Jappalé = learning to be aware

Moving to the private school sector of education has been a change of pace and of personal insight and experience. In the Bronx, many of my students were often challenged inside the classroom because of factors affecting them outside the classroom. Factors, such as poor diet, lack of parental guidance, economic struggles in the home, drug/alcohol abuse, homelessness were some of the issues prevailing in the lives of the Stephanies, the Carolyns, the Argenises, the Ishmaels, the Sheilas. The same can be said of the students who taught me so much from the bush village of Okamukwa in Namibia.



The resources are plentiful in the international private school system - both in the school and in the home. At the beginning of this academic year, my 9th grade English class began a unit on the Renaissance - Macbeth, Marlowe, the Reformation. More than 2/3 of my students had traveled to the Sistine Chapel. Experiences like these are invaluable to a child's foundation for an educational system that seems to cater best to the most exposed, the most "cultured" in Western world terms, the most versed in the language of the educational system. And there is a language.

Here, at my new school, if kids forget their homework, their lunch, or their books many of them call their maids and soon their driver will arrive with the requested items. No questions asked. The students here are privileged. They are privileged, but it is neither their fault nor because of their actions. They are, in a wayward way, reaping the benefits of their parents' privileges.



And, that is okay. But, it becomes problematic and disastrous when we forget to acknowledge our blessings and privileges and assume they are a given or a part of who we are. This is no easy task for a teenager - especially a high schooler. However, a handful of students at my school here in Dakar have chosen to, first, acknowledge that there are economic disparities within our school community that does significantly affect life, as is, in Dakar, and, second, act to better support those in need within our community, within our school-wide family.

Here is a video about the recently formed Jappalé committee at our school here in Dakar. I'm proud to say I teach the kids who have put this together.