Building the Courage to Ask

This post is part of the series, “From the Service Front Lines,” written by service leaders. 

Phindulo used to hide his work every day at Tshilidzi Primary School during City Year Children’s Club when we’ll be doing certain lessons or homework help.  He will make sure he sits in the back so that no one sees what he is writing and even if I ask to see his work, he wouldn’t let me see.  I wouldn’t look by force because I didn’t want him to feel ashamed because I could see he has low self-esteem.  The other day, I was helping the class with maths homework and there he was at the back covering his book and I could see he wasn’t understanding anything because everyone was busy writing and he was just stuck.  I went to him and asked him if I could see how far he is and if there’s anything he doesn’t understand and he refused to show me his book, but told me he is not understanding anything.  I then explained and did some examples and showed him how to calculate then I told him to do all the questions and show me when he is done.  He did so and he was very happy that he got the correct answers. The next day he come to me and told me he will ask for help when he doesn’t understand anything. He no longer covers his books and asks me for help if he needs it.