Hero Books

My friend Tina was a reading and writing teacher before she joined the Peace Corps. Now, a handful of kids in Caprivi are lucky enough to have her leading their classroom. I say lucky, because when Tina talks about her lesson plans or the programs she’s implementing, it’s always with passion. The kind of passion I don’t often see here—and rarely saw in America.

It’s clear she loves teaching. And perhaps even more importantly, that she loves teaching her kids.

In the last year Tina’s found ways to bring English alive in the classroom and managed to get more kids into the library (however sparse the shelves are) and into reading. She used responsive journals in one of her classes to get learners to open up about corporal punishment practices. Because of that, policies changed at her school.

Tina has always been a mentor for education volunteers in Namibia because of her years of experience in classrooms full of learners. But recently, she’s helped us healthies (more specifically, this healthy) too.

In mid-January Tina told me about a new program she was introducing at her school:Hero Books. The 25-session workshop was created by Druscilla van Niekerk, a primary school teacher in South Africa. She believed that children’s psychosocial issues got in the way of affective teaching. And in many cases—in the way of actual learning. So she developed Hero Books as a way for learners to process their pasts and plan for their futures. In short:

A Hero book is a document, and a process, in which a child, youth, or adult is invited to be the author, illustrator, main character, and editor of a book that is designed to help them set goals, and give them power over a specific challenge or obstacle in their life.

At the end of the process, each person has a hard-bound storybook of their own making, which is not only a solution focused mission statement, but also documents, heralds and reinforces their problem busting strategies and hero-survival-resilient abilities. It is a therapeutic process.

Writing has always been important to me. It’s been a way to express myself in the public, but also to examine my life and actions in private. The idea of bringing this love of the written word, the experience of putting the past on paper, and using art to explore what life is about really appeals to me. I’m hoping it will appeal to these kids, who have such limited options for positive and safe self-expression, too.

So over the next few months, I’ll work with Natasha, an orphan and out-of-school youth—one who’s bright and funny, clever and bold—but who also failed Grade 10, and therefore can’t return to the classroom under Namibian education policies. Together, we’ll spend Wednesday afternoons creating our own stories using the Hero Books program as our guide. Then, next term, we’ll lead a group of 15-20 secondary school learners in making their own.

For now, it’s a way to keep Natasha busy—and hopefully out of trouble. But in the end, it’s also a way to get her back into the classroom—this time, as a teacher.