Is
it a school, a ship, a hospital – or all of the above? The Mercy Ship
is home to an international crew of 480 including surgeons, nurses, deck
officers, engineers – and around 50 children of all ages. This unique
environment is both life and work for Auckland primary teacher Karin
Kitshoff, on a two-year tour-of-duty with the hospital ship charity that
provides free surgery for West Africa’s poor and marginalised.
Karin
describes teaching the crew’s children on board the Mercy Ship as, ‘A
blend of some of my life’s pipe dreams; working in a cross cultural
context, teaching and living in community. I found the prospect both
hilarious and too good to pass up’.
The Africa Mercy
is seven stories high and the length of two football fields. The
vessel’s hospital deck contains five operating theatres, five hospital
wards and all the auxiliary services required to provide assessment for
rehabilitation for West African patients receiving free essential
surgery.
Imagine a small town where the main industry is a
surgical hospital. There’s a post office, a bank, a corner store, a café
– and of course a school. The children of long-term crew members attend
the Mercy Ships Academy, an accredited international Christian school
catering for students from preschool to high school graduation.
The
benefits of living with people from more than 40 nations with a wide
range of skills and experience is already evident for Karin. ‘My class
was recently invited to view the fire drill by the emergency teams. We
‘set the fire’ in the laundry room, alerted the bridge, watched as the
fire crew came in to ‘extinguish the fire’ and haul out the ‘body’. We
observed the Emergency Medical Team perform CPR on the mannequin as well
as use the defibrillators – all a few days after learning about the
circulatory and respiratory systems in science.
‘Hearing the
students relate their own experiences with Mercy Ships has been
inspiring. I have heard some of the parents share their stories;
decisions to sell houses, leave families, friends and jobs to take the
risk and join this crazy experience called Mercy Ships. But hearing the
students’ process their own journeys is something else. I’ve listened as
they’ve started to recognise the courage their parents mustered to make
the decision to join, and listened as the children process the reasons
for making this decision. It’s a truly unique position to be in.’
Since
the Northern Hemisphere academic year kicked off in August, Karin’s
blended Year 4 and 5 class has been on field trips in the Canary
Islands, sailed 1,600 km across the Atlantic, and participated in the
hospital ship’s ‘Open House’ before surgeries began for the current
10-month field service in Senegal, West Africa.
‘The Academy has
two divisions; the primary team of preschool to Year 6, and intermediate
and college up to Year 12. Divisions meet for
daily
devotions, and we come together as a whole school on Friday mornings.
Primary teachers take their year level for the core subjects, and
intermediate and college teachers teach their individual subject plus
Bible and Life Skills, to their mentor class. The children all learn
French, with many opportunities to practise the language when they step
ashore or even venture into the dining room.’
The on-board school
consists of nine classrooms and a central multi-purposed computer
centre. Students have access to playgrounds on decks 7 and 8, as well as
lap pool for recreation and sports activities. Technology is a
priority, and classrooms are outfitted with interactive touchscreen
boards. Wireless internet is provided, and intermediate and college
students are issued a personal Netbook each year.
‘We use an
international standards-based curriculum, following the educational
standards of the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI)
and Middle States Association. The Academy is well equipped with
resources, including an extensive library and all the set course books
for the subjects we teach. While the content and teaching approach is
quite different to what I’m used to, there are many added resources I
might not have access to at a primary school back home. For example, I
can raid the high school science cupboard for equipment for
investigations. There are also many opportunities that living as part of
a community on a hospital ship provides, including visiting with the
hospital patients as a class.’
There have been some challenging
times for the 29-year-old too. ‘I’ve had to learn a very different
curriculum and approach to assessment. Where previously I taught in a
collaborative team of five teachers with 142 students, the Year 5/6 team
is now me and three boys. The small sample size can make it hard to
know whether you’re doing it right, but the other teachers are very
supportive and there is a high level of interaction between us.’
The
interface between students across the grades is uniquely fluid outside
of their classes; after all, they are all in the same boat. It is common
for children to have close friends a few years older or younger than
themselves. Of course, the little ones idolise the senior high school
students who seem to take both pride and responsibility in having a joke
and encouraging the younger ones.
‘It is amazing to see how
comfortable students have become interacting with their community of
doctors, nurses, deck crew, surgeons, directors, chaplains, engineers,
plumbers… the list goes on.’
‘Recently the school hosted our
Academy Open House where crew members toured through the classes, seeing
where we ‘live’ Monday to Friday. Our students were able to showcase
their learning and lead some activities in each class. The children had
the chance to see not only their parents but other adults from their
community struggle with some of the challenges we had set up for them
(after battling with them ourselves). They also had the chance to teach
and learn from the crew too – who better to demonstrate viewing slides
through a microscope, than the technicians who work directly below us in
the lab?
Some of my favourite moments so far have been points of
genuine connection with the students; sharing the highs, lows and utter
peculiarity of this journey. Living in the same community I see sides of
my students that I would never usually glimpse. I’ve seen the students
at breakfast in their pyjamas and bee-lining for the ice-cream line
after the ship’s Thursday night community meeting. They’ve seen me hot
and sweaty rollerblading on dock, in the mornings before I’m
caffeinated, and singing heartily (not always tunefully) during church
services. With a sideways glance and twinkle in our eyes, we manage to
pretend that this is totally normal.
‘Living and working in close
community does take a bit of getting used to, and it often shows sides
of yourself (and others) that can be oblivious in normal life. I had
been anticipating and inwardly psyching myself up for conflict
resolution conversations for months, but as yet I’ve left my Crucial Conversations book gathering dust on the shelf. Strangely, it doesn’t seem strange; it works surprisingly well to live where I work.’
VIDEO LINK: School on a ship https://vimeo.com/294703905
