The real heroics of change

The first thing that strikes you as you enter Masipumelele is the number of white youth along the broken road into this sprawling township.

Here, just off the smooth tarred road that runs between white Fish Hoek and "coloured" Ocean View, lies the African township, just as in the bad old days.

But the two dozen white students enjoying township life look as if they live there, hanging out with buddies in a situation of great poverty and desperation. Some of the white youth are riding bicycles, with black children perched on back seats enjoying free rides. Others are in the local library teaching high school youth the joys of music, drama, art and theatre as they prepare them for future careers.

The bright-eyed high-schoolers have read my academic book, Knowledge in the Blood, and I see copies in front of them. The children are reading serious books, and they are pumped up with difficult questions for the speaker.

A veteran of book talks around the country, here I am exposed to some of the most difficult questions yet. From the passion and follow-up questions, it is clear these high school students were not "prepped" for engagement with the speaker who grew up on the other side of these Ou Kaapse Weg mountains. The room is alive with furious debate, sharp questioning, bold challenges, constructive criticism - and I find myself enjoying the richness of the discussion as several youth take three or four chances to come back at the speaker.

I am dead sure you will not find this rich intellectual engagement in the classrooms of Masipumelele during "normal" school hours. These children have been fired up by the mainly white volunteers in whom they sense a deep commitment to their lessons and to their lives. Through these intimate encounters they are also learning to bridge divides from both sides, breaking down centuries of separate living and lingering bitterness. And from these close encounters, springs hope.

Back over the mountain to the Retreat Library to speak again to black youth from two prominent high schools in the area. The senior students from the one school have also read the book on display and have prepared tough questions for the two boys who grew up in the area, the one being Archie Dick, a prolific author and researcher from the University of Pretoria.

The packed room brings together ordinary people from local communities, most of whom had not been beyond school, to read books; in the process, they imagine and reach for worlds beyond the confines of the daily grind of township living.

In this room sits a remarkable young man. He drives around the townships on a bicycle teaching poor children to speak isiXhosa and in this way to bridge the ethnic divides between black people in this part of the country. Himself a product of a Steenberg high school, this smart activist sees the connection between language and racism, and how speaking other languages erodes manufactured differences among people. For this selfless service he earns nothing, but relies on the sale of goods on trains for his meagre income.

On the other side of the city a sickening fight takes place between the education authorities and the teachers' union. The Western Cape Education Department made the unremarkable decision, that in order to qualify to mark the Senior Certificate examinations at the end of Grade 12, teachers should be competent. To establish competence, a test had to be written and, horror of horrors, the teacher candidate had to come from a school with a 70% pass in her subject. The union was up in arms. Why must teachers be competent? This will disadvantage teachers from disadvantaged schools. Bring down the qualifying mark; who cares if the teachers are competent?

There is a much more important principle at stake here than the twisted, dangerous logic of the union. If the education authorities back down on this issue, it would be further confirmation that the union is hellbent on destroying the already shaky quality of the South African school system, all in defence of their fee-paying membership. What a disgrace that we have sunk so low that we exchange the future of our children in favour of the incompetence of our teachers.

My point is that the real heroics of education transformation are taking place in township libraries and on dangerous streets through the sacrifices of volunteers from all walks of life.