Dylan is gona be a teacher

Today was teacher-training day. Holy cow, I would be a liar if I said I did not feel incredibly inadequate for the task at hand at the moment. After breakfast our team arrived at Cornerstone Church at 9:00am where we would spend the next 7 hours getting a hyper condensed version of how to be a math and an English teacher. Yes that right, in all of my excitement about teaching a photography class and trying to do media for the initiative I kinda sorta forgot I am going to be expected to teach math or English AND photography. After the math segment of the curriculum instruction, it was pretty clear that not taking a math class in four years had not helped the fact I had always just being fairly bad at math in the first place. To Martha Albertson, my 9^th grade math teacher who is no doubt reading this - I am so sorry – it has nothing to do with you but my all around left-brainedness and my processing disorder make for a nearly insurmountable combo of not being very good at math. The fact I passed your class is probably more a testament to your willingness to explain and explain to me over and over again what I needed to do to solve math problems. So that being said, hope my co-teacher will be better than I am at this or we may only succeed in confusing the general Mamelodi middle school population with 3 weeks of inferior supplemental math tutoring. Thankfully my anxiety was cut short every once in awhile by Kolo, a very large SA’n with a very large presence and possibly the loudest voice I have ever heard. He broke up our time by leading us in the same kinds of games that would be helpful to use with our kids to give them a break and make the time we had set out for them to learn be used as effectively as possible.

Then came the English, oh sweet English, I doubt I had been so excited to get a refresher in that subject after we all had to take the math assessment we would have to give to our kids. Thankfully though I found out that my co-teacher Siyabonga, who goes by Siya, is a mechanical engineering major and while he is only somewhat confident in teaching English he is 100% confident in his ability to teach this level of math.

Normally I would skip details here by saying we braked for lunch, but in this instance I have to note I had the best pizza of my life. Roman’s pizza had flavors I had never seen in America and the lack of processed ingredients coupled with the sheer size and freshness of the toppings made for some pizza I honestly thought would only come from Italy.

Then came a breakdown on classroom management. We were lectured on how to command respect, how to give attention to students that try, not ones that don’t. We were told statistics of what happens when kids are told they are smart or stupid instead of them being encouraged for their effort. Apparently, kids who are told they are smart often by their teachers can become lazy because they think because hey are inherently smarter they don’t have to try as hard as the other students. Conversely, students who are told they are stupid will lose confidence and even stop trying altogether. Also if they have trouble getting something then they won’t feel confident enough to participate in class because they will be scared of being wrong.

With American and SA’n heads alike spinning with the weight of the responsibilities that would be upon us the next three weeks, we all had a little hope that our counterparts in the classroom from another teacher would be able to make up for our shortcomings in the subject we were not as confident in. From here we headed off to the Braai, which is SA’s take on a cookout.

            The main thing here I will note is the sheer size and beauty of the athletic and recreational facilities of the University of Pretoria. Never at any school I have ever been to have I seen so much land devoted to fields, courts and outdoor recreation. It did not surprise me that the Braii pit we used next to the lake past the soccer fields was on one of the top 5 Universities in the whole continent of Africa. The night was cold but it was filled with cross-cultural conversations as spicy and intriguing as that aftertaste of the chicken coming off the grill.

Please pray that:

I will be able to work well with Siya.

I will be an effective teacher in English and Photography.

I will show students love and be bold when the Holy Spirit prompts me.

Our team will continue to grow closer to God and each other.

the Lord will bring students that are hungry for the truth of the Gospel.

Sam Bailey’s cold will go away so he can concentrate on his class.

We would all have a spirit of learning and no one would act as if they have nothing to learn.

American and SA’n teachers would work well together.

God bless and all the best,

Dylan Rollins