Let the children decide

Let us halt this quibbling

Of reform and racial preservation

Saying who belongs to which nation

And let the children decide

It is their world

Let us burn our uniforms

Of old scars and grievances

And call back our spent dreams

And the relics of crass tradition

That hang on our malignant hearts

And let the children decide

For it is their world

Don Mattera in Azanian Love Song

I spent the this recent long weekend at the All Girl’s School festival hosted by my alma mater, Clarendon High School for Girls. This is a gathering of all the public girls’ schools in South Africa which has been happening for 19 years.

Yes, I’m one of those people who don’t mind visiting their old school in spite of the love-hate relationship I have with the place. I’m also the kind of person who is a sucker for nostalgia: I spent 12 years of my life in that school and it played a fundamental role in the person I have become. I last visited the school in 2015 for my 10 year reunion. Seeing as East London is no longer home I also invite any reason to visit the place where my roots ought to be but since my mother has moved to Gauteng, I don’t really know if I should regard it as home.

And so when my beloved English teacher called me asking to do a writing workshop I didn’t say no. It was also an opportunity to work with two people I had regarded with the expected level of awe any Grade 8 has for one’s seniors in the hierarchical school system. Zoya Mabuto of Zoya Speaks and Kate Ferreira, a freelance journalist, would be part of the public speaking and creative writing workshop respectively. The first time I was part of the festival was while I was in school and we hosted it for the first time; it was the highlight of the school’s centenary that year. Thereafter we went to Port Elizabeth (Collegate Girls High School) and Potchefstroom Girls High School (my mother kept all the evidence; I came across the pictures while rummaging through family pictures).

The infamous room 21 where the writing workshop was held.

The festival began with an opening ceremony to mark the moment. The girls rose to the occasion with the usual gees expected at schools festivals as they filed onto the grand stands singing their school songs—or are they still called war cries? This was followed by a more formal programme including some singing from one of the singing ensembles. It is important to note that this opening was happening on Freedom Day; there’s something quite poignant about gathering girls’ schools over this weekend to celebrate their many talents. Unlike when I was in school where the festival only offered the ‘major’ sports (Hockey, Netball, Squash and Tennis) and public speaking and debating for the cultural activities. The festival has since received sponsorship from SPAR and is now dubbed the SPAR National All Girls’ Sports and Cultural Festival. The girls have an array of activities to get involved in such as Cakeorating, Chess, Creative Writing, Drama, Golf, Visual Arts and Vocal Ensemble.

While the girls were gathering outside for the opening occasion, the staff and guests were ushered into a separate venue where they would be served dinner and watch the proceedings via a video link. I shouldn’t have been stunned by what I saw in this room, but I was; the room was dominated by white women who are the dominant demographic of all the schools (with smatterings of the other). This picture contradicted the more diverse group outside where the girls were far more racially diverse. I was stunned by the expected picture that has not changed across privileged urban schools which used to be whites-only schools; the students are diverse but the teachers, not so much.

While taking in this picture and ruminating about the need of transforming the education system, Zoya pointed out what it meant to be part of a team which has started a girls school in Khayelitsha; the first girls schools run by black women in a township: Molo Mhlaba (Hello Earth). It was a direct response for the need for transforming education in this country. Outside, a small group of girls were walking onto the makeshift stage ready to sing a rendition as part of the evening’s ceremony. I assumed they would sing something ‘lovely and traditional’ as we did when I was in school. Instead, they sang something which was moving and reflective of the conversation young people are having in this country; they sang the decolonised national anthem which was made popular during student protests and captured in videos by students at Wits (they even sang the tu-lu-lu part of the song). I wanted to capture the moment on video but I was enraptured by the moment. I looked around me and wondered how many people in the room understood what was happening: in a little coastal town in the Eastern Cape, young girls were being subversive (probably without overthinking it) and invoking the voices of other young people through a song which has come to represent a generation’s political awakening.

This moment at the opening ceremony as well as some of the speeches Zoya adjudicated and the conversation Kate and I had near the end of our creative writing workshop confirmed something that is being hidden in our public discourse. If we believed the media’s version of student activism we would think that only students at Pretoria Girls High School and Sans Souci were building political ideas as a result of the protests that made it into the media. What the media does not have access to are other moments where the politicisation of young high school kids is happening; in debating clubs, poetry evenings, discussions which go late into the night at school camps and discussions in class with courageous teachers (mostly English and History teachers) who hold conversations which challenge young people about the current political moment.

Young people are not only consuming the media about what is happening in the world but they are talking. The question is, are we listening to them? I found myself thinking of Don Mattera’s poem while I was reflecting on this weekend. Let the children decide/For it is their world. Teenagers are talking and plotting and thinking deeply about the country they have inherited. As the adults in their lives, we would do well in listening to what they have to say. And while we guide them, we can also learn from them. Unfortunately, more often than not, their voices are often muzzled because of the fear many adults in their lives who are afraid of engaging in difficult conversations about the past, the present and the future. I’ve been challenging my pre-service student teachers about the realities they will walk into as teachers next year. I hope they will be the kind of teachers who allow conversations in their classrooms and will be prepared to be the responsible adult in the room who can hold the space for having difficult conversations in their classrooms.

I left East London feeling invigorated about working with young people and schools. I was reminded of the TED talk I did a few years ago about the joys of learning from my students when I was teaching in Cape Town. I am now even more excited about working in education because the possibilities are endless when we give our children the opportunity to become critical thinkers in a world which desperately looking for answers about who we are and how we can best live together. Let the children decide…

One of the walls in the classroom with John Lennon's lyrics: IMAGINE