June 11 – Day 11 of the Public Service Strike on South Africa

So, yes…South African public sector workers have been on strike for 11 days. It seems totally ridiculous to me that after 11 days any democratic country could still be striking – does our supposedly democratic government honestly believe we don’t deserve 12% in the quest for what our country truly represents – equality???

Today was my second day at school (working) since the strike began (the days off have not been as part of the strike – rather study leave), and it was honestly one of the best and most rewarding days I’ve had as a teacher. With only 13 grade 7s at school, each of the teachers for the grade only saw the learners once, but I can honestly say in my one period with 13 children I got more done that I do in a whole day of lessons with the usual 40 in my class.

I want to reflect a little…
With the time I’ve been off (between the writing of and studying for my exams), I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking about what exactly is going on in our beautiful country. In the past 11 days I’ve had 4 periods of actual teaching, and I won’t lie, it’s been great. Now I guess my being at school does not show any sort of solidarity for the greater cause of teachers (two justifications: I am an SGB employee and I need the money just as bad as the next person – no work no pay!!!), however I guess the reason I became a teacher is different to most – I believe in education and I believe in a better future for SA – that’s not to say that I don’t believe that teachers deserve more money, I suppose I’m just not doing this for the money at all – that’s when I’ll fall back on my real qualification – which is somewhat of a pity because I love teaching so much more that I could ever love journalism.

Ok, so that’s why today was such an amazing day…I had quite a bit of free time to do all my admin (so no homework for this teacher today), but more than that, I had time and the energy to give the one lesson I did have my all. I decided that there was little point in doing real work seeing that about 145 kids would miss out, but I wanted to give the kids something meaningful to take away – they should be rewarded for coming to school when no one else is as willing. I figured that the strike – being real and having a direct impact on them was a good place to start – so I linked the strike action and the concerns it’s raised to the happenings of June 16th 1976 (which we commemorate this Saturday). It was quite a hit. I had plenty of time to prep the lesson, did some research put some quotes up on the board, and then because I was so excited myself about the content and the idea of sharing something real and relevant with my learners, I was fresh and in a supped good mood when they came in. Needless to say they loved it, they were excited because it was different, but also because finally someone was informing them directly about what’s happening in SA at the moment – they were attentive and very talkative, but in a good way, they all had comments to make and questions to ask. And because there were only 13 of them I got to address all their concerns and let them all have their say, with very little time spent on discipline and telling them to keep quite (which is the norm with 40+). By the time the bell rang, we were still talking and no one wanted to leave. It really was the most amazing lesson of my life (which as a teacher has been admittedly short – but it was incredible). Although no one wrote anything in any books and despite the fact that I will never ask the work in a test, the lesson incorporated everything I’ve been taught a god lesson should include:

They learnt something – debating skills and some history
It was inclusive – everyone got to have their say
It was developmental – we all thought and reasoned
It was educational – everyone learnt something and was stimulated
AND – most importantly: it was democratic – everyone got to have an equal voice if they wanted it, we all deliberated together and we walked away enriched by the content as well as the process.

I think it’s very seldom that I teacher can walk out of just one class and say they learnt more than the kids did – but that was me today. I’ve always known that young South African’s have a lot to say, but today they shocked me – finally they spoke out and they were able to give reasoned arguments for what they thought was right and wrong about the strike – and it wasn’t all newspaper regurgitation –they were really really thinking.

After the lesson I had some more free time and I took in all their books to do what we call book control (checking that they are up to date in their exercise books) – which we usually skim (imagine – in excess of 200 books). I didn’t do book control, I actually marked their books, read through their work and gave some real feedback they can work with – an impossible task in “normal” times…

Now I ask you – what does this mean? What are we to learn from the strike – teaching is best when the numbers are smaller, I’d love 13, but even 25 would be good…but not 40…as soon as classes are smaller education in our country will return to it’s previous high standard (and probably raise above it), but classes will only get smaller when we have more teachers and there will only be more teachers when the salaries are more attractive – which will only happen when the teaching industry can actually compete with the private sector – which if the government refuse 12%, will be never…so my question is – how the hell can a government call themselves democratic and commit themselves to “education for all” when they won’t even let the nations’ educators put a decent meal on the table for their families???