Go Tell It On The Mountain

I apologize for it getting these posts up in a timely manner.  Internet is limited and spotty in our hotels.  Also, it limits my uploading photos.  I will likely have to add them back at home.

Saturday we climbed up to the top of Table Mountain.  Okay, not really, we didn’t climb but instead took cable cars with rotating floors.  As the cable car climbed up the mountain, it revolved so you could see the entire view from the car.

Once there, we took the requisite pictures and went on a tour where we found out that Cape Town has a unique biodiversity.  It is actually World Heritage site because, of the 2,285 species of plants in the area, more than 1500 occur in the 57 square kilometers of Table Mountain and the Back Table.

A few of my traveling companions and I went for a hike around the flat mountain top.  The path was rocky and uneven and at times we were unsure of where the trails even were.  It was a challenge, but one we were definitely up for.  The best part of the walk was the discussions we had about the struggles of teaching, of trying to be new and creative in this atmosphere of standards and standardized tests.  It seems that there is no time for the whimsical offshoots of teaching that make the classroom rewarding for kids.  One of my colleagues shared that years ago, she had read  Charlie and the Chocolate factory with her students and other had begged to recreate it in her room.  They researched and organized and planned for the whole event over the next two days and the room turned out beautifully.  Did it match a standard or indicator?  No.  Was it on the curriculum map? No.  But did it give ownership over the classroom to the kids and allow them to be creative?  Yes.  That experience even may be more valuable foR the children than another three math lessons but we don’t take time anymore for students to follow passions and bird walk into l earning something that can’t be measured on a standardIzed test.  The social learning is just as important.

We didn’t solve the world’s teaching problems on our adventure, but it was good to talk about it with people who are as passionate about teaching as I am.  And just as the cable car took us down the mountain, giving us a360* view on the way down ( the car has a floor that rotates), I realized that what I valued most about this adventure was getting that new perspective.  A long way to go but glad I got there.