13 posts tagged “school”
The thought of going into school tomorrow makes me feel ill. It always does, but especially after some time off. Weekends are just long enough for me to slip back into the normal world: one where I can choose the company I keep and speak in a normal tone of voice. At school I have to suffer the company of so many grating people who have as little interest in me as I have in them. I hate having to repress their rebellious spirit and make them pay attention to what I would rather be telling or showing someone else. If only I could just liberate them from their school hell and let them be free to find their way in the world outside. It doesn’t bother me if they completely fail and end up living miserably because I know some of them will make it, just like countless rockers have for example. If Johnny Rotten did all his homework and behaved in class there would have been no Sex Pistols. It’s a good thing he dropped out. It’s a good thing not everyone does well at school because then who would stack the shelves at Tesco?
I don’t know how much longer I will last as a teacher. Tomorrow might be the day I finally crack and just walk out the class, out the school and the out the profession. Sometimes I wonder if that would that be such a bad thing anyway? It might be just the catalyst I need to do something that is more fulfilling to me.
If I were to find myself out of a job I would probably look into going back to university and “retooling” as someone put it. I have been thinking of doing a Masters in Art Psychotherapy and I would certainly enjoy that a whole lot more than teaching. I might go back to Taiwan and open a recreational art centre for adults – an idea I have toyed with for many years. I could even work as a part time language instructor again and focus on becoming a professional artist during the day.
Attractive as these options are however I am still hesitant to throw in the teaching towel. One reason for that is money. Dreams tend to cost money to realise, and the dreams I have are rather expensive. The Art Psychotherapy course for instance takes three years and would cost a fortune. On top of that it might not land even me a job after I graduate. The art centre idea would leave me in even more debt and there is no guarantee it would even be a success.
Teaching is at least a sure bet. It can even be quite lucrative if you don’t mind where you work. Expatriate teachers in the UAE earn in the region of 40 000 Pounds Sterling a year I am told, tax-free. Plus they get other benefits like subsidised housing and annual flights abroad. It follows that teaching allows one to work all over the world. If I wanted to immigrate to Australia down the line, teaching would probably get me in regardless of whether I actually did that once I was there. Having an art centre in Taiwan would limit my ability to live elsewhere, as would being a full time artist as I would probably rely on my wife to have a fixed job.
I am also reluctant to quit teaching just yet because I have invested so much time and money to get this far. Leaving it now, just before I have gained Qualified Teaching Status in the UK would seem a waste. Although I am qualified to teach in South Africa, acquiring the UK equivalent would hold far more weight and be a much better job insurance policy if I had to fall back on it down the line.
Whenever I feel sick from school I self-administer this dosage of reasoning and encouragement but it doesn’t actually help much. The awful feeling of having to survive another day there remains... Ugh. It is now 11pm and I am going to go to sleep. It is the one true source of refuge.
My days consist mostly of telling kids who don’t listen what not to do: Stop this and don’t do that all day long. It’s pointless. Most of the students I teach come to school precisely for the entertainment value in riling their teachers up so why would they behave? I try to stay calm to deprive them of that pleasure, but the constant level of self-control required is exhausting in itself. By the time I get home I can hardly think straight.
It really is difficult for me to be a sergeant major in class. I hate making people do things that they don’t want to. My natural inclination is to let them do what they wish as long as it doesn’t bother me, and if it does my natural inclination is to distance myself from them. As a teacher I cannot do either of these things unfortunately. Not only do I have to put up with dozens of people who give me a hard time, I have to serve them an education as well.
Perhaps it is time for me to get out of teaching. It is not quite the job I imagined it to be and I still have the chance to do something else with my life.
You could say I have jumped from the pan into the fire. Despite all that I have heard and read up on teaching in English state schools, nothing could have prepared me for the reality of facing mobs of unruly children. It is utterly exhausting.
I wake up at 5 am and get to school just after 7. My first class each day only starts at 8:40 but I need the hour and a half before hand to mentally prepare myself for the noisy, chaotic onslaught that lies ahead.
Picture 25 kids at a time all yelling and carrying on. My job starts by getting them to enter the classroom in somewhat of an orderly fashion. Then comes the far greater challenge of getting them to sit down and actually listen to anything I have to say. This usually takes up the remaining 50 minutes of the lesson.
I like to think that as times goes by I’ll develop a rapport with the students and they will stop giving me such a hard time, but at times I feel it is a lost cause. Some of the teachers I work with face the same problems I do after years at the school. Perhaps the discipline problems are so deeply entrenched that it will require a long period of time and exceptionally dedicated teachers to work itself out the school.
This is unlikely to happen though considering that in my department alone at least half the teachers are openly looking out for other posts and the other half probably doing so in private. It doesn’t surprise me. I am sure that even by English standards this particular school is a tough nut to crack. Only a crummy inner city school could be harder. Then again I heard about a past teacher now working in the kind of inner city school in London where kids carry knives who said that the school I am in is what really toughened her up. It’s worrying to think that she found an inner city school a step up.
Every morning on my way to work I wonder how I’ll make it through to the end of the day with my sanity in tact. Every evening on my way home I wonder how I am going to get myself back to the school the next day. It is torturous to be in a job where you are not only unappreciated but abused left right and centre. Sometimes when I am at my wits end during a lesson I feel like throwing in the towel right there and then. Any other job, even working behind a MacDonald’s counter, seems more appealing than trying to teach kids who wouldn’t even notice if you dropped dead in front of them.
The only way I can keep going at the school is to constantly keep the things I wish to achieve there at the forefront of my mind - gaining qualified teaching status in the UK being the main one. The teaching experience I gain in the process will pad up my resume nicely too.
So in a year from now I will have either made a niche for myself at my current school or I will be at another more congenial school. Either way I’ll definitely be in a better position - I just have to ride out the storm to get there.
Having a younger sister was lucky for me. Not only was she a willing listener, she believed every word I said - just like I believed every word my teachers said. And just like my teachers I sometimes spoke the biggest load nonsense. It was fun to tell my sister interesting facts with even more interesting embellishments. “The things we see” I once told her “are actually refracted upside down on the retina at the back of the eye, but our brains turn it the right way around for us”. True. “Baboons, also see inverted images, but unlike us their brains are not smart enough to turn the image around. So they see everything upside down”. Not true.
At university I was a tutor for a couple of years in Art History and Visual Communication and it was during this time that I had my 15 minutes of fame. My classes usually went well, word got around and in time there were so many people attending my lessons I felt like the lecturer. I would have given the tutorials for free at the time, just for the sake of it. It was fun.
After I graduated I decided to do some travelling. One of the first jobs that caught my eye was teaching English as a foreign language in far flung places in the world. It paid more than 10 times what I had ever earned before and I figured that it would look better on my resume than bartending in London or working on a kibbutz in Israel (two other options). Little did I know what a quagmire ESL teaching would prove to be or how hard it would be to extricate myself from it… The only way to make it count as CV-worthy experience ultimately was to go into proper teaching, which is precisely what I did.
Now I find myself teaching Art and Design at a lovely school in the Eastern Cape. All in all it is a fine job but it is not quite as enjoyable as I had expected it to be. The kids are neither as talented nor as interested in art as I had imagined them to be, which is draining. I have less time to make my own art than I thought I would have. Teachers in general and Art teachers specifically are not accorded much respect in South Africa and everyone knows that we earn an appallingly low wage. So the question posed to me today is certainly warranted: why teach?
I tried to answer the question honestly. I am teacher because it is a job that allows me to be my own boss, to set my own rules and be in control of my work environment. Art is important to me, which makes sharing my knowledge and skills in it feel important too. Teaching is one of the few jobs that comes with three months of paid vacation, it is a job that keeps me fit because I am always on my feet, and perhaps most significantly, I am rather good at being a teacher, which is gratifying.
My students nodded their understanding but after the class I caught the tail end of one of them saying how unimaginable it would be to finally be done with schooling only top return as a teacher. What a waste of freedom that seems to them.
I wonder if they are right.
Last year I considered working as a sales representative in Taiwan at the same company my wife works at but I rejected a job offer there because it seemed far too boring. Teaching art on the other hand has not been all that exciting either. What made it seem worthwhile was the belief that my students find my classes enjoyable and worthwhile – that I am making a positive impact on their lives. Today I realised that even my best classes are not enough to keep my students wishing they could be somewhere else, and that has affected me rather adversely. It really made teaching seem thankless on every level.
I suddenly find myself willing to reconsider a new line of work, amongst people my own age in the ‘outside world’ dealing with just about the only thing that matters to everyone – money.
Almost everyday for the past year I have been going to St. Andrew’s College and the Diocesan School for Girls across the road as part of my teacher training. In that time I have become quite familiar with the two schools, especially College where I did the bulk of my teaching practice. I have made friends with the staff, gotten to know the kids, learnt the layout of the campus and generally figured out how things run.
Just as I am well settled into the school though I am done with my teaching training. Today was the last day I had to go into the schools, and I must say that I am going to miss it. Both of the schools are lovely places to teach. The pupils are polite and respectful and the staff a welcoming team. The schools are beautifully maintained too, which makes working there that much more pleasurable. With all the resources and facilities available at the schools there is no limit to what can be taught or produced by the kids and that too makes them stimulating, creative places to work.
Going into a school next year with the usual discipline issues and a low budget is going to be a tough adjustment. Hopefully I’ll get a job at a school more in line with College and DSG and avoid the harsh reality of teaching that is the norm. I leave for Johannesburg this evening to see my cousin and his wife who were recently married in Italy. While I am up there I’ll drop my CV off at some good schools. Then I fly down to the Cape to see my sister and go for an interview at St. Andrew’s brother school in Claremont. When I return to Grahamstown next week I’ll have an interview lined up at an art school across the road from the university. I would imagine that at least one of the schools will offer me a post for 2008. In the mean time I am still strongly considering going to the UK next year to find a post there. The exchange rate between the British Pound and South African Rand is 14 to 1, which makes it an attractive option from a financial point of view. Also, the chance to live a train ride away from various enchanting European countries is appealing.
My fate at the moment is subject to the way the wind blows, but I am not too put out by that. Whichever direction I go to from here seems fine.
For the past 2 weeks in our Art method course we have been learning how to go about teaching ceramics to school kids. As usual we need to do some of the projects ourselves just to go over the techniques again and get a feel for the medium. The lecturers don’t really care about the artistic merit of what we do, as long as we have gone through the ‘making’ process. Nonetheless I always grab the opportunity to do something creative and try to produce a self-standing artwork. Often the lecturers think I am going overboard with the projects. One even asked me why it is that I want to be a teacher and not an artist. That gave me something to think about afterwards…
I always thought that art teachers had the ability to be artists in their own right, but chose to teach so that they could share their passion with others and generate a stable income as the case may be. The truth of the matter is that “those who can do and those who can’t teach”… I used to hate that stupid maxim until I started training to be a teacher. Now I can easily see the truth behind it… The vast majority of people training to be teachers with me know only the very basics of their specialist areas and surprisingly this does not hamper their ability to teach. Good teachers are basically distinguished by their ability to control a class and get information across in a positive manner. Those are the skills that are actually required to be a teacher. Still, I think that having a genuine interest in your subject area makes it easier to be inspiring when you teach, and having ability in that subject area makes it easier to give sound advice. It must be a nightmare to teach art for example when you can’t draw your ass from your elbow.
This morning I took in the first vase of a series to demonstrate various pottery techniques. The teacher took a quick glance at it and asked me rather caustically if I like flowers. I said I did. I meant to ask her if she knew of anyone who did not like flowers but held my tongue in case I had misheard the tone of her voice. I don’t think I did because she then asked if the thing was finished, implying, as art teachers do, that it was unsuccessful as it was. Needless to say I was thoroughly miffed. Granted the vase is hardly a work of art, but as a simple demonstration of the ‘pinch pot’ technique (which quite honestly a 3 year old could do) it was more than adequate.
It is strange how much we rely on compliments. They are half the reason we do anything. As a grown-ass man I thought I had become immune to criticism I don’t agree with, but that is obviously not the case. I guess if it was I would be a really hard person to get along with and a pretty harsh teacher too.
Why teach art? I guess it is a reasonable question, and one that I should have an answer for considering that I will be doing precisely that in a few months time. This morning I submitted this response to the art school where I am doing my training. It is not exactly academic or even well thought out, but it helped me to clarify the issue in my mind somewhat...
I. Art is priceless
For many people the value of art speaks for itself. They need only point out the great masterpieces around the world to attest its importance through the ages. Who would question the value of the Taj Mahal for instance? We are not surprised that it is a national treasure in India even though it is but a stone structure whose function is simply to act as an elaborate reminder of a long departed princess. We attribute infinite value to the way it looks, and what it says about the culture and history of the people who brought it into existence. This intangible, abstract value is similarly applied to Michelangelo’s arrangement of paint on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, as it is to a tiny porcelain bowl from the Ming Dynasty as it is to a large box by Donald Judd. They serve as priceless narrators of who we are and we have come from.
In today’s world the role of art is no less prominent than it was in times of antiquity. In fact more people are now inundated with art and aesthetic considerations on a day- to-day basis than ever before. Our choice of clothes, the shape of car we like, the music we listen to, the books we read, the movies we watch, the places we go on holiday – all of these things are determined by aesthetic considerations, right down to the colour of our toothbrushes. The very ubiquity of art makes its value almost incalculable.
Nonetheless, we are constantly dazzled by artworks sold for an exorbitant amount when really this is commonplace. Most of the current celebrities whose names rest on the tip of our tongues are artists who have each amassed great fortunes. Take JK Rowling for example. After writing the Harry Potter series as a waitress she is now the richest woman in England and will be go down in history alongside the great scientists, thinkers explorers and inventors.
In view of this art teachers justly stress the importance of art education. However they assert that its value goes far beyond just equipping students with the ability and drive to become successful artists in their own right. Art education is regarded as a special kind of subject that enables students to express themselves from the heart, develop a sense of self-awareness and build esteem in a way that other subjects just cannot. Perhaps more importantly still, the study of art is shown to be a socially unifying phenomenon because it transcends culture, race, ethnicity, gender, class or religion. One does not have to be a Christian to be moved by the sublime beauty of the Sistine Chapel, for example. It can be speak as clearly to a poor African girl as it could to an erudite professor of Art History. In short, art education positively influences attitudes, social skills, critical and creative thinking and engenders a deep sense of pride in mankind’s ability as a whole to create priceless things of beauty.
II. Art is fluff
As priceless as art may be however, it would be naive and idealistic to imagine that the majority of people in the modern world grant it more than a second thought. Despite the glorious works of art about us even educational institutions are inclined to think of the subject as fluff. Somehow the power it has to teach us about world history and the human condition, beauty and ugliness, the universe around us and within our imaginations always comes up short in the curriculum. The sciences are inevitably favoured. Many schools don’t even offer Art as a subject unless they happen to gain additional funding in which case the subject is added to the curriculum much like the icing on a cake: unnecessary but an appealing finish.
To be fair, it is not that difficult to understand why art is marginalized in the school curriculum. As an art educator himself, E. Lois Lankford snidely remarked that, “it won’t help me to decipher or complete my income tax forms, for that I need to read and write and compute, and the IRS would prefer that I not be too creative.” He went on to say that rather than depending on the arts, he depends on “the wonders of science” and the “magic of technology” to sustain the comfortable life that the 21st century provides. Indeed we all depend on the feats of engineering to keep a roof over our head, agriculture and industry to keep us clothed and fed, and financial institutions to manage our money. Art does not aid us in any practical sense. The significance of an exquisite carved, anatomically correct, wonderfully expressive life size sculpture of a human being pales in comparison to a scientifically developed pill half the size of a pea that has the ability to cure human being of an ailment. We depend far more on even the mechanics and plumbers of the world than we do on the painters and sculptors. After all, only a small fraction of the population depends on the arts for the livelihood it often relies on the patronage and philanthropy of others to sustain that vocation. Successful artists are famous largely because they somehow overcame the odds of being impoverished. We marvel them as colourful exceptions to the rule, much the way we marvel and cheer at elephants in the circus that can stand on one leg and do tricks.
The arts certainly have a place in the world. Few people would seek to deprecate its enormous aesthetic and emotional value, but that still doesn’t make it useful in the sense that the world needs it to survive and progress. Naturally schools need to prioritise their students learning in accordance with this and regard art education as a terribly fortunate rather than terribly necessity in the curriculum.
III. Art is priceless fluff
It would seem at this juncture that arguments upholding the value of art education are as compelling as those against, which leaves art educators in a rather uncertain position. Are they merely fulfilling a surplus need in advantaged schools or are they providing necessary knowledge and skills on par with the sciences?
Perhaps it would be most prudent to take the middle ground and concede that art is both priceless and fluff. To honour the former, it would take an extremely flawed individual not to be moved by any art or to think of something like the Sistine Chapel ceiling as anything less than priceless. It simply is, which means that the arts cannot be of little value in school. However, without the sciences there would be no priceless art to begin with. Michelangelo would not have had a ceiling to paint, the Taj Mahal would have fallen flat, and the tons of steel Donald Judd needed to make his giant box would still be embedded in rock. Science deserves credit for providing the medium for art to exist, which if you take it to its logical conclusion makes art the fluff.
Hence we can say that art is priceless fluff, but without shame, because almost every meaningful experience and encounter in life falls into the same category too. What’s the point of small talk for instance? Why bother smiling at people? Why smell the roses? Why wake up early to see the sunset? Why fall in love? Why believe in something? It would seem that without the priceless fluff there is not much left to inspire us to pursue the sciences that we so revere, much less to prolong our existence on this inexplicable planet. Priceless fluff the arts may be but they are as vital to the soul as the sciences are to the mind and should quite obviously be included in school education if balanced individuals are expected to emerge from it.
A while ago I observed how things operate in one of the underprivileged schools on the outskirts of Grahamstown. ‘Townships’ in South Africa refer to urban settlements that were planned for black people only and usually have inferior facilities and services. Although black people can now live wherever they wish, the reality is that they still live in the townships. By and large they are caught in a cycle of poverty that is next to impossible to escape.
As I discovered on my school visit in the township, the kids receive a rudimentary level of education, which means they can only get rudimentary jobs, which pay rudimentary salaries. So their kids will in turn go to equally poor schools and get equally low-end jobs with equally meagre salaries, and so the process repeats itself ad infinitum. On top of all that, the people in townships are more prone to crime, alcoholism, drug abuse, prostitution and all manner of other social ills than those living in the nearby towns.
This morning I braced myself for another visit to a township school, but this one for mentally challenged kids. I expected the worst: grubby walls, bodily smells, screeching and gargling noises emanating from classrooms, hollow-eyed exhausted teachers and the air of madhouse. One of the students in my class actually decided she couldn’t face going there at all and stayed behind. But she might as well have come along because the school was absolutely lovely.
Unlike the usual township schools in the area, the school was immaculately kept inside and out. It struck me the moment we drove into the school property. The flowerbeds had obviously been attended to, the lawn areas were neatly mowed, the driveway had been swept clean, the classroom windows were sparkling, a plaque hang on each door signalling the use of the room behind it, the carports had shade covers, and there were signs directing you were to go. Inside the school was no less impressive. The staff room was warm and cosy, the corridors were lined with the kids’ artworks, the bathrooms were nice and fresh… you name it.
What impressed me most was the amount of teaching resources available. Each class was crammed with educational toys, objects of interest, books, posters, things they had made, notices and whatnot. The play areas had a big carpet with cushions for the kids to sit on. There was even a TV in each class and some computers.
In the first class I observed the kids were learning simple addition. Each had an abacus, a copy of the worksheet, and a student book wrapped in paper and plastic with the child’s name and class stuck in front. All the kids had a full set of stationary on hand and they were able to get along with their work without any hiccups.
In another class, the kids were learning about birds. The teachers had a real bird in a cage along with an actual nest, eggs, feathers and pictures to supplement their teaching. The lesson could not have been any more resource rich.
Similarly the classroom for older kids learning vocational activities was equipped with a fully fitted kitchen, a functioning ‘hairdressing salon’ complete with basins, and an area for making arts and crafts.
All in all it was a very pleasant place to be in. It completely outshone the previous township school I went to, which was bare to the bone. I think the success of the school I went to today can be attributed to the teachers who work there. They obviously love the kids deeply and care about the work they do with them and the school reflects that. Most of the teachers in the surrounding schools just want to collect a pay check at the end of the month. There is no excuse not to have tea and coffee for their staff room for example, or pencils and paper for their students to draw on. A lot of the things that make a school look and feel nice to be in cost no money at all – they just require teachers who take a bit of pride in what they do.
This morning I woke up not wanting to head out to the rural school I have been visiting for the past few days. The charm of being out in the middle of nowhere had suddenly worn off as well as the feeling of being a ‘guest’.
Some years ago I participated on the Japanese Exchange Teaching Program which places people in high schools to watch, assist and interact with the kids and staff, and it slowly killed me. The teachers there became increasingly irritated with the extra presence I created in the classroom, and once the kids got used to my otherness they lost the initial interest they had in me.
My experience at a rural school in South Africa is beginning to resemble that in Japan. I feel about as much a foreigner amongst these poor black kids as I did amongst the Japanese kids. They too look at me with a detached kind of curiosity and ask me questions like where I am from, what my house it like, and so on. They are cautious around me, approaching me in groups rather than individually and laughing nervously when I make a joke just in case I was being serious.
I have a soft spot for these kids that I did not have for the kids in Japan though. Perhaps to has to do with the fact that they can communicate with me and I can understand how they feel. While interviewing the kids today, some of their comments really made me sad. When I asked one of the girls in Grade 12 if she would send her own kids to this school one day she replied very emphatically that she would not because she hoped that her kids would get a “proper education” one day. Others said they wanted their kids to go to “white schools” because they are clean and safe and “have many things”. One of the Grade 12 boys lamented the fact that he has learnt nothing about computers because there is only one computer in the school, which only the teachers get to use. He complained about the high absenteeism of the teachers, the lack of resources like textbooks, and a myriad of other things that were obstacles to him finishing school well and getting ahead. I noticed the boy’s crisp white shirt, polished shoes and a neat haircut. He obviously took pride in himself despite being in a place where there is no one to impress really. He could just as easily have donned a pair dark sunglasses, pierced his ears with faux diamond earrings, walked with a swagger and carried a flip-knife in their pocket ready to use in a fight like so many of the others. Many of the girls when asked which school they would most like to attend cited one of the all-girls schools in town.
Towards the end of the day I interviewed the school principal who is simply remarkable. Not only is she principal, but also the school secretary, the Grade 12 English teacher, the HOD and chairperson of various committees. Somehow she manages to multi-task these things almost seamlessly. She keeps track of everything that is going on, handles her work well and goes about her day with good cheer. Given the conditions she works under, I think she runs an extremely tight ship. She ended the interview on a positive note by naming all the past pupils who have gone on to university and established themselves in professional careers. They say if you can reach but one person, it is all worth it… well she has reached hundreds - thousands actually. She has a lot to feel proud of.
Tomorrow will be my last day at the school. I have still to observe a class in microscopic detail for a formal analysis. I think the exercise is rather futile because teachers don’t really give a hoot for educational theories. They work intuitively, adapting to the people before them, the environment and the resources available. What difference does it matter if they happen to exemplify some hugely influential educational theory? What difference does it make if they don’t illustrate any of those theories in their teaching? In my opinion they can do whatever they like as long as two conditions are met: the pupils are gaining beneficial knowledge and skills, and they are treated fairly.
Once again I spent the better part the day at a rural school on the outskirts Grahamstown. The objective of which was to observe some classes to see how teaching and learning takes place there, and to conduct a few interviews with both the teachers and learners to find out what they think about the schooling situation they are in.
The first class I observed was an 8th grade Technology class. The lesson itself dealt with the differentiation between flat 2-dimensional drawings and 3-dimensional drawings that show depth and volume. As homework for the previous lesson the kids had to draw any object in 2-dimension. Many of them simply copied a frontal view of a house, which was the example in their textbooks. Others came up with their own objects, like a carton of milk or a box of matches. About half the kids did not draw their objects successfully in two-dimension, yet the teacher spent only a few minutes explaining again, in very abstract terms, that 2-dimensional representations show only the height and width of an object. Surprisingly she did not illustrate this concept on the blackboard, which would have been the commonsensical thing to do. As a result the kids who got their 2-dimensional drawings wrong the first time would almost certainly get them wrong a second time round (if there ever is a second chance to be had). Regardless, the teacher proceeded by instructing the kids two go ahead and draw their 2-D objects in 3-D at which point they worked completely intuitively without any knowledge of the different types of perspective explained in their textbooks. I was impressed by what most of them could do this way, but frustrated that I could not have guided them a bit more and explain some of the basic rules involved to make it easier.
It just so happens I taught this particular section of work only a few days ago at another school, so I asked the teacher if could teach it to the following class. She happily agreed and I ended up having a very rewarding class. The kids were a pleasure to teach. They sat in rapt attention, absorbing everything I had to say and kept up with the lesson as well as the last kids who I taught it to at an exclusive private school in town. I was thoroughly impressed.
One of the girls in the class who did particularly well was Sive, pronounced see-vah. She quickly grasped the idea of one-point perspective and drew very neatly. After the class she told me that she would love to be an artist one day and wanted to know how it was possible to get there. I advised her that the best way was to finish school and work on a portfolio in the meantime to showcase her talent. I also told her about other creative careers that she could go into with a talent in art.
For the rest of the day I couldn’t help thinking how difficult it would be for her to really get into an art related career (or any fulfilling career for that matter). She is at such an extreme disadvantage coming from a poor home and stuck a school that lacks every almost every resource imaginable. It was all very well to suggest she works on a portfolio, but how would she really do that? It is like me saying I wa nt to be a Formula One racer and someone advising me that I work on my driving skills…
For what it is worth I want to give Sive a nice thick sketchbook with a full set of colour pencils, along with and an eraser, sharpener and ruler – everything she needs to draw. Essentially I want her to have some outlet for her creativity, even if lasts only while she has paper left. If I have a chance I would like to see what she came up with and give her another volume of paper to continue working.
Maybe, just maybe, someone down the line will look at look at her sketchbooks, recognise her talent and offer her a scholarship to a good school or something. One never knows… Anyway the outcome is not all that important. What matters is that it will make her happy now. It will make a positive impression on her life and it will help her realise that good things can happen to anyone, even her.
Tomorrow I will be conducting some more interviews with the teachers and pupils and begin consolidating all that I have discovered in a rapport. Although the lack of facilities and general low quality of instruction has left a negative impression of the school, there have also been some very positive, uplifting aspects. The kids are remarkably disciplined and cheerful despite everything, and they sing like angels during assembly. The teachers have a strong bond between them and there are a few of them there (like the maths teacher) who are nothing short of amazing.
