TOP SA TEACHER

Sarietjie Musgrave (36), a teacher at Eunice High School, a girls only school in Bloemfontein, was placed second in the community category at Microsoft’s recent world-wide Innovative Teachers Forum in Hong Kong. Her class project, Spread the Sunshine, saw her competing against more than 250 teachers from 64 countries, and helped at least 300 people in the Free State. The computer applications technology teacher introduced the project this year to Grade 10 students. The students had to research various disabilities and come up with technological solutions for people with those disabilities. The 64 students helped more than 300 people with disabilities ranging from dyslexia to Down Syndrome. Vaia Tsistsi worked with a dyslexic pupil and taught her to read and write using drawings. Some students reconnected an elderly woman with her family in Greece, by teaching her to use e-mail. Other students used their own laptop computer to teach a paralysed six-year-old, living in a shack, to write her name. Some of the girls went to other schools asking pupils to donate R1 for each hearing ear they had. The proceeds went towards cochlea implant awareness.