Abstract
In its hasty retreat from a racialized and racist South Africa, democratic South Africa was intent on embracing the newly formed ‘rainbow nation’. It would be a nation free from all forms of oppression, and unshackled by anger and hatred, as made visible in the life of Nelson Mandela – the first president of a non-racial, democratic South Africa. It made sense to open schools to all races, inviting children, once divided along lines of race, ethnicity and cultures, to share a uniform, share a school and learn together. Admissions determined on the basis of race and ethnicity, were considered part of an apartheid past. Given the newly established landscape of desegregated schools, many teachers opted for posts at schools where they were previously not allowed to teach. This meant, for example, that coloured teachers began teaching at White schools, and Black teachers at Indian schools. Although not in the same numbers as learners, teachers began to migrate across racial lines in terms of teaching posts.
This paper draws on research conducted with what the authors refer to as minority group teachers. These are teachers who do not form part of the majority group in the school in terms of race and ethnicity. In exploring the issues of race and ethnicity of minority group teachers at schools, this paper examines how the silence around conversations on race, ethnicity, religion, culture and language – what its authors call the identity of ‘otherness’ – leads to an invisibility that pretends there is no difference. In other words, if the identity of ‘otherness’ is not discussed, it does not exist. Secondly, this paper explores how this invisibility of ‘otherness’ experienced by teachers affects their teaching in diverse classroom settings. Thirdly, in exploring a conception of ‘otherness’, it is not the intention of this paper to advance an argument in defence of deracialized schooling. Instead, it looks for a language that can break the silence around race and racism – one that is not necessarily constituted by race. As such, this paper argues for a language of ‘otherness’ that is constituted by conceptions of infancy, potentiality and becoming – a language that will re-imprint itself on a re-imagined consciousness of post-apartheid citizenship.
Introduction
By all accounts the post-apartheid education stage was set, with the necessary curriculum reform vis-à-vis outcomes-based education (OBE) underscored by significant democratic policy reforms – such as the National Education Policy Investigation (NEPI) in 1990, continued in ‘A Policy Framework for Education and Training’ (1994) – which were intended to counter the underlying principles of apartheid education, namely racial and ethnic segregation and unequal access to education and training. Indeed, the redressing of the education system was viewed as one of the major catalysts in restoring the values necessary for a socially just and democratic society. On the one hand, the newly elected democratic government was faced with the mammoth task of establishing a single national department of education out of 19 racially and ethnically divided departments. On the other hand, in recognizing the key role of education in forging a fresh democratic identity and citizenship, the government was compelled to reform a deeply divisive and authoritarian national curriculum – namely Christian National Education. The replacement of Christian National Education by outcomes-based education was largely seen as a pedagogical route out of apartheid education (Chisholm, 2003: 1–3). Changes to the curriculum were accompanied by changes in the funding allocated to learners and schools. Racially based funding during apartheid ensured that learners at White schools had ten times the amount of funding as learners at Black township schools. Fiske and Ladd (2005: 5–6) report that even after the post-apartheid government had significantly increased expenditure on Black learners in 1994, the amount spent on White learners was still two and a half times more than that spent on Black learners. Moreover, the availability and quality of facilities, and quality of education – largely due to smaller classes – continue, to this day, to be better at most historically racially privileged schools.
By 1992 the desegregation of post-apartheid South African schools envisioned in the NEPI was enacted through the conversion of former White schools to Model C schools. And, by 1994, when the new democratic dispensation was formally established, it was hoped that the official recognition of racial integration in schools would signal the final death knell of practices of segregation and exclusion. But while all the stage settings were in place, and all the narratives well written, it would appear that, on the one hand, not all the actors were necessarily well prepared, with many not having a script to engage in the language of diversity; on the other hand, while there has been a significant departure of Black learners from Black schools to coloured and Indian schools, to a lesser extent to White schools, and an even lesser extent to Afrikaans-medium schools, Black schools have not witnessed a similar pattern (Soudien, 2004: 101).
In the context of a perceived imposition of desegregation, coloured, Indian and White schools have struggled in their encounters with racially, culturally, ethnically, religiously and linguistically diversified school communities. Diversified school communities have offered equally diversified responses: from the most frequently adopted approach of assimilation, in which learners are expected to adapt to the existing and dominant character of the school (Meier and Hartell, 2009: 181); the colour-blind approach, in which the colour or race of the learner is seemingly disregarded (Jansen, 2004: 117–118); the contributionist approach, which accommodates some cultural aspects of the minority group (Banks, in Meier and Hartell, 2009: 182); to multicultural education, which claims to ‘see colour’ by creating equal educational opportunities for students from diverse racial, ethnic, social-class and cultural groups by acknowledging difference (Vandeyar, 2010: 345); and anti-racist education, which, according to Meier and Hartell (2009: 182–183), should equip learners, parents and teachers with the tools needed to combat racism and ethnic discrimination.
Research studies, however, show that school responses to and management of diversity have not only been inadequate (Meier, 2005: 170–177), but also have resulted in a heightening of tension and prejudice (Meier and Hartell, 2009: 180). One of the major underlying sources identified in the poor management of diversity at schools is the absence or poor representation of that diversity among the teaching composition. Jansen (2004: 117), for example, laments that the problem at former White schools is not the accommodation of Black learners, but the absence of Black teachers. This absence of or refusal to appoint Black teachers is justified by profound racialized conceptions of White competence and Black incompetence (Jansen, 2004), kept in check by an argument for the preservation of ‘standards’ (Soudien and Sayed, 2004: 101). So, while there has been a significant decrease in the number of Black, Indian and coloured learners in their respective former racially based schools, and a slight decrease in the number of White learners as they leave their former White schools for independent institutions (Chisholm and Sujee, 2006: 154), a similar pattern of teacher movements has not emerged. Moreover, while certain schools might have been more successful in meeting the demands of racial desegregation than in achieving integration, as Jansen (2004: 117) points out, the teaching community, says Soudien (2004), is much less socially integrated.
Minority group teachers in desegregated schools
In response to the stark inequalities of apartheid schooling, many parents saw the introduction of ‘open’ or desegregated schools as the means to achieve better educational opportunities for their children. Generally, learner migration patterns have been shaped and justified by historically better-resourced White schools, smaller classes, a wider scope of educational and extramural opportunities, as well as a perception of a safe schooling environment. Drawing on the Education Management Information Statistics (EMIS), collected by the Department of Education to analyse national patterns of integration across all provinces within formerly White, coloured, Indian and Black schools, Chisholm and Sujee (2006: 146–147) found that, while formerly Whites-only schools have become more diverse, and while a number of former Indians-only schools have more Black learners, coloured and Black schools have retained their originally designated racial groups. When taken together, explain Chisholm and Sujee, enrolments of Black, coloured and Indian learners have changed the racial composition of formerly White schools, although this varies across and within the nine provinces. But, as Msila (2009: 83) notes, Black parents in particular have not only opted for former White schools; they have registered their children in former coloured and Indian schools, and have also opted for better schools in the Black townships, hence the ‘intra-township migration’. In this instance, explains Msila, while parents are dealing with a set of schools with similar histories and challenges, the perception is that some are more effective than others. In other contexts, such as the Cape Flats in the Western Cape or the greater Johannesburg area, where there are many incidents of violence, gang activity and disruption, a flurry of learners has left township schools for suburban schools (Hofmeyr, 2000). On another level, Hofmeyr (2000) explains that perceptions of ‘flights’ from public schooling to private education have been interpreted as ‘evidence’ of declining standards in public education. And yet, state Fiske and Ladd (2006: 101–102), Black schools continue to serve Black learners almost exclusively, former coloured schools serve mainly coloured learners, former White schools serve a mix of Black students and a majority of White learners, and Indian schools continue to serve mostly Indian learners, with a mix of coloured and Black learners.
There are a number of complex reasons for this slow process of desegregation. These include the admission criteria of schools (endorsed by the South African Schools Act, No 84 of 1996), which clearly designate the areas from which they draw their learners. This means that, even if a learner desires to attend a particular school, her residential address might prevent her from doing so. Within the context of eleven officially recognized languages, the issue of mother tongue instruction continues to delineate schools along racial lines. The South African Schools Act allows the school governing body (SGB) to determine the language of instruction of its school. Learners therefore often are turned away from schools on the basis that they cannot accommodate the mother tongue of the learner. As Alexander (2005) points out, because of the country’s colonial history, English remains the language of power in post-apartheid South Africa – even though the majority of its citizens are not proficient in English. Further complicating access to historically privileged schools is the mandate of the SGB to determine and levy school fees to supplement their funding from the state. This means that, at the same time that public funds are being distributed more equally across schools, schools serving more affluent communities are able to charge higher school fees (Fiske and Ladd, 2005: 11) – thereby continuing and widening the gaps between historically privileged and underprivileged schools.
The shifts in teacher composition in public schooling are often based on similar reasons to those of learners, namely better resourced schools, smaller classes, more opportunities, safer school environments, a possibly more supportive environment in terms of administration, remedial services, learner counselling and, in some cases, a higher salary, augmented through the SGB. However, while the motivation for migration might be similar, the shifts in teacher composition and numbers, says Hofmeyr (2000), have not been as dramatic. This is so, say Soudien and Sayed (2004: 117–119), because schools exclude teachers through setting and using ‘standards’ as a justifiable and acceptable means to exclude Black teachers from staff appointments. Research conducted by Sayed and Soudien (2005: 119) revealed that these ‘standards’ are preserved on the basis that they shape the specific identity of the school – an identity shaped before a democratic desegregated school environment and curriculum, which therefore is often kept in check by a racial bias. On the one hand, therefore, the principles of equity, redress and representativeness are not reflected in the teacher composition at schools – revealing not only the schism between policy and its intention, and the effect at schools, but also the continuing legacy of apartheid. Consequently, and notwithstanding legislative stipulations such as the authority delegated to SGBs to determine their own policies with respect to teacher appointments, or the Education Laws Amendment Act (ELAA), Act 24 of 2005, which focuses on the principles of equity and redress through the appointment of teachers from diverse groups, White schools continue to employ primarily White teachers, as coloured schools comprise only coloured teachers, Indian of only Indian, and Black schools of only Black teachers.
On the other hand, where minority group teachers have been appointed at former White schools, these teachers have not always received a similar response to their White colleagues – leading Soudien (2004) to conclude that the teaching corps in schools is much less integrated than that of learners, as are the experiences of coloured learners in White schools, or Black learners in Indian schools, coloured teachers in White schools and Black teachers in Indian schools, and Black, coloured and Indian teachers in White schools, are treated as homogeneous groups – discounting the possibility of any ethnic differences. So, while Indians could comprise Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists, and Blacks could consist of Zulus, Tswanas or Xhosas, attention to ethnicity and cultural identities is conflated and diluted into a racial identity. And yet, as Carrim and Soudien (1999) point out, being African in an Indian or coloured school is decidedly different from being African in a White school – supporting their appeal for a ‘de-essentialised conception of identity’.
In Moloi and Henning’s (2006) exploration of how teachers in different types of schools develop a professional identity and how the type of school embeds the teachers’ sense of self, and thus their work, they focused specifically on a Black woman, named Thandi, who was a Head of Department in the Junior Phase at a former White primary school, but with a majority Black staff. These authors report that, while teachers at this school had undergone numerous training programmes for curriculum, pedagogy and management, little attention had been paid to the way in which they address historical bias towards one another (2006: 113). According to Moloi and Henning, the content analysis of their data revealed binary opposites – while Thandi saw herself as strong, she also saw herself as a victim of racial bias against which she did not act. While she portrayed herself as a good and empowering teacher who cared for the young ones in her pedagogic care, as well as a caring and supportive leader of teachers, she also perceived herself, in relation to her White colleagues, as helpless, unseen and vulnerable at the same time. Moloi and Henning argue that the seeming contradiction in Thandi’s narrative needs to be understood within a cohesive system of meaning that is historically cemented, namely racial bias (2006: 121). They continue that teachers who enter a new environment in which there are cultural remnants of a past political regime will struggle to find their cultural niche – even though they may be part of a numerical and political majority. They explain that, in trying to ‘become someone’ in the teaching profession, teachers have present and past contexts to deal with – meaning that they bring their apartheid pasts into the presence of a post-apartheid society. When Black teachers engage with coloured teachers, or when Indian teachers engage with White teachers, according to Moloi and Henning, they engage in a language of historically based racial bias.
Casting a lens on minority group teachers
Research methodology and context
The authors' research on the experiences of minority group teachers at a Black, coloured and White high school spanned a one-year period. In an attempt to focus intently on the experiences and emotions of minority group teachers, it was decided to limit the study to three teachers. The schools referenced in the study are all in the Western Cape. 1 The Black school is located in a typical township, with very poor infrastructure and poor parental support. During the authors’ time at the school it became evident that the school was viewed as a space of refuge and care by both the teachers and the learners. It was equally evident that the principal and staff were committed to providing good quality education, in spite of high learner absenteeism rates, large class sizes, and a serious shortage of learning materials. Besides four White teachers, the school had an entirely Black teacher and learner composition.
Located on the Cape Flats, 2 the coloured school had only one Black teacher. The rest of the staff consisted of 38 coloured teachers. According to the principal, the school had an equal number of coloured and Black learners – with a significant number of foreign Black learners from various African states, such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana and Malawi. Like the Black township school, the coloured school had a high teacher–learner ratio, with the highest number being 47 learners in a grade nine class. And, while the school had better facilities and access to more learning resources than the Black school – such as a computer room and a library – it experienced similar challenges of poor parental support and high learner absenteeism. Within the context of a gang-ridden community, the school suffered high incidents of vandalism, theft and violence, which spilled over from the community into the school.
Besides enjoying considerable privilege in terms of a newly built mathematics and science centre, a computer laboratory, a library, a media, music and art centre, as well as an array of sporting facilities, the White school had small classes, specialist teachers and high parental support and involvement. Thanks largely to SGB appointments, the school had a teaching staff of 77, of whom three were Black, nine were coloured, two were Indian and the rest (63) were White. According to the principal, the learner demographics are approximately 65% White, 25% coloured and Indian, and 10% Black.
Engaging with minority group teachers
In the authors' explorations of the experiences of minority group teachers, three narratives were drawn on: a White teacher at the Black school; a Black teacher at the coloured school; and an Indian teacher at the White school. As part of minority groups at their respective schools, these three teachers were specifically asked to reflect on their experiences in relation to their interactions with colleagues and learners. These reflections were captured via unstructured interviews, as well as in conversations, spanning a period of approximately twelve months – about once per term. It is important to note that the researchers involved in this study were familiar with all three of these teachers due to another research project, which explored the teaching of democratic citizenship education in high schools. This meant that the teachers felt fairly safe in sharing particular experiences and observations, which would not readily have been shared otherwise.
Like the three other White teachers at the Black township school in the Western Cape, the White teacher had opted to take the post because she felt it was where she could make the most difference. She had previously taught at a White school for eight years. She viewed a post-apartheid climate as a good opportunity for a fresh start, and to make a meaningful contribution to a democratic society. She enjoyed teaching at the school, and enjoyed amicable relationships with most of the majority Black teachers – which, at times, extended to social interactions outside of school. But things started to change after she had witnessed the repeated bullying of a Black learner. Her complaints and concern about the learner were dismissed as a lack of understanding of the culture of Black people. It was the first time in her three years of being at the school that she had been accused of not understanding the culture of the majority of learners at the school. Up to that point, she had thought that she had a fairly good idea of their culture. This incident was followed by another, unrelated one, shortly thereafter. The majority of the unionized teachers had decided not to teach in support of their demand for a higher salary. The White teacher’s decision not to comply and to continue teaching led to resentment and alienation from her Black colleagues. She was accused of undermining and contravening the ‘spirit of transformation’, as if transformation only means acceding to union calls. After her misunderstanding of Black culture, and contravening transformation, the White teacher experienced more and more alienation, and even hostility, leading to her eventual departure from the school. While she has maintained contact with one of her White colleagues because they live in the same community, she has since lost contact with all her other colleagues.
The coloured school was the Black teacher’s first school after she had completed her teaching qualification in 2008. She had no specific preference for where she wished to teach, believing that she could fit in anywhere and that her passion for teaching would add value to any classroom. She was qualified as a teacher of Mathematics and Life Orientation (LO). And, while she was appointed in these two capacities, she taught mostly LO and Mathematical Literacy. The principal had explained that the school had just embarked on a Mathematics programme, and that she would require some mentorship before she could slot into the curriculum. Three years later she was still teaching Mathematical Literacy – under the auspices that this was where she was needed – and LO, and somehow had been saddled with the extramural activity of drama, even though she had no experience in it. However, the principal had felt she could bring some ‘culture’ to the school. As the only Black teacher she often felt alone and spent her break time either in her classroom, or chatting to one of the support staff ladies who was the only other Black person on the staff. While she describes her relationship with the teaching staff as cordial, she has not had a meaningful conversation with any of them, and has never socialized with any of them. And, while she recognizes that the principal’s refusal to allow her to teach Mathematics undermines her professionalism, she feels powerless to confront him about it. Her requests to teach Mathematics had repeatedly been declined – either because she was doing a splendid job in Mathematical Literacy, or that the school had a ‘programme’ of Mathematics teachers who worked well together and could not be disrupted. She has considered leaving, but was concerned about the lack of support on offer to black learners. She realized that she played a key role in their education – since they often came to her for advice or just for somebody in whom to confide. She also recognized that her role as LO teacher had made her the unofficial sounding board for all sorts of issues experienced by Black learners – from bullying, racist comments from learners and teachers, to teenage pregnancy and problems at home. To her Black learners she is the only trusted teacher. It is now six years later, and she remains at the school – still teaching LO, Mathematical Literacy and drama, as well as being responsible for a choir, which she started in 2012 and which consists only of Black learners. She has accepted that she will never teach Mathematics at this school.
The Indian teacher had taught Accounting at an Indian school for ten years before applying for the position of Head of Department (HOD) at a former White school in 2011. He was eager to advance his career, had just completed a BEd (Hons) degree, and was proud of his new appointment. The school had smaller classes, more administrative support, and resources he had never experienced before. But his joy soon turned to despair when he began to realize that, although he had the title of HOD, the departmental meetings were arranged and managed by a ‘more senior’ teacher, who also had the responsibility of moderating all examination question papers, because he had yet to understand the ‘ethos’ of the school. He was assigned to teach only grades 9 and 10, even though he had previously taught grades 11 and 12. To worsen matters, he was inundated with requests from parents that their children be moved to other classes. In a meeting to discuss this, the principal had reassured him that it was not his teaching that was a problem, but his accent, and that perhaps he could try to change that. This comment made him feel terribly insecure and frustrated – insecure about how he was being perceived, and frustrated by the lack of support from the principal. He had hoped that the principal would refuse to accommodate any more requests for class transfers, but this was not forthcoming. He realized that he no longer enjoyed teaching as much as he used to. He tried to connect with the other staff members and, while he thought he had managed to forge some strong collegial relationships – mostly with the coloured teachers – he struggled to be himself around others. He found attending social events arranged by the school especially stressful. After confiding in his wife about the criticism of his accent, she was reluctant to accompany him to any school events, as she had an equally strong Indian accent. His decision to leave – after only ten months at the school – was made when the principal asked him whether he would be taking leave to celebrate Eid (a Muslim festival day). The principal had seemingly failed to realize that he was in fact not Muslim, but a practising Hindu. The teacher explains that, while the principal’s lack of interest and undermining of his appointment as the Accounting HOD, as well as the learners leaving his classroom all played a role in his departure, it was his own sense of self-doubt about his accent and his identity that led to his final decision. He was met with empathy after voicing his pain and sense of displacement to the principal and senior management team (SMT), but he viewed their support for his decision to leave as relief to be rid of him.
Power and exclusion
With the emphasis on countering the external racial exclusion promulgated through apartheid, not much attention has been paid to what Young (2000) terms internal inclusion. In other words, while South Africans would be familiar with purposeful external exclusion on the grounds of race, ethnicity and culture, and its accompanying sense of disempowerment, they might be less attuned to forms of internal exclusion, as in not being seen or heard, as implicit in ‘standards’, or as in not understanding the ‘ethos’ of the school. With internal exclusion, Young brought into contestation the inclusion of minority groups that was merely physical, since presence could not be equated with being seen or heard, as is evident in all three of the aforementioned narratives. In attempting to mitigate internal exclusion, Young (2000: 57) offers three modes of communication: greeting; narrative; and rhetoric. While the practice of greeting, explains Young, recognizes the subjectivity, and risks the trust, of others, rhetoric calls attention to the needs and interests of others in a way that speech might not (2000: 53, 63). But it is her account of narrative that might offer the most compelling vehicle through which minority groups might find a sense of empowerment – in the form of being spoken to, as opposed to being spoken at. At the heart of all three narratives there appears to be a loss of agency and meaning through a silence of not being heard.
The White teacher’s concern about the bullying is misunderstood as her misunderstanding of ‘Black culture’ because she is not Black. Her narrative about the bullied learner, therefore, cannot be true, and therefore she cannot be heard – so she is spoken at in terms of her misunderstanding of Black culture. Her perceived deficiency in understanding the ‘culture of bullying’ renders her powerless to speak with any sense of authority. Similarly, the Black teacher, while appointed in her capacity as a Mathematics teacher, is not only disempowered from fulfilling that role, but she is powerless to confront her principal. It would appear that, although she is included on the basis of a teaching post, she is excluded on the basis of a teaching subject – her perceived ‘incompetence’ (Jansen, 2004) cannot be allowed to compromise the ‘standards’ of the school (Soudien and Sayed, 2004). In the same vein, the appointment of the Indian teacher is a pseudo one – justified, again, by not yet understanding the ‘ethos’ of the school. That he might have something new to offer is inconceivable in the light of his (racially) pre-determined ‘incompetence’. Had the narratives of these teachers been heard, the respective principals and staff might have had a better chance to engage with the experiences and identities of others, from whom they might differ greatly, but nevertheless, says Young (2000: 53), would reach dialogical understanding.
The formation of identity, says Taylor (1994: 33), is shaped by race, religion, gender, class, ethnicity and language – which are constructed and reconstructed into images so that some notion of identity is fulfilled, which says that people belong. This sense of who these people are cannot be disconnected from how they became who they are. Similarly, whatever sense of power or disempowerment they might feel is dialogically constructed in relation to the other. The Indian teacher is appointed as a department head – it designates a certain measure of power, but his misconstrued identity, and equally misunderstood accent, disempowers him from assuming his rightful role. People's identity, and therefore how they enact that identity, is shaped partly by how they are seen and recognized by others in their lives, but in equal measure is shaped partly by how they are not seen and recognized by others – referred to by Taylor (1994: 25) as the misrecognition of others, which has the potential to inflict harm and imprison the other in a distorted and reduced mode of being. Inasmuch, then, as power makes people who they are (Foucault, 1991) dis-power makes them who they are not. What this means is that the White teacher, when refusing to strike, is not counter-transformational; the Black teacher, who is only allowed to teach Mathematical Literacy, is not incapable of teaching Mathematics; and the Indian teacher is indeed capable of teaching Accounting to grades 11 and 12, as he is a department head – had they been seen simply in terms of their competencies, and not in terms of the pre-constructed and pre-scripted images.
When teachers from different racial and ethnic groups, who were barred from learning together, are expected to teach together, they can only come together with a limited idea of the other’s experience. They are only able to ‘see’ what they were led to believe about the other, and their experiences of the other, because of the racial segregation of apartheid, would have been shaped by the deliberate ‘misrecognition’ of the other. That teachers in the afore-mentioned narratives claim not to be seen is quite correct. Whatever their competencies, qualities and potentialities, they are indeed invisible to those who see them only as White, Black and Indian. In the absence of a language untainted by a historically based racial bias, the chances of engaging with any of these teachers, as individuals shaped by multiple layers of identities, remain elusive. And the longer it takes to find a language through which to connect with those who are different from and other to the majority, the more the other drift away from them. All that is left are remnants of a conversation that never happened, and it becomes easier to pretend not to deal with the ‘otherness’ of others – in much the same way that certain teachers claim that they do not see colour, but only the child.
While the desegregation of schools brought with it ideals of equality, equity and representativeness, it has in many instances been inadequate in speaking, on the one hand, to the deeply entrenched conception of self-depreciation amongst previously marginalized individuals and communities and, on the other hand, to the distorted sense of superiority of previously privileged groups. This inadequacy has in many instances translated into a pretence of either colour-blindness, or multicultural education, which claims to create equal opportunities for all learners, regardless of race, ethnicity or culture, but seemingly ignores the power and structural dimensions of racism (Vandeyar, 2010: 345). With the intention not to see race (being colour blind), people are left with invisibility. In pretending not to see colour, people have lost sight of the individuality of the embodiment of that colour, and all they are left with is an awareness of an identity of ‘otherness’, which, while there, is not really there. If teachers in diverse school settings experience this invisibility and if they are treated or dismissed as a homogeneous grouping of ‘otherness’, then how can people expect these same teachers and those who pretend not to see them to teach learners about seeing and recognizing others? How are the ideals of equality, equity and representivity to be realized if teachers in desegregated schools have not yet found a language that recognizes differences without the imprints of historically based racial bias.
Next, by exploring how this invisibility of otherness experienced by teachers affects their teaching in diverse classroom settings, this paper looks for a language that can break the silence around race and racism – one that is not necessarily constituted by race. Instead, a language of otherness that is constituted by conceptions of infancy, potentiality and becoming is argued for – a language that will re-imprint itself on a re-imagined consciousness of post-apartheid citizenship.
On encountering the other
When minority group teachers in post-apartheid South African schools encounter those of the majority, the former – as a consequence of their overwhelming numerical inferiority – are often perceived of as other, in particular by the majority. This construction and representation of ‘otherness’ on the part of the majority towards minority group teachers often culminates in minority group teachers experiencing a sense of internal exclusion. They are deemed to be present in the same physical space as the majority, since they are deemed to be part of the staff. Yet the minority teachers’ perceived ‘otherness’ leaves them powerless to forms of marginalization, such as not being as pedagogically authoritative as the majority, or being perceived as insensitive to the experiences of learners, which the majority alone claim to understand. In a way, the minority group teachers, according to the majority, seem out of place, and their belonging at school is vehemently brought into question – to the extent that the minority group teachers no longer desire to be part of the school. Not only is the minority group teachers’ refusal to be assimilated into the hegemonic ‘culture’ of the majority evidence that the integration of such teachers in schools is being impeded, but that the anti-racist and multicultural agendas of such schools are being undermined. The contention here is that, if the notion of encountering otherness is perceived by the majority as a justification for internally excluding minority group teachers, then the very idea of an encounter needs to be revisited. Before moving on to a discussion of why infancy is a pertinent idea to counteract the internal exclusion of minority group teachers at schools, this paper shall argue why the idea of an encounter ought to be constitutive of educative relations in post-apartheid schools.
An encounter between minority group teachers and the majority, in the first place, implies that both groups bring to the relationship their cultural stock – life experiences, ways of understanding events in the world and capacities to do certain things. And, invariably when people meet, they encounter one another with strangeness, as they are not completely known to the other. Now the idea of an encounter can only be realized if the recognition of one another’s differences and commonalities is given its legitimate attention, otherwise an encounter would not have taken place. Recognizing one another’s differences and similarities, and finding a common deliberative space to engage with one another, is what constitutes an encounter. Jane Roland Martin (2013: 19) posits that, when people encounter one another, they bring into close proximity their capacities to do things together, along with their cultural stock, which at times can become ‘yoked together’. In other words, the very idea of encountering the ‘other’ implies that an individual is obliged to connect and engage with what is considered as ‘other’ and different, without making the ‘other’ feel excluded. So, majority and minority group teachers only engage in an encounter if both parties experience one another’s perspectives with the aim to disrupt the strangeness that might drive people apart.
Cultivating infancy, potentiality and becoming
Giorgio Agamben introduces a conception of human experience in relation to language and communication, namely that of infancy. In its simplest form, infancy is understood as a ‘pure wordless experience’ (Agamben, 2007: 55) that precedes speech. Etymologically, infancy refers to the potentiality to speak – that is, to be mute or speechless. It is through experience that humans acquire the capacity to speak through which infancy endures. In other words, as students learn speech, the potentiality of their speechlessness (infancy) abates. In a way, infancy is when the speaking being (a student) has yet to actualize her potentiality to speak. Therefore, infancy refers both to the potentiality to speak and the impotentiality to not speak. A potential PhD student, for example, might approach a lecturer with what she believes is a clear and strong proposal for a dissertation – she believes, therefore, that she has the potentiality to speak, hence her decision to submit the proposal. However, on engaging with the lecturer she might find that her proposal is not as clear as she initially thought, and that she might not have considered all that needed to be considered – thus realizing her infancy. Her infancy, of course, immediately abates once she articulates herself more clearly.
Now if the experience of infancy relates to education as a human experience, then education is both human potentiality to speak and impotentiality to not speak – that is, the potentiality to engage in, and impotentiality to not engage in, communicative action. When students engage in the human experience of communication, their speechlessness (infancy) remains internal to the experience of the communicative speech act. In other words, they are always potentially in speech acts. This means that students are always in potentiality to speak and impotentiality to not speak, which makes the discourse of education they engage in one of inconclusiveness, to which there is no end and predictability. Thus, through the experience of infancy, education remains open to the unexpected, the uncertain and the unpredictable. In this way, pedagogical encounters appropriate forms of communicative speech without any preconceived end point or finality in mind. Such an understanding of education cultivated through the infancy of communicative speech acts invariably leads to new pathways to, and new perspectives about, what constitutes pedagogy and people's renewed understandings of it.
In considering that both majority and minority group teachers ought to experience infancy, then the possibility always exists that their potential speech acts will bring them into a discourse of engagement, rather than one group excluding the other. Their encounter for once remains inconclusive and unpredictable as they recognize that new pathways can be co-operatively explored, thus concomitantly interrupting internal exclusion in schools.
Education and a community in becoming
Now that this paper has shown how the notion of infancy offers a different perspective on education – that is, looking at education as always in the making (in potentiality) and not yet actually realized – it shall pay attention to Agamben’s notion of a community in becoming. The idea of education in becoming, it is argued, is an education that breaks with predetermining what students should know, and perpetuating conclusiveness (finality) about what should be learned. The reason for drawing on Agamben’s The Coming Community (1993) is premised on the idea that education most explicitly involves people coming together – a matter of engaging in community. Agamben’s (1993: 85) articulation of community is not confined to a community’s ‘determinate’ demands, such as democracy, freedom and rehabilitation (of someone) as such demands are too generic and broad. Rather, community in Agamben’s terms constitutes ‘whatever singularity’ that allows for the affirmation of community without identifiable ‘determinate’ conditions of belonging (1993: 85); in his words, ‘[w]hatever singularity cannot form a societas because they do not possess any identity to vindicate nor any bond of belonging for which to seek recognition’. Agamben (1993: 85) posits that the community of ‘whatever identity’ is touted in the events of Tiananmen Square, when thousands of Chinese students, urban workers and others protested for about six weeks against government corruption and various reforms of the then Deng Xiaoping Government. The lack of clearly articulated demands on the part of the protesters indicates that the revolt was not undertaken in the name of a common interest derived from a shared identity (Mills 2008: 130). In Agamben’s view, the robustness of the protestations is characterized by ‘the singularities [that] form a community without affirming an identity, that humans co-belong without representable conditions of belonging (even in the form of a simple presupposition)’ (Agamben, 1993: 86). Such a community to which all belong without claiming to belong is a community of ‘whatever beings’ that share nothing except their own being ‘in pure communicability and ontological immediacy’ (Mills, 2008: 130). If a community, then, comprises ‘whatever beings’ with their own singularities and potentialities, then members of such a community are never completely constituted. There will always be different and other beings to come, and these might not share any commonalities as they have joined the community at ‘whatever’ time and place. This makes such a community one that is always in becoming and never really constituted with a particular identity and commonality – their ontological and communicable potentialities are in whatever becoming.
What the aforementioned discussion on a community in becoming draws the reader's attention to is the practices of such a community in relation to educational discourses. When education becomes the practice of a community in becoming, such a practice is at once open to ‘whatever’ encounter it might potentially become. Becoming ‘whatever’ encounter, without affirming an identity, brings into dispute the very identity of education. Education, if actualized, would have an identity that can be pinned down and therefore would not be in potentiality with all its impotentialities. Therefore, education’s becoming would no longer be possible, as it would already have passed into actuality with a particular identity. This would imply that those engaging in education would belong to a practice with a common identity that all participants share. On the contrary, education in becoming would be of a community in the making, where nothing is actualized and where the potentiality for people to be ‘whatever beings’ in their singularity, and to co-belong within their impotentialities is likely. Through such an understanding of education – one in becoming – the possibility is always there for both majority and minority group teachers and their learners to become others. It might just be that the invisibility of the silence of minority group teachers at post-apartheid schools might be broken, and a real chance would be afforded of an encounter with ‘otherness’.
Conclusion
This paper has drawn on the marginalizing experiences of minority group teachers at post-apartheid schools to show how the silence around ‘otherness’ leads to the invisibility and exclusion of these teachers. In countering this exclusion, and its underlying powerlessness, a language that takes this otherness into account has been argued for, rather than pretending that it does not exist. Such a language – shaped by infancy, potentiality and becoming – offers new and unexplored ways of not only encountering the ‘other’, but of offering the educative space for a re-imagined consciousness of post-apartheid citizenship and being.