Although the population of students in U.S. public schools has become steadily more diverse in recent decades, the teaching force remains primarily white and middle class. As a result, most students of color will be taught by teachers who do not share their linguistic, cultural, and life experiences. While teachers from all backgrounds can become excellent teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse students, for teachers who do not share their students background this process requires making a greater effort to learn about students, their communities, and the socio-historical factors that may impact students’ learning. Such learning extends beyond learning the technical processes of teaching literacy and numeracy skills.
The South Africa study abroad program offers pre-service students at Kutztown University the opportunity to apply the literacy interventions they learn through their work in SPU 316: Literacy Development in Core and Intervention Areas the chance to practically apply their learning through tutoring primary school students at Oranjekloof Moravian Primary School in the Hout Bay area of Cape Town, South Africa. Working in collaboration with the non-profit organization One Heart Source, a group that has been bringing university student volunteers to Cape Town to tutor students at Moravian since 2012, the study abroad students not only get practical experience in applying literacy interventions to support students with reading and writing needs but also spend time visiting the township of Imizamo Yethu where the majority of the students at Moravian live, get lessons in speaking Xhosa (the native language of most students at Moravian), and participate in immersion experiences that teach them about the history of South Africa and the legacy of apartheid which continues to manifest itself in the racial and socio-economic divides that persist in current day South Africa despite the fact that apartheid ended a quarter century ago.
Through this study abroad experience, the Kutztown University students will hopefully learn lessons about the efforts teachers should make to learn about their students both as individuals and as members of larger communities and the ways in which socio-historical factors, language, and culture intersect with learning. In essence, the program seeks to develop pre-service teachers who will become teachers willing to fully immerse themselves in their students’ worlds, to be learners as well as teachers, and to tackle uncomfortable issues such as racism, classism, and post-colonialism so they can better connect with and ultimately teach the children who sit in their future classrooms.
