If travel inspires you to live a better life, one that is more exhilarating of course, but also one that is more thoughtful and abundant, then you are going to love this article about a remarkable woman’s unusual journey through Africa. The story was first published on the website of the New York Times bestselling author and Emmy-winning journalist, Maria Shriver. It is written by South African, Kate Groch, a well-known education “revolutionary” and Rhino Africa hero.
Two Enduring Lessons I Learned as a Travelling Teacher
I am a teacher by trade. As a young woman, fresh out of college, I found myself in the hallways of an established school in the leafy, well-to-do suburbs of Johannesburg. Back in the late 1980s, as a student at the University of Cape Town, I had been a young white woman who was part of the protest movement, antagonizing the apartheid government with our “liberal” marches that were part of a growing change. Everyone knew it was just a matter of time.
Now in the hallways of the Johannesburg school, I never slotted into that traditional “chalk and talk” model of education, and the structure of school classrooms didn’t excite me. Southern Africa was changing – as a young twenty-something I wanted to see it and be a part of it. And so, when a family of well-known South African conservationists advertised that they needed a “travelling tutor” for their children, I was in.
Before homeschooling became acceptable, the Varty family, co-founders of Londolozi Private Game Reserve, broke the mould. They had created a new safari business model, one that focused as much on rural community development as it did on wildlife and they had received backing to export the model across Africa. And so it was that I became “Teach” to the young Bronwyn and Boyd Varty. We ditched the old textbooks and chalkboards and immersed ourselves in wonder-filled learning.
We found ourselves learning algebra on the plains of the Serengeti, with millions of wildebeest and the Ngorongoro crater as our backdrop. History was a six-week “live-in” experience with the Masai people in Kenya. We raised orphan leopards and studied microorganisms in the Zambezi River. We swam with turtles off the coast of Zanzibar, and geography was three months navigating our way alone through India.
All of this was “privileged” of course. But we got to see the world and its people. We slept in tents, under the stars. We got malaria. We were stranded on remote dirt runways. We saw beauty and also poverty. And yes we learnt algebra, but we also learnt about shared humanity, about giving. About the innate goodness in all people.
As I look back at those amazing years and our exposure to people from all walks of life I realize now that I learnt two enduring lessons as a person and as a teacher: (1) Everyone deserves access to learning, and that dream is possible, and (2) Learning is so much better when it’s “wonder-filled.”
A few years after my round-the-world classroom experiment I did two things (or rather the universe called me to two places). I started a nonprofit organisation called Good Work Foundation (GWF) that had wonder-filled education at its heart, and I adopted my beautiful daughter, Maya, who is named after one of my heroes, Maya Angelou.
Maya is eight now, but she was only three months old when I adopted her. Maya’s mother was a rural South African schoolgirl – only 15 years of age – who had decided early on that she would put her baby up for adoption. The family, living below the breadline, could not feed another mouth, let alone imagine putting another child through school. Whichever way we look at it, in terms of the education that is available to her, fate dealt Maya a better hand. Today she has access not only to food and clean water, but also to world-class education, art classes, extra-curricular sports, and, of course, a computer and iPad with “always on” internet.
GWF had begun a number of community projects some years before Maya was born, but after Maya and I became family, more and more, I found I asked myself: “Why can’t everyone have access to wonder-filled education if they want it?” Whether I had adopted her or not, Maya should, from as young as five years old, have the opportunity to interact with the world, its technologies and most importantly, its ideas.
Maya reminds me every day that, especially in the 21st Century, where great people, ideas and technologies exist, it should never matter where a person is born, every little being must be given the opportunity to reach his or her full potential. However big and seemingly unreachable the vision, we are now able to use technology to bring education to those who want it.
I believe we can and along that journey, friends from around the world have supported our vision to bring innovative, wonder-filled teaching methods and technologies to rural communities. Today GWF operates four digital learning campuses of the future. Every week the campuses reach 300 adults and over 3000 rural elementary schoolchildren and preschool children. We have created a space of gamified learning and fun, but we have also improved Math’s results by 30 percent.
Along the way we are supporting teachers, mothers, young women and vulnerable children. When a child who doesn’t have running water at home is programming a robot on one of our campuses, that makes me happy and I believe that child will change the world, for herself, her family and her community, possibly for us all.
I have come a long way since that young college woman who rallied on the stairs of UCT. The fall of apartheid in South Africa was one victory, but there are many more that need to be won. Becoming a traveling teacher and a mother to Maya helped me to see that. I firmly believe that if we reinvent education, we can help to change the lives of an entire generation. And we can reinvent education. It’s already happening.
To all the “teachers by trade” out there, now is your time. Think differently. Create wonder-filled learning spaces all over the world and use the amazing power of technology to connect with knowledge and each other and make it happen.
Some History: Kate Groch, Rhino Africa and GWF
Good Work Foundation (GWF) is creating a hub and satellite model of education in rural southern African communities that uses advances in technology and digital content to bring better (and more exciting) learning to many more adults and children. Their mission, grounded in the African value of Ubuntu, which means, “I am, because of you”, is to leapfrog traditional teaching methods so that they can change the lives of an entire generation of amazing African talent. Rhino Africa has been supporting GWF for over five years, raising money via our annual Challenge4ACause. We have also recently started working with GWF’s rural Media Academy, which offers digital media work experience to people living in rural Mpumalanga. Amongst other things, GWF’s Media Academy covers all the reporting, stories and blog and photo fun on our adopted orphan rhino, Don. Find out more: www.goodworkfoundation.org.
I traveled through a part of South Africa in 2018. It was life changing for me as well. I am an avid animal lover and conservationist. I also support a young Kenya girl through Unbound. I will be most interested to keep up with your work.