This summer, VolsTeach alumna and former Educators Hall of Honor inductee Kirsten Salonga (’17) continued her journey as a global educator as a Global Learning Fellow with the National Education Association. An English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Environmental Science & Biology teacher at Justice High School in Falls Church, Virginia, Salonga joined a cohort of educators traveling across South Africa to explore the country’s history, culture, communities, and educational systems.
Through immersive experiences in Cape Town and Johannesburg, the fellowship brought educators into classrooms, museums, townships, nature reserves, and historic sites, offering opportunities to learn directly from local educators, students, activists, and community members.
Kirsten has agreed to document her journey for Accolades readers. Follow along as she shares reflections, discoveries, and lessons from her time learning alongside fellow educators in South Africa—and the ways the experience continues to shape her perspective both inside and beyond the classroom.
Day 1
July 19, 2026 – Cape Town
You ever had your phone die while you were calling an Uber in a different country to get back to your hotel an hour away? Well, it is not fun, especially when everything is closing you. If your battery says 5% left, do not trust it. Mine immediately died.
Luckily, I asked a few shopkeepers if they had a phone charger and finally reached one who was kind enough to allow me to use theirs. While we were waiting for both driver and charge, Terry told me a few things about her beachy, mountainous area of Simon’s Town:
- “Baboons. Baboons everywhere.” Unfortunately, I did not see one, but she said that they would immediately take my paper bag of souvenirs if I was not careful.
- “The worst thing about living here is the wind at night”: reaching up to 50 km per hour, it will “keep you up at night if you are not used to it”.
- The penguin stuffed animals that she makes are a labor of love.
I really dislike being hot, and I love cold climates. The beauty and temperature of this region, combined with the rare African penguins that I was able to witness in their natural habitat, makes this area unparalleled for how I felt. I can squat and wait for penguins to pass me by for hours, further instilling my passion for biology.
“I’ve never seen a picture of a penguin in grass,” my husband’s brother said when he was shown the selfie I took while a group of penguins waddled behind me. Neither had I.
My first day with the National Education Association’s Global Learning Fellowship group starts tomorrow, and if it is anything like today, then it will be nothing short of amazing!
Day 2
July 20, 2026 – Cape Town
Today was an overflowing pot of information. I feel that the best way to describe my experience would be through the words of others:
- “Apartheid was both a system of loss and trauma, but we also teach about resilience.” – Education Coordinator of the District Six Museum, dedicated to preserving oral history through tours lead by those who were forcibly removed from their home (District Six) during
- “You can’t get the money back, whatever was stolen. I just want the government to admit that they were not ready.” – Faraana, our District Six local guide, discussed with sentiments parallel to the outcomes sought from the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Hearing first-hand how much their community was built from harmony in diversity prior to the unjustifiable demolition and distanced relocation made their ability to tell others of their stories even more astounding.
- “When we tell our stories, we are not only telling them, but preserving them” – Nashada, our guide at !Khwa ttu Nature Reserve, while showing us native plants that the San (indigenous hunter-gatherers) would use for medicinal purposes.
Our main goal in this experience is to translate our learning to our own educational spaces. As a science teacher, I have adored observing different plants and animals (especially the springbok) upon entering !Khwa ttu. However, for the first time during all of the professional development that I have done, I am significantly more invested in understanding the non-science aspects of where I am visiting. I am reminded of the importance of interdisciplinary work—that history matters. Representation. Context. Empathy.
And while I am taking a year Leave of Absence for a STEM teaching fellowship this upcoming year, I am reminded that this is an opportunity to look into the past, to explore primary sources and create curriculum that is interdisciplinary, showing the human side of scientific discoveries.
Day 3
July 21, 2026 – Cape Town
“Activism is the highest form of giving yourself to others… generations who come after us, they will ask, ‘What did you do?’”
I am very grateful that I had read Desmond Tutu’s No Future Without Forgiveness before visiting South Africa, especially Robben Island. I was impressed with the amount of effort that the government has taken to not only preserve the history of those in prison and address the atrocities that have occurred, but I had not expected to be having these conversations—to be led through the cells—with one of the political activists who had been jailed in Robben Island for seven years. It is difficult to describe emotions that came from hearing his story, from viewing the cell that Nelson Mandela was held for 31 years. I will leave it at that I have much to learn about forgiveness itself.
“Education is the key to emancipate your mind, to break the chains of oppression,” the guide on the bus had said. In her hand, she held the passbook that her grandfather was required to carry for years, dictating his every move.
There, surrounded by other educators, I remembered that I am not alone in striving to give my students opportunities to learn, to give them a space to feel safe, and to see themselves as successful. But I think that this is where I saw my highest value—the extent of my activism through classroom actions—in my first few years of teaching. In the past couple of years, I have been more involved in the Union than ever, but I also have an intense amount of room to grow in my own activism.
Day 4
July 22, 2026 – Cape Town
It’s been 14 years since I’ve set foot in a Chemistry classroom, and it shows. As I observed the teacher at Portland High School, I was baffled at the fact that I could not seem to process what students were learning—reminiscent of my time sitting in college Chemistry lectures. I am a student again, and it is humbling to say the least.
Outside of South Africa’s major cities lie the townships. Some were established during the apartheid era through the Group Areas Act of 1950, specifically as relocation grounds for those forcibly removed from areas like District Six. Other townships predate this period as a result of government segregation efforts, such as the Natives Act of 1923. Driving through the Western Cape, townships can be seen all along the highway, and they seem to vary in terms of socioeconomics: some resemble smaller neighborhoods in the U.S., while the majority that we have passed in transit are more reminiscent to the provinces (dense populations living in small metal shacks) of the Philippines, where my father was raised.
Portland High School is in the Mitchells Plains Township, and is labeled as Quantile 5, indicating that students have higher socioeconomic status and thus lower government funding needed. However, its Principal thoroughly explained to us that the baffling 303 ZAR (~$19 USD) per child that they receive from the government every year is not enough. The school is astounding in its high pass rates (97%!) for Grade 12 exams, giving hope through education in an area in which gang violence is highly prevalent.
A short drive away is SEED, an NGO established as a partnership with the local Rockland Primary School which pours into the community through urban gardening and sustainable crop courses. Although it is the winter season, Gina (the garden manager) and her co-worker (Pilan) gave us a tour of the facility. Through education and organic agriculture, they share indigenous knowledge while providing a space for outdoor learning for the students of Rockland and beyond: not only do they feed students lunch with crops from the garden, but they also donate to two other schools and distribute their produce to 700 people in the community as well!
Sitting in the auditorium, watching the Portland HS Creative Arts Club student performances and learning of their myriad of extracurricular activities, or interviewing the garden manager of SEED surrounded by the quiet beauty of the plant nursery… it is difficult to believe (and easy to forget) that there is barbed wire atop the high walls surrounding their schools. I can go on about my visceral reaction to watching a dance show for the first time in 15 years, or how I feel every time I see my father’s provincial home in a different country, but I think today’s reflection would be best described by my favorite quote of the day:
“First, you have to make the children believe that you are here for them” – Portland High School’s Principal, describing the changes he has seen at the school in the last 10 years. The staff within these schools undoubtedly are.
Day 5
July 23, 2026 – Cape Town to Johannesburg
Here’s to saying yes to things, even when we do not feel like it!
After an unfortunately terrible night (both in quality and length) of sleep (I’ve been told that these things just happen in your thirties), my body automatically woke me 45 minutes before my alarm (6:00 a.m.). More time to get ready for my attempt at taking the cable car up the iconic Table Mountain!
Unfortunately, our hopes slowly faded during our rideshare ascent to the cable car entrance: lack of any view (even during a cable car ride) due to dense fog. “It is unlikely that the cable car will run this morning,” a worker told us.
While I was a bit sad and mentally prepared to simply return to the hotel and try to take a nap before our 12:00 p.m. departure to the airport, the other two co-fellows in my car said that they wanted to go to the Botanical Garden. After looking at photos of the garden in our return car, I changed my mind about being dropped off at the hotel, and wow was I glad that I did!
I wanted to go to Table Mountain for the views; I love mountains and fog, and I would have gone to the top if the cable car were working regardless, or if I had enough time to hike. Little did I know that (1) the Botanical Garden abuts the other side of Table Mountain, and (2) it is named Kirstenbosch! I was astonished (and honestly felt a bit funny) that I did not know this, I was so enamored with the variety of plant adaptations, the indigenous knowledge incorporated in their signs, and the misty mountain views of their garden during their canopy walk, that my friends convinced me to buy a sweatshirt with the garden image and their/my name on it. Funny how things work out for the best!
Day 6
July 24, 2026 – Johannesburg
I cannot remember the last time I had seen that many elementary school students at once. “I’m surprised they’re still sitting down and behaving,” one of my co-fellows (who is an elementary school teacher) said. After ~1.5 hours of poem readings, speeches, and singing, I am quite impressed that the 1468 students (some as young as 5 years old) could sit for that long, especially since some of the speeches were entirely in English (students are taught in their native Xhosa).
Inxiweni Primary School is in the Thembisa Township, about an hour northeast of Johannesburg. As a Quintile 3 school, students do not pay school fees, including uniforms. The school partnership with Thembisa Serenade, the local non-profit that brings music to schools, is evident: students were singing almost every moment of the presentation.
I am reminded of the differences and similarities between the South African classrooms and Senegalese classrooms I had seen in April this past year. Emphasis on native Xhosa rather than Afrikaans or English is impressive, just as the resurgence of Wolof in Senegalese schools. Our public schools in the U.S. may not have branded uniforms, but my first high school did have “standard school attire”, in which students were only allowed to wear specific colors of collared shirt and pants/skirts. That was also a public school, just as Inxiweni is.
“In the townships, young people rendered their towns ungovernable” – video from the Apartheid Museum.
Sometimes I forget that such tiny humans whom I had seen at the school will grow to be the size of my high schoolers. I also forget that these same high schoolers can absorb the non-content information that we give them, whether we are conscious of it or not. And then I forget that these same youth will one day govern our country and decide the lines. After visiting the Apartheid Museum, I am not only reminded of South African resilience and resistance, but also that such violence was so recent.
As we drive around Johannesburg, I am amazed at how much the community has come together through reconciliation.
Day 7
July 25, 2026 – Johannesburg
“When I went to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, it made me feel like I could face anything I went through. It [took] the toxins out of me so that I could face the world in a better way.” – Mama Antionette, describing her experiences, as she stands in front of a harrowing image of herself and her brother, who died during the Soweto Uprising of 1976.
When this image was first placed at the Hector Pieterson Memorial, she was unable to look at it. “I was so upset, I had to separate myself. I told myself ‘you know these people, but you are not one of them’.” She now describes the retelling of her story to others as therapeutic.
While walking through the township, it is difficult to imagine the drastic boom that Soweto encountered, from encompassing only 4 townships to now a whopping 39. When ~20,000 high schoolers marched the streets on June 16, 1976, they were to convene at the stadium with the goal of writing a referendum to end required Afrikaans classes, a language they did not know. Only 9 people made it to the stadium, and ~23 people were killed by the police, with the youngest being 8 years old.
“We don’t know which in this picture survived that day, some fled the country, some died, some disappeared,” Zola, our guide said as we observed a massive print of students marching prior to the violence. The guide in the Mandela House pointed at the markings on the floor—signs that a wall had been constructed to shield Winnie Mandela and her children from gunshots while her husband was in prison. As we walked through the streets of Soweto, it is difficult to imagine that the same area in which Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu lived had experienced such immense violence towards women and children—and that we are now able to walk through the area only 50 years later.
This transformation does not come without issues. Similarly to the U.S., parents are removing students from public schools, causing government subsidies to decrease. This unfortunately led to the closure and vacancy of some schools. To prevent vandalism, school systems have begun to rent rooms to non-profits, similar to the empty school that we passed. I can only imagine students running through its campus ten years prior.
“The more we tell our stories, the more we heal and do not forget.”
There are so many stories that each person—each building—can tell.
Day 8
July 25, 2026 – Johannesburg
This morning we said our goodbyes to many of our co-fellows! Some will be continuing to Kruger National Park on a safari extension, others will be returning home to the U.S. I am going to meet my husband in Zimbabwe to see one of my bucket list sites: Victoria Falls!
Nevertheless, I had one more adventure in South Africa to fulfill my Ecology / Evolutionary Biologist heart: visiting the Cradle of Humankind and Sterkfontein Caves! As always, I tried to make this journey as economical as possible, eventually hiring a local private driver based on blog recommendations instead of joining a large tour company. As I walked through the caves with my co-fellow, Jake, I could only imagine the excitement of finding “Little Foot”, the oldest and nearly complete skeleton of Australopithecus africanus, an ancestor to humans about 3.67 million years ago. The fact that all humans descended from Southern Africa resonates far and wide.
On the drive back to Johannesburg, I asked our driver, Peter, about his favorite thing about living in Johannesburg. He said that the diversity of this area (both in people and landscapes) is unmatched, and I would not hesitate to agree. Listening to Peter’s story about how he worked as a brewer and later became a licensed guide was an inspiring reminder that life may take us where we had never imagined, at any age. Again, one of my favorite parts of traveling is learning about people.
As I close this part of my journey, I cannot adequately express my gratitude towards the National Education Association for choosing me as a Global Learning Fellow. The other 50 educators are as impressive as they are inspiring, and the NEA does an outstanding job at championing representation, actively seeking out candidates from diverse backgrounds. In the past few years, I have become more involved with the Union than ever before, and the support that it has given me through intensely trying times has meant everything. As a Global Learning Fellow, I have had the incredible opportunity to not only learn more about international school systems, but to also gain a greater sense of empathy that expands beyond the classroom. No amount of reading compares to being immersed in the culture of an area, hearing directly from its people.
I am reminded that I also have a voice, and I can always do more.
