A “Rocky” Start to the School Year

Intro/Track 1 ("Gonna Fly Now")
Picture this: on the first day of school, every year, from the time you can remember until you graduate high school, you wake up to the sounds of the Rocky soundtrack on high volume playing throughout the house. This is what happened at my house – EVERY YEAR. Now, some of you reading this might think that that sounds miserable. I would argue the opposite. The start of the school year was a really big affair with my family. My parents made going back to school exciting and fun. Even after I graduated from high school and progressed through college and into adulthood, I have continued to listen to the Rocky soundtrack on the first day of school – partly because of nostalgia and partly because it gets me amped for the school year.

Track 2 ("Redemption")
Michelle and I kicked off the start of this school year the same way my family has done every year – with the Rocky soundtrack. Yup, you guessed right! This means that we’ve started teaching again. The school year started about a month ago. As I was thinking about what I wanted to write in this post, I thought of the childhood memory described above and chuckled at its double-meaning. The first definition you have already read, but the second one depicts the way the school year has started.

Track 3 ("Eye of the Tiger")
The week leading up to the school year, I was busy preparing for the learners: writing lesson plans, creating formative assessments, and detailing my classroom management plan. I was excited to get started because teaching is the primary reason I came to South Africa. I was also nervous because of my desire to be an effective teacher. Having not seen the beginning of a school year here, I didn’t know how one started. Let me lay the scene.

Track 4 ("War")
Educators were required to report to school a couple days before the learners to prepare their classrooms. The educators at my school were excited to go back to school so they could catch up with their colleagues and to see learners, yet they seemed relaxed about starting. I came to learn it was because many of them were able to rely on a bank of lesson plans they created in the past. Since it was my first time teaching, I was creating everything from scratch. This school year I am responsible for teaching English to Grades 5, 6, and 7, so this means I have three preps. Thankfully, they are all in the same subject. Some of the other volunteers in my cohort have preps in different subjects, which can be a lot to manage.

Track 5 ("No Easy Way Out")
Learners arrived on their first day with freshly purchased uniforms and bright smiles. From talking with them, they were eager to get back to school to see their friends and some even admitted to wanting to start learning again. The educators at my school are all responsible for a particular classroom. For example, Mr. Thwala is responsible for the Grade 6 classroom. This meant that the educators spent the first couple of periods setting up classroom rules and distributing school supplies (i.e. notebooks, pens, pencils, etc.) At my school, unlike the schools I attended when I was in grade school, learners are not responsible for purchasing their own school supplies because many of them, frankly, couldn’t afford them. Instead, the school provides those things for them. Further, the Department of Education creates workbooks and distributes them to all the schools within the country. The workbooks align with the standard curriculum, which is helpful for a couple of different reasons.

An Educator Showing Fatigue at the End of the First Day with Learners

First, teachers at my school are responsible for teaching multiple subjects across multiple grades. And because they teach so many classes, they don’t have any planning periods. The expectation is that they plan lessons, grade learners’ work, and create assessments on their own time. (This school year is an exception, though, because I’m here. Educators now have a couple of planning periods over the course of the week because I picked up some of their classes.) Having the workbooks helps cut down on the amount of time it takes educators to prepare for their classes. Second, the workbooks provide educational materials. Resources are limited at my school, so the workbooks give learners texts to read and exercises to complete. Unfortunately, not every subject has workbooks, so some teachers still have to create or find resources on their own.

Track 6 ("Hearts on Fire")
After I frenzy of distributing all of the school supplies, I spent the first couple of days with the learners establishing our own set of classroom rules specific for English class, going over classroom procedures, and conducting a formative assessment to gauge their current knowledge and skill sets. I was able to use the formative assessment to organize learners into heterogeneous groups based on their ability with the idea that a “stronger” learner sits next to a “weaker” who can then help them under my supervision.

Track 7 ("Going the Distance")
The first few weeks have shown to be challenging yet rewarding. Learners are getting used to my teaching style and my accent, and I’m figuring out how to best connect the material with them. Since learners don’t start taking classes in English until Grade 4, there are many who struggle with it. I’ve learned to talk slower and to check in with learners to ensure they understand instructions. More learners are trying to participate in class now than compared to the first week. One of my favorite things is when my Grade 6 class starts chanting, “Work hard, master English!” as I exit the classroom.

Grade 6 Learners

Outtro/Track 8 ("The Final Bell")
In some ways, a month seems like a short period of time and, in other ways, it seems long. Looking back, I can’t believe I started teaching a month ago. It’s difficult to pinpoint specific days because the weeks kind of blur together. As I look into the future, however, the time I have left as a volunteer doesn’t seem that long. Upon reflection, it’s because of the work I want/hope to accomplish. By the time I leave South Africa, I will have taught at my school for 21 months. After one month in, I want to make the other 20 count as much as I can.