Limpopo Reflection 1 - 13 - 14

Limpopo Reflection 1 – 13 – 14

            The American International School of Johannesburg (AISJ) Limpopo Team visited Marumofase High School in Limpopo in November 2013. We met the first generation of ‘born frees.’ Each student was able to write his or her own personal story. The AISJ team collected the stories and distributed them between ourselves to type and edit during the December break. Some fascinating and interesting stories emerged from the collection of stories.

            My observations and perceptions regarding this learning moment left me understanding the extreme life and circumstances that these young adults go through. On a positive note, they’re all reaching for the same dream – to succeed and become successful. The common terminology that a lot of the students used was to become doctors and lawyers. Weighing the nature of the motivation by the students when we gave them the task of taking pride in writing their own stories was very welcomed.

The AISJ Limpopo team enjoyed the challenge and was able to reflect personally on our own limitations when reading the stories of young adults our same age. The learning moments that I take away from this experience is on a deeper level. This was not just simply helping these students with their homework, but taking a look inside the lives of each and every one of these students.

            A problem that surfaced while editing these stories was many of the students got off track and wrote about their personal lives and hardships, rather than being the first generation of ‘born frees.’ Therefore, it was a bit difficult to choose stories that fit into the ‘born free’ topic.

The project is still going forth on producing a book as our future goal. All in all, it was a very productive project and we are now preparing for our January meeting with the Limpopo students.