MickeyD
RIP
Another thought-provoking and insightful offering from Prof. Jansen.
No quotes - easier to read.
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The perils of attempting social engineering at schools
Apr 27, 2011 10:16 PM | By Jonathan Jansen
Greenacres High (not its real name) used to be one of the most reputable public schools in South Africa. It was a former Model C school in a white working-class-to-lower-middle-class area.
The parents worked hard for their money, and invested their time and limited resources to ensure that the school retained good teachers and a strong learning culture. When the 1990s came, the parents did the right thing - they opened the school to black children from as far away as the large township on the outskirts of the city.
Since then, the school has been proud to maintain for more than a decade a strong academic reputation and a disciplined learning environment.
It even won an award from a previous minister of education as one of the "best integrated schools" in the country.
The parents contributed liberally to a special bursary fund to support poor black pupils who could not afford even the modest school fees that applied.
Then things went sour. There was more and more pressure from the government's district office to take in more and more children from the townships. The school tried to explain that the governing body did not want more than 25 children per classroom because larger numbers make classroom management more difficult and individual learning attention impossible.
The district official would hear none of this, hinting strongly that any resistance to his will would mean the school was "racist".
In the meantime, poor parents, long dissatisfied with the horrible conditions of township schooling, heard that Greenacres was one of those schools where it was easy to enrol their children.
Highly disruptive children unofficially blacklisted in the township schools also found their way to Greenacres, where at least they could secure a place.
When the governing body made the case that it wanted to give first preference to children from their catchment area, and later to at least half the children from the residences around the school, a group of disgruntled black parents organised a placard demonstration outside the school with the unflattering message: "Greenacres is racist". The district official joined the demonstration.
In a little while, the white parents left, deeply concerned about growing classes of more than 30 pupils, disgruntled by the regular external political threats to the school and the labelling of parents as racist, and distraught by the growing incidence of violence on the school premises - three stabbings in as many months.
As the race and class base of the school shifted to a poor, all-black school, there was no more money to fund extra teachers, arrange learning excursions or sustain a sports and music programme at the school. Worse, the school was still funded and treated by the provincial department of education as if it were a privileged white school.
No, I did not make this up. I know many schools like Greenacres, and one such school was the subject of a scholarly book I researched and co-authored, Diversity High: Class, Colour, Character and Culture in a South African High School.
Since the publication of the book, I have heard stories almost daily of schools such as Greenacres.
I call them wobbly schools.
There are at the moment in South Africa three types of school.
Type one is the strong minority of former white public and private schools, which strongly regulate admissions, maintain good academic results and retain a rich balance of racial diversity in the student body.
Type two is the large majority of poor township schools, all-black, which we read about daily as dysfunctional schools.
Sandwiched between these two types are the wobbly schools. Wobbly schools are being transformed from type one into type two schools daily, so spreading the rot of dysfunctionality in education.
As working-class white schools, they are more vulnerable to political pressure and financial hardship than their more affluent type one counterparts, which can trot out super lawyers from among the parents to challenge the government.
Type one schools are left alone by the new elite in the government, for this is where the black elites send their own children - and we do not want to collapse them as well.
It is, furthermore, in the wobbly schools, with poorer white and black learners, that the project of nation building is more urgent than in the type one schools, where children learn to forge and feign exemplary racial manners.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/article1040373.ece/Good-intentions-go-wobbly
No quotes - easier to read.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The perils of attempting social engineering at schools
Apr 27, 2011 10:16 PM | By Jonathan Jansen
Greenacres High (not its real name) used to be one of the most reputable public schools in South Africa. It was a former Model C school in a white working-class-to-lower-middle-class area.
The parents worked hard for their money, and invested their time and limited resources to ensure that the school retained good teachers and a strong learning culture. When the 1990s came, the parents did the right thing - they opened the school to black children from as far away as the large township on the outskirts of the city.
Since then, the school has been proud to maintain for more than a decade a strong academic reputation and a disciplined learning environment.
It even won an award from a previous minister of education as one of the "best integrated schools" in the country.
The parents contributed liberally to a special bursary fund to support poor black pupils who could not afford even the modest school fees that applied.
Then things went sour. There was more and more pressure from the government's district office to take in more and more children from the townships. The school tried to explain that the governing body did not want more than 25 children per classroom because larger numbers make classroom management more difficult and individual learning attention impossible.
The district official would hear none of this, hinting strongly that any resistance to his will would mean the school was "racist".
In the meantime, poor parents, long dissatisfied with the horrible conditions of township schooling, heard that Greenacres was one of those schools where it was easy to enrol their children.
Highly disruptive children unofficially blacklisted in the township schools also found their way to Greenacres, where at least they could secure a place.
When the governing body made the case that it wanted to give first preference to children from their catchment area, and later to at least half the children from the residences around the school, a group of disgruntled black parents organised a placard demonstration outside the school with the unflattering message: "Greenacres is racist". The district official joined the demonstration.
In a little while, the white parents left, deeply concerned about growing classes of more than 30 pupils, disgruntled by the regular external political threats to the school and the labelling of parents as racist, and distraught by the growing incidence of violence on the school premises - three stabbings in as many months.
As the race and class base of the school shifted to a poor, all-black school, there was no more money to fund extra teachers, arrange learning excursions or sustain a sports and music programme at the school. Worse, the school was still funded and treated by the provincial department of education as if it were a privileged white school.
No, I did not make this up. I know many schools like Greenacres, and one such school was the subject of a scholarly book I researched and co-authored, Diversity High: Class, Colour, Character and Culture in a South African High School.
Since the publication of the book, I have heard stories almost daily of schools such as Greenacres.
I call them wobbly schools.
There are at the moment in South Africa three types of school.
Type one is the strong minority of former white public and private schools, which strongly regulate admissions, maintain good academic results and retain a rich balance of racial diversity in the student body.
Type two is the large majority of poor township schools, all-black, which we read about daily as dysfunctional schools.
Sandwiched between these two types are the wobbly schools. Wobbly schools are being transformed from type one into type two schools daily, so spreading the rot of dysfunctionality in education.
As working-class white schools, they are more vulnerable to political pressure and financial hardship than their more affluent type one counterparts, which can trot out super lawyers from among the parents to challenge the government.
Type one schools are left alone by the new elite in the government, for this is where the black elites send their own children - and we do not want to collapse them as well.
It is, furthermore, in the wobbly schools, with poorer white and black learners, that the project of nation building is more urgent than in the type one schools, where children learn to forge and feign exemplary racial manners.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/article1040373.ece/Good-intentions-go-wobbly
