Hello!

In this web space, we are collecting the reflections of twelve Grinnell College students who participated in a course-embedded trip to South Africa that focused on education. During nearly two weeks in South Africa, we had the privilege of visiting schools and education-related NGOs in and near Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Rustenburg. The trip was a component of EDU 217, Comparative and International Education, an undergraduate course taught by Prof. Deborah Michaels, with a special four-week unit on South Africa taught by a visiting international scholar, Prof. Thandi Ngcobo from the University of Western Cape.

Ashley Schaefer, the former director of Grinnell’s Careers in Education Professions Program, co-led the trip with Deborah. Ashley was instrumental in identifying and communicating with schools and NGOs in South Africa for our trip and in organizing the many details that are critical to successful group travel.

In Fall 2016, we selected for the trip (with the help of another colleague and a student representative) twelve students based on name-blind rankings of their applications, followed by interviews. Thanks to Grinnell’s Institute of Global Engagement and a generous donation from Penny Sebring and Chuck Lewis, students were responsible for covering only $400 each for travel, room, and board during the trip.

In these web pages, our group will process what we learned about education and schooling, not only in South African but in relation to other local and national contexts. We hope that after creatively engaging with each other on these pages, we will find meaningful ways to share our observations and new understandings with broader publics, including the Grinnell community and the South African scholars, educators, activists, and students who generously shared their time and graciously opened their spaces to us.