Joyce
A few months ago I met Joyce on a taxi coming home from Tzaneen. She was an animated woman who immediately began a conversation with me about my life in the village. When she got off at her stop, she took my phone number and promised to call.
Thus, this weekend I met her in her village, a few miles from where I stay. She made me tea and we began an in-depth discussion of the education system as her sons sat on the couch next to us and shyly stole glances my way. Joyce was distressed; she wanted her children to have good schooling but couldn’t afford to send them to a good school. She was an out-of-work nurse desperately searching for employment. Her husband was a teacher. Since he made over a thousand rand a month (a little more than a hundred dollars) they couldn’t get financial school grants for their children.
One of Joyce’s main concerns was that her children had such little understanding of English. She was upset that the teachers did so little to further her children’s education. She recalled stories of teachers ridiculing her sons over various offenses and as a result how little respect both she and her son had for the teachers. She lamented about how they could possibly learn under such circumstances.
I talked with her about the fact that part of the problem was the teachers had no accountability: parents rarely made complaints about teachers, thus teachers easily got away with things such as corporal punishment and leaving their classes unsupervised for hours at a time. I told her that parents needed to get involved with the school if they wanted things to get better. The problem with this idea, she recounted to me, was that parents were terrified of the teachers and so in a culture where people typically avoid confrontation, this did not seem a viable solution.
I found it refreshing to talk with a parent who really was trying her best to give her children a future. Thus, I agreed to give her sons English lessons on the weekends. Joyce also wants me to move in with her which is tempting with the current pit toilet situation…
Thus, this weekend I met her in her village, a few miles from where I stay. She made me tea and we began an in-depth discussion of the education system as her sons sat on the couch next to us and shyly stole glances my way. Joyce was distressed; she wanted her children to have good schooling but couldn’t afford to send them to a good school. She was an out-of-work nurse desperately searching for employment. Her husband was a teacher. Since he made over a thousand rand a month (a little more than a hundred dollars) they couldn’t get financial school grants for their children.
One of Joyce’s main concerns was that her children had such little understanding of English. She was upset that the teachers did so little to further her children’s education. She recalled stories of teachers ridiculing her sons over various offenses and as a result how little respect both she and her son had for the teachers. She lamented about how they could possibly learn under such circumstances.
I talked with her about the fact that part of the problem was the teachers had no accountability: parents rarely made complaints about teachers, thus teachers easily got away with things such as corporal punishment and leaving their classes unsupervised for hours at a time. I told her that parents needed to get involved with the school if they wanted things to get better. The problem with this idea, she recounted to me, was that parents were terrified of the teachers and so in a culture where people typically avoid confrontation, this did not seem a viable solution.
I found it refreshing to talk with a parent who really was trying her best to give her children a future. Thus, I agreed to give her sons English lessons on the weekends. Joyce also wants me to move in with her which is tempting with the current pit toilet situation…
posted by Cait at 11:31 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home