ERASING THE PAST
Failure to teach SA’s history handicaps the nation’s future
The history we learnt taught us nothing about ourselves or about how privilege was corralled for apartheid’s few, writes Xolisa Phillip
About 10 years ago, a high school teacher made a throwaway remark that has stuck to this day: doing away with South African history from the syllabus was a mistake. The tall, imposing man — one of the most respected (read, feared) teachers at our high school — looked pained when he made the comment. He taught us English and Afrikaans, but class discussions would on occasion veer into the political state of the country. At least that’s how I remember it. The school in question, Port Alfred High, a former model C school, was relatively integrated at the time and it was not uncommon for our teachers to make fluid observations and statements. We were the somewhat "fortunate" cohort who went to former model C schools after the first and second waves of black pupils had paved the way for us. So we were not treated like curious oddities who had to conform to a specific way of being to fit in. In fact, I don’t recall being admonished for speaking Xhosa in class or being told that I had to w...
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