My Placement

This week has gone by really quickly and I have been so busy! I’ve worked five days now at Blossom Street Primary School and I will be beginning my project tomorrow. I have been assisting with a Grade One class of thirty-four students – which is a lot of munchkins at once! They are very sweet and funny, they love to give hugs, and they are absolutely fascinated with the rubber band attached to my Invisaligns.

They sang a song for me on my second day, which I really hope the principal will allow me to video and post on my blog. It’s about a “big fat mama” who does her washing down by the river in the jungle. There are many verses and dance motions for each part of the song; my favorite being when she does the “boogie, boogie, boogie” and the motion is basically the twist. They pronounce “boogie” with drawn out “o”s, as in “boo, I scared you”, making it even cuter.

Mostly I’ve been helping Teacher Addams with her lessons and helping the students who are having trouble. In Cape Town, most coloured children grow up speaking Afrikaans and English, so they do fairly well once they enter school, which is taught exclusively in English. However, there are about 25% African isiXhosa speaking children at Blossom Street, most of whom have no exposure to English before school. These kids are thrown in the deep end and must pick up English as they go along, there is no such thing as ESL and no special treatment for those who can’t understand. In addition, none of the teachers can speak isiXhosa, so it is often left to older students to translate any important information.

I’ll be something like the school social worker starting tomorrow. My first project will be art therapy for the Grade Ones. Most students have experienced some type of trauma, whether it is poverty, illness, death of loved ones, abuse, exposure to drugs and alcohol, or all of the above. With such little children, my goal is to help them identify feelings and then we will begin working on coping mechanisms.