Siphokazi Magadla, Bokamoso
One of the enduring memories I have of my life in high
school is of my then young brilliant Grade 10 History teacher holding the
textbook warning us (paraphrased): “I will teach you this, but just remember
that most of it is not history, it is lies”. At that moment I recognised the
contested and political nature of the school curriculum.
The conversations about the ‘crisis in education’ often
focus on the appalling environment in which teachers and learners are placed in
developing and poor countries. South Africa is no different in this regard. If
it is not the image of the teacher standing in front of over a hundred students
in a small class room with barely any space to pace up and down to get better
acquitted with the learners, it is often the lack of delivery of textbooks,
chairs/desks and other important material that create an environment that
allows teachers and learners to get on with engaging the curriculum offered to
them. In this context, it is easy to assume that curriculum is also another
aspect of the crisis. This is why I have been most surprised to see the
substantive transformation of the high school curriculum which, in the midst of
everything else that is not functioning well in education, is often overlooked.
In the past year I had the opportunity to look at the
current South African History curriculum, comparing it to the days when I was
in high school in the early 2000’s. I
was very surprised to see how visionary and imaginative the curriculum is.
While we barely learnt about other African countries in our curriculum,
students today learn about Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa project in Tanzania, the
history of Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe and many others. They also learn about the
civil rights movement in the United States, the women’s movements, amongst
other things. The magnificence with which South African history is portrayed is
due to the fact that events are not treated as fact but teachers and learners
are allowed to view the same event/s from various vantage points.
Upon examining this curriculum, I have been convinced that
if taught well, the student comes out of high school very well prepared for
university. In that way, university then functions for these students as a way
to provide nuance to debates that they have already been introduced to in high
school. My friends who have assisted high school students studying Physics,
English and Mathematics have also noted that the current high school
curriculum, if taught well, would allow the student to “sail” through first
year of university.
My youngest brother is doing his final year of high school.
One of the subjects he takes is Religious Studies, in my time called Biblical
Studies, which focused only on Christianity. For him, Religious Studies means
learning about Christianity, Judaism, Islam and other world’s religions. This
means he will finish high school far more open and exposed to diversity in
religion that I was when I only learnt about debates within the Christian
religion.
It sounds great, right? Then I began to imagine what this
means for the teachers who are used to teaching the old curriculum. Would my
high school teachers from ten years ago be able to do justice to this
curriculum?
The curriculum offers a lot of opportunity for rich
discussions in the classrooms and the use of extra material that can be found
in museums, libraries, online and in the community itself. I remember how alive
the History subject became for me when after school I could easily walk to the
Nelson Mandela Museum in Umthatha where I could hear history from Madiba’s
mouth. This opportunity allowed me to have a healthy suspicion with regards to
how particular events were being portrayed in the textbook when contrasted with
how some of the individuals who were part of that very history spoke of them
decades later.
An enthusiastic high school history learner complained to me
last year that she had suggested to her teacher that they show a movie about
the civil rights movement in class, so that her co-learners can get a more
vivid understanding of this historical process. The teacher said no. The
teacher’s decline of this offer by the learner could have been for various
reasons, but I can’t also help to think that perhaps the teacher was
uncomfortable to participate in a learning exercise where she was also a
learner with her students. So unless teachers are supported by the state and
community to fully unpack the different modules in a way where all concerned
are co-creators of knowledge, then there is a danger that this learning
opportunity may go to waste.
But at the same time it is important to recognise that a
visionary curriculum can also be very intimidating for the teacher who has
taught History and Physics in a specific way for twenty years to now be
required to adapt to a far more demanding module that goes beyond the
regurgitation of facts. A colleague with a PhD in History recently commented
that the present curriculum is perfectly suitable for someone with at least a
Masters Degree. Of course, for the all teachers, with or without a Masters, the
curriculum offers a lot of exciting possibilities.
I also worry for all the teachers that are presented with
plentiful challenges which include the physical security of students which
means that by the time they get to teach they are completely exhausted. For
those teachers it is daunting to be presented with rich ideas in an environment
that robs both the teacher and learner the space to lose themselves in the world
of ideas.
The despair that I have seen with some of our first year
university students who do not come from well resourced schools betrays some of
the inroads that have been made in the education system and especially the
curriculum. The danger here is that in the end as progressive as the curriculum
is, the learners that are best able to take advantage of the progress made in
what is taught in our classrooms are often those who can afford a better
education. The silver lining is that for the young person graduating in
education to become a teacher, they can look forward to a curriculum that
invites them on a journey where the teacher and learner get to co-create
knowledge within a curriculum that allows for complexity, grey areas and
certainly a lot of colour and diversity.
