Diary  of the visit

Wednesday - 21st October, 1998

We arrived in sunny Cape Town at 8.00 this morning after a smooth flight and were greeted by Geila from the Independent Cape Newspapers and Jacques and Michelle from Atlantic Car Hire with their gleaming fleet of brand new cars! We travelled in convoy to the Breakwater Lodge on the Victoria and Albert Waterfront which is to be the home for the Crossings project for the next ten days. There were no shortage of volunteers waiting to drive the cars on the excellent South African roads (left hand drive too!). Three intrepid travellers proceeded to walk up Table Mountain.

The only official event today was the reception at the Telkom Exploratorium. Adrian Hadland, Political Correspondent for the Sunday Independent, gave us a fascinating insight on his perspective of the last five years in the new South Africa. Johan and his Telkom team introduced us to the Exploratorium which is going to be the base for some of our work, and Colleen and Vernon from the Waterfront were there to field any questions about the facilities. We were able to distribute the Crossings newspaper produced by the Devon children for their South African peers

We were also joined by some of the people who we'll be working with during the week and Martin outlined his hopes for Crossings during the next days and indeed the future. Many thanks to Colleen and Johan for their generous hospitality.

After two years of tireless planning, Crossings is finally underway. Special thanks to all our friends in Cape Town and beyond, without whom none of this would have been possible.

 

Thursday - 22nd October

The singing of Nkosi Sikelel e'Africa : the South African national anthem by the Simon Estes School choir was the highlight of the second day in Cape Town for the group. But we were not only listeners, we also participated in a traditional African music and movement workshop at the University of Cape Town. Gerry Swainger, Coombeshead College, Newton Abbot said:

"We warmed up mentally with some circle stick and stone games focusing on pulse. Five students gave us a demonstration of songs from their national culture - then it was our turn! We were expected to learn everything by ear. It was a salutory reminder of the situation of our own students - having to cope with a new song, new language, new movements and contrasting rhythms all at the same time. Drums supplied the pulse at all times and a number of marimbas were used. The Simon Estes choir who had joined us to give superb gospel demonstration politely tried hard not to laugh at us too much."

Then teachers and choir returned to the Simon Estes school for a concert of music which was described as "awesome", "inspiring" and "incredibly moving".

Simon Estes School is named after the school's sponsor, an American opera singer, who has helped children from the townships to come to school. There are no auditions for the choir as the teachers believe that everyone can sing beautifully if they want to!

 

Mr Tatamkhulu Afrika is an African poet whose poem "Nothing's Changed" will be studied by most students taking English GCSE. Tatamkhulu was born in Egypt, but while living in Cape Town suffered discrimination because of the colour of his skin during the harsh apartheid regime. This poem describes his anguish at the destruction of District 6, a successful multi-racial community, by the government. Many of the teachers had the unforgettable experience of witnessing Tatamkhulu discuss this poem with 14 and 15 year old students at Westerford High School.

Also on the programme was a student art exhibition at Westerford highlighting the excellent standards achieved by students of Grade 12; while Julie Tippetts - an internationally known jazz singer and part of the Crossings project - led two music workshops for teachers and students.

 

Friday - 23rd October

The inspiration generated from the powerful prints in the South African National Gallery will keep the art teachers on the Crossings project enthused for many, many years. Cameron Voyinya talked about his line prints depicting the fear of violence that still exists in South African society.

 

Newspaper groups all over South Africa have Newspapers in education. Managers who work with teachers to provide newspapers as an educational resource work hard to get children reading and enjoying newspapers. The Print Media Conference held at The Breakwater Hotel in Cape Town was organised by Jeff Matthews, Print Media in Education Manager from Johannesburg. Martin Phillips and Tim Arnold gave a presentation to the delegates on "Synergies between the Print and Electronic Media." Gail Cornish, Newspapers in Education Manager at the Nataal Witness said "I really enjoyed hearing about Martin and Tim's work. They gave a really stimulating presentation and I learnt a lot."

 

Saturday - 24th October

Saturday saw the "Sharing Educational Perspectives" conference held in the Breakwater Lodge Conference Suite and hosted by the Western Cape Educational Department. The event surpassed all expectations and attracted a full complement of 240 teachers and educationalists with another 80 being turned away because the event was full. Delegates travelled up to 300 km to be at the conference.

A variety of workshops were held by the Devon visitors.

Sandra Barrett, St. Lukes High School, Exeter, ran a workshop on Mathematics 11-16:

"I was very intrigued at the interest Western Cape schools expressed concerning the national curriculum and how teachers implement and operate as facilitators within our system. New links and partnerships were formed which will further educational interaction between our two countries. Teachers were specifically interested in schemes of work and in exchanging examples of children's work."

Julia Neal, Torquay Girls Grammar School, Teaching History at Key Stage 3:

"Teachers had been criticised in the press about curriculum 2000 and felt that they could learn from some of our mistakes (we had got overburdened with too much content which could be at the expense of developing skills). Interestingly, there was such a range of people there in terms of the facilities they had."

Carolyn Ballard, Planning for the National Curriculum - Literacy and Assessment in Primary Schools:

"The 150 teachers who attended our workshop were interested in the development of the national curriculum and its lack of teacher consultation. They were hungry for strategies for curriculum planning and assessment in order to implement their outcomes based curriculum and learn from our experience. They were particularly interested to know the finer points of the implementation of the Literacy Hour and its emphasis on focused learning objectives and maximising teaching time in order to achieve success with literacy and learning.. We learned as much from the discussions we had about teaching and learning as colleagues in South Africa learned from us."

Claire Wesson - Literacy and Assessment in Primary Schools:

"It was fascinating to talk with practising educationalists and to learn that in the other hemisphere people were grappling with the same issues and concerns. At the beginning of the day I was not sure why I was there and what I would gain from the day but within a short time I was finding it very stimulating to be talking with fellow practitioners from the other hemisphere about exciting educational developments."

Devon teachers had an admiration for the positive way in which South African educationalists are facing changes and challenges in their curriculum. They all felt the need to strengthen links and return to the sharing of perspectives at a future date.

Matseliso Semmelink of the Western Cape Educational Department said that the measure of the success of the Conference was the number of people who were saying "we must do this again."

 

Sunday - 25th October

The Jl Zwane Presbyterian church service in the township of Guguleto deeply moved many of the Devon teachers. The forceful gospel singing and unrestrained celebration of the Christian faith contrasted vividly with the experiences of many of those from England. The group were fortunate to attend a baptism service and were delighted to see so many infants baptised in a service which was attended by many hundreds of people. After the service we were impressed by the friendliness and openness of the congregation who delighted in the opportunity to share and show their facilities to others.

During the afternoon four local poets were first video recorded and then performed to the group.

Peter Clarke	Abner Nyamende	Ingrid de Kok	Mike Cope

Peter Clarke talked about his local experiences as a child in Simonstown before reading several of his poems. This was followed by Abner Nyamende who read an alarming poem which involved a puff adder. Ingrid de Kok immediately involved the group with an emotional and moving poem about the death of a newly born child. Mike Cope finished the evening with a series of at first disturbing and then moving poems.

 

Monday - 26th October

It would be almost unimaginable that anybody could be unmoved by Monday's itinerary. The Devon party was no exception. Monday was a day of total contrast as the group left their plush hotel to travel to schools and areas where deprivation and lack of resources were the norm. Yet the party were left awed by the way in which people were battling against incredible odds to provide for their children.

The Chris Hani Community School in Langa Township summed up the way in which people by sheer force of will can struggle and succeed in overcoming difficulties. The school was started in 1991 and exists to provide a basic education for children from the marginalised community who have no birth certificate and are therefore not entitled to state education. With no central help or resources the school teaches over 250 children aged from 6 to 16. During the Devon visit over 120 children were being taught in five separate groups by five teachers in the same room which could have been no larger than five metres by twenty metres. The Devon group were able to help by leaving significant educational resources behind with the prospect of future help also.

The party then visited the Stormont School, Guguletu, a school which is housed in seven shipping containers donated by the dockers of Liverpool and which, after starting in 1987, has been adopted by the state (but funding by the state exists only for the staff wages). The school now boasts two small permanent extensions, a toilet block and hopes to create a library. Nine classes with up to 30 children in each class are being taught. Again, we were able to leave large stocks of educational equipment.

The second half of the day was then spent touring the Township areas of the Western Cape, an experience which left everybody very moved. The tour was punctuated with several stops, all of which helped to show how cooperate and individual schemes were able to improve the lives of individuals. One such scheme, the Philani Nutrition Centre in Khayelitsha empowered local women by training them in the skills of weaving and creating an outlet for their wares.

A final stop at a craft centre in Khayelitsha allowed us to see how other skills could be used to create artifacts for sale and thus generate income. On returning to their hotel it was noticeable that the usual friendly banter had been replaced by a quiet philosophical reflection.

 

Tuesday - 27th October

The group are becoming used to Cape Town and its immediate environment. Contacts have been made, networks established, school links contacted. Tuesday marked the time when many separate and disparate events happened. These included the following:

• Sandra visited Turfhall Primary at Landowne. "A wonderful school" she remarked after having taught maths to three different classes. The teachers stated they would like to exchange examples of children's work and would like to link with a first school.

• John visited Grove Primary and was left deeply envious of the superb computer system created by Alixe and by the friendship and hospitality.

• Julia visited Rustenberg School and in common with everybody else had only positive comments to make.

• Carolyn took part in a marimba workshop (log xylophones) at Bishops High School and heard a range of traditional pieces as well as interpretations and improvisations of more modern jazz numbers ( including a superb adaptation of "Take 5").

• Gerry was invited to the Boland Teacher Training College and thoroughly enjoyed speaking to some of the primary teaching students.

Further groups visited the South African National Gallery and appreciated the Mute Testimonies exhibition representing interpretations the struggle in South Africa and artists who depicted the story.

Julia visited the District 6 Museum and talked to people involved in one way or another with the forced removals there. She looked at the site and collected much valuable primary information.

 

Wednesday - 28th October

The group continued to travel in separate directions. Wednesday's itinerary included:

• An even greater number of school visits today - including Sandra, Ian, David, Carolyn and John. Schools linked by email can benefit enormously by personal visits, thus allowing a face and personality to be put to a name. Dave distributed personal letters, photographs, pens and chocolate bars to the linked children of Simon's Town High School and left with pictures, digital photographs and writing which hopefully will be used on "Crossings 2", the newspaper created by South African children for the children of Devon.

• Gerry went with Terry Laubscher (the music subject adviser) and watched her teaching primary teachers.

• Claire, Julie, Martin and Tim visited the Simon Estes Music High School. Claire was left so entranced with the choir that her comment was … "I want to sing how the day was .…"

• Poppy visited the Montabella Crafts Centre where up and coming artists created their wares in pewter, ceramics and jewellery.

• Julie worked with the whole choir. " The choir can't get together and not sing. Suddenly its down to me and I'm faced with the disciplined choir who don't need me at all but I'm there and teaching them my songs. It was so wonderful and I felt very privileged and honoured to be there."

• Julia visited Robben Island with John Ballantine and the video team. They toured the island looking at buildings connected with prisoners, World War II and the Leper Colony. Interestingly, the prison tour was conducted by a former political prisoner. They saw at close hand the cell that held President Mandela as well as the corridor known as the University of ANC. Much valuable video footage was obtained. The trip was also notable because their bus stopped to allow a tortoise to continue crossing the road !

 

Thursday - 29th October

The art group met Garth Erasmus, a mixed media artist world renowned for his post apartheid work. Clare described Garth as a most humble self deprecatory man who said "There is only one thing I can do and that is make pictures". Actually he is a superb musician (with the didgerydoo) and when speaking had the group hanging on to every word.

Katy visited St. Joseph's College and took a lesson on newspaper articles with 13 year olds. She discussed with them life in Cape Town and found the College "absolutely amazing". John visited Kirstenhof Primary, a school with whom close links had already been made. His visit coincided with a display of work of the very highest quality and he was left totally overwhelmed by the facilities available and friendliness, hospitality and professionalism of the staff. He intrigued a class of 12 year olds with details of his other life as Mayor of Barnstaple.

 

Friday - 30th October

Sandra, Julia and Lorraine visited Masithandane school in Khayelitsha after an invitation from the principal, Xoliswa Gongota.

Jackie Taylor recorded a session with a well known Cape Town storyteller.

The rest of the group now used the time to clear up unfinished business. Poppy visited Kirstenhof Primary and also found the staff and children very friendly and keen to continue their links. Sandy, Debbie and Clare saw whales all the way round Cape Point until they actually saw the real ones. Then they literally jumped up and down with excitement. Several of the group travelled to Robben Island. Fortunately for them they found the sea much calmer than did Julia on Wednesday.

 

Saturday - 31st October

Devastated, the party prepared to leave Cape Town, a city which had stolen the hearts of many. As the six cars left at 3.30, Table Mountain conspired to produce its most glorious display, the white cumulus clouds tumbling down the upper reaches of the mountain in a constantly changing display. Earlier, old haunts had been revisited for the last time, souvenirs and gifts purchased and one or two people had with some urgency visited fresh places. Many vowed to return.