In Class on a Saturday

The weekend is typically meant to be a break from school. Today at Katane we're experiencing something a bit different. Yesterday, we told the 6th and 7th grade that we would hold Saturday "class", if you want to call it that. I set up the Saturday program just to see what sort of interest we have from the community and students in the program. Right now I'm sitting in the classroom, along with more than 100+ children ranging from 5-18 learning how to use the laptops. Success can't even describe this learning environment. We have 5th graders teaching older teenagers, 5 year olds learning how to use the mouse which only improves hand-eye coordination, and much more. Some of the kids are writing "About me" biographies in the write activity, others are taking pictures, a few are playing the logic games, etc, etc.

Just now, Frans, the headmaster of Katane dropped by to see how our day was progressing. After having seen this, I feel a little more at ease. He reassured me that this was going to work, something that's always appreciated. After our conversation yesterday he was a bit worried I was upset at the way the program was developing. Well, I was and am still uneasy at how the teachers are taking to it, but as long as he is able to see how interested the community and students are then I'm feeling slightly more comfortable. Only time will tell though.

Joy and Bridget from Stanford Lake College dropped in earlier today to see how our little workshop was developing. They were quite impressed with how many students we had packed in the classroom.

I only need to finish writing the contracts, wrap up the monitoring and evaluation strategy, coordinate picking up the extra 15 laptops, and a few more items on my to-do-list.

Now I'm off to watch Katane beat some other primary school in soccer. And, hopefully, I'll get a chance to watch South Africa play New Zealand in rugby tonight at the local pub.

It's a great day in South Africa...