Today has been so packed with activities I don't even know where to begin... Most of the day has been spent at the university, but we've also been to the State House for a tour there.
We started off at USC with a lecture on Civil Rights and Education, which was really, really interesting. Dr Kara Brown gave a lecture that made us understand how the US education system has contributed to maintaining racial inequality.We also watched a documentary called "The Corridor of Shame" which literally left me with tears in my eyes - and this is the situation today!!! Worn down schools with basically no facilities at all and where no teachers want to work... What happens to these children? The American Dream based on the vision of "it doesn't matter where you come from, as long as you work hard enough you can reach the stars" does not apply to this group of people. The road is just too long and too hard... The illiteracy rate is high and the living conditions are very poor.
For our next session today we met two very inspiring African-Americans, Gloria Boutte and George Johnson. They told us about "Culturally Relevant Pedagogy", which we could actually relate to our own daily practice as teachers. This type of pedagogy has to do with putting learning into a context that is meaningful to the group of students you are trying to teach. It emphasizes that a teacher must not only have deep content knowledge and a strong pedagogical knowledge, but he / she must also have cultural awareness. The lack of such awareness and ignorance will often lead to students being misinterpreted and misunderstood, which has been the case with many African-American children who have been put through a system created by white people for white people.
We rounded off our day at USC with a lecture on Southern Literature with Dr Jewett. She gave us some ideas on how to introduce different topics by using children's literature. We also discussed Pat Conroy's "The Water is Wide", which is actually compulsory reading for American students. Dr Jewett showed us a method she uses with her own students when she wants them to analyze literature.  |
| Wenche, Nina and Ann-Toril are working on their "story web". |
The day was completed with a tour of the State House. This building is the seat of South Carolina's executive and legislative branches of government, i.e. the Senate and the House of Representatives. We were guided by a very patriotic and very southern man who was eager to share with us all his knowledge about this particular building. 
Today has been really educating and eye-opening, but I am really looking forward to tomorrow. We are visiting Dreher High School, which is a public high school just on the outskirts of Columbia. See y'all!
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