Task too big to be left to children and parents – all stakeholders have a role to play, writes Vuyisela Msila
In her book Other People’s Children, Lisa Delpit explores issues of cultural conflict and implications for black pupils in America. She explores how the dominant culture or as she calls it, the culture of power, impacts negatively on black children in classrooms.
Delpit emphasises how they suffer and are treated as The Other due to the way they look, the way they speak and the locations from which many come from.
Usually black pupils around the world find education different from what they are used to at their homes.
Delpit also highlights how crucial it is to understand the culture of the children one teaches.
Generally, schools continue to prepare pupils who will disregard their blackness as they internalise how society wants them to be.
The incident at Pretoria Girls high school reminds one of Delpit’s work and the universal nature of some of the challenges facing black children in schools.
The more we see similar incidents such as these in schools, we begin to realise that deliberations that are usually initiated at higher education institutions really need to be considered in our basic education as well.
The debates on decolonisation and Africanisation of education system need to be decoded for our schools too. Furthermore, all role-players including parents, teachers and pupils themselves need to be aware and act on these pertinent issues in education.
The bondage of born-frees at the Pretoria school represents hundreds of cases where the children have not stood up. Sometimes we may have to blame parents who even when seeing the problems sit on them because they do not want their children to be treated differently at school.
Some parents may even say the chiding on hairstyles is not as important as the education the child is getting from the “good school”.
Yet the same parents may not be aware of the humiliation that children suffer in intolerant classrooms and rough playgrounds. Maybe some do, but because they know the child is accumulating cultural capital necessary for future; they just turn a blind eye.
It has become so crucial as to how parents and significant others talk about race, culture and Africanness.
Frequently, many progressive parents do not entertain discussions on race because they believe that eschewing race debates will ensure their children will become non-racial for they will be colour blind.
This is a huge mistake for children need to understand their identity and why they should not be ashamed to be who they are.
Understanding one’s race is a positive inclination that will make children aware and know how they all complement one another despite their differences.
If parents fail to do this we will continue to raise the empty shells that Bantu Biko spoke about. Ironically, it was the Afro hair style that was a strong statement for black pride and black power in the 1960s and 1970s.
Second, schools need to use the diversity of culture; we may be building a new nation but this never meant that some cultures should be marginalised.
As one pupil pointed out at the Pretoria school, some teachers try hard to alter how they speak. This may have negative implications to those who do not master the right intonation and accent; they will learn to be silent in class. This is again what Biko referred to as inward looking, because these pupils cannot speak the right way; the way that the culture of power dictates.
Schools need to understand this; in search for excellence they should not destroy ability.
Third, the society is still failing the youth because we do not underscore the beauty of Africanness. Many of these should start from home and we cannot throw this on schools only. African schools need to celebrate this Africanness, the special visage making these schools different from European schools. There are various aspects of African cultures that can strengthen the school curricula.
Our diverse society should be used as strength to enhance what goes on in schools. This will also create more appreciation of other cultures by pupils.
The hair debate may sound trivial to many but there are deeper issues here whose answers can be found in the Africanisation and decolonisation of education. When we lack these dimensions, our children will continue hating all that which is African.
It was also shocking when the Pretoria Girls high school pupils stated that they were victimised even when they spoke indigenous languages on school premises. This is absurd in a school that is in Africa but is disparaging to other indigenous, official languages.
Schools must not continue to give the misleading impression that some African languages should be shunned. This would make pupils grow knowing that their languages are distasteful.
At Pretoria Girls high they were told they were making funny noises whenever they spoke in vernacular. This is anti-African and very destructive to the well-being of the children. It questions their origins, identities as well as their humanity.
But we should not fail to create and sustain better schools that among others bring forth social cohesion. Yet if parents are silent when children suffer in unjust classrooms, we will not be able to fight racism and similar practices.
Our teachers should also avoid entrenching the status quo in classrooms. Conscientious teachers have to challenge the status quo as they introduce education that supports social justice. Education should be an act that changes society and enhance the quality of life. It has an important role of leading to good and responsible citizenry. Children also need to be courageous and able to share ill practices that they may endure at school.
The Pretoria Girls high experience demonstrates how far we can be from the ideal.
Much is still needed to move towards understanding and social cohesion. The irony of some of our schools is that instead of being custodians of justice, they violate rules and the society finds that schools are far from being exemplary institutions that uphold the principles enshrined in our Constitution. We earlier saw this year two examples of racism in a crèche as well as in a school; both in Pretoria.
These do not happen outside the context of society, hence we need to question our people’s tolerance towards one another’s cultures.
To add more to this imbroglio, the school called the police to bring in military zeal that would quell the non-violent teens whose guilt was to exercise their voice.
It should bring us all shame for adults to let 13-year-olds confront these battles that should be on adult shoulders.
Education as public good should be more humanising and invitational to all pupils. Education is an opportunity that needs to build an equitable future for all. Furthermore, education will not put pupils where they should be if it is practised without social justice.
When schools intimidate and question other cultural practices, they cannot lead to equitable futures.
When schools teach puipils that they were born with wrong accents, or hair, this is not social justice. Schools should be sensitive to various aspects of culture or we will continue creating problems for a future society.
Decolonising institutions such as schools will also need all role-players and is not a battle to be left to children.
School governing bodies should openly debate the thorny issues of blackness and whiteness. A society that does not fight for its children is destroying its future.
* Vuyisela Msila is the head of Unisa’s Institute for African Renaissance. He writes in his personal capacity.