Erasmus+ Journal (Issue 3) 2014/15

Kasper van den Hoorn, The international school of Cape Town, South-Africa, mobility for internship, KPZ

Woodland Heights
Edinburgh Close
Wynberg 7806
Cape Town
South Africa

In the second year of my education we had to make a choise if we wanted to go abroad. I choose South Africa immediately. This was a dream for me. After a year of collecting all the European Credits, it was time to give the journey to Cape Town some shape. Together with a student from my school, Annemiek Withaar, we went to Hengelo in The Netherlands. At Saxion we got our information about the internships. We heard about the do and dont's and the way of education. After our briefing we heard the name of the school where we would go for our internship. The principal, Mr Hunter, sended us an email after a week to confirm our internships at his school. He already arranged a place for us to stay during our internship.

We will fly to Cape Town on the 23rd of February and be staying till the 24th of May.

We are really looking forward to the journey we are about to make.

UPDATE 02-03-2015

We arrived at Wynberg. When we arrived at the airport Danie was waiting for us. We drove to our house where we will stay for the next three months. I can say that Africa is a really nice country. But you can see the difference between the poor and the rich people, because there are people who lives in villas and there are houses made from corrugated. The people are very nice to us.

The next three month we will stay in a mansion. The house is really big. The host family consists of Danie (the man of the house), Jola (the woman of Danie) and their daughter, Elsa. I’m feeling really at home, because we can do all the things we also do at home.

The first week we did a lot of things. I’ve eaten ostrich for the first time. It taste very well. We went to Victoria Wharf what is next to Clifton beach. The shopping center is really big and luxurious. On the way back we drove along the coast. The view was really nice. In the evening we met some other students from The Netherlands. We now know more about their stay and internship. They are teaching at different schools. We decided to see that schools in the future. So we have different looks of the schools in South-Africa.

We went to a wine tasting on Thursday at Klein Constantia. The views of the vineyards is breathtaking. We took a bottle of wine for the host family and they tried Dutch cheese. They liked it, off course!

In the evening we went to the carnival. It’s a different carnival then at our place at home. There were several food stalls and there was also a fair.

On Friday we went on the mountain bike to our internship school for a first look. The roads are really high, so it was a really tough route. We still need to get used to it. The traffic is really busy and there are no cycle paths. The roads are really small so we have to watch out. It’s really funny because you see very few bicycles and in the Netherlands you can’t watch nowhere and you see a bike.

We do our internship at the International school of Cape Town. It is a private school and the classes are small. At the school they’re working with projects. And they’re having a substitute teacher for nearly every subject. This means that the education is of a high standard. The International school is working with the schools in the townships to help each other to give the best education that is possible.

UPDATE 22-03-2015

We are getting used to living in Cape Town. We cycle to school, give our lessons, observe the teachers and go home. We do this for 4 day's. The fifht is for research. This can be a problem. My laptop decided to leave me alone in Cape Town. Thankfully I can use the computer from the people i'm living with. After a week of being on school my mentor decided to be sick. This ment that I had to do the class. The manager of the school came up to me and asked if I was up for the job. I'm always ready for a challenge so said yes right away. Maybe I forgot to do everything In English.... Well, I needed some practise and got it. It was a great day and the children wore impressed of the lessons I gave. I added a Dutch touch to it. They loved it.

A couple of weeks ago we had Dutch visitors at the ISCT. Sander from Saxion came by to see how we were doing. He observed a lesson I gave and gave feedback afterwards. He said my English was very good and I will be okay at ISCT. I was happy yo hear this. After this day I skyped with my Dutch internship supervisor Gertrude Pieters. I read that you have to have two skype moments with her. Well, that was fun. We talked about allot and I was trying to make her jealous about my sunny situation. It worked! But The Netherlands just experienced 14 degrees so were completely in summer mode and I had to hear that. Yeah, I'm used to 26 degrees in general so I was freezing with the thought of 14.

From 27-03-2015 till 13-04-2015 it's term break. me and some other Dutch students are going to a vacaion cabine somewhere outside Cape Town. I'm looking forward to it. I'm a little bit done to hear the alarm go off at 6:30 (5:30 Dutch time) three days and one day at 6:00 (5:00 Dutch time).

UPDATE 07-05-2015

After a fantastic vacation where I visited Britainna Bay with some Dutch students I had to return to ISCT. A new challenge! I was starting in the other Year 6. First I worked with Mr. Greenwood, now it was the turn of Mrs. Swiegers to guide me. She gives Afrikaans when the children have MFL (Modern Foreign Languages). I can even speak a little bit Afrikaans now. The first thing I noticed about here way of teaching was that I got allot of freedom. Freedom to do what I wanted with my lessons. Every week I would get email with the verbs that the children had to know in for example the Numeracy lesson. This was the main aim. I could create my own lesson around these subjects. That was a great thing to do. I've learned how I can create own materials to support the children. In this intern period I also started my lesson series. My theme was 'Working With World War II'. The aim is that children learned to work with maps and the key. Well, that was quite special for them. When I showed the children an atlas, they were suprised that they could get so much information out if it. I even had to explain the verb: grid reference. They didn't know how this worked. I learned them to use the index, to read a key and to look at a map from different perspectives. After this first lesson in my series I wanted the children to create their own map. This with the second World War as theme. This was a challenge. First I divided the class in 4 groups. Becauce the World War was happening on two sides of the globe 2 groups got Germany as theme and 2 groups Japan. The assigment was: How did the world look in the year 1942? This is letterly and in the figure of speech. They had to create a map how Europe and East-Asia looked like in that year. They also had to name the big events in these particular years of war. What where the consequenses for the people, the country and what did they thought themselfs? After a lesson of working in a group the 2 groups were combined in the next lesson. They had to share information and use the best information to create a presentation for the other group. They had to divide assigments, decide who was going to give the presentation and make their map as clear as possible. This map HAD to be shown in the presentation. This went very well and above my expections. This week the presentations were given. They were fantastic. They were al so serious and so driven to tell their story! It was fantastic to see. At the beginning of the project we had made an agreement. The World War is a serious subject and the children are not alloud to make fun of something what so ever when discussing this project. The children where very keen and handled the subject as adults. I gave them some questions to work with. Besides that they also could tell the other group what they wanted to tell themselves. The presentation where very different. One was a kind of interview with an eyewitness and the other was done by powerpoint. The maps were done great and came back in the presentation. I think accomplisht my goal.

Today we had to say goodbye to our internship. Our 40 days are done and dusted. I got presents from my mentor aswell from the children. All the staff gatherd in the staffroom to say something and again, a present. We are spoiled. I had a fantastic time at ISCT and I am jealous of the next interns who will walk through those hallways.

Now Annemiek and I have two weeks left for traveling. We are looking forward to it. Lets do some bungeejuming! We are going to do the R62 to Humansdorp and the Gardenroute back. Our trip will be ziplining, sightseeing, bungeejumping and enjoying. Time to see Africa in its most beautiful form.

UPDATE 20-05-2015

Well, that was a impressive bungee jump! What is South Africa beautiful. Can't think of a country who can offer you this much. As you look at the date of this update you can tell that my three months in Cape Town are almost over. In 4 days I will be up in they air, going back to The Netherlands. If I look back at the journey, I have to say that some things really surprised me on the financial level. Down below you will find the costs.

I forgot that my school in The Netherlands keeps charging. If you have to pay 300 euro's per month, 365 euro's per 2 months and get your life going I'm gonna warn you. It's expensive. But I have to say, I was lucky. Some people I got to know had it way worse. They paid 350 euro's per month. That was excluding the groceries and a limited Wifi. My 300 euro's was with unlimited Wifi and the groceries were done for us. You think that Africa is cheap. At the moment that I'm typing this, one euro equals 13 rands. It may sound cheap, but it isn't. If you calculate everything and make it in to a sum, you will be surprised. The basic things are much cheaper in South Africa. The things you don't expect to be that expensive are the expensive things. For example, groceries. In The Netherlands it's cheaper to do groceries than to go out for dinner. In South Africa it is cheaper to go out for Dinner than buy groceries. It is just the other way around.

In the beginning of our trip we had an agreement with Saxion in Hengelo. If we didn't like it, we would have an other place in two weeks. This was because we had to live with a family and basically had to adjust. We were not really looking forward to that. By the time we arrived we didn't want to go anywhere else. The family is so caring and so loving towards us. It felt that we were part of the family. That is something I really going to mis.

This was my last update. If you have any questions about my journey, prices or want some tips, don't hesitate to send my a message on this website.