Teacher Talks – Punahou PFA
Yunus Peer
Sept. 16th – 2005

There are 59 million teachers in the world. We make up the world’s largest profession. As professionals, our access to a student’s mind and our ability to influence that mind, is unparalleled. It is also an awesome responsibility.

However, the reality of our world today finds great disparity in the standard of education offered to students around the world. The rural child in Southern Africa does not have the same opportunity to excel that my daughter Avishan has in the 7th grade at Punahou’s Case Middle School. Avishan has access to qualified, motivated, enthusiastic teachers who have earned their credentials through hard work and privilege. With our collective resources we have an opportunity to close the global education divide by working with teachers and students in other parts of the world. In the process, we are also ambassadors of our country and our culture, thus relieving our politicians and business leaders of being the only reflection of America in the global village.

Pumla Pamla was a 9th grader from Little Flower Mission School in Ixopo South Africa in 1998. Freda Radebe was an 11th grader from Smuts High School in Meyerton, South Africa. Both girls came from rural schools where no amount of teacher motivation and enthusiasm would provide the opportunity that my child has at Punahou or any other public school in Hawaii. Their teachers were denied the opportunity to a good education on account of being black and poor. Everyone saw the potential for success in Pumla and Freda, yet, no matter how many hours the teachers spent with the girls, Pumla and Freda had little chance of going to college and escaping the cycle of poverty that millions like them are destined to.

In 1998, through some good luck and kind hearts, Pumla and Freda were selected to attend Proctor Academy, my former school, on full scholarship. Neither of the girls had dreamed of such an opportunity. Freda graduated from Proctor and returned to University in South Africa where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce. She is an active member in her community and has inspired many young minds in her former school in South Africa. Pumla graduated as a US national merit scholar three years later, and was awarded a full scholarship to her choice of American universities. She has completed her Bachelor’s in Science and is planning on becoming a cardiac surgeon. Don’t we wish we could give all the Pumla’s and Freda’s of the world such an opportunity? Proctor awarded 2 more South African students a full scholarship before moving on to offering students from other third world countries, a similar opportunity.

I am convinced that given the opportunity for a good education, children anywhere can succeed and compete on a world stage. In our age of globalization, they will need both; a good education and they will need to compete on a world stage.

I believe teachers from schools like Punahou, who have earned their dues from hard work and the privilege of a good education hold the keys to the aspirations of millions of children around the world and we ought to take the opportunity to open the doors when and where we can. We can positively affect students by helping to upgrade the skills of those enthusiastic, motivated, and unqualified teachers, whether they are in South Africa, Micronesia, Samoa, New Zealand, Nigeria or Afghanistan.

Thus, the idea of Teachers Without Borders was born five years ago. Dr. Fred Mednick, a former high school teacher and headmaster in California began this umbrella organization that currently connects together teachers from 84 countries around the world. Each country has its own director and operates his or her own program to help bring teachers together and to help upgrade skill levels to better serve the student population.

I come from a politically active family in South Africa. My father was constantly harassed by the security police under the old Apartheid government in his efforts to bring education to the black, rural, poverty stricken areas. His building of a school for rural children got him in trouble with the government. My passport was withdrawn for studying at Waterford School in Swaziland with the children of Bishop Tutu, Walter Sisulu, and Nelson Mandela. My dad voted for the first time in his life in 1994 – he died 3 years later. Since his passing, the family has worked to continue his legacy. In 2001-2 we formed Teachers Without Borders-South Africa and I became the director and coordinator of this grassroots, nonprofit entity. Punahou School partnered with the Peer Family Trust to sponsor 4 Hawaii math teachers to conduct workshops with teachers and students in South Africa during their 3 week July winter vacation. Our Hawaii team worked with 96 South African teachers and 75 senior students in 2 provinces in June and July 2001. Since that time we have expanded the program to include science, since both math and science are national priorities in South Africa. The Apartheid government offered no math or science of any consequence in black schools because they said clearly that black people would never get the opportunity to use these skills since they were destined to be laborers anyway.

Teachers Without Borders – South Africa is a grassroots organization. We have no corporate funding except for a $5000 grant last year, from Cisco Corp. The rest of the funding required to take 7 of us to South Africa for 5 weeks is raised from schools, parents, Rotary clubs, family, neighbors and friends. My mother helps us out when I can’t raise enough by providing us with meals and transportation when needed. In 5 years 20 Hawaii teachers have gone to South Africa during the summer to conduct workshops in math and science with teachers and students. In 5 years, we have conducted 21 workshops in 3 provinces, with 826 teachers and 3500 students. In 5 years, 826 six teachers have positively impacted more than a half million South African students and pass rates have dramatically improved in the areas we have worked in.

For our Hawaii teachers, it is an experience of a lifetime and the best professional development money can buy – or in this case the amount of money I can raise from Sept. to June. It combines professional development with international service which creates educational opportunities for students. It creates an opportunity for students to escape the cycle of poverty by passing their high school exams and going to college. We go to South Africa well-versed in the South African curriculum, but NOT as experts – we go as colleagues who have come to share and learn. All our Hawaii teachers come back feeling like they learned more than they taught. And of course, the beneficiaries of this personal and professional growth are your children at Punahou and the children at other schools from which our Hawaii teachers come. Thanks to the Honolulu Sunset Rotary Club, we now have the airfare for a Hawaii public school teacher to join our team every year.

In 2005, Melissa Mano, the Math dept. head at Kalaheo High School joined 2 Punahou, 2 Kamehameha and one KCC teacher on the TWB-SA team. We held 4 workshops with 365 senior students and 240 teachers over a four week period. Melissa was a star! One particularly memorable moment defined the value of the project for me and it happened at our last workshop.

Melissa was addressing the audience at the closing ceremony in the Eastern Cape. Two national education directors were in the audience of 200 people – 160 teachers in all and 40 local dignitaries and officials. Melissa was describing her challenges in a Hawaii public school.

Melissa was having a hard time holding back the tears as she described her feelings of frustration with students and the working conditions in her school. Then she went on to talk about the job offers she received from the corporate world and how she was considering quitting her job at Kalaheo. She could hold back her tears no longer…. And then from the back of the hall, a group of ten or so teachers began singing….they sang a Japanese song that Melissa had taught them during the week … in an effort to give her courage and strength to get through her story. She did, and by this time there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Melissa went on to say that after spending the past week with these local teachers, and living with their motivation and enthusiasm to come to a week-long workshop during their vacation, with no pay or credit, and having seen the conditions they work in – 50 students to a class, not enough textbooks and never enough resources, ….. that she would never consider quitting her job. In fact, she was going to return to Kalaheo doubly determined to make sure that these public school students succeed in school and make it to college. The South African teachers had provided her the perspective and the inspiration to put aside her frustration and devote her energies toward her student’s success!

For moments like these, I will work harder to continue this program. Please look at the website for a more detailed history of the project. I am grateful to Punahou and the community for their support. Our success in South Africa has opened many other doors for TWB and Hawaii teachers. Yesterday, I received a phone call from Dr. Mednick in Seattle who wanted me to consider two potential projects. The first is to develop a science teacher training program for Western China in 2006 that is sponsored by Agilent Technologies. The second is to consider recruiting teachers for a joint- TWB-US-AID project to train 20,000 teachers in Iraq over the next few years – the first workshops are to be held in Jordan in 2006. Its all a little too much some times. Once I finish grading the 60 World Civilizations essays my 9th grade students handed in yesterday, I will have the time to consider all of this.

My vision for South Africa is that our TWB project will continue to grow and in 2011, we will open a school in rural South Africa that serves students in the community and is simultaneously a teacher-training school. We are currently negotiating for the land which a local community wants to donate to us. They have been offered huge sums of money by tourism developers and titanium miners but are considering investing their hopes in a community school instead. Perhaps they will, and if they do, I hope to embark on a capital fund-raising campaign in a couple of years both in South Africa and in the United States. Punahou will then have a base on the exact opposite side of the world where teachers can use their sabbatical year and Punahou students may spend an exchange semester – thus fully realizing the Punahou mission of being a global school.

I am a dreamer.

Wish us luck!

Thank you for inviting me.