Primary school pupils at around 250 schools in South Africa are reading hot-off-the-press world news in their own newspaper sent to them via e-mail.
Created by Johannesburg journalist Duncan Guy, The Times I Am Living In also serves as a source of general knowledge, challenges pupils with quiz questions and provides a glossary.
The South African Press Association (Sapa), where Guy is a reporter, is the media sponsor.
He rewrites stories in so that pupils can easily understand them, then runs the ”adult” wire copy below into which children can delve to seek the answers to quiz questions.
Difficult words in the ”adult” copy are highlighted and their meanings are explained in a glossary.
In the Today in History page, events that occurred in the past are explained, also in kids’ speak.
”In the year that I have been putting out The Times I Am Living In, twice a week, schools have given me suggestions of how to improve the product,” Guy told the Mail & Guardian Online.
”The first call was for illustrations, so I have doubled up as a cartoonist, illustrating every story with a quickly-painted cartoon-like sketch.”
Guy started the project for his son, Owen, a pupil at St James Preparatory School in Belgravia, Johannesburg.
”It went up on the notice board at his school, then on to the notice board at his friend’s school. Now it’s out and about at around 250 schools.”
Many schools display the printed pages of the newspaper on a notice board with a map of the world and coloured ribbons connecting the stories to the countries they relate to. Others use the information for general knowledge quizzes and for discussions on topical issues.
”Content is sensitively selected,” said Guy. ”However, major world issues are covered.”
News pages of The Times I Am Living In comprise of a world story, an Africa story, an environment story, a business story and a sport story.
Schools receive it free — the idea being that Guy will eventually find advertising or sponsorship.
At Treverton Preparatory School in KwaZulu-Natal, mini billboards advertising stories are placed on pillars around the school to lure learners to the library while at Wynberg Girls’ Junior School in Cape Town, stories are announced ”on air” over the intercom system.
At St Peter’s Preparatory School in Rivonia, Johannesburg, birthday boys are told what happened on their day using information from the Today in History page.
A Treverton pupil, Rachael d’Oliveira, won a bicycle in a drawing competition for an illustration of a news story the publication ran earlier in the year. Her teacher, Hazel Stanley won a book voucher. ”The paper is absolutely marvelous,” she told the M&G Online on Tuesday.
”As an English teacher I have been waiting for something like this for a long time. Now, pupils can actually comprehend the news stories because they are written in a language they can relate to. Before, when I used a grown-up newspaper for exercises, it proved that children did not really grasp the meaning of what they had read. Boys in particular would just flick to the sports pages whereas now they read everything.”
The Times I Am Living In proves popular at Treverton. ”Some pupils can’t wait to come into the library to read the paper when the billboards go up every Tuesday and Thursday,” Hazel said.
At IH Harris Primary school in Doornfontein, Johannesburg scholars pupils are welcoming the innovative paper. ”They love it,” said head of department Betsy Anderson. ”They can understand it because it is on their level and it brings them news they are interested in.”
At IH Harris the publication is used in reading exercises and in computer classes, where pupils read it off the screen.
The newspaper now also has a series of illustrated short stories about Guy’s many adventures in Africa as a traveler and a journalist.
”A highlight of my journalism career, which started in 1983, was been covering Africa: both formally interviewing presidents and informally crossing countries by bicycle and public transport.”