenes. In the end, we did 5 full performances, including a swanky gala evening where the teachers let off some steam afterwards at a wrap party.

Me in my awesome Crew shirt, reserved for us hard-working backstage crew only!

In terms of the IT side, I oversaw the development of the computer lab. This turned out to be a project that continued all year as we sourced a digital projector setup, printers, and so on. We were also lucky enough to get four computer stations up in the library. Unfortunately, that meant that we had to, again, clear whole shelves to make way for the wiring. Here's a shot of the lab in use by a Grade 4 class.

Practicing our typing basics with an internet flash game.

What happened in the fourth term:

I was lucky enough to go on camp with the Grade 7s! We traveled all the way from Grahamstown to Hartenbos in the Western Cape. It was such a great trip. My phone's battery was acting up so I don't have any pics from that time. We visited an ostrich farm, the Cango Caves, a waterpark, and, best of all (according to my students), a mall! We stopped at a ten-pin bowling place with a few arcade machines and I happily got to trounce the best Tekken player in Grade 7. The girls were very well behaved and our accommodation was lovely. It was a worthwhile week.

We weeded a large amount out of the library, and accessioned a pleasing amount of new books - particularly fiction. I couldn't have completed these massive tasks without the help of some very eager library monitors.

A page from one of the outdated books that we removed.

On a personal note, my amazing fellow teachers and staff surprised me with a bachelorette lunch, tea and night out on the town! I had thought that I was going on a camping trip with my two teacher friends but, actually, we showed up to a long table crammed with staff happy to be in on the joke! I have never felt more loved and had a blast.

Having a wee dance in my themed bachelorette outfit.

It's been a busy year! My time at this wonderful school has sadly come to an end. My new husband and I have relocated to the Western Cape, and I have been fortunate enough to find another post. I will always miss my Grahamstown family, but have moved to be closer to my actual family here in Cape Town. This month I'll be starting at a co-ed private school in Franschoek called Bridge House School. It'll be a different environment but one in which I hope that I can be fulfilled.

I've graduated (again)!

I'm a graduate again! On Thursday night, I attended my graduation ceremony for the PGCE course. This officially makes me a qualified teacher... I'm not sure what I've been doing since I got my results in December but clearly teaching wasn't it! I'm just kidding. It's really great to finally have my certificate. Teachers here in South Africa have to be registered with the SACE in order to be considered fully licenced. It's quite a long process, so I'm glad to be able to get that underway. My family from Cape Town were able to come and visit for the graduation, it was amazing to get to show them my little town for a while.

It's been the Easter holidays here, so the Grahamstown schools have been having a break. I've enjoyed the time, catching up with friends, comparing notes with fellow teachers and keeping up to date on my reading. One blog that I stumbled upon is Free Technology for Teachers - this blog, run by Richard Byrne, has frequent posts highlighting the huge amount of resources that teachers can use to enhance their lessons, streamline their administration and just generally make life easier and more interesting.

Holidays

Pinterest is completely flooded with turkeys at the moment - it must be Thanksgiving in the US. From my non-American perspective, it's still easy to see what a huge deal it is for their country and it's considered one of their most important holidays. It's been making me reflect on South African holidays. According to the governmental website, we have the following holidays on our calendar this year:
 

1 January	New Year's Day
2 January	Public holiday
21 March	Human Rights Day
6 April	Good Friday (Friday before Easter Sunday)
9 April	Family Day (Monday after Easter Sunday)
27 April	Freedom Day
1 May	Workers' Day
16 June	Youth Day
9 August	National Women's Day
24 September	Heritage Day
16 December	Day of Reconciliation
17 December	Public holiday
25 December	Christmas Day
26 December	Day of Goodwill

Phew, that seems like a lot!  As South Africa is a relatively new country, we celebrate things like our Constitution (Human Rights Day), our first free elections (Freedom Day), and reconciliation (Day of Reconciliation). We also celebrate the role of various groups against apartheid- such as labour movements (Workers' Day), students (Youth Day) and women (Women's Day). I think these are all great things to celebrate, and it's even better since we get all of these days as public holidays*.

When I was growing up, I had very little appreciation for all of these holidays, apart from the fact that they usually meant a day off school. Our South African holidays mark important, often tragic, events which happened on our way to a democracy. I hope that students in schools today will have the stories explained to them, even if they are violent, to show our new generations how far we have come. I would like to explain to my students what each of these holidays are, and why they can be proud of their country.

In other news, I had my first job interview yesterday. The panel were lovely, and although I was a bundle of nerves I seemed to make a good impression. Sadly, I did not get the position, though the principal of the school told me on the phone that she thinks I will make a great teacher. While I'm a bit sad that I didn't get the post, her words did help to boost my confidence. For now, it's back to sending out CVs and hoping.

*Unless you work at a private school, which I found out while teaching at Queenspark. They pick and choose which holidays they take, since they don't operate on the government calendar.

Getting Ready for School

You will see a lot of blog entries with this title at this time of the year- Getting Ready for School. As you all know, in the Northern Hemisphere school starts in September. The majority of edu-bloggers are from the US and, as expected, all of the bloggers I follow are discussing classroom layout, parent packs and display ideas.

Here in South Africa, school starts in January. The big summer holiday is December - January, with a smaller (but significant) winter break June - July. This fact also makes a lot of beautiful calendar and planning resources useless to me, they are often decorated and planned seasonally and our seasons are opposite here! Let's see some love for the teachers in the Southern Hemisphere! Gecko at The Red Pen of Doom is a South African teacher, hi Gecko!, but I wonder if there are any more out there? If there are signs of life, maybe we could get a Southern Hemisphere linky-party started.

 The emphasis on starting the school year at the moment is beneficial to my own plans, though- I start my final teaching practice in two weeks! I've met my host teacher and discussed our plan for the first week of term. I'll be at Queenspark School (as usual, not it's real name) for 5 whole weeks. My class, Grade 2 (age 7/8), will be starting third term with me there from the first day. I love this because it helps to cement my authority if I'm there from the 'start'. There are 16 students, with a 50/50 split between those who are home-language English speakers and those who are not. It's my first time in a private school, so I'm excited to see the contrast between Queenspark and Sandlot, which was a well-supported government school.

My host teacher said that she wasn't happy with her current method of classroom discipline, which was grouping rows of desks into teams. This wasn't working for two reasons:

• The students are young and not very assertive, meaning members of Dragonfly Group didn't feel they were brave enough to tell other Dragonflies to be quiet/behave.
• My host teacher often changes the seating plan to accomodate her students' needs.

We discussed this and I mentioned my Clip Chart which had worked so successfully at Sandlot School. The result: I'm going to make another Clip Chart and bring it into my new Grade 2 classroom! I'm excited to have the opportunity to create another Clip Chart so soon, and I hope that my class will like it. I have 1 week before school starts, so with luck I'll have more pictures up here of Clip Chart #2 soon.

As a side note, I finally realised I didn't have the "Follow My Blog" gadget installed- whoops! If you read my blog, please sign up and follow me. There will be cookies! Virtual cookies.