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Carly Nathan: Town School for Boys
I thoroughly enjoyed my time attending the GTI Summit, connecting with fellow educators and students, and visiting various schools across Johannesburg. While attending the GTI Summit I had the opportunity to attend a session about how to teach 21st Century Skills. I thoroughly enjoyed this session because I think it challenged the typical idea or notion we may have about 21st Century Skills. For instance, your mind might go straight to technology….but in fact 21st Century Skills are the ability to collaborate, communicate, and innovate. I found this messaging to be powerful and a crucial part of our educational system and world.
Following the Summit, I had the privilege of visiting various schools across Johannesburg. While visiting these schools I was struck by the amount of students in a single classroom and how many sections of a grade there were to accommodate all of the official languages in South Africa. Additionally, I had the privilege to teach a math lesson in a 3rd grade classroom at a school in Alex. During this lesson I lead a number talk and game. It was fun to see the students engaged and I was grateful to Ostile for helping translate. Finally, I enjoyed learning about the history of South Africa and in particular the history of education and how access is growing for all students across the country.
Curt Goehring: Town School
The two weeks spent in South Africa getting to learn their history, teach students and engage in discourse with both young and older leaders, was an experience that continues to shape how I view my everyday life. It started with the unexpected news that we were in charge of creating the play dough which led to building bonds with fellow TWA/GTI leaders. Followed by the AXIS Education Summit where we deepened these bonds and concluded with the Flame Event where we collaborated with GTI interns to showcase our shared learning through different perspectives. In between these big events we saw what life in Alexandra was like and could only begin to understand how the desired changes South African educators want to make are harder to implement when the diverse group of people it affects have historically been pitted against one another. However, I was inspired by the students who are sharing their truths through poetry, being vulnerable with their peers in Life Orientation and contemplating their values in life. It’s incredible to have had so many new and noteworthy experiences in such little time. My hope is that our continued partnership with such driven leaders will open the door to more forward movement and collaboration.
Josh Tetenbaum: Town School
My experiences with Teach with Africa had a profound effect on me, revealing the vast differences between South African and American educational contexts while illuminating surprising points of connection. Two experiences in particular stand out: the first was while visiting Ebony Park Primary School, which serves 2,500 R-through-7 students who speak five different home languages: Xhosa, Zulu, Tsonga, Sepedi, and Tshivenda. When we asked the head of the school whether she speaks all of these languages, she said that yes, of course she did: in her estimation, if you love someone, you must speak their language, so she saw it as her duty to learn all of the languages her students speak.
The second was spending a number of days visiting LEAP 4, where I shadowed teachers and talked to students. I was especially struck by Life Orientation, the national life skills curriculum. During one session, my colleagues and I sat in a circle of 12th graders who spoke honestly and openly about the ways that they sought balance in their lives both in and out of school; these students expressed genuine curiosity about our own answers to the prompt, and ensured that every voice—including our own—was heard. The next day I sat in on a class session addressing the same material and learned that this course content was assessed in a national exam! Overall, I got the impression that South Africa’s education system is growing and changing in exciting ways; even as many of the particularities of these schools make them difficult to compare to my own experiences in American schools, the places where teachers and schools were building something genuinely new and innovative was an honor to witness.
Rachel Hollister: Town School
My name is Rachel Hollister, and this was my fourth time attending the GTI Summit, visiting schools, and joining workshops. Just like in the past, the experience was enriching, educational, and inspiring. Everywhere we went, we were greeted so warmly—not only by the students but by the teachers too. Many of them invited me into their classrooms, eager to share what they were doing and even give me the chance to step in and teach. I found myself joining a P.E. class, reading a story, giving a spelling test, and teaching a Math lesson. Moments like these remind me how much stepping into someone else’s classroom can deepen and enhance my own teaching.
One highlight was working with Sindiswa, a GTI student. Together we recreated a workshop we had first participated in at the Summit, and on my last day we co-led two sessions on the relationship between parents, teachers, and students. Collaborating and sharing ideas was energizing, and we had a lot of fun doing it. It’s an experience I know I’ll carry with me for a long time.
Every visit to South Africa leaves me with a deep sense of warmth, generosity, and a shared passion for learning. I return home inspired by the educators I meet and hopeful that these connections will continue to grow. Each exchange not only strengthens our teaching but also reminds me that learning is always a shared journey. Most of all, I carry the joy of these experiences back into my own classroom, where they continue to shape the way I teach and learn alongside my students.
