Yes, that’s us on the front page of The New York Times!

Today’s New York Times article “New Schools in South Africa Serve the Underserved”, by Celia W. Dugger, highlights the tremendous success that Teach with Africa and the LEAP Schools are helping to foster.

“As an organization, we’re delighted such a collaborative exchange of teaching and learning has been covered by the national media,” said Teach with Africa’s Executive Director Amy Schoew.

“It’s about improving access to quality education for all students. The work we do is only possible because of the passionate educators who volunteer to work abroad and our South African partners. The New York Times article is a testament to the reciprocal learning between Teach with Africa Fellows and the LEAP faculty. The true success stories are the South African students.”

Here’s an excerpt about Gcobani Mndini, a 17-year-old LEAP student, who was co-taught by a LEAP faculty member and Teach with Africa Fellow.

Gcobani’s first class of the day was his favorite. This is his third year taking science from Ross Hill, 31, the son an Anglican pastor and a high school biology teacher who knows the privileges he had growing up white in South Africa and feels a responsibility to help tilt the scales back.

When Gcobani first stepped into class as a 10th grader, Mr. Hill said he knew of the boy’s reputation and braced for a fight, but there was none. “He loves science,” Mr. Hill said.

On this particular morning, the class began with a dull, theoretical review of the photoelectric effect. The students seemed virtually comatose. Then the interplay between Mr. Hill and Jamie Brandt, a physics teacher from Marin County, Calif., woke everyone up.

Mr. Brandt, 36, a Teach With Africa volunteer, pantomimed the photoelectric effect in action, pretending to walk through a laser beam and getting the students to describe what happened when his body broke the current.

Mr. Hill then instructed the class to act out the photoelectric effect. The photon students bounced into a piece of zinc (a swaying clump of teenagers), causing the electrons (more students) to pop out.

“Come on, photons!” Mr. Hill exclaimed. “Just a gentle bump! A loving bump!”

A photon girl nudged the zinc students. The class howled with laughter, and Mr. Hill said, “Oh, sweet.”

Jamie Brandt, 2010 Teach with Africa Fellow, works with students at the LEAP Science and Maths School in Cape Town. Photo by Joao Silva for The New York Times.

Read the entire article about John Gilmour’s LEAP Schools and the partnership with TwA here…

Interested in becoming a Teach with Africa Fellow?

Applications and program information for the 2011 Fellowship will be available at our website on October 1^st, 2010.

Teach with Africa’s goal is to increase local capacity by sending educators to both teach and learn. TwA supports academic programs, sustainability efforts and social entrepreneurship initiatives by placing highly qualified educators in underserved schools in South Africa. TwA educators work closely with community partners to benefit students by providing:

• teacher mentoring program
• classroom resources
• teacher training workshops
• student tutoring
• small business workshops
• counseling services

Teach with Africa Fellows teach classes, provide tutoring in core academic subjects (science, math and English) and implement student workshops designed to give learners quality time with experienced educators. Specifically, for 2011 we are looking for a small cohort of experienced and credentialed high school teachers in math, science and English who are supported by their schools and communities.

In addition to working directly with students, TwA Fellows partner with school faculty to share best practices on instructional methodology, differentiated learning, critical thinking, lesson planning, assessment practices, technology integration, and curriculum development.

Help us spread the word about Teach with Africa!
Friend us on Facebook, follow us Twitter, or get our email updates.

First Graduate is a college access program working with aspiring first-generation university students in San Francisco, California. It works exclusively with students because of the “tremendous need for college access and completion services for students who come from non-college educated families.”

The following story is excerpted from their website:

On August 3, First Graduate hosted our eighth annual Presentations of Learning (POLs), a special event for our students, their families, and members of the community. During the evening event, held at The Bay School, more than 80 of our high school students offered insightful and moving presentations highlighting their educational experiences and goals for the future.

The POLs gave our students the opportunity to reflect on their challenges and accomplishments as they continue their journey on the road to college. The event also provided them with a chance to hone the type of public speaking and presentation skills they will need to exercise in college and beyond.

Here is an example from a student POL:

Paola, The Marin School
“I spent most of my freshman year getting used to high school and adopting to a new culture with a different socio-economic group than I was accustomed to. By the beginning of my sophomore year, I had already gotten somewhat accustomed to the culture and really wanted to learn and grow more by getting to know other cultures and lifestyles. At my school, my English teacher was introducing African literature. During this unit, he asked for volunteers for an event called Teach with Africa. This was the first year when the program was going to take students overseas to San Francisco to host a workshop with Bay Area students. The workshop was going to be about the educational systems in South Africa and in the U.S. I immediately knew I wanted to be part of this event.”

Change the World, Fund a Teacher!

This summer Teach with Africa partnered with the Bayview/Hunter’s Point YMCA in San Francisco, CA, to run an academic camp for local, at-risk youth.

More than 75 students, grades 2-8, participated in Math, Science, Writing, and Life Orientation classes taught by former (and future) Teach with Africa Fellows.

“This camp allowed Teach with Africa to bring home some of the lessons we’ve learned in South Africa, ” said Geordie Brackin, Camp Program Director. “Knowing that summer learning loss is highest in low-income neighborhoods—and that this severely impacts the widening achievement gap for students—it was a great chance for Teach with Africa to address local educational needs.”

Change the world, fund a teacher.

Jeanette Long is a Life Orientation teacher and the Co-Founder of the LEAP 3 Science and Maths School in Johannesburg, South Africa.

We (LEAP3 en masse) saw the Teach with Africa fellows off [this week] at the Gautrain station nearby the school.

The farewell given by our students was a heartfelt expression of the warm feelings they had developed for the three teachers you had sent to us.

John, Marc and Pam [2010 Teach with Africa Fellows] had given so whole-heartedly of themselves during their time with us that they had touched hearts of all of us. Thank you very much for enabling this time of collaboration.

All three worked in tandem with the LEAP staff and really opened conversations throughout the school on classroom practice. Our task is to keep these discussions ongoing with the stimulus their visit provided.

John, Marc and Pam have each arranged to keep in touch with a member of staff in their subject area so that they can continue collaborating.  There were a number of ideas of where this might lead!

It was a very special time with three very special people.  Thank you.

Help us spread the word about Teach with Africa!
Friend us on Facebook, follow us Twitter, or get our email updates.

Pam Baker, 2010 Teach with Africa Fellow, teaches English at High Tech High International in San Diego, CA. After a summer teaching in South Africa, the 2010 TwA Fellows returned to the US this week.

Woke up for the last time in this great little apartment.

While I was getting ready, sweet little Kevin came in and delivered hand-written notes for all of us. I had to fight not to cry when I read that—I figure once I start I won’t be able to stop, so I’m trying to postpone it for as long as I can.

After lunch, we had a community meeting with the whole school, which was basically a farewell for us. Two students led the meeting, presenting us with cards, presents, songs. We were called up to the front and asked to share a few words. Marc went first and was so sweet and articulate about what this time has meant to us all. He got a little choked up at the end, which of course got everyone crying. John was next and was just as sweet and sincere in his comments—and he also got choked up.

Then it was my turn. I couldn’t even speak for a few minutes. I just had to stand there and compose myself. I was finally able to squeak out a few words about how full my heart was, how grateful we were for the love and kindness they had shown us, and how much we would miss them.

Next, Nomkhitha got up and read a poem.

She started by saying that I had encouraged her to write again, that she had stopped writing and that now she was writing again and she’d written a poem for us.

I was able to compose myself after a little bit, but after the last song (the LEAP school song), Wisani sat down next to me and read me a poem that he had written for me.

It started like this, “This American woman with an African soul…”

Well, you can imagine what happened next. I put my face in my hands and DID openly sob. And then Nomkhitha came up and shared another poem she had written for me with the refrain “Every child is my child…”

These were seriously the most beautiful poems I’ve ever heard in my life. I’ve never been so moved and I’ll never forget these special moments with these wonderful students.

About an hour later, we were packed and ready to head to the train station, which would take us to the airport. The school was let out early and we rode on the bus along with the entire school to the train station.

Once there, the students stood outside and sang to us for about a half hour with such joy and gratitude—dancing as they sang—I tried so hard to memorize every face in that group.

When they were done singing, I walked over to give Nomkhitha and Wisani one last hug, but even as I was walking over to them, the students were rushing toward all of us, giving us hugs and saying “thank you” and “don’t forget us”.

As if we could ever forget them…

Change the world, fund a teacher!

Steve Le, 2010 Teach with Africa fellow, is a teacher and co-director of the Service Learning program at Pacific Ridge School, in Carlsbad, CA.

John Gilmour, founder of the LEAP Schools, met with all of the Teach With Africa fellows on Thursday.

He opened the discussion by providing the context for intervention work in education, such as the type that LEAP means to achieve.

“I need to see myself as part of the problem,” he began, “and not the solution.”

The statistics that John listed in the meeting provided some sense of the disparity in the educations that whites receive and that which blacks and coloreds do.

Two-thirds of all black children drop out before graduating high school.

Of the 800,000 total black students that took the maths and science matric exams in 2008, 242 passed.

Seventy-five percent of blacks know domestic violence as a regular feature of daily life.

To see oneself as the problem and not the solution, for John, means that he needs to ignite systemic change in education.

Founding one school to intervene in one community is a start, but it cannot be enough. Altering the entire education system is near impossible, so change is more likely going to come up from the ground. The LEAP model can help other initiatives to start by exporting its pedagogy, methods, and even curricula.

In 2008, of the 242 students who passed the maths and science matric exams, 19 came from LEAP School.

Change on the ground level can be more expedient than that in national policy but, paradoxically, it can also be invisible in one’s lifetime because of its slowness.

Toward the end of the meeting, John asked a question to which he did not know the answer and seemingly wanted us outsiders to provide a perspective: “What is the point of entry for real change?”

In thinking about this, I cannot help but think of an individual I have met who lives in Langa. He is in his early thirties, which means he witnessed the tumultuous years leading up to [Nelson] Mandela’s election.

Because of his intelligence and athletic skills, he was able to attend a good high school and to go on to university and graduate school. Now, he is the sole earner in his family, who still lives in a shanty in Langa. They rely on him and tell him so.

He has come to resent them, not because he does not love them, but because he knows that their reliance has immobilized their own ambitions. He no longer relates to his childhood friends; they almost speak different languages. In his mind, he needs to leave his family, the township, and the past, even if it means causing pain and tearing apart the fabric of his family.

His success depends on his ability to escape, to move beyond.

If there is one of him, then there must be others. The Pinelands neighborhood surrounding TWA’s home base is a middle-class one, where black and colored families live alongside white ones. One by one, people will move out of the townships and move into the social and business structures that hold increasingly less room for the apartheid or colonial model.

Education, especially early education, provides the vehicle for social change, but the individual actors must decide and act.

The answer to John’s question is that the agents of change are moving about in his schools’ hallways, but they are moving at a pace that is comfortable to them and can be visible only to an historian’s eye, which has the privilege of reflection.

Moving from one’s past, especially when one’s family chooses to remain there, carries great risks and even greater consequences.

When the young man from Langa speaks, there is turmoil in his voice, but there is also hope and determination.

He knows his role and what he needs to do; I hope that he has the courage to take the next steps.

Change the world, fund a teacher!

Deb Snyder, 2010 Teach with Africa fellow, has a BS in Global Strategic Management and an MBA from Dominican University of California.

After so many days of clear weather, Wednesday dawned gray and foggy. This wasn’t a deterrent to Josh’s science class, though. [Josh Elder, 2010 Teach with Africa fellow, is a teacher at KIPP Philadelphia Charter School when not in South Africa].

I found Josh and his class out in the side yard of the LEAP School, getting some real life lessons in measuring distance over time.

As Josh later explained to me, the five groups needed to time themselves hopping for five meters, then running, then skipping.

The idea is to visually learn how to calculate distance over time.

When I asked him about the exercise later, Josh said he was tired of teaching in the classroom and wanted to get the kids up and moving.

Looks like this was just the ticket.

Want to give students access to a better education?
Help send a teacher to South Africa!

Katie Burke, 2010 Teach with Africa fellow, facilitates writing workshops at City College of San Francisco when she’s not teaching in South Africa.

I have formed and facilitated a writers society at LEAP.

My students’ words can be emotionally hard-hitting and painful to read; these young ones inspire me every day with their relentless truth telling. They are remarkable people, and I am blessed to know them.

This is a dispatch from the computer labs, where the LEAP Writers Society is typing away. Everyone is on a different computer, publishing their respective essays, stories, and poems.

In their words:

“We have launched this blog to share our creative writing with the world. We invite you to read our personal essays and poetry, and we look forward to receiving your comments. We hope you enjoy reading our words.”

Here’s a poem, Emotions, by Asanda Mini.

Happiness

As pink as roses
It happens when
I hear good news
or fall in love

Sounds like a nation
united

Happiness

-Asanda Mini

Change the world, fund a teacher.

Deb Snyder, 2010 Teach with Africa fellow, has a BS in Global Strategic Management and an MBA from Dominican University of California.

August 9th is a holiday here in South Africa.

The story goes that in 1954, 20,000 women marched to Pretoria with a petition that they wanted to become law.  From that day, Women’s Day has developed.

Today is a real legal holiday, as in everything is closed, and there are celebrations everywhere.  The one we participated in was at the South African Methodist Church, here in Langa. [Langa] was one of the first Black Townships developed after Apartheid was enacted.

The celebration was to honor women in the Langa community who have given back to the community.  Mama from the soup kitchen was honored, as were a number of other women.  I am a bit vague as to who was honored, as the entire celebration was spoken in Xhosa.

Just about the only thing that was said in English was by the moderator, who said “When you sing, you need to stand up” and from that time on, every time the LEAP Choir started to sing, all of us Fellows stood up.

As always, the voice of these kids was beautiful.

The day was pleasant, the company was good, and the cause honorable.

Help send a teacher to South Africa.