Prior to my time in South Africa, my only teaching experience was in the children’s ministry at my home church. Now as I teach in Cape Town, I don’t have much to fall back on while trying to make my way in the day-to-day work. It’s pretty much just go-with-the-flow and relish every day as a new experience.
Still, I’m pretty sure some of the things I encounter are not normal to professional educators. For example, there’s a 4-year-old girl at Red Hill named Hope (pronounced “Opie,” just like Sheriff Andy Taylor’s son). Hope is one of the cutest kids you could imagine – and one of the sassiest. On Monday I had to send her home from our after-school club because she was defiantly flashing her middle finger to another kid who had ticked her off. I’ve lost count now, but I know I’m up to double-digits in the number of times I’ve had to eject Hope for the day.
Something that I know is not normal, at least not in America, is the practice of teaching the Bible and praying in public schools. But that’s exactly what I’m allowed to do here each Tuesday in a series of 30-minute life skills classes for K through 3rd-graders. This week I read a book called The Little Tree, which told the Christmas story from the perspective of a tree whose wood was used to build the manger that held the baby Jesus. As I read the story, and as we sang Away in a Manger and other carols afterward, I marveled at a culture that still recognizes God’s standards for raising children. If a teacher tried to do such a thing in the U.S., he or she would be out on the street faster than you could say “ACLU.”
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