Dancing in Protest

A great place to read about what is going on in education in South Africa is the website of the South African national newspaper, The Mail and Guardian Online (search education or teacher). After reading an article last week, I asked my friend Hugh the following:

Definition, please. I am reading about education in SA and ran across another term I don't know. Here's the sentence: An army of teachers toyi-toyied last year for better wages.

March? Demonstrate? Lobby?

On March 29 he replied:

Lawd Ms Glenda, the things you come up with!

Toyi-toyi is a type of combative dance, really skipping from one foot to the other. It probably originated in Zimbabwe but has since become a symbol of protest in SA and is usually carried out on protest marches and at gatherings. It has a useful function in that instead of walkng, the assembled crowd shows a lot more movement which makes the police a lot more edgy. It is ultimately a form of active protest.

Not everyone is in agreement about the efficacy of toyi-toying. The other day our education mnister, Naledi Pandor, told a crowd of students at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal that they should spend a lot less time toyi-toying and a lot more time hitting the books as taking ten years to pass the first year of any course was unacceptable. Needless to say she was vociferously attacked by the Young Communists and the ANC Youth League who took up the cudgels on behalf of the said students and issued some truly fatuous press statements.

A book that you might find interesting, all about how SA used to be, is Allen Drury's 'A Very Strange Society'. It was published in the late sixties after Drury had spent some time in SA interviewing a number of people. It will give you a flavour of what things were like back then. Try finding it in your local library. Drury was of course famous for his novel 'Advise and Consent'.

Another book that you might like to look at is Hermann Giliomee's The Afrikaners, one of the definative books on the history of the Afrikaners and hence SA. It is a weighty tome because Giliomee is a Professor Emeritus at Stellenbosch U. and one of our foremost historians so expect lots of notes. Still, it is a fascinating work.

FAQs about South Africa

Okay, so these might not be frequently asked, but they are questions I asked my old friend from college days in Germany Hugh von Zahn, who lives in Cape Town. I’ve been planning this trip for two years, and as I have read, I have often asked Hugh via email for explanations or clarifications. I’d like to include some of my questions and his answers in a few posts. Here’s a start:

(February 2006) Is Cape Town as beautiful as the pictures?

Yes, Cape Town is a very beautiful city. It is often referred to as the Mother City, being the oldest city in SA. It is a city of huge contrasts, enormous extremes of poverty and privilege, degradation and conservation. The Table Mountain National Park is a world heritage site, as is Robben Island, with one of the highest concentrations of plant biodiversity in the world. Culturally it is a mix of African, European, and the East, spicy food and high tea, all mixed up together. It is also the least African city in SA, possibly because of the proportion of white and coloured people living here. All worth a visit.

(February 2006) I'm reading a book called Africa and Africans . . . that is actually a pretty decent sociological introduction to the continent, although I suspect it is written for an undergraduate introductory course in African studies. Tell me about kinship among the Xhosa and Zulu. How much has it remained traditional? Is polygyny practiced, and if so, how does that affect laws and court systems there? Also, are there areas with traditional relationships to the land, or did the economics of apartheid change that? It is mind-boggling to me how such varying cultural traditions could work in one state. These are complicated questions, I know, without simple answers, but try to explain if you have the time.

In answer to your question about African traditions in the modern world let me start by saying that we are a developing country so you still have a fair amount of traditional practices among the black population. We have a chamber called the Council of Traditional Leaders who are paid by government to be just that. This includes everyone from royalty like the Zulu king, Goodwill Zweletini, through to tribal chiefs and other notables. Many of these people preside over tribal lands that are held in trust for the respective tribal groupings. As you can imagine, it is a system fraught with difficulties as well as . . . practices such as patronage and nepotism. Also, it is totally out of step with the modern world and is a great contributer to the flood of rural people to the urban areas. Cape Town gets approximately 50,000 rural immigrants into the metropole per annum, most of them indigent. The resultant demand on local infrastructure is
immense.

Tribal kinship is still very prevalent in SA. Polygamy is recognised in Common Law
and every attempt is made to accommodate tribal rites, rituals, and mores. It is an
extremely complex issue that would take a dissertation to unravel fully. Suffice it
to say that the SA constitution recognises and respects that we live in a multi-
cultural society and upholds cultural rights.

(February 2006) What languages do you speak?

I speak Afrikaans and very rusty German, which I am sure will return if I was immersed in the language for a while. No, I do not speak any indigenous African languages. but like most South Africans I have a smattering of words that are used in everyday situations. Up until 1994 it was not common for white children to do a black language at school. However, in the new dispensation it has become compulsory, especially in primary school. My kids are all doing Xhosa and Tristan, the eldest, will be doing it for his school leaving certificate. Afrikaans is treated as an African language as well but is slowly falling from favour amongst English speaking students who feel that a black language might be more useful in later life. However, Afrikaans is still widely spoken especially here in the Western Cape.

(February 2006) What is mealie pap? Is it anything like the US southern dish called "grits?

Afrikaans word meaning maize meal porridge. The word 'pap' means slack or soft hence,
the word for ground up corn, usually white (popular) or yellow (Italians call it
polenta)  cooked with water to make a porridge. The consistency can be either 'slap'
(loose) or 'styf' (firm). In Zulu or Xhosa it is called 'phutu' (pronounced as in
Tutu) and is cooked to a stiff consistency and often even to a crumbly texture
(called krummelpap)which is then eaten with soured milk called 'amazi'. Staple
African diet, eaten all over the continent.

(February 2006) Fundi? Local expert? Teacher? Revered-Omniscient-One?

Fundi, common South African word meaning 'expert'. Corruption of the Xhosa word 'fundisa' to learn. A student is 'umfundi' but don't quote meas I will deny all. My children are the ones learning Xhosa at school, all I do is smile and look intelligent.

(March 2006) Mark and I have been reading about SA wines lately. We just bought two SA wines this weekend at a chain wine store called, Total Wine. There were not too many wines offered, and all were from Stellenbosch/Paarl region. We got a red table wine by Spier, and a pinotage (which sounds interesting, based on our reading) from Graham Beck. I don't know if either of those wine producers is any good, but only a few were available.

SA wines are not always available in the USA. Part of the reason is that every state has its own alcohol laws that prescribe how, what, when, where and why drink can be sold. Importers have to apply individually to every state to bring wines into the US. Tough for a small country such as ours.

The SA wine industry is a very old one, approximately 400 years old. We are currently
the 6th or 7th largest producing country in the world. Having said that, the wines
produced by E & J Gallo amount to our total annual wine production. Graham Beck is
a large wine producer with farms mainly in the Robertson district. They make some
excellent wines there. Spier is more of a tourist attraction with a huge African
restaurant, a cheetah and raptor conservation programme and an amphitheatre that
has shows all summer.

Pinotage is a South African hybrid varietal developed at the University
of Stellenbosch in the 1930's. It is a clone of Pinot Noir (an essential
ingredient of champagne) and the old Hermitage or Cinsault. If handled correctly
it can produce lovely quaffing wines, if handled poorly it tends to be jammy with
a slightly bitter undertow. The Graham Beck Pinotage scores 3 1/2 out of 5 stars
in our latest wine guide and is described thus: ...perfectly ripe red berry fruit
& good appetite appeal - 3 year aging potential. Hope you enjoy it. Best drunk
with some roast meat and potatoes.

Soon you will know more than the average South African about our country.

(March 2006) I've been reading about the local elections in Cape Town and am
thoroughly confused about the results. There are so many political parties with
similar names, and of course, I have no point of reference for each party's platform. Could you interpret the election results?

 The elections were for local government i.e. city and town councils as well as
rural administration. We have 3 tiers of govt. in SA. National, Provincial and Local.
These elections are hard fought affairs and can be quite lively as evidenced this
past week. I realize that reading about these elections can be quite confusing if
you are standing on the outside, so here is a potted pen picture of SA politics.

Political Parties: There are about 10 political parties in Parliament, although
there are quite a few more who contest elections. At Local Govt. level here in Cape
Town there were 17 parties on the ballot.

The major party is the African National Congress (ANC) who have about 67% of the
seats in Parliament. The next biggest is the Democratic Alliance - a liberal mainly
white party - with about 11% and who form the Official Opposition. Then comes a new
party called the Independent Democrats who have about 3% but who did very well in
these elections and have emerged as kingmakers in quite a few councils here in the
Western Cape where there were no absolute majorities. Next is the Inkatha Freedom
Party who are basically a conservative Zulu political grouping.

Other parties include the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), the Freedom
Front (VV)- a conservative white Afrikaner party, the United Democratic Movement
(UDM) - a Xhosa splinter group, the Pan Africanist Party (PAC) - a black nationalist
movement, the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) - once a liberation movement
given to violent rhetoric like 'one settler, one bullet' and violent acts performed
under the banner of the Azanian Liberation Army. Then there are numerous special
interest groupings such as a Muslim Party, Greens etc. All these parties are small
and inconsequential, although they can be quite vocal sometimes.

In these elections the ANC emerged victorious with about 67% of the votes cast
and about 143 councils. The DA only managed about 11 councils and the rest to the
others. What is of interest though is that the DA got about 44% of the vote4 in
the Cape metro as against 37% for the ANC. Cape Town tends to go against the trend
for the rest of the country. So, here in Cape Town the parties have a week to decide
who will rule the city.

City Government: For the last 2 years we have been governed by the ANC who came to
power with he help of a rump group from the now defunct New Nationalist Party -
really a reworking of the old National Party who ruled SA through the Apartheid
years. We have a curious rule, one that I vehemently disagree with, called
'floor crossing' whereby every 2 years there is a 2 week window where members of
Parliament, Provincial Legislatures and Local Councils can switch allegiances
without losing their seats. This leads to a lot of ugly deal-making but our
Constitutional Court ruled that it was in fact constitutional. People who cross
over are known in the vernacular as crosstitutes.

The interesting thing in Cape Town is that the power alignments are all in the
hands of women and, as befits the Rainbow Nation, one black, onewhite and one
coloured/brown. 

Linda Rader Award Acceptance Speech

March 13, 2008, NCAE Annual Awards Banquet, Fayetteville, NC:
They said you would want to know what I am doing with this award.

I teach at Ranson Middle School--a high-needs middle school in the inner-city in Charlotte. North Carolina has a lot of high-needs schools, and I don't have to tell you that they are often hard places to work. I have been involved in the work to bring more highly-accomplished teachers to high-needs schools in North Carolina.

Thanks to Linda Rader and NCAE, I now have an opportunity to fulfill a long-standing dream to travel to South Africa. I want to see how this country is overcoming its apartheid history without civil war. I want to study the role of public education in this unique emerging democracy. And I want to extend my understanding of the challenges facing high-needs students in schools beyond North Carolina and the United States. I will do this by volunteering as a teacher one month this summer in a high-needs school--I hope in a township--in Cape Town, South Africa.

I also want to thank my husband Mark, who after more than 28 years of marriage has many times heard me say, "What if. . . " followed by some far-fetched and often pretty crazy ideas. So when I said to him last summer, "What if I apply for the Linda Rader Award and teach in South Africa next summer," he replied, as usual, "Well Hon, if that is what you really want to do, go for it." Thank you, Mark.

So here I go. You can follow my planning and adventures on my blog, which you can link to from the NCAE homepage. (Thank you, Christy.) And next year I'll tell you all about it at the winter instructional issues conference when I present about my experiences.

And yes, Elic, to answer your question--"I am soooo excited!"

So everybody, please consider teaching in a high-needs school. Better yet, come teach with me at Ranson next year--we have some openings and I know there will be a lot of collaboration going on for a school-wide project on South Africa.

Thank you.

How do you teach something beyond your own ability to understand?

An accomplished teacher knows her subject and how to teach it. But what does the teacher do when what she wants to teach is beyond the human capacity to understand? The North Carolina 7th grade standard course of study focuses on a regional geography of Africa and Asia. That means that sometime during the year-long course the teacher must teach the complex topic of South Africa and apartheid. How can this be done when it is something any rational human being would find incomprehensible?
When I taught this course several years ago I used a simulation in which I divided the class into two groups. The smaller groups got nearly all the supplies, desks, and books, and the larger group got hardly any. Working through a series of tasks, both groups found that they were deeply affected by their situation: those with little were more likely to give up than be angry, while those with everything acted as if they thought they were entitled to all they had been given. As you might imagine, the real learning took place after the simulation ended when we de-constructed the students' experiences. The discussion was rich, and everyone came away with an inkling of how this could have happened in South Africa.
I've been reading a lot about South Africa for the past two years, and from time to time I will write here about the books I'm reading. Last week I read a book that finally might make the task of teaching South Africa and apartheid in a meaningful way possible. It is by award-winning young adult author Beverley Naidoo (The Other Side of Truth and Journey to Jo-burg), a native South African exiled during apartheid and now living in the United Kingdom. It is called Out of Bounds: Seven Stories of Conflict and Hope. In this accessible and evocative collection Naidoo tells one story set in each decade of apartheid and the decade after it ended, the first story set in 1948 and the final story in 2000. Each story features a protagonist who is an early adolescent, and all so-called racial groups are represented--black, colored, white, and Indian. Suitable for students in grades six to ten, these stories don't sugar-coat the circumstances and events of this troubled country during those nearly incomprehensible times. There is sadness and love, conflict and hope. As the protagonists come of age, they face challenges both similar to and a world apart from early adolescents in the United States, no matter where in the US and in what circumstances they may live. A valuable tool is provided by the timeline of apartheid that follows the stories. Important laws and events are explained and correlated with the story titles.
In June 2008 this book will be available in paperback, at a list price of $5.95. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this topic and country, but especially to adolescents and those who work with them.

The Opposite of February

My mother claimed February was the month that members of her family died. Having lost both parents, several uncles, and a niece in February, my mother always got the blues as February approached. Looking back I think she might have had an inclination to seasonal affective disorder, but she did have an unhappy history with the month. So it did not take me by surprise when a teaching colleague told me early in my career that February was the longest month of the school year. Number of days on the calendar notwithstanding, she said, February would drag on and I would count the slowly-passing days until March. Though for most of the month we are actually closer to the the spring equinox than the winter solstice, spring is a fleeting image from a dream, a vision of mythic proportions. Only on March 1 does spring (and for teachers, spring break) become a promise that we can anticipate with a conviction that it is real.
Turn the earth upside down and February becomes August. Cape Town, with its climate that is variously described in travel books as "Mediterranean" or "much like Southern California," won't see snow. But it is winter. Unlike the rest of South Africa, this is the rainy season along the coastal plain at the foot of Africa's great escarpments. Days can occasionally be as warm as the 70s or 80s F, though average temperatures are usually in the 50s, and I am told nights are always cool. But when the prevailing winds come from the south and Antarctica, there can be spectacular rain and wind storms, and it can be cold.
August in Cape Town is the opposite of February, and instead of dreading its beginning, I can't wait. I hope the days pass slowly, although I expect for me it will be the opposite in that regard, too, and fly by.