This is the first instalment of a 3-part series aimed at some crucial reflections on the path my life has taken over the 2015/16 period of the student movement, and perhaps to get a glimpse of what the near future holds. In so doing, I hope some of my reflections may resonate with you and offer a few insights. Beyond that, this series also comes out of a stasis point of sorts in the student movement, so whilst I draw from my own experiences, I will simultaneously – and inevitably – also reflect on the movement in general and what I think we can look to in the foreseeable future.

More than that and perhaps more fundamentally, this series is located in the growing realisation of the need to connect, or reconnect, our struggles not only with the university community, but broader communities especially in forming coalitions with high school students, community members and activists as we mount the call for Free Decolonised Education. Embedded in this idea are reflections around what the vanguard approach the student movements came to assume has meant in terms of foregoing actual groundwork, making grassroots connections and political conscientisation/education; and how that has come to manifest in the form of the movement’s isolation, and the legitimate questioning of the sincerity of our efforts in truly working towards fundamental changes and our upliftment.

Part 1 will explore my journey into being involved in this precarious thing called activism, and whilst I don’t directly make a case for why one should become an activist (in whatever sense of the word), nor necessarily offer reasons or ascribe any moral truths, I do think there’s a fair amount of people sitting on the fence, or whom some parts of my journey may resonate with, such that it’s worth recounting why we do this and dispel any myths, and ease; if that’s at all possible, some worries in the process.

High School: Before UCT, #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall

Those who know me, and I’d like to think there are at least a few, would know that I’m very big on purpose and that I largely view my life from an existential lens vis-à-vis meaning and purpose. Much of my life therefore has been an evolving dialectic between seeking knowledge and truth about the world and recently myself, whilst looking to play an integral role in it and finding my own purpose in the process. And when all is said and done, I do believe that each of us have some role, or the grand thing called purpose, for however long we may live, and that part of being alive means finding that path to walk.

Purpose, for me, is the pursuit of social justice (much to say about the broad term and how it’s somewhat crass, but maybe another time). In addition to the existential lens, being black in an anti-black and anti-poor world has come to highlight and define a different dimension to the meaning-purpose dialectic, which has been extremely crucial in helping me see how I’m located and embodied within a particular context as inexorably linked to whatever I think needs changing to make the world a more just and freer place.

Without running the risk of invoking a longer than necessary discussion around existentialism and the crises that led to where I am now – the rest of my blog almost entirely focuses on that theme – it suffices to say that broadly speaking and in a nutshell that’s why and how I came to fall under the sketchy banner of activist. That and a Thomas Sankara documentary, The Upright Man (and several other icons for lack of a better word, books and documentaries since for political education), stirred me onto this path.

The above swift summary may not be entirely relatable, after all we do come from different backgrounds and have more nuanced experiences which invariably affect some of our choices. For me some of those experiences predate to my childhood and I think growing up within certain climates especially when young, highly malleable and impressionable does many things to you. The following is a more detailed story accounting some of those experiences relevant for this piece, and although it doesn’t go as far back as my childhood years, I do recount experiences in my high school years of momentary defiance which perhaps nibbled at some of the issues I’ve come to care and feel deeply about.

Below is a story mostly of my ‘formative’ years in searching for different ways of manifesting the quest of meaning and purpose, and more specifically as that relates to being involved in activist circles, and how in so doing the unending process of finding my own voice, just trying to do the right thing and learning to speak has come to be. More importantly, how activism and the student movement, have both thus far come to represent not only the most meaningful and sincere spaces to manifest the above, but how they’ve been arguably more effective in helping bring about the changes we want to occur, or at the very least, have served as important catalysts and pressure points for those changes and unfolding conversations.

My Love Affair with Afrikaans

I failed Afrikaans in my first official sitting of high school exams during the June exam season. Prior to that my first months of high school were riddled with quite a few bit of notorieties; aside being terribly awkward lest for my conspicuously 2^nd hand uniform, hair and what I now call general strangeness, I particularly disdained the Afrikaans period such that I’d seen the deputy and principal’s office before the end of the 1^st term of my grade 8 year.

I first took up Afrikaans as a school subject in grade 6 when I moved to South Africa and I say took up even though there really wasn’t much choice all the way until my last school year when by then I’d learnt to cram enough essays to scrape through and get a pass for the subject. As the school years advanced and talk of applying to university loomed, my subject aggregate and things such as ‘faculty point scores’ became important motivators. But whist I still had 9 subjects in grade 8 and 9 before reducing them to 7 – after you “choose” what to carry through for the final 3 years – I basically did not consider Afrikaans as a subject. I’d pre-emptively calculate the average I’d be content with, using marks I’d need to achieve from the remaining 8 subjects to meet the required goal. Having only started learning Afrikaans in grade 6, I of course felt disadvantaged and have been since resentful at my ill will, but what I didn’t understand was how a country with 11 official languages was so narrow.

My first 6 years of primary school were in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and there the language subjects I had were English and IsiNdebele. Both were taught at the same level and used similar assessments for ‘proficiency’ i.e. discovering that the South African school system had Home Language, First and Second Additional language was a bit of a shock. English naturally does not fall in the last two categories till this day in many schools.

IsiNdebele in Zimbabwe is the derivative of IsiZulu, this is after Mzilikazi moved to the southern part of the country during the period known as Mfecane. In the northern part of the country, ChiShona is what’s taught in schools. Essentially it all depends on the region and what language is most used in that area. In this country though it seems just a question of whether the school is a ‘Former Model C’ and private school, or township school in order to determine what languages are taught. This despite the fact that many Former Model C schools are populated by pupils who commute long distances daily from the townships to go to these schools in the town and city centres.

Despite the great insult of how English is taught as a ‘Home Language’ as if the remaining 10 languages are anything but, for many even the ‘First Additional Language’ is hardly of any use in their daily lives post the schooling system be it just for the sake of communication or valuable exchanges in culture.

Anyway these were the many things going through my mind in my grade 6 and 7 year, and I wasn’t trying to be difficult: my own home language is chiShona and I didn’t get the chance to learn it as a formal subject in school, much as I’d like to now. I accepted that we lived in a region where most people spoke and used IsiNdebele, and indeed most of my early friendships from crèche and school proved that to be true and so its usefulness therein. Eventually these friends also came to learn how to speak Shona and to this day remain some of my closest friends due to those bonds we formed many years ago and a testament of the kind of multiculturalism I think is valuable. I do not draw the comparison to conclude that the Zimbabwean education system is better there are many critiques to be levied, however in doing this comparative a fair bit of lambasting even if implicitly is due.

So I became resolute in my dissent. In grade 10 during the Afrikaans period as punishment for my constant noise-making, ‘disruptions’ and the general kind of meddling and clowning in class which annoys teachers, I was eventually asked to go and work with the school caretakers and ground cleaners during that period until I was ready to come back and learn. What probably saved me in the years leading up to the end of my high school career, was that firstly I felt pity and subsequently contrition for the teacher I annoyed so. Second, my grade 11 Afrikaans teacher was really dope and understood my contempt somewhat. Greater than that she’s what we now call ‘lit’, in her many sharp and outspoken critiques she levied at the schools management and government. I should go and visit her soon. Lastly, was of course matric. By the time I sat for my final exam I could barely formulate lucid sentences, but thank Black Jesus for Paper 2 (Literature and Poetry) and Paper 3 (mostly writing essays, letters etc.), such that I only needed to learn a bunch of poems themes interpretation and the like for both the poetry and prose, and cram essays which could loosely fit any topic (I swear I used the same introduction for every essay I ever wrote in Afrikaans), such that I managed to pass without understanding what they even asked in those papers. Naturally Paper 1 was always 2 hours of finding the word used in the question in the reading text and writing down that whole paragraph. Somehow I got a C as a final grade for the subject in the matric final exam.

My love affair with Afrikaans fun and dangerous upon this reflexivity makes me wonder that maybe as the deputy principal had said in one of the many visits to her office, ‘some people are just rebellious.’

Challenging Authority, Dodging Class, and Senior Leadership – RCL (Representative Council of Learners)

I don’t know what happened to the school detention system I think it eventually proved to be ineffective. I always arrived late for school. I stayed approximately 15 minutes of a mid-brisk walk away from the school so I really had no excuse (well kinda but that’s for another piece). Anyway I’d blend in with the other latecomers who flocked to the school gates in groups of scores from the train station. So I was always in detention.

Eventually the school decided that they were just not going to let anyone in after 8 am, if you were late you’d be turned back at the gate and told to go home. This policy although effective for someone like me did not account for the almost 75% of pupils who commuted over long distances daily by train – we all know how reliable those are, or had to coordinate and pay monthly transport fees to a taxi which would bring them to school before the 7:40 deadline in time for the daily assembly. Prior to the introduction of that model, if you were late you’d be made to sit outside for the whole day cordoned off in one of the school grounds. Perhaps there’s a reason why my high school is named Rhodesfield. These techniques anyhow were hardly effective in the long run, I can’t exactly say what became of late comers except to say I eventually stopped coming late when I decided to study earlier on the school premises which meant arriving significantly before time and leaving much later – this was in matric and coincidentally when I was on the RCL.

Prior to that my notorious ways seemed to prosper. In grade 10 I crossed hairs with my Physics and Chemistry teacher which proved to be poor strategy on my end as I was stuck with the teacher for the next three years much to my torment. Said person was the sought to refer to us black students as ‘you people’ and known to go on common soliloquies about the good old days before we came and ruined everything. Despite the racist undertones I always found these rants interesting because there was always an emphasis on the curriculum. It had become ‘watered down’, the old syllabus purportedly was far more educational and useful. Ironically despite these passionate wails about the poor education system much of which I sympathised with, the teacher was abysmal at the job and I may later receive some trouble for saying this.

The modus of the teaching was limited to a threefold cycle of telling us to write down copious pages from the textbook in our exercise books, assigning questions and then putting up the memorandum. If you didn’t understand anything the textbook was the source you were told to refer to. Needless to say that after Afrikaans physics was the subject I disdained going to class for, despite my own interest in the subject.

I cannot exactly recall the blowout that happened within the first year of meeting this teacher. I was effectively chased out of class and told to find a new physics teacher. I of course was forced to apologise, it won’t happen again etc. If forced to remember it might be one of three things: first the physics teacher had a reputation of not tolerating any late coming for the subject’s period. If you did there was a caning which was quite undesirable having been on the receiving end of quite a few. It may be that I refused the caning upon a valid excuse or giving some other retort.

2^nd, in addition to the racism, there were undertones of xenophobia which always struck a nerve and may have ‘provoked’ some reaction.

Lastly, and this actually happened, it may have been for ‘bunking’ the class period of the physics or chemistry lesson. There was always a register carried by the class captain: at the start of day there’d be a head count to record who was present for school. As the day progressed and we moved from class to class the class captain would hand over this register to the teacher, who’d reconcile the total of the students accounted for at the start of the day with those in attendance of the teacher’s class. It was a cumbersome process as the school was riddled with ‘common’ high school troubles bunking, smoking in bathrooms, selling drugs etc. Eventually more elaborate controls were established. Upon this discovery of my skipping class maybe that’s how the fallout happened.

This one particular incident for the first time put me in the ‘bad books’ of the schools management. Fortunately this wasn’t a solo incident in that I wasn’t the only one involved, such that it was effectively read as an attempt at a boycott. There were at least 20 people who didn’t go to class during that period. In truth nothing was being done during the physics period so most of us decided to finish of work for one of the other subjects (Computer Applications Technology – CAT) which as the name suggests also had computers in it and an internet connection so it became a favourite period for many. Or it could be that we all decided not to go to physics and instead go to that class and do what high school kids do on the internet (not to get this CAT teacher in trouble very few students had took the subject as rumour had it CAT wasn’t considered for university admission so a significant number took Civil Engineering or Technical Drawing/Engineering Graphics and Design as a subject in Grade 10 – I went to a technical high school). None the wiser this teacher allowed us to stay (really dope person one of my favourite teachers) and got in a fair bit of trouble.

So 20-30 people had skipped the physics period which was just about half the class and there were a few others who from different classes in the grade who also chose not to go to their respective periods. Apparently this was a coordinated act of defiance and whilst my parents had not been alerted of my other troubles, there was a real fear that this time they’d be called in by the school. The few who showed up inadvertently raised the alarm for although it was common for students no to show up nearing the exam season as the study break was imminent or no new work was being taught, the turnout would still be somewhat high.

As punishment we were all had our places on the RCL revoked which was the only meaningful student leadership structure beyond class captains and the like. My parents fortunately still remained in the dark.

The following year, eleventh grade, few of us who’d been branded as rebels started to organise and there were serious efforts at political awakening. I’m honestly not sure what they saw in me, but I was privileged and can proudly say some of them have become my closest friends. It was 2012. Despite the impression I’ve made thus far in this post which perhaps will be made lighter in the last section of this piece, I cared deeply about the school and its governance. There was growing discontent with the RCL, and few of us decided to start a student-led School Governing Body (SGB) which would be led by the learners, and function much like the standard SGB to not only hold the RCL accountable but the school management.

I cannot articulate how this came to be, better than the text I received from a dear friend of mine whom I’m privileged to have crossed paths with:

“These holidays proved to be quite an eye opener for me. I have had several epiphany, sudden realisations of truth. One of the realisations is that I was destined for great things, greater than what I already affiliate myself with. And with this I want to bring about change and like any other intellectually stable person, I know I must first crawl. This is where people like you and the school come in. People like you because I feel you too want to bring a difference and change and what I have realised is that, Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. I do not wish to overthrow or override the RCL, but it would have been bitchy had I gone through with what I am about to explain without sharing it with people who poses a certain characteristic, you, people whom I not only look up to but I believe have and influence on others, and that is very important. Now, I would like to explain what I intend to do. RCLs play a predominant role in high school, or they should be and I noticed, not in our school. You must forgive me for mentioning school during holidays but as I lay on my hospital bed, I was blessed with the opportunity to think about my role not only as an individual but as a learner at our school. I want to bring about change to improve the life of our learners in all respect. I am tired of walking into the bathroom at school and be over-whelmed by the smoke, with and RCL in the toilet to scared to tell a person to cut the smoke out. It’s times like these where I ask, Did I wake up at 4:30 in the morning to be a passive smoker? Not only that as an example, The RCL as a unit to not represent the learners as they should. I say this for I have spoken with members only to be disregarded and not taken seriously. I believe they should be like a philanthropist of the learners. They instead tend not to concentrate on that but concentrate on things that benefit those in charge. What I mean is that they ”keep the learners off the quad [assembly point], chase them off corridors, hurry them to class” but they are scared of certain learners and do not practice their ‘powers’ on them. Where is the democracy in that. If you cannot arrest one man for a crime then you must not arrest any man for a crime! You see? They are in a sense ‘pleasing the higher powers’. They initiate ideas on their own (which I am not against) without the consultation of learners (which I am against) in doing this, who are they then representing?? The R in RCL stands for Representative by the way. Why are there no meetings between class captains and The RCLs? How then can They represent a learner they do not know? How do they know their needs or complaints? Of learners taking our time of learning in class, who we would be willing to name out? But how will we name them if we are not supported and assured immunity? There should interactions, and we are aware of gang violence at school and I for one find it hard to have certain areas, certain people or certain things I should not support because of threats which are as real as the sun. Who can we talk to, people we are comfortable with. So they hear our problems and report them? I am on a verge of assuming that responsibility not only because I am a victim of the ‘situation’ no, but too with having that sense of wanting to serve my fellow people. I do not want to be selfish and leave high school with never making an impression or leaving any mark. I also feel a need to improve standard and give people the feel that school is a joy, wake up feeling glad and not melancholic .I want to make a mark and with this text I hope I struck a nerve if not touch you. With the beginning of next term, the movement begins. An SGB of learners only not necessarily RCLs. To govern matters concerning US the learners and govern us. I want to tell you as an unofficial invitation to the SGB or COL (council of learners).I repeat on emphasis of the fear among RCLs for certain learners and how unequally we are treated, if you cannot arrest one man for a crime then you must not arrest any man for a crime! As an intellectually advanced body (which I thank God for) I do not just have problems, but solutions. I have told you this for I understand the mutuality between us, and I know, I know we are going to meet cynicism, people saying it won’t succeed, we will meet criticism and a majority of those who have lost hope, from those who have given up on any change they will say we won’t, it can’t be done, when they say this we will respond ‘Yes We Can’. This is my crawl. I ask you to keep this confidential and I would love to conclude by saying “Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it’s not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won’t. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere’’, I am making the change I want to see in the world and would not mind your help or affiliation if you feel the same way.”

Of course there were many imperfections and if it’s a plausible defence, we were young and didn’t know what to turn to, to guide our thoughts.

Nonetheless, as a 16 year old, I was obviously wowed by this message and it stirred something in me. I wouldn’t do it much justice by saying any more words. Our attempts with the movement for a student led SGB were effectively crashed and repressed. The next year (grade 12) we all got elected on the RCL. My dear friend resigned a few weeks into our matric year. In his first year at university he was already communicating with me many ambitious ideas, amongst them, building a university focussed on Afrocentric knowledge systems and ways of thinking. He in fact got as far as planning curricula and getting ‘accreditation’ from certain educational bodies and even acquired a plot of land. He started a project which involved going into high schools with the aim of political education – the Knowledge of Self Project (KOSP). Recently we’ve both come to agree on the need of an overhaul of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Limited as our efforts may be and seemingly futile, it is upon thinking of such people and going through old conversations that I’m reminded of the will to continue. Although I may not have had the full understanding and an appreciation of the weight behind what was being said, I do now.

And if not for anything else, this kind of drive upon reflection is enough to get someone on the move once more.

Debating, Poetry, Public Speaking, Reading, and English Teachers

At this point you may be wondering how I turned out so ‘well’ :”D, especially if you know me as the withdrawn and taciturn person despite having constructed so far an image of a rowdy young person. If you’ve also reached this point I must also thank you for persevering with this read and pray you hang on a little further. The truth is despite my run-ins with the powers that be, I was a ‘good’ student who for the most part was always in the top 10 receiving certificates etc. Given the relatively stable grades, my parents never felt the need to go to parent’s evenings and those type of things where you meet all the teachers and get told about your child’s behaviour in class. Also coming home late from work and being tired meant a reluctance in attending those events. So the only interaction my parents would have with the school was almost exclusively once a year during the merits evening and all they’d hear were congratulations, and “your child is doing so well”. This perhaps is what made me a mystery of sorts.

The second truth, is that I was also the proverbial young angry black male. The unpacking of the root of that anger will perhaps be for another piece. Whatever the source of my discontent or anger at/with the world, the outlet for that discontent took the form of the subheading above and amongst others have been extraordinarily helpful.

When I arrived in South Africa I sought to bridge gaps in my knowledge and to learn what I didn’t know: there was always talk of ‘The New South Africa’ so after razing through my favourite titles in the library from authors I’d grew up reading like Enid Blyton, Franklin W Dixon, Carolyn Keene and my discovery of J.K Rowling, I eventually read Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom in grade 7. I took the Rainbow Nation project deeply to heart, and remarked at the façade this country has been living. But then it was very real. This was also the period of the xenophobic outbreak and I can never fully explain the daily fear that I lived with as I went to school that year and watched the news. Mbeki resigned soon after and I was confused because I liked the guy, but also for another time.

So reading. English grew to be my favourite subject I think in part because of the teachers I had. In grade 8 I had two English teachers. The first I’m indebted to, was and I’m sure still remains the head of ‘culture’ which encapsulates activities from public speaking, debating, poetry, dance and the like. There are many stories about ‘Room 2’ which I hope to recount someday. Having read some of my English assignments I was quickly recruited in some of the above ‘cultural activities’ and will talk more about that later. My 2^nd English teacher in the same year practically had a miniature library in the class which I endeavoured to read, in addition to the main library (said teacher was also head of the library). We grew a close bond and I could borrow books beyond the library’s restrictions.

By the time I was in matric I’d write an essay titled African Renaissance inspired by Thabo Mbeki, and surprise my English teacher was the deputy principal whom I’d had so many run-ins with in prior years. I got a disappointing C for that essay. I later wrote some made up story about some childhood adventure involving me falling as we were hiking, and something about receiving a helping hand and the lesson there, and got an A.

As for the proverbial black young person, reading and writing – more of the former, were tools I used for what exactly I’m not yet sure. I can say though that debating, public speaking and poetry activities were crucibles in my social awareness and my commitment to advancing social change and social justice. And the anger aside, I’d also like to think that perhaps it was just a lot of energy needing an outlet and I’d found activities for them.

In grade 8 I first took up poetry and public speaking. I’d go to festivals and recite poems and memorised speeches. In my speeches I’d include quotes such as “tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today” to the applause of a handful of people who’d attend. I didn’t know, and I’d later find out, that it was Malcolm X who said those words I parroted. I was content with streaming certificates and medals and the honour of being called up at the assembly in front of everyone and earning something of a high school rep.

Later in the same year I took to competitive debating. This really was the instrument for driving my social awareness. At one public speaking event I came across a debating tournament that was happening, our school wasn’t entered as we didn’t have a team nor a debating society I was aware of. I’d finished my public speaking event I’d come for and was roaming about endlessly, so I found two friends who had come to compete in a netball and soccer event at the same venue and we registered for the debate. Unlike public speaking, debating has the thrill of direct engagement with the competition and the sensation of winning and crushing the opponent. It was truly electrifying and I’ll probably make another post for all the love I had, and probably still have to an extent for debating. It’s one of the few things I’ll use the word ‘passion’ in describing my relationship with/to it.

So I went about forming a debating society in grade 8. Throughout the years this wasn’t easy and received many blocks from the schools administration and management, from getting transport to attend tournaments and such to money required for registering for tournaments. It was a difficult road but can say looking back it was worth it, and if debating is any use I can gladly say I’ve done my part in ensuring a strong culture in the school.

But more than that, debating became one of the primary outlets for whatever was burning inside me then. As we went up against rich elite private schools who had access to coaching and training material we never head, I became starkly aware of the full inequality of this country. I was shocked and astounded beyond words. There are literally schools which are basically hotels in this country. The St John’s, Peter, Convents, King Edwards, King David’s, Reddam House, Red Hill, and only in Joburg, literally have these wealthy schools littered across the city. At those times we’d beat these schools despite the odds it felt gratifying, but losses also meant deep moments of depression. Not only about the loss because I was rather competitive, despised ‘failure’, and a fan of 1^st place, but as we traversed to these schools, virtually going to other worlds and other countries which aren’t part of your lived reality, it was sorrowful to encounter privilege in the face which wasn’t yours and didn’t belong to your kind.

Aside the experiences of institutional racism and patriarchy in the debating circuit in how certain ways of speaking and thinking sway the adjudicators and how the debating structure is set up, debating itself as an activity proved to be of some value. Apart from critical thinking, ability to reason and all those hollow words thrown around to justify the good of debating, its value for me lay in the scope of the topics addressed and that’s how in part I came to learn about the world. Needing a bit of knowledge to make good arguments meant you always learnt about how the world and what the ‘status quo’ is. And although debating is what has been fondly called an intellectual masturbation session for people to use other people’s narratives which they don’t care for to win, awareness of those narratives ultimately made me an advocate for some of those things, such that debating for me became synonymous with social awareness, social change and social justice.

I must quickly say that it’s ironic that I took to debating, public speaking and poetry: I actually started speaking only after I turned 4. One of my grandparents when they first saw me proclaimed that I was bewitched seeing as I didn’t talk and concluded I had a speech-related disability. I’d just like to think I’m quiet.

What does this all mean?

When I received my final school leaving exam results, my school had achieved a 70% pass rate. 12 people achieved an ‘Admission to Bachelor Degree’ type pass, of that cohort I’m not sure how many got accepted into a university, and the significant majority received pass types to study for a Diploma or a ‘Higher Certificate’ at an FET college (Further Education and Training). My matric class had at least 105 pupils discounting those I started with in grade 8 which would probably bring the number close to at least 320.

Getting admitted into a university in this country is nothing short of a miracle. When I think of how my life could have taken radically different courses, I wonder if it’s just good fortune that I have a better shot at a ‘successful’ future than most, which I’m presently at odds trying to wrestle. Whilst I may have slept at 2 am during my matric year, the truth is our teachers did not teach. Those who did – eternally grateful to my maths teacher, carried tremendous loads and were simply overwhelmed even when running afternoon extra-class. Perhaps blaming teachers – aside the kind like my physics teacher, who somehow have to teach 40 students whilst private schools are chilling with 15 pupils per classroom is allocating the blame unevenly.

Ironically I went to a technical high school, which in theory is meant to equip you to enter the job market as a technician or artisan immediately after leaving high school. In addition to the core compulsory subjects: Mathematics, English HL, Afrikaans FAL and Life Orientation, I also took Electrical Technology, Computer Application Technology and Physics.

My high school did not offer subjects such as History, Geography, Economics or Maths Literacy.

My parents sending me to a technical high school was meant to groom me on the path to becoming an engineer. I did not enjoy electrical technology. But worse despite having qualified to study engineering with my results, the irony of having an N3 in Electrical Technology (an engineering degree is N7), I hardly know how to fix an iron despite just opening the plug and looking for a blown fuse. I recently returned a heater I purchased last year for replacement – because Cape Town winter and admittedly I may have overused it. But I had no idea how to begin fixing that thing. Instead we learnt more about how you generate alternating currency, three phase transformers and direct-on-line starters with complex calculations as if somehow we were Eskom engineers working on the national energy grid.

I wonder what became of those who decided to take on apprenticeships and become artisans or technicians despite hardly learning about motors or amplifiers and everyday electrical household and industrial problems.

It’s particularly ironic that our government talks frequently about how the answer to youth unemployment is more artisans, and yet, literally feeder schools for those professions are not only failing but don’t even begin to link the curriculum to any of the artisan fields.

As I look back and try to see what I learnt from my schooling career, I’m left feeling that the modern high school is about ensuring you get to university where you learn more irrelevant things about yourself or the world around you. I find I learnt more from debating than the cumulative weight of all my subjects.

But I am also left feeling more assured in how the call for Free Decolonised Education must be echoed not only throughout universities but across the primary and secondary schooling system. There are smarter people I’ve known who’ll perhaps never be given a chance at meaningful self-actualisation and self-realisation in this status quo. And whilst some of us may have managed to learn the rules of the game and how to play, ultimately we are the ones in addition to being the butt of the joke, who are further from any meaningful self-determination.

There’s much to say but I think this is enough for one piece.

Part two of this series will look at my experience at UCT; expanding my efforts with debating in schools, my wedding with capitalism, and journey in ‘being’ and becoming ‘radical’.

Finally, I’d like to dedicate this to my dear friend and brother Kalushi: may all the good things you wish for come to be. And may your life touch the lives of many.