I'm sitting in the office this morning, and one of the Grade 7 students comes in and asks me for a copy of his report card of last year. It turns out that he needs it for his application to high school for next year.
At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, the learner is black (Xhosa speaking, I mean) and I ask him, just out of curiosity, why they don't apply to schools that teach in their mother tongue. It is my experience that the kids we have here who don't have English as their first language really struggle to learn in English.
Anyways, so he tells me that many of our Xhosa speaking parents want their kids to go to English medium schools. And that the only reason they send their kids to Xhosa medium schools is because those schools are free. I didn't know that.
That's what I love about working in education. Every day is a learning experience for the teacher. If they choose to see it that way. 'Coz you get some teachers who have fooled themselves into thinking that they cannot be taught anything anymore, especially not by the ones they are supposed to teach.
Oh My Word, I feel like an idiot. This entire time I've been clicking on ur blog that i've bookmarked instead of checking for updates. The last post I read was on the 22 or 23.
ReplyDeleteI like the new background!!
Aren't kids just great?