More from Fezeka...

I've been spending at least one day a week, sometimes two, at Fezeka High School in the Gugulethu township. The campus houses about 1100 learners (students) in grades 10-12. The fluidity/uncertainty of the enrollment is indicative of the organizational challenges the school's leadership and staff face. It also took a few weeks for the daily timetable (schedule) to be sorted out, but they now have a set 7-day rotation for classes. For the first month of school, the various sections of each grade level mostly stayed in the same room while the teachers came to them. Now, the teachers are being assigned, as much as possible, to consistent rooms that the classes come to. This is a big improvement from the teachers' perspective, as they can now decorate their rooms with resources and better supervise their use (and misuse) during the course of the day.

Another part of the effort to achieve greater organization and productivity in the school is a new policy designed to reduce student (and teacher) late arrival. The staff is now meeting the learners at the school gate starting at 8 am, by which time everyone is supposed to have arrived and classes are supposed to have started. Even though this procedure delays the beginning of first period, there has been a marked decline in late arrivals in the first days of this new policy.

An exciting project to watch develop in the past few weeks has been the school's participation in a recycling contest sponsored by Coca Cola. Schools that collect at least 20,000 aluminum cans and plastic bottles get World Cup tickets and are eligible for other prizes. I haven't seen the contest in action anywhere else, but it's been great to watch the enthusiasm with which many Fezeka learners have participated. It's amazing how much litter they've picked up and removed from the waste stream! The big question is if and how they will be able to continue the program after the contest ends next week.

In the classroom, my time at Fezeka so far has involved working with the Social Studies HOD (Head of Department) to develop a group activity as an alternative way to teach a development project case study to her three 11th grade Geography classes. The activity built up from group presentations to group debates yesterday. The engagement and energy levels were great! Now, we'll see how they do on next week's individual assessment task. We'll also survey them to see what they thought of the approach as a learning exercise. I feel lucky to have found a teacher, department, and school so open to and eager for collaboration.

Lastly, a documentary film has been made profiling Fezeka's choir director and a trip the group took to the Salisbury International Arts Festival in England in 2008, apparently the first trip abroad for all 77 learners who went. The clips from the movie are inspiring to watch!