OPINION: From Tsomo to sailing the high seas

The last time I saw such energy in a room was in a hell-fire-and-brimstone Pentecostal church service. One youngster after another came to the front of the packed room to tell the audience how powerful learning in the maritime industry had transformed their lives.

You felt the goosebumps spread across your skin. “I do not have blood in my veins,” shouted one of the high school girls, “I have seawater!”

Around me, I see tears forming in the eyes of the visitors at the awards evening.

These were high school kids from poor townships and villages stretching from the rural Eastern Cape to the shacks of Cape Town. But you would not know about their dire upbringing from the ways in which Lawhill Maritime Academy in Simonstown had completely altered their lives.

The service was now in full swing and those present seemed one step away from speaking in tongues.

When the shipping line Safmarine and Simons Town School started this partnership in 1985, even they could not have imagined the many positive impacts of this unique innovation in a largely moribund school system. More than 300 students have passed through the academy which prepares young people for the maritime industry on- and offshore. They learn subjects like maritime economics and nautical sciences, the latter including a brand new specialist component in electronic navigation systems. And a new Marine Sciences subject is on the horizon combining oceanography and marine biology.

Zolisa, from a poor township, found employment in a large shipping agency in the Cape. John, from a dangerous area of the Cape Flats found himself at the helm of a modern ship entering Simonstown harbour for dry-docking. Blondie, an impressive woman from the small village of Tsomo in the rural Eastern Cape, is now an engineer on Royal Caribbean Cruises. Tyrone, a navigation officer on a ship approaching New Orleans, called a nearby ship to find that Pauline, the responding officer, was with him at Lawhill.

How does one school working with mostly poor children from township and rural areas deliver one of the most powerful models of education I have seen anywhere in the world?

As the choir sang and the testimonies flowed I started to piece together an answer to that puzzle.

This school is engulfed in a motivational culture. Every teacher and leader in the schools “talks up” the children. There are favourite sayings (like the need for “umph”) that a teacher is known for.

A student who speaks is cheered on and encouraged. This tightly-knit group of boarders and resident students speak of themselves and their instructors as family. To enter the school is to be swallowed up by an infectious enthusiasm. It works.

It is clear that the motivational power of the school is the direct link between classroom life and the world of work. You not only learn navigation in the classroom you “do” navigation on large ships whether from Cape Town to Simonstown or on super yachts in Italy where Lawhill has a partnership with the Marine Inspirations Programme. In other words, these upbeat students can literally see the job opportunities available to them as they look down on the coastline visible from their classrooms.

Researchers of human motivation have shown that motivated learners have a better grip of the subject matter and are more likely to pass than unmotivated youngsters. Which raises the question: how does one build motivational cultures in schools?

You need an inspirational leader like Debbie Owen, head of the centre, whose life is committed to disadvantaged youth for whom a career in the maritime industry was not a known choice as they came through school. Debbie so obviously loves these students and her very presence lights up the school. Enthusiasm does not however deliver dozens of matric distinctions for the small matric class. You have to back it up with competent teachers, relevant learning and uncompromising standards. The success that results in turn strengthens the motivational culture of the school.

As I watch these older retired captains of ships come to distribute scholarships to the top students whom some of them also teach, there was another special South African moment on display. These white men were turning over their expertise and their gifts to young, black learners who would in time replace them in the maritime industry.

In the midst of a national meltdown because of government corruption and dysfunctional school, Lawhill Maritime Centre reminds us what our country still can become – without any direct state funding, by the way.

For more information on Lawhill Maritime Academy go to www.lawhill.org or their Twitter handle is: @Lawhillmaritime