The Weekend

It’s a long weekend, with Heritage Day on Sunday and a day off on Monday. I’m staying in town even though my car is officially fixed once again. Even now, I’m wearing my pajamas and treating myself to a cup of “Comfort and Joy” tea from Mary Lou. Yesterday, I received so many compliments on the pin that Mary Lou gave me It’s a long weekend, with Heritage Day on Sunday and a day off on Monday. I’m staying in town even though my car is officially fixed once again. Even now, I’m wearing my pajamas and treating myself to a cup of “Comfort and Joy” tea from Mary Lou. Yesterday, I received so many compliments on the pin that Mary Lou gave me before I left that I felt I just had to drink a cup of “her” tea in thanks. The shades and window are open, the sun is shining and there’s a cool breeze coming in the window. I’ve settled into my space and rearranged my artwork so that my paintings are in the corner of the rooms and I can see them as soon as I enter the flat. I treated myself to a bouquet of flowers from the local Pic ‘n Pay and my Zambian tea set is right in front of me with a “Crazy for U” Valentine lollipop staring me in the face. And now it’s time for my personal tea party with friends. Can you think of a better start to the weekend?

Since Ben left, I’ve become immersed in projects at work and I’m back to the days when I was up at 5:30 and at the office by 7. Then I work through the day until about 6 before heading home to collapse in front of my favorite shows before going to bed or finishing up something that needs to be out to a colleague before the next day. Of course, many of my colleagues are working far longer hours to juggle all their teaching and research activities as well as their personal lives while for me, it’s all personal and just about me so the stress level is very low.

One of the projects that has been so exciting is to work with Annalie on her field trip to the Pioneer Museum. I had the best time getting to see this home and farm with its 11 stations of activities and discussions that focused on life “back in the day”. Students took photographs as they went through the activities and I used my Flip camera to capture the action of the day. After the trip, we asked the students 3 reflection questions that Annalie and I analyzed for themes so that we could compare the students’ experiences on the field trip with the intended purposes of the trip. We put together our results in a research-style poster that is now on display in our campus library with other artifacts from our department. We’ll be able to use this in an article, but I think we may combine it with some other projects that Annalie incorporates into this class. We were fortunate to have a student who is very skilled in Photo Shop and poster creation actually take what I had set up on my office  walls (the photo has one "panel" as laid out on the wall) and put it into the poster. It’s just beautiful! You'll get to see it when I return next semester!

Then Miemsie, another friend and colleague, has invited me into some research that she and Cycil, our Head of Department (HOD) are doing around the question, “Why are so few Black students enrolling in teacher education?” She had already conducted one focus group when she asked if I would like to sit in on 2 more groups. Of course, I said yes! The first group I joined in on was with secondary (grades 8-10) and FET (grades 11-12) teacher education students. We had 6 young women and 3 young men. Of this group, only 1 young man chose teaching as his first choice major and he was incredibly passionate. I’d love to interview him one-on-one to find out more about his story. The second group I met with was only early childhood majors from first, second, and third years. They were clear that teaching young children was exactly what they wanted to do, but they also had wonderful ideas for recruitment. Next week, I’m following up with a few individual interviews with them to get more data on their personal stories and their recommendations for recruitment.

All that leads to the week of proposals. The department received a Call for Proposals from the Department of Education related to Foundation Phase (grades K-3) teacher education. So everyone moved into high gear to write up proposals for funding. I worked with Cycil and Miemsie on a proposal to address quality of Foundation Phase teacher education programs and the issue of recruitment and retention of Black students. Nkidi worked on a proposal for home language instruction; Marie on teacher identity; and Ina on citizenship education. Our colleagues from Information Communication Technology and Teacher Innovation also submitted a proposal. Between the emails and the meetings and the writing – it was a hectic week for all but now all the proposals are with the HOD. Please keep us all in your prayers that we actually get the money to do much of the research that people are already doing on a much smaller scale.

I ended the week with a trip to J’burg with Nkidi to meet with a potential funder for two of her projects. We got turned around and managed to drive in circles until Nkidi called her niece, who straightened out our directions, and then headed to Ed Con, a conglomerate corporate office for some of the major department stores in South Africa. We met with Innocentia from HR and she was lovely and appeared interested in what Nkidi had to share. We arrived back on campus in time for me to join Annalie’s class as she led them through her “Green Day” activities that integrate virtually everything in the national curriculum into an archeological expedition to Earth in the year 3010 to discover what we can about the planet. This time, I became a member of the team and the two of us had a wonderful time co-teaching (although she really took the lead and I just played along). We’re thinking about another poster or at least more data to go with our field trip article.

So, here I am with a weekend of reading and writing ahead of me. I got the laundry done last night and I’ve already made the bed. The dishes from supper need to be washed so I’ll do that soon. I’ll head over to the bookstore and later in the day, there’s a set of shops that are tucked away in a little corner that I want to check out. Sunday, there’s a flea market and festival that Annalie is taking me to see and I know that Ina and I are taking an evening walk on the university sports grounds at some point. Monday is back to reading and writing with a walk or two just to take a break before returning for another week in academia. I hope that you, too, can enjoy a bit of a break as well to do just what you enjoy doing. And whether it’s a tea party or a coffee break or a trip to Barnes & Noble or Greenberry’s – know that I’m thinking of you over my cup of tea!