Ryan Craven And So Can You // Talking bout the revolution: Welcome to Africa

You know those National Geographic magazines with pictures of the glorious African savannah teeming with exotic wildlife? You know… the ones with cheetahs chasing down a herd of antelope or a pride of lions tearing the flesh off a fallen zebra. The pictures basically scream GO TO AFRICA! It will be the greatest single thing that has ever happened to you.

These were the pictures that I imagined in my head before I boarded my plane to Durban, South Africa. I was told many times that Durban is one of South Afirca’s biggest cities, but I still had the hunch that I would see elephants strolling down the street every once in a while. Overall, I expected Africa to be a wild, unfamiliar place.

Yet, when I stepped onto the tarmac at the airport, I was surprised to be surrounded by a brand new airport, fancy cars, and people speaking English. This was defiantly not quite what I expected. Since I arrived here in South Africa, there have been lots of surprises. The fact is, South Africa is a completely different country than the US, and these differences, large and small, take some getting used to.

I showed up for my first day of work at St. Leos Primary School with little to no teaching experience in my life. My first hurdle wasn’t figuring out what to teach the little ones, rather it was pronouncing their names. My first day, giggles erupted from the gallery as I constantly butchered one name after another… Siabonga, Sizway, and Nogisiphe. Once the whole class had a few laughs, I started my first ever lesson about the joys of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. I think I even bored myself a little bit the first time around. Lesson number one, make it fun. Lesson number two, the kids like games.

Overall, after a two weeks I can safely say that I have learned a few things. First and foremost that wow teaching is hard. Im not sure what makes these kids tick (im starting to think its Red Bull) but their energy level is through the roof. The good news is that sometimes their attention is fully devoted to what im saying and they are literally jumping out of their seats to answer my questions (usually when it’s a game). Of course, every time I turn around to write on the board, I risk the possibility of full on school mayhem. But like I said, Africa is a wild place, and the kids more than anything are proving National Geographic correct.

Posted on March 3rd, 2011

2 notes

Originally from tylercraven

ryancraven reblogged this from tylercraven
ryancraven liked this
tylercraven posted this