A task like no other
Like no other job. Teaching is a great way to learn new things.
Most teachers lack the time for meta-cognition. I’m a part-timer, and have the privilege to be able to reflect on my own practice. Having been employed and freelanced in many other institutions, I now appreciate that teachers (in functioning schools) carry a workload the equivalent of three days in one.
After a 16 year break, I’m teaching History again in the same middle class environment. A government former whites-only high school – girls only, magnificent buildings, green lawns, kept neat and clean by caretakers and supervised workers, tight security, specialised administrative and finance staff, strict hierarchy. A wide selection of extra mural activity in sport and in ‘culture’ is offered. A high-functioning institution, a centre of excellence, with 100% matric pass rate.
Along with the material resources and the visible, measurable academic achievement, the hidden curriculum makes the school work. In the 1980s I thought the hidden curriculum was something sinister, to be rocked. Now, I see its indispensable value.
The old structure is still intact, with a set of overt and not-so-overt codes and rules of behaviour that maintain social cohesion and control.
Punctuality, strict uniform and dress codes, consequences for breaking the rules, rewards for excellence, respect for one another. Obedience to authority; a competitive yet co-operative culture; enthusiasm for achievement. Encouragement for compassion and service to those outside the school community. Counsellors and social workers to support those who struggle. Learners are equipped to make the transition to tertiary institutions and the working world.
Staff is dedicated and daily meet death-defying deadlines. No one arrives late, or stays home without good reason. No one dares hang around in the staff room when the bell rings. Kids out of class quickly get ‘demerits’. It’s time on task, Monday to Friday, 8am to 3pm; first day to last day, every day of every term.
Teachers are trained in their disciplines. Teachers care about individual learners. Classes are not taught as homogenous groups. Each learner’s work is assessed constantly.
Every learner has a textbook in every Learning Area. When the prescribed textbook is not good enough, the teacher has access to other textbooks, a large user-friendly and well-stocked library, a pc on her desk, and efficient photocopying facilities.
Each child has an email address. Learners have access to computer rooms. Most classrooms have DVD players and Smartboards. But in the end, I think the kids I taught 20 years ago, knew more, understood more, and thought more.
I last taught in the 1980s. Learners were more literate. They read books. They were more articulate (the word ‘like’ to link phrases did not exist). Now their cell phones, stored in their blazer pockets, and in a flash in their hands when the bell rings, make their worlds very small. They have little sense of place (geography), little sense of time and concept (history) and very little ‘cultural capital’.
Project work has more than doubled, but has deteriorated. Reading a book as a reference is much more demanding than surfing websites, cutting and pasting. Reading requires internalising information and writing it down requires that too. Learners can churn out projects without much consideration or later memory of having done it.
Kids are more ‘familiar’ (but not disrespectful) with authority figures. They backchat and jostle for attention. Television sitcoms are scripted and are (usually) funny. Kids mimic American ‘moves’ and one-liners in the wrong contexts and at inappropriate times. The classroom is a very old-fashioned environment. But they (and their parents) still value their school leaving certificate enough to bear it.
Their tendency to over dramatise is alarming and irritating. The smallest thing – a spider on the desk or the sound of a familiar hit tune – makes them shriek-scream in immature raucous unison. This inappropriate hysteria (mimicking American Idols?) makes me wonder what emotion gets displayed if someone dies? They have used up the range already.
Girls en masse can be intense, judgemental, demanding and bear grudges. They remember little things for a long time. “You called me pessimistic last year.” Boys just box each other. (The advantages of a girls-only high school education seem to outweigh the disadvantages, however.)
And the racism? Of course it’s there. It’s kept low.
The learners come from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, which is a great strength of the school. Each kid learns to get along with those who are ‘not like me’. They work and play in an environment which reflects at least some of the diversity of the Peninsula’s population.
The black kids form a substantial minority. Trying to forge new identities in a world that sends mixed messages is often heartbreaking. They speak (loudly) in isiXhosa to one another as a form of resistance. The fear of the ‘Coconut Factor’ is very powerful. ‘Black girls don’t swim’. Girls seem to embrace and resist it at the same time. There are tensions between ‘township’ girls and ‘suburbs’ girls.
The ‘coloured’ kids blend into the old ‘white’ system with seeming ease. Language is a big factor. And I suspect that the sense of being ‘other’ is not that great.
‘Coloured’ kids identify with ‘coloured’ and have no comprehension of the constructed nature of their identity, unless they come from ‘struggle’ homes. They are as cavalier about the past as their white counterparts. But, in one afternoon History Society discussion, attended by mostly ‘coloured’ kids, an (old leftie ‘coloured’) speaker addressed the issue ‘what is coloured?’ Many of the kids told stories which had us all in tears.
Teaching Apartheid? The Grade 9 and Grade 12 History curriculum requires learning about South Africa from 1948 to 1996. The responses that are vocalised include “You sound like a war veteran.” “We are so over the rainbow”. “Here we go again.”
The black kids are most responsive and have the most insight into the legacy of the past.
How does one teach Apartheid in a ‘race’ mixed classroom so that ‘white’ and ‘coloured’ and ‘black’ kids learn substantively, engage, and understand what the past injustices have given them? How does one teach non-racialism when the past is soaked with ‘race’ labels? How does one teach that ‘race’ does not exist? How does one teach anti-racism when the staff is mostly ‘white’?
June 18, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Barbara your reflections is one of the best things I have read on the multi/middle class girl classroom. It would be great if you can reflect a little more on the issue of race and how people shy away from or embrace the past.
June 18, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Post-modernism and post-colonial thought and discourse demand that we re-conceptualise education in South Africa. There is an urgent need to examine the historical legacy of education in South Africa, specifically beyond the apartheid legacy of education, back to the canon that is. Imagined and documented notions of education need to be scrutinised, the contingency of cultural perceptions of education especially needs to be considered. What is an African school or university? Can these be imagined without drawing on European traditions and heritage – in fact, more aptly, can these be considered without drawing on Africa’s European traditions and heritage?
Barbara implies that their is an appropriate way to behave in the classroom and writes the following:
“Their tendency to over dramatise is alarming and irritating. The smallest thing – a spider on the desk or the sound of a familiar hit tune – makes them shriek-scream in immature raucous unison. This inappropriate hysteria (mimicking American Idols?) makes me wonder what emotion gets displayed if someone dies? They have used up the range already.”
Instantly we (if it’s just me, then I stand to be corrected and will accept all flack directed this way) know she’s referring to black and coloured students, ‘loudness’ being a cultural attribute that continues to ‘alarm and irritate’ white South Africans. How “inappropriate” is this “hysteria”? Inappropriate for who? The teacher most certainly as this disrupts the lesson, but perhaps the biggest grievance is that this type of behaviour is inappropriate for European notions of education and learning. Perhaps the most over dramatic part of Barbara’s assertion is the comment that “they have used up the [emotional] range already” should they have to mourn someone’s death – I don’t think so.
Problematising the European heritage of education in South Africa does not mean there needs to be a complete rejection of the tradition. Barbara significantly notes that “in the 1980s. Learners were more literate. They read books. They were more articulate (the word ‘like’ to link phrases did not exist). Now their cell phones, stored in their blazer pockets, and in a flash in their hands when the bell rings, make their worlds very small. They have little sense of place (geography), little sense of time and concept (history) and very little ‘cultural capital’.” I agree this completely, well almost. Kids today don’t read enough books, this is most evident at university (myself included) where English lecturers are rightfully aghast at students’ lack of literary knowledge or instances where media studies students do not read newspapers. But again I think it is necessary to problematise what constitutes cultural capital in post-apartheid South Africa. Barbara writes that “the black kids are most responsive and have the most insight into the legacy of the past” whilst other learners are “so over the rainbow”. This is the stuff that cultural capital is made of, the circumstances and events that give rise to these students’ sentiments. Of course being ‘over the rainbow’ is not the most desirable state of consciousness and reflects a dangerous political apathy. The task is to investigate then what it is that these students are in to if they are over democracy and history and to problematise these, and determine ORGANICALLY what constitutes cultural capital. Relying on an inherited culture of learning and education is what makes the classroom “a very old-fashioned environment”.
Barbara, you are very correct in saying that teaching is a task like no other. Besides testing out and adapting to the new curriculum, the challenge for educators today is to take on Africa’s new inherited culture: the commodification and globalisation of identity and culture. On top of all of this and to which all of this is subsumed is the exigency of teaching South African history in way that is culturally sensitive and politically progressive. A task like no other.
June 18, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Lauren: Thanks for taking the time to reply. The hysteria is certainly not a skin colour issue. I think it mimics pop American television culture. American Idol as the best example.
June 22, 2008 at 11:21 am
I found it refreshing to read Barbara’s very frank account of some of the complexities that she experiences as a middle-aged, middle-class history teacher in a well-run and well-resourced school with high expectations of staff and students. It is more common to read about the challenges of the many under-resourced and poorly functioning and performing schools in South Africa.
Teachers are ‘at the rock face’ of grappling with translating the theory of teaching South African history in ‘culturally sensitive and politically progressive’ ways into practice. They have to deal with tensions between the popular culture and varied home experiences their (multi-cultural and multi-racial) students bring to the classroom whilst still maintaining a focus on providing students with access to the historical knowledge that the curriculum values and states that they need. Teachers such as Barbara and classrooms such as Barbara’s potentially provide fascinating insights for history researchers on the difficulties of translating the theory (of meeting diverse needs) into practice.
July 24, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I find it fascinating that when Barbara tackles racism, she proceeds to indulge in what, in my opinion, comes close to ethnographical depiction of the ‘black’ and ‘coloured’ girls as the other. Aren’t the ‘white’ girls’ attitudes and proclivites also worth some analysis?
Or, looked at in some other way: some of the responses to particular topics i.e on tackling apartheid -”you sound like a war veteran” etc would likely emanate from the ‘white’ girls, yet there is no mention of this.
Having said that, I would be particularly interested in more dispatches from Barbara on this topic as I have been very sceptical, since my arrival in this country, on the glib assurances and abdication of responsibility I note in ‘white’ parents when it comes to tackling race and racism. I’m sure you’re all familiar with refrain: “today’s youngsters are the ones growing up without any racial hang-ups!”
July 28, 2008 at 12:29 pm
wow! miss j! haha we are not that bad as learners and as your grade 12 class you have to admit that we keep you on your toes and make every lesson fun to come to. =D
September 23, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Barbara i am truly in awe, not only because of your insight but to your life-long dedication and struggle, commitment and hard work to bring about the change and benefits that my generation is reaping. Working at the same establishment, i too note many of the trends, patterns and behaviours and being a ‘coloured’ myself, i too have to be honest in admitting that my culture and heritage only has a level of importance in my life since ‘like’ yesterday.
My personal opinion is that Apartheid should be taught in schools, but not placing the focus on the political regime per se, but more on its implicit and explicit influences on South African identity. Though we are almost fifteen years into this democracy and i have siblings who have been raised in a free country, the remnance of the previous era is something that gets handed down like a family heir loom. To teach learners to ‘not see colour’ would be forcing them to be colour blind. The previous generation fought and died for the physical freedom we have today. My generation has to fight for internal freedom…rise to the challenge
June 22, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Just wanted to say thanks for the great post ! Found your blog on Google and I’m happy I did. I’ll be reading you on a regular basis ! Thanks again
Thanks,
Donna
June 25, 2010 at 6:31 pm
I wish to comment about Sri lanka where racism is rampant.History is taught in a manner to show that Sinhalese are a superior race over the Tamils.
Sihala history is based on mahawansa which is mostly a mith. Racisim is covertly and overtly practiced by the state and other organisations on the basis of a war between KING Ellara (Tamil) and King Dutugemunu (Sinhala) where Dutugemunu had supposed to have won.Based on this Sihalese cosidered themselves superior, as they are in the majority.After independence various Sinhala governments started colonising the the north and east where Tamils are predominant, so as to change the texture of the population. They distort history and say that these areas were originally occupied by the Sinhalese. Tamils and Sinhalese had their own separate kingdoms until the Britishers occupied Srilanka (Ceylon). But the successive governments do not accept this and continue to treat the Tamils as second class citizens.Efforts by the Tamils to find equality by peaceful means failed thus resuting in a long drawn out war betwen the Tamils and the Sinhalese. Unfortunately due to the support given by India, China, Pakistan and the west to the government in power, Tamils are worse off. Now, once again the Tamils arelooked down upon and they are under a military rule. THE SINHALESE CONTINUE TO QUOTE HISTORY and expect the Tamils to be a subject race,
When the British government declared independence to Ceylon they should have restored the status quo for the Tamils. Their rule and and subsiquent failure to do the right thing has caused immence difficuties to the Tamils in partcular and Srilanka in general. When history is rewitten more distortion will follow and who is to take the resposibility?