Has anyone else seen the E.M.S. portrayal of colonialism, apartheid, AA, etc that our kids are being taught?
I was sickened by the heavily biased material my son showed me. Even at 12 he can see for himself how distorted it is.
When I was in school teachers refused to present the ‘official’ propaganda of the Nats, with its laughable version of history and political topics, but now teachers seem to have no problem telling kids that only african countries that have been colonised have poverty and unemployment problems, and worksheets on AA that have the kids choosing the most appropriate ‘AA’ candidate from a profile of prospective employees where ONLY the black woman has relevant qualifications and experience.
All government policies are presented as being great ideas that benefit everyone, and only promote equality or ‘correct imbalances of the past’, and the instructions are always to find the best ways of carrying out those policies, never to discuss or criticise them. The implication is always there that everything was great until apartheid, that there were no land issues, no unemployment issues, universal education, etc etc.
How have schools allowed this to creep in, and why don’t we know about it until it comes home with our kids?
Remember your own schooling? Dont know if you experienced it in your day, but we had monthly terrorism drills against the “swart gevaar”. It was huge fun. We also had textbooks outlining the fact that anyone with a different colour skin was effectively not human and that we were superior in every aspect both intellectually as well as physically (that one always confused me, to this day I admire a black construction worker’s physical built - those guys fixing the road outside my house as a kid was BUILT and I always compared their physical looks with that of my father’s - who was a skinny man in his day).
They simply took the lessons learnt from the Apartheid gov and applied them to their own purposes. All I can see to do is to be invovled with what your child does at school and correct him as you go along. Both my boys knows that there is the “right” answer and the answer that the school wants. Teach them to distinguish between it.
As I said, teachers at my school (English speaking KZN with lots of immigrants) refused to present any of that nonsense.
They wouldn’t have got away with the blatant stuff you seem to have been exposed to anyway, they would have been laughed out of the classroom by about 2/3 of any given class. In history classes all my teachers were quite open about criticising the government and looking at things from other perspectives to get a balance of opinions to weigh up.
The closest anyone ever got to supporting apartheid as far as I remember was the quite understandable worry about how things might go sour very quickly when it collapsed, and the understanding that it was pretty much pot luck what happened then.
Which era were you at school Zulumoose? Sounds as if you got a fairly good deal. Mine was radically different although it was an Afrikaans school with the strong NP leaning of the time evident in everything we were involved in. We didnt have drummies for instance but were enrolled in the “Dril Peleton” which was just a watered down version of army life and I recall vividly the seriousness of our exercises against terrorism. Even our camps were very militarised and I begged my folks not to force me to go (in vain I must add)
As apartheid was falling I entered highschool. At that point we were still “bomb drilling” and “peleton”-ing once a week to get ready for army. I recall at some point in primary school reading stuff about colonisation of the cape and going… “this all seems a bit far-fetched, I’m an Afrikaner, we’re not this nice…”. Took all my history with a pinch of salt since then. My version of SA history is one in where every cultural group in SA are(or were) assholes.
Propaganda flourishes everywhere, history repeats itself. I am an ex-Rhodie. School back in the 70’s/80’s prior to Mugabe rule was Colonial British, we learned Colonial British history etc. not a word of dissent from teachers etc. And for the record, the history books on Southern Africa were uncomplimentary with skewed reporting (of course) about the Afrikaners and the Boer War! But by the time my younger sisters reached high school Mugabe was in full possession and it didn’t take long for the history books to be re-written and white kids being targetted and harrassed for what happened in the not-so-distant past. My sisters had a really torrid time getting through their high school education. My parents did their best to redress the imbalances themselves with some added home schooling but it wasn’t easy.
It seems to me that any new incoming ruling party/government (particulary of Black inclination) has this canine urge to trample down the grass of previous “regimes” and lift a leg on the lamp post of history in a primitive and subconcious attempt to imprint themselves and mark their territory, and the only way to overcome this is to be proactive in your kid’s education, make an effort to ensure they have a more balanced understanding of what actually did happen as opposed to how the true historical events, good or bad, have been distorted.
I went to high school from '84 to '87, and although there were ‘cadets’ which was just some marching up and down once a week, which I avoided through extra classes, there was no NP sympathy at the school, no camps for non-cadets, and no exercises that I recall apart from normal fire drills. I think it was heavily influenced by the background of the kids, I remember very clearly a teacher asking one of my std 9 classes (about 30) how many of us had grandparents in the country, and only one did.
hell I went to AFFIES…THE school for Super Afrikaners. The Verwoerd kids were in school with me…Marius Weyers was in my class and we were actually buddies (Jana Cilliers was another good friend of mine but she was obviously in Meisies Hoer)…anyway Patriotisme was die orde van die dag en Swart gevaar 'n moerse probleem…Ja jong propaganda was deel daarvan. En ek was die Tamboer majoor van die Kadet band en het marsjeer in die Republiek Fees na Verwoerd ons ontrek het van die Commonwealth Fok! dit was donker dae as ek nou so terugdink…maar destyds was het ons dit juis as gevolg va die indoktrinering gecheer big time.
I wrote matric in 1964 in a private school. Our history books were not too biased as I was to learn in the army in 1965 and on subsequent camps through the 60’ and 70’s. My family only arrived when I was in my 40’s. Both boys had many questions as I sent them to religious private schools. They were both used to my lack of belief and were quiet happy to discuss the history they were given. We have had some form internet connection for years and both had to look up as many points of view as possible before our discussions(on all subjects). Neither of them took history through to matric!
I did my national service in 1992 and that was the same year the army was doing its 75 year celebrations. We were told the Army is 100% bilingual - the first 50 years was English, this 50 was Afrikaans.
Being Afrikaans I didn’t feel discriminated against and we had English guys amongst us and other than calling them “sout-piel” I don’t recall them being discriminated against. And that was hardly the worst of things we were called.
1992 is very late for national service, I did matric in '87 and managed to avoid it through tertiary studies, it was over by the time I was eligible, which is a pretty good thing as it would have gone very badly for me.
I got my own back though. When they sent me call ups for camps in Afrikaans I just wrote across it red pen, “Please send this in English.” They never did.