At Long Last!

Here is my post on volunteers with education. I've calmed down significantly since I thought of writing this and I've had a day and a half off, but I still want to write it because I find the subject quite interesting.

Basically there are a few volunteers here that have gained some kind of qualification in child care from their home country. They've come to volunteer at the home usually as work experience I think. But I have a slight problem with this. They've had their training and education in a first world country and therefore it applies to first world children's homes. This is not one. All the points I make from now on are based on working a weekend in my usual house with a volunteer who has an education but to my knowledge has never worked in that house in the day (but had done night-shift there). This volunteer is German, but statistically that was almost a certainty! I also have nothing against this volunteer, it is just the only experience I have of working with someone who has the education, I have heard plenty from others about similar stuff.

There are several differences between South Africa and Germany, culture being quite a big one. I don't know what the laws are in Germany, but in England, corporal punishment (say to hit your child when they've done something wrong) is illegal and has been for longer than I can remember. In South Africa, it has only been made illegal recently (I tried to google it, but I'm at the gym and they block things), this doesn't mean that the Child-Care workers (CCW) hit the children, if they did, they would almost certainly lose their jobs. But because the idea of NOT hitting your kid is a new one, I believe parents still do it. South African education concerning child-care is also probably different as is its application. When you're working in a house with 14 kids aged between 6 and 11, you know that there are certain things that would definitely benefit a child, but actually being able to do those things can be virtually impossible. I know that reading to a child before bedtime is so much more beneficial that TV. But when you have 14 kids, reading to each one individually wouldn't work because you'd have to start hours before bedtime to get through them all. Reading to them as a group also doesn't really bear thinking about due to the fact you've got 7 girls and 7 boys, there is no way on this earth you could ever get all 14 to make up their mind on one story and due to the different mental ages some stories wouldn't be suitable to some kids and if you read a younger story, the more mature kids would get bored. On the point of boredom, I have tried reading to them a couple of times before, 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', and they cannot for the lives of them sit still long enough for me to finish a chapter. A book just doesn't have enough visual stimulation for them, however many pictures it has.

I also have an issue with putting labels on a kid. We were watching a movie with them on Saturday evening and one of the girls kept getting up and wandering round, or going upstairs or into the kitchen. Most of the other kids were sat still watching the film, some of the other girls were laying on the floor doing colouring books. The volunteer turns to me and asks me if I think the girl who keeps getting up has hyperactivity or ADHD or ADD or whatever. Now if a child has a real problem (and I'm not saying ADHD and ADD aren't real problems, let me make my point) and putting a name to it means the child can receive the proper medication or therapy or whatever they need then by all means label away. My problem is the eagerness which people now have to jump to diagnosing things. This girl didn't want to sit and watch the film so the volunteer assumes the kid has ADHD or ADD, in all likely-hood, the child had probably just seen the film several times already that week and as she's one of the oldest mentally, she may well just be past the stage where she watches a film over and over again. She was probably just bored..

I guess my problem is actually with the attitude these volunteers have. They've got it into their heads that even though they're only here for 3/6/12 months, they can change the whole system and that they know better. I think they should come with the mentality that they've been able to learn so much in school and now they can go out and experience what they've learnt in the real world. And that the real world is often different to the perfect scenarios depicted in their text books (especially if it's in a completely different culture). I also slightly resent working in a house for 4 months and someone coming in and saying they know better ways of doing things that they learnt in Germany/Japan/England where-ever. I've spent 4 months learning these kids and what makes them tick. Don't get me wrong, I love working with new people who don't know the kids as well, I can get so many new ideas of what might work and what might not. But I just don't like it when folks come in thinking they know better because they have some fancy certificate. Each child is individual and different as is each day. I don't think you can teach those things.