better
Phillipa Garson
‘We are going to start with writing now; ons sal met potlode skryf” instructs teacher Diane Matthews to her “dual-medium” standard one class of about 50 pupils, two-thirds of whom are black.
At Laerskool Venterspos, where Matthews has been teaching for 13 years, an unobtrusive revolution has taken place in the depressed mining town with the same name on the West Rand. Its inhabitants are mostly poor, white and unemployed, since the mine closed down a few years ago.
This year the school opened its doors to pupils from the nearby communities of Bekkersdal, Mohlakeng and Toekomsrus, and bought buses to ferry students the extra kilometres to their homes. Now 60 % of its 430 children are black.
The children are poor, many barefoot, and their parents are mostly uneducated mineworkers or unemployed. Yet where there could have been a hotbed of racial tension, there is instead an advertisement for racial harmony.
“I feel great, there’s no racism, there are no problems. I’m really happy at this school,” says 12-year-old Richard Ramphore, who lives in Mohlakeng. Lizelle van der Berg, a 14-year-old prefect, says the school is “much better” now there are more children. “It’s fun having them [black children] to play with, because they run very fast.”
“We didn’t want a Potgietersrus here. It’s just unnecessary,” comments one teacher in a heavy Afrikaans accent.
Some believe the harmony is a consequence of the mineworkers, black and white, long accustomed to working side-by-side, being less fearful of their children integrating than conservative white farmers appear to be. Certainly, the transition has happened without a murmur of resistance, save from the “four or five parents who took their children elsewhere”, says principal Jan Van Zyl.
Perhaps the acceptance has much to do with cash- strapped parents having no other choices. They pay R50 a month for a school which, thanks to its apartheid heritage, is better resourced than most township schools.
The school is experimenting with parallel-medium and dual-medium teaching. Some classes are Afrikaans only, others are English only, and some, like Matthews’ class, are dual-medium. Some of the black children’s parents have opted to put their children into the Afrikaans-only classes.
Judging by the way Matthews flips from English to Afrikaans and back again with unconscious ease, it seems she’s been doing it for years. But, in fact, this is the first time she has taught her classes this way.
Dual-language classes are “good” as long as the black children are fairly familiar with English, say the teachers. If not, it is far better for them to hear English. The school is hoping to raise funds to employ a Tswana teacher.
Matthews believes her school has managed the transition “because we just got stuck in and did something about it”. She anticipated fighting among the children, but has experienced none of it.
Other teachers are equally positive. Grade one teacher Hanlie van Rooyen says: “At first it was very strange for me. But now it’s very nice. I can see them improve every day. We knew this was going to happen, and if you accept it, it’s much easier.”
At other formerly Afrikaans schools in the Randfontein / Westonaria district, the trimmings of Afrikanerdom are more apparent — doilies, everlasting flowers and crochet covers — but change is happening too in a fairly fast, trouble-free way.
At Laerskool Glenharvie in Glenharvie, teachers display an enthusiastic commitment to the challenges of multicultural teaching. Afrikaans teacher Brechtie Waldeck says she feared integration more than the children, but has “learnt a lot. I’ve learnt what tolerance really means. And I’ve also learnt that having all kinds of equipment is not necessary. All that is necessary is knowledge.”
The namesake of the Laerskool Betsie Verwoerd may be horrified at the school’s attempts to attract black pupils with a sign advertising itself as “English and Afrikaans medium” on its fence, but it is increasing its numbers after most Afrikaans parents removed their children this year when the school decided to go “dual-medium”.
The school shrank from having 315 pupils to 50, but slowly the Afrikaans children are trickling back and more and more black children are enrolling. Principal “Mossie” Mostert describes the changing times as “the most challenging period in my life”.
He’s vaguely embarrassed about the school’s name, and says defensively: “I don’t think a name really shows what’s going on in a school. But we will ask parents to decide [on a name change]”.
Billy Motara, education officer for the district spanning Randfontein, Westonaria and Oberholzer, attributes the successful integration of pupils in his white conservative heartland to the proactive approach taken by the Education Department. Parents, governing bodies and teachers were primed of the anticipated changes way in advance.
Already township and farm schools in the district are bursting at the seams and, with citizenship to be granted to migrant mineworkers, he is expecting 30 000 families to move into the region. Four to five families are already moving in daily, and the schools are battling to cope with increasing numbers.
There was never any question of the schools being allowed to be left standing half-empty, but Motara says he was unprepared for the willing response from the Afrikaans schools’ principals.
Some of the principals still speak with some romanticism about the success of racial mixing, using crude examples of multicultural “sensitivity”.
Clearly, racial integration in schools is in its “honeymoon phase” and much of the real work in eroding stereotypical racial attitudes must still take place, says Gauteng MEC for education Mary Metcalfe.
But racial integration in formerly white Afrikaans schools, many in working class areas, has nevertheless occurred “with bewildering success”, says Metcalfe. She attributes this to a “moral hegemony that is much stronger than we realise. People have begun to recognise that we have to use our resources in a more equitable way”.
Metcalfe says the transition has happened far more smoothly in many Afrikaans-medium than English- medium schools, and some have accommodated up to 400 African pupils.
She believes teachers must choose whether to go the “dual-medium” or “parallel-medium” route, and does not see the latter choice as a smokescreen for racial segregation. Certainly, all classrooms visited — whether English or Afrikaans was the medium of instruction — were racially mixed.