Thanks to the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program, on Jan. 10 Islesboro Central School math teacher Tom Tutor and family will embark on a grand adventure, flying to South Africa where Tom will undertake a year-long assignment teaching mathematics to students whose customary teacher will be, meanwhile, teaching Tom’s Islesboro students.
The Fulbright international educational exchange program was established in 1946 to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” Sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State, the program gives exchange teachers the opportunity to observe each others’ political, economic, educational and cultural institutions, to exchange ideas and to embark on joint ventures of importance to the general welfare of the world’s inhabitants.
Between six and eight hundred teachers throughout the country apply each year for the program, and about 180 are selected for exchanges. Tutor, the only Mainer among this year’s group of teachers, had originally requested placement in Scotland, Poland or Switzerland (three-quarters of the placements are in the UK). Surprised to hear that he had been offered South Africa as a country, Tutor is convinced that his application essay was the reason. Asked to describe the cultural influences in his development, Tutor began with the fact that he grew up in a segregated society “that began to be integrated while I was in high school. I later lived in the Panama Canal Zone which appeared much like a country club neighborhood while, just across the border in the Republic, Panamanians lived in thatched roof huts with dirt floors, and I finally roosted on Islesboro, with our peculiar society bifurcated along economic lines.”
After being notified of the selection, Tutor and his family were given just four days to decide, and after numerous phone calls, hours on the Internet and much discussion, they let go of their visions of an European idyll and embraced the idea of an African adventure.
The Tutors’ destination is Herschel Village, a town at the end of a dirt road in the foothills of the Drakensburg Mountains between Aliwal North and Lady Grey. The town’s location near the western border of Lesotho, in the Eastern Cape Province, places it almost exactly in the middle of South Africa. The village’s elevation is about 5,000 feet, and the countless foothills surrounding it give it the nickname “Valley of a Thousand Hills.” Nearly 500 residents live in approximately 200 houses in an arid landscape — high veldt, which means that grasses, not trees, dominate the area — that receives only 22 inches of rainfall annually.
Tom Tutor, his wife, Sue, and sons Dan, T.L., and Jesse, will be living in a small house about 100 yards away from the school. They have been assured that the house has electricity and water, both of which are working just fine. The Tutors plan to bring a tent with them to serve as a guest room. They also plan to buy a car while in South Africa so they can tour the country during school vacations. Other plans include a lot of hiking and camping in the surrounding mountains and also touring the Aduu Elephant Preserve and other game parks.
Sue will bring a project of her own to Herschel Village. Owner of an Islesboro landscaping/garden design business, she will apply her skills and knowledge working with the community to develop a communal vegetable garden. A selection of seeds for this purpose has been donated by Johnny’s Seeds (a local company), and Sue hopes to organize a working garden for residents in this arid part of South Africa. Because of the nature of Sue’s Islesboro business, she will be returning to the States for the three U.S. summer months. Tom says that of all the innumerable challenges facing him, this may be the biggest. Tom and Sue were parted for two weeks years ago before children, and haven’t been apart since then. “Being a single parent in Africa,” Tom says, “was not on my list of fantasies.”
Tom and Sue’s oldest child, Dan, a student at Bennington College, will be joining the family for a six-week college work term volunteering at the nearby Lady Grey Arts Academy, a K-12 boarding school of approximately 400 students from across the country. Sons T.L. (a high school student) and Jesse (entering the fifth grade) will be commuting to the Academy, which is one of three private schools in South Africa dedicated to the arts, with a student population comprised of blacks, mixed race, Afrikaners and people of Dutch and English ancestry.
Tom Tutor will be teaching eighth and ninth grade mathematics to five classes with 50 students in each, at the Herschel Village Junior Secondary School, a public school with an enrollment of approximately 200. Many students walk to school from the surrounding countryside, and most of Tutor’s students’ parents have never attended public school. The village school’s primarily black students are mainly Xhosas, the largest tribe in South Africa. Xhosa refers both to the people and their language. Xhosa is one of eleven official South African languages, but all students are required to speak English in middle level and secondary schools.
Tutor expects one of his greatest teaching challenges to be linguistic, because many of his students will only have been speaking English for a year or two before middle school. He anticipates teaching at the board quite a bit, with individual students working at their desks most of the time. South Africa’s public education system has only been up and running for the past ten years (since apartheid’s end in 1994), and it’s not unusual for a brand new school building to have no supplies, desks or even electricity. Yet tough new national standards have been developed, and each student must meet them before graduating to secondary schooling. Tutor’s ninth grade students will be undergoing rigorous testing the last five weeks of the school year in order to pass into the tenth grade.
Olga Baduza, Herschel Village school principal, wrote to Tutor that “this will really be a huge change to you, but as South Africans, we are very friendly people, we like teamwork and spirit, and you will soon get used to our culture and us. Most of the things will seem primitive. But, again, Tom, we are very friendly and every difficulty you encounter we will always help you. You will be the one to bring light into this darkness. Technology is passing us by because of the situation we find ourselves in. As principal of the school, I do not have access to a computer. Your coming here is like a blessing to us. We do not have many resources at this school, and anything you bring will be useful. We do have books, but not calculators or other instruments.”
Primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by Congress to the Department of State. Funding is strictly bare bones, and while there are some salary supplements, Tom will be receiving his Islesboro salary while in South Africa. Further, the Fulbright Program only provides a plane ticket for the teacher, so the rest of Tom’s family have had to find the finances needed on their own. Luckily, they’ve been saving for this opportunity for over five years, to realize Tom and Sue’s dream to live somewhere else in the world while their children were at home, affording them a unique chance to experience another culture. They will also be buying supplies for the Herschel Village School out of their own pockets. They’re sending 100 rulers, compasses and protractors ahead of their departure under a program that ships educational items free. Anyone interested in helping defray these expenses is encouraged to send a check made out to “Herschel Village School” to Islesboro Central School, PO Box 118, Islesboro, ME, 04848.