Almost any classroom you walk into in the States is going to look like Sesame Street threw up information all over the walls. Letters, numbers, pictures and posters of anything and everything. But, here in South Sudan, due to limited resources and a climate that destroys paper quicker than everything besides the termites, most of our classrooms have very little academic information on the walls to help the kids easily access the basics of what it is they’re learning. The alphabet on card stock paper hangs on a string line in one classroom, but it is missing a few letters and the rest of the pieces are becoming so worn out that you can hardly read them. There are no number lines and the few pictures around the rooms are fading chalk drawings of tools that are regularly used here or a shape or a flower. I’ve been mulling over ideas of what can be done in order to allow things to last; some ideas to help live on for a few years, at least. So, I grabbed some paint and a few of the older teenage guys and we hopped into a room, beginning with upper and lower case letters before moving onto a number line, days of the week, and the months of the year. We’ll soon add sight words, shapes, animals, flowers, crops, and who knows what else to all of the rooms.
As one of the guys etched the first set of jet black letters onto the baby blue wall paint above the dusty chalk board, I was overwhelmed with the beauty of what was happening and I hollered out, “Robert, I’m going to blame you when these kids become better readers.” He turned around and smiled. We both smiled. In that moment, I was held captive, motionless at the weight that this young man’s hands and a bunch of neurons in his brain were indirectly going to change the future of the children in our school and this city and this nation. He will, without tangible knowledge of which ones, be blamed for them becoming better readers.
Let’s become people who get blamed for bringing out the beauty in the world. Let's aim for that.
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