In our final stretch of the semester, we’ve been holed up in a cozy little hostel in the cozy little town of Waterval Boven finishing up finals and taking strategic breaks to stretch out our bodies and our minds. While finals are stressful for many, there have also been many beautiful moments within the group. A few of my favorite things I’ve heard this week: “Gosh, Global Studies really is everything!” and “Wow, that’s actually so cool” (in relation to connecting concepts from earlier in the semester to now).
From a teacher perspective, finals at the Traveling School are extremely rewarding and impressive to behold. But, it would be a disservice to the students not to describe the effort they put into wrapping up their classes.
Students first finished the last of their graded work for Leadership & Life Skills by creating workshops in pairs. The whole group benefited as each group taught us new, relevant skills such as basic first aid, comforting one another, and regulating emotional ups and downs. Marina shared a great tip about using temperature to regulate heart rate. Check out Taran dunking her face in ice water while Annie measures her heart rate.
For their Global Studies final, each student created a “Manifesto Zine” and the results show their dedication, creativity and passions – make sure you check them out! Each student created a personal mission statement of something they want to do when they get home. They supported their visions with collaged visuals and explanations of the gifts they have to offer as well as the challenges they expect to face. Their chosen topics show the range of this group and diversity within our little community. Their artistic covers their range from discussing equality in women’s sports, to strategizing how to get more local food into school lunches, to addressing environmental racism and climate change, to helping foster authenticity and vulnerability in our home communities, each one brings their unique perspectives and skills to light. Check out some students with their zines below!
Julia with her zine “Julia’s Vulnerable Manifesto”, Taran with “Cultural Perspective” and Laila with “Ethical and Healthy School Lunches Manifesto”
Sophie pictured with her zine, “Climb, Fight, Learn, Train, Compete Like a Girl”
Science wrapped up with an elaborate concept map project and discussion about climate change. Each student linked together at least 25 concepts related to climate change, which required them to think critically about cause and effect as well as feedback loops. They showed up to the discussion beautifully, pulling in readings from Global Studies as well as personal experience they’ve had at home and on the semester and challenging each other to bring their critical thinking skills to the table.
Literature’s been a busy class! Students finished reading Coconut by Kopano Matlwa. Additionally, they had a crossover interdisciplinary moment with science class and worked on their creative writing by completing their storytelling assignment from the perspective of a rock. To celebrate their finals, each student read their This I Believe short essay. The assignment is based on an old NPR show that prompts people from all walks of life to think about how their core values show up subconsciously or consciously in their everyday lives. They read their speeches on the back porch in a poetry-slam-esque setting. Each reading was heartfelt, passionate, and powerful. We had the collective privilege of peeking into one another’s lives to see how nonviolence, bravery, respect, discomfort, and change shape them. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I left the evening with goosebumps.
Betty sharing her “This I Believe” poem
Charity sharing her “This I Believe” poem
Are you tired yet? So are your thoughtful, creative, brilliant daughters! But alas, their final final was for History class. After getting an understanding of Apartheid in South Africa, and the long, multifaceted fight for freedom, they’ve expanded their worldview to investigate other liberation movements across the world around the same time. Each group had the freedom to choose how to present their information. The officially finished their final a few hours ago and they delighted us with a rap about the American Indian Movement, a skit of mock negotiations of the Troubles in Ireland, a mock evening news segment about East Timor Independence, and a reimagining of a court case around the Guatemalan Civil War. Each group beautifully married the difficult subject matter with their creative and analytical lenses.
We also recently celebrated American Thanksgiving and Julia’s 18th birthday. Both acted as a marker for shifting our focus towards returning home. For many of our students, this holiday is cherished for quality time spent with loved ones. We reflected on the qualities that make us grateful for each other here in our fluid, transient second home, and each student shared about someone at home who they are grateful for as well. Our lovely host Alex cooked her first turkey ever! It was delicious and we licked every last drop of the accompanying cranberry sauce. The meal was rounded out by green beans, mashed potatoes, and a dessert trifecta of pumpkin pie, apple crisp and peach crisp. With our bellies full and our hearts full of warmth, we had the great joy of our beloved Grace zooming in to wish the students a happy holiday. She has been heavily missed, and it was a joy to watch student’s faces light up as she asked them all about their travels since she left. True to her compassionate, caring nature, Grace took a few minutes to check in with each student individually (as we passed the phone around.)
Ellē and Morgan prep Thanksgiving
The group gathering for Thanksgiving dinner
Celebrating Julia’s 18th birthday
Students gathering around the Zoom call with Grace
In addition to academics and holiday festivities, we’ve also been celebrating our time together with a few last outdoor activities. On Tuesday, we let our brains take a rest while our arms stretched high. Even though we’ve bouldered as a group, we built more trust by belaying one another. I heard lots of encouragement and support for one another. Yesterday, the group went abseiling, also known as rappelling, near Waterval Boven’s famous waterfall. The picturesque location gave more relief from the study centered week, and it gave some folks an opportunity to face their fears. The drop off is no joke!
Now that we’ve wrapped up finals, we plan to spend the next few days spending quality time together as a community, processing the semester, continuing to ponder the hard questions of the world, and turning our eyes toward transitioning home with self-compassion. Our time here has not always been easy or fun. If it was, we’d have less to show for it. The challenges we’ve faced individually and as a collective have helped us grow stronger, fiercer, weirder, and more expansive. Now the challenge is holding onto that growth as we separate ourselves from the collective, as we move to our next chapters, diverging from our shared book. I hope we can hold space for one another in this process, both here in South Africa and on the soil of our home countries. To help guide that process, the teacher team has cooked up some activities to get our brains braining and our emotions emotioning. Here’s a taste of what’s in the works.
- Warm and Fuzzies – Each student will write a short (or long!) note to each of their peers, called a “warm and fuzzy.” Returning home from such a transformative experience can feel like waking up from a dream. Was it real? Were my connections authentic? These notes remind us of the other people connected to us in our respective webs.
- Special item activity – One of Betty’s goals for the end of the semester was to help her peers feel closure and thoughtfully transition home. She crafted an activity to help with that process which involves conceptualizing an item that has special meaning to you, but that others would not see as very significant. She plans to walk her peers through an exercise to draw out what makes it special and compare that with what others might see.
- Remembering and reminiscing in various ways – this semester is long, and we’ll make time to share our memories, the good, the bad and the ugly.
- Culture shock – leaving the Traveling School can be a culture shock for multiple reasons: we arrive just in time to be slammed with the consumerism surrounding Christmas shopping after a semester of living with just what you need; we’re back in our home countries with all the familiar things, but we are different; we depart from our intentionally created community of learners and enter a world with a lot more male voices in the mix of our discussions. We’ll brainstorm lots of ways this might feel, and hold space for the unknown.
I’m going to leave it there for now – I can’t give away all of our secrets or moments together! Thanks for taking the time to think through how you’ll welcome your student home with intentionality and curiosity. We’re so proud of how far they’ve come and excited to help them through this last moment of transition.
– Morgan Comey