Look how much you’ve grown!

Last week at Green School South Africa, I spent time with four groups of primary school children during their Afrikaans lessons. Every child I saw was having a go at speaking Afrikaans. You might think, “Well, yes, Rob. It was an Afrikaans lesson. What did you expect?” But if you’d been there eighteen months ago, you’d understand why that made me smile. I’ll come back to what changed in those classrooms in a moment.

I sit on Green School’s Board of Advisors and have been visiting regularly for five years. I observe lessons, talk with students, teachers, school leaders and the founders, answer their questions and share what I notice. I’m still here this week, preparing for a staff development day this weekend. What I’ve seen and the questions the team has raised will shape what we do together.

One of my favourite parts of the role is that the team uses me as a kind of thermometer. When you work in a school that’s always asking “What else could we improve?”, it can get tiring. And it’s easy to miss how far you’ve already come. I think of taking my daughter to see her great-aunt after eighteen months. She opens the door and says, “Look how much you’ve grown!” As her dad, I’ve been there for every centimetre. Her great-aunt sees the whole difference at once.

Those Afrikaans lessons were my chance to be the great-aunt. At Green School, local South African children and children from around the world learn together. English is widely spoken at school, and the team feels a responsibility to help local children develop their Afrikaans. For the international children, the team believes that learning a language they hear beyond the school gates helps them get a feel for the place they’re living in, even if their family is only here for three or six months.

When I visited eighteen months ago, quite a few children weren’t happy about their Afrikaans lessons. Their teachers were frustrated too. How do you plan an activity for a child who’s just beginning to learn the language when another child of the same age can already speak it quite comfortably? During that visit, I asked the team, “For these lessons, would it make more sense to group children by their level of Afrikaans rather than by their age?” The team decided to try it, bringing children of different ages together in the same group.

Last week I saw what the teachers had done with that idea. In all four groups, I found enthusiastic teachers who had chosen activities that suited the children in front of them. How could I tell? Eighteen months ago, the teachers were wondering how to get more children to take part. This time, every child joined in, and every child made the effort to speak Afrikaans. What a breakthrough!

Perhaps you could be the great-aunt for each other at your next team meeting. Before the conversation turns to “What else could we improve?”, take a moment to ask each other this question.

If someone who last visited eighteen months ago walked into your classroom today, what would they see or hear that you’ve almost stopped noticing?

Let’s try,
Rob