Not so long ago we had to have teachers who would boast that “Donderdag ek gaan julle goed donner“. And that was no idle threat. They would donner us till their hands ached and their clothes were wet with sweat.
My primary school teachers used a knotted rope called hamba uyobatshela (“go relay the pain you felt”) to punish us for the silliest of misdemeanours.
It was part of the mentality of that era, which resonated with the general law-and-order approach of the apartheid government and the view that the only lesson black people understood was the infliction of physical pain. Thanks to Cyril Ramaphosa and company, the country drafted a new Constitution based on human rights that ensured that corporal punishment was forbidden.
It was a giant step to stop a culture that bred brutality, callousness and a lack of respect for fellow human beings among teachers and pupils. But now the challenges are different. Efforts to transform the teaching fraternity from a last-resort profession taken up by students who could not qualify for universities and technikons to a respectable, well-paid profession have met with complications.
Political imperatives that necessitated forging a close relationship between the liberation movement and the trade union sector have resulted in unforeseen consequences, with teachers wielding unbelievable power.
It was a progressive measure that teachers were placed at the forefront of the struggle for better education and community issues. But we must admit the situation is now way out of control. A bunch of people who call themselves the leaders of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) are causing chaos in township schools.
These teachers act in the name of fighting for justice and better conditions for our kids and communities, but one has to ask what is progressive about teachers abandoning their classes to support the court appearance of one of their number charged with assaulting a pupil? It is wholly Âirresponsible.
Yet, this kind of behaviour is common in a country where Tony Yengeni was hoisted shoulder high by cheering supporters as he was led to jail after being convicted of fraud. The right-wing and conservative in our society like to argue that we bred such ungovernability during the mass defiance campaigns in the 1980s, when activists launched the final assault on the National Party government. But it has nothing to do with that.
Post-1994 culture
It is a culture created in the post-1994 era that has been quietly allowed to take hold. It’s no wonder then that you have a Sadtu leader in Soweto, Moss Senye, addressing thousands of teachers with these words: “People have tried to destroy the union and failed. At no stage should you be friends with white people, they will satanise you.” He further boasted that “our region has 10 000 members and only 75 are white”. And this man is not only a teacher, but also a school principal in Meadowlands. What do they teach children in that school? What do our children imbibe from this well of hatred and bitterness?
While the national office of the teachers’ union distanced itself from Senye’s utterances I was struck that Cosatu, which has an opinion on anything and everything has kept quiet. The champion of the working class, the South African Communist Party, kept silent while the ANC and the Democratic Alliance commendably condemned this racism and called for the dismissal of the teachers who missed classes and went to court.
Senye and his group expect to get away with this kind of behaviour because they have in the past. Their proximity to power and their belief that they can blackmail the ruling party, which is loath to alienate them (especially given the upcoming local elections), has given them an aura of invincibility.
In our anger at government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi’s racist remarks and Planning Minister Trevor Manuel’s undisciplined response, we dare not forget to keep a check on those who play an even bigger role in shaping this country’s future: our teachers.
My daughter came home last week disheartened that her teacher had called some kids gemors [rubbish]. I had to think long and hard about how to respond without unduly playing on the white-teacher/black-kid dynamic there, and also not endorsing the teacher’s emotional response to kids defacing her car. We have to demand better accountability from our teachers, in spite of their organised strength. Seeing that our children spend the better part of their time with them, we have to expect exemplary behaviour from teachers.
Let’s remind our teachers of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s message on education: “I do not tire of repeating it: put all the lessons of young people in actions rather than in speeches. Let them learn nothing in books which experience can teach them.”