I’ve been in a lot of schools.
Attending several as a student and visiting dozens in the past 10 years for my work.
Not all schools are created equal. Some are adorned with brightly colored walls and inspirational messages, while others have worn paint in dull colors. Some have state-of-the-art STEM labs, while others have bare library shelves.
I believe even the schools with chipping paint and under-resourced classrooms can radiate optimism.
My evidence: a primary school in Swaziland (now E-Swatini).
Our tour group made a stop at the school during a trip to South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe in 2016.
[Since then, I’ve learned about the potential harm in tourist visits to schools. Schools shouldn’t depend on tourist photo ops for funding, and tourists who generously but unknowing, buy and distribute candy to children, aren’t around to pay the dental bill. While I’m glad we visited the school in 2016, if presented with a similar opportunity now, I may decline.]
Rather than relying on our tour group’s stop at the grocery store to purchase candy and nonperishables for the school and students, my mom prepared weeks in advance. In anticipation of the visit she brought age-appropriate books from the U.S. and more importantly, letters from her students in New Jersey.
When our 55-passenger bus pulled off the main roadway and parked outside the one-room schoolhouse, students ages 3 to 8 quickly came running out.
Part of this enthusiasm was youthful excitement and part of if it a conditioned response – buses of people bring gobs of candy and other items. Swaziland is a small, landlocked, impoverished country, with humble health outcomes for many, in no small part due to HIV. In Swaziland, a quarter of the adult population is HIV positive, and the small kingdom’s life expectancy is 58 years old. The students we met were personally impacted by these conditions.
Their school was sparse with pale yellow walls adorned with student artwork.
There were no desks, textbooks, or computers. But the classroom echoed with joy when the teacher led her students in song. Despite the muted colors, I was filled with the same optimism I would feel visiting any pre-k classroom in the U.S. – maybe even more. Perhaps it was because they didn’t know of a life any different from their own, or because visitors bring gifts, attention, and a break from studies, but these young Africans were cheerful, engaging, and hopeful.
There are a lot of inequities in our world, and there are people far more qualified than me to offer solutions for tackling them. I can say I am pretty sure that education needs to be at the root of any solution. And while the children I met that day surely have the cards stacked against them, you simply can’t lose hope that these eager students can be part of the solution.
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