After our time at Emafini today, we visited the loveLife Center (http://www.lovelife.org.za/corporate/press/news/vw-unveils-kwanobuhle/). Funded by Volkswagon, the center houses a number of programs for youth development. Our thanks to Vernon Naidoo for leading the tour. The center does HIV/AIDS education, entrepreneurship education, reading/literacy circles, and sports programs. The center's director, Thembi Kani, was stunning. His passion and commitment to youth development reminded me of the incredible possibilities now open to all of South Africa's youth. Despite the persistent racism that exists, Thembi and others at the center were clearly focused on identifying the possibilities, strategizing, and working towards those possibilities. Literacy was central. They taught choice. Unlike the U.S., where choice has become a widely touted "principle" of democracy in an individualistic sense, choice, at loveLife was about making choices for the collective good and for one's self-protection (specifically tied to HIV/AIDS education). How do we define choice and what is the relationship between choice and democracy? Inherently, choice is about the individual and the collective. But, we do not always perceive it to be such.

Our undergraduate student, Sydney, is pictured here teaching a combined class of a little more than 70 students. The school is missing a teacher and is in the process of trying to hire one. In the meantime, Sydney is teaching them all. We have talked about the challenges of teaching English Language Learners. Much of what the students do in class is recite and copy information off of the board. They typically do not have access to the internet or other resources. This absence of resources has taught us much about creativity and teaching. How, for example, does a teacher differentiate instruction with a chalk board and a set of note cards? It can be done. But we are challenged daily with re-imagining teaching, not making judgments, and squashing our assumptions (particularly about how teachers should be evaluated).