"You see, look how education policy and implementation has failed and black government has under-performed" is often, unfortunately, the hidden message.
I had more sympathy for teachers who wrote in to place their frustrations on record, describing their lack of a voice or access to a response, and the many bureaucratic obstacles to change that are rolled down from high.
We were all guilty of over-optimism. We thought that educational change would be easy rather than the hard and complex challenge it is.
OBE acknowledged the need to prepare the 21st Century child to be technologically literate, open to rapid change, organised and able to plan, manage and implement innovative solutions in a world racked by war and global warming, economic meltdown and social despair.
All South African students, black and white, need to strive for global excellence and cutting-edge knowledge, relevant to our times and social needs.
The curriculum is the crucial interface where pupils prepare themselves intellectually and academically, guided and inspired by knowledgeable teachers. Yet - as attempts by former education minister [Kader] Asmal to rewrite the OBE curriculum showed - OBE was unrealistic and impossible to apply.
OBE requires the best infrastructure and resources to really work.
Instead, OBE created a shallow view of empowerment in which the student voice was substituted for the hard task of learning the basics.
It reinforced a tendency to top-down edicts, saw poor training and development for teachers, and a host of form-filling and compliance rituals.
Instead of support and capacity building, we (so often) put in place impossible outcomes and standards within an architecture that frustrates good teaching and innovation.
Even academics now posit theories of knowledge that argue "constructivism" should give way to hard content tasks like learning the times tables and ABCs.
There are foundational basics, formulae and rules on which all other knowledge is expanded and developed. You must know how to add and how to read and write if you are going to be able to think.
Education outcomes in South Africa are known to be poor. A "toxic mix" of problems combines the historical and the inherited with current mistakes.
Classroom challenges meet poor official administration and support, and a society challenged by poverty and deep inequalities that affect education: Gangs, home language, hunger, poor health, transport and overcrowding, and a lack of labs and libraries in poorer schools.
We cannot blame OBE for everything. Even if OBE disappeared tomorrow, teachers would still not know how to use textbooks, would still need to learn how to teach the basics as the foundational rock for learning. They would still need to be "in-class, on-time teaching'.
There is a range of problems. OBE only adds to these challenges.
Former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town Dr Mamphela Ramphele has argued we need to let go of the OBE bone; it has an odour! At the least, OBE is a red herring that diverts us from the tasks of teaching the basics and fundamentals to learn. Perhaps, however, the last thing we actually need right now is a destabilising period of yet another whole curriculum change. We might have to bury OBE; but we might also have to find some ways around.
We also need to find a way to celebrate the achievements of those who do learn despite the obstacles we put in their way. There is the first OBE/NCS generation of 2008, our many university graduates, our teachers and students, black and white youth who seek to celebrate achievement and excellence through hard and focused work. There is much to be positive about. The debate on poor outcomes shouldn't obscure the many achievements of our young.
We should hold up those who find a way, who seize the opportunity to learn and take the initiative to get ahead. For children of all races, as adults we must open the doors to knowledge that will take them forward. This is the failure we have not yet addressed. The tragedy is the generations that we have betrayed.
As we correct the mistakes of the past, including OBE, and overcome the heritage of our tragic divisions, we must find practical paths as well as vision.
Education calls on us to pursue our desire for excellence, to be the best we can, and to achieve through hard work a learning nation that is moving forward, talking, thinking and planning together the solutions that we need.
Bloch is the author of: 'The Toxic Mix - What's wrong with South Africa's schools and how to fix it' (Tafelberg 2009)
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