Teacher Talks – Punahou PFA
Yunus Peer
Sept. 16th - 2005
Closing the Global Education
Divide
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.
Project Website: http://www.punahou.edu/acad/ss/peer/sa
TWB International: http://www.teacherswithoutborders.org