Last Day in Johannesburg

Today was our last day in Johannesburg. We went to the Origins Museum and learned about the migration of the Sans people from northern and central Africa to the southern part of the continent. It's a fascinating history. This was certainly not included in my K-12 education. The museum also highlighted Africa as being the birth place of man.

Jo-Burg is a very modern, urban city. In fact, one of the issues that we learned about relating to public education has to do with the urbanization of South Africa. As more people move to cities looking for work, the rural schools are less attractive spaces for employment for teachers. So, it's hard finding good teachers for the rural schools. The migration is also causing the urban schools to have more students who speak various languages (South Africa has 11 official languages- of course there are many more spoken). This is a challenge, especially for primary teachers, because the education policy mandates that children be taught in their mother tongue for their first 3 years of school. Again, these are challenges that US schools are dealing with.

After our museum outing we then went to the Tambo International Airport and flew to Cape Town (a 2 hour plane ride). Cape Town is really beautiful. We have a full day tour around the peninsula tomorrow.