The definition of caring

One of the biggest lessons I learned during the past year as a TEACH Ambassador was the importance of sharing TEACH South Africa’s mission, and my experiences, with family, friends and acquaintances.

I’ve been so encouraged by the many people who would like to help in different ways but have no idea how or where to start.

One such person is a lady who had always thought about collecting dictionaries for an under-resourced school. She heard me talking about my school and the challenge of teaching students a language, with limited access to textbooks and dictionaries. 

This lady approached me about collecting dictionaries for the school and the principal gave her the go-ahead. By the end of the year, while still working full-time, she had somehow managed to collect 30 fairly new dictionaries. 

I am taking care of the dictionaries until our recently established library is fully functional. The dictionaries will eventually be kept in the library, and will also be available for use in class. In the meantime, the other teachers and I make use of them as needed during our lessons.

None of the classes this year exceeds 45 learners, so when the dictionaries are used from class to class, each learner can use their own dictionary for that lesson.

It’s exciting to use them on a more regular basis in various reading and writing exercises. I’m hopeful that their spelling, grammar and vocabulary will show much improvement by the end of the year.