The week before last, I found out that the room labeled “Library” at Cypress -- the one I suspected may be a holding cell for past volunteers -- was most definitely neither. Early one morning, the principal, Mr. T, agreed to meet with Dave and I and discuss his hopes for Cypress, as well as the challenges it faces. During our chat (during which we got an impromptu tour of the “library”/storage room), it came out -– suddenly, like word vomit, to the point where I found myself so enthusiastically speaking on the subject, I surprised even myself -– that my foremost passion and interest under the education umbrella is literacy.
Nothing made me more happy than sharing beautiful and informative children’s books with my kiddos in Tanzania. Nothing pumped me up more than seeing their appreciative and excited faces every time they realized that they knew what was going on in the book, and/or recognized that the words on the page were telling a story. Now, standing before my students in Athlone, asking them to predict what will happen when the Cat in the Hat releases Thing 1 and Thing 2, or to show me their “roars” like the main character in Library Lion, I am filled with such animated pleasure at the sight of their enthusiasm, I can barely contain myself.
My 1st graders now beg for read-alouds, and angrily shush each other when someone else interrupts. Recently, Mrs. P began hunting down books for me to read to them before I head home every day, which is a wonderful, to say the least, but best and most exciting of all is this: ever since I started bringing in books to share with my students, one child after another now arrives at school in the morning with some sort of early-reader or dilapidated library book under his/her arm, which they then proudly march up to me and ask to share with the class. To see a love for books and reading developing right before my very eyes… well, it makes me sort of sick with satisfaction.
How difficult it is for these kids to get their hands on books, quality or otherwise! It’s incredible. It may not be rural Tanzania (where I had to travel all the way to Nairobi to find a store that sold anything but terrifying religious/moral texts and poorly translated paperbacks), but resources are still often scattered, scarce, expensive and/or inadequate. I read recently that 92% of public schools in South Africa don’t have a functioning library. NINETY-TWO PERCENT. Good lord. No wonder the literacy rate is so low (and by extension, employment rates and economic opportunity)! No wonder my kids thirst for literature!
Cypress Primary is no exception. While it may have recently acquired a privately donated, beautiful new computer lab, it has no library to speak of, and certainly no librarian. Children coming from neighborhoods and homes where print/lit is scarce (and where many parents are not so literate themselves) must rely on their teachers to provide them with this exposure, life skill, and academic opportunity (not to mention the pleasure) of books and reading. If the teachers’ school has no library to draw from as a resource, they must provide for it themselves… or simply ignore (and perpetuate) the problem altogether.
So, what can be done? Honestly, it’s a tall order. Some of the sinks in the bathrooms don’t work, the security cameras and metal drainage pieces were recently stolen, and many of the windows have only just recently been replaced after getting smashed in. How can a growing literacy problem be tackled when basic infrastructure can barely be kept up with? How can a national problem (and by “problem,” I mean “crisis”) be dealt with at the local level?
I’m starting small, myself. It’s time to get my hands dirty. The classroom in which I’m teaching doesn’t yet have a reading corner, or any organized children’s books to speak of… so I’m going to create one. By the end of my 3 months here, Cypress Primary 1B should have its own classroom library, from which both teacher and students can access print for curriculum enrichment, literacy attainment, and pure reading bliss. My hope is to have beautiful and engaging books in English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa, as well as various literacy games and resources, all organized and categorized according to my children’s interests, ability levels, and needs. My aim is something both functional and sustainable. Truthfully, I have no idea how I’ll acquire all these things (plans forthcoming), but man, nothing lights a fire under me more than bright, disadvantaged kids in need… and they are so completely deserving.
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