Reflections on the 2nd SOTL @ UJ
round of conversations with members of Black Thought
SOTL @ UJ organised
a second engagement with members of Black Thought on 5 May 2016 in the Post
Grad Centre.
The conversation was attended by about 15 members of Black Thought
and 15 academic staff members. These conversations are motivated by a desire of
academic staff to understand and engage with subjugated perspectives as part of
the investigation of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning into socially
just pedagogies.
I find the
views of these students refreshing and challenging. Their ‘frank talk’ is not apologetic
or politically correct. The perspectives of Black Thought are valuable for an
understanding of socially just pedagogies since they arise from the experiences
of ‘blackness’ that is associated with hunger, poverty, marginalisation,
inferiority, deprivation, academic exclusion, limited social power and
constrained living conditions. These perspectives are representative of the
many who are excluded from society and failed by the education system. It is
against the context of deprivation of necessities to sustain life that the desperation,
frustrations, anger and violence should be understood.
An
interesting perspective is given on the nature and aims of education. The view
was expressed that education should address the conditions of poverty and
social risk by developing the ability to self-organise. This is a shift away
from an education that transmits knowledge and skills. In this I read the need
to form structured associations where views could be articulated and powers mobilised
to challenge forms of oppression. These perspectives should be explored further
since they point to educationally valuable ideas of self-governance, freedom,
autonomy and agency through which a sustainable life could be created.
What became
clear in the discussion is the need to develop pedagogical virtues that would
enable engagement across differences:
·
Educators should be able to listen
to subjugated views. Although black anger is likely to come as a shock, we need
to listen carefully to the underlying desires and frustrations that are
authentically expressed. This listening is not an agonistic search for
deficiencies and inaccuracies, but a search for novelties, common interests and
shared concerns.
·
The authenticity of these views
is validated when they are engaged with critically. Such engagements take up
the concepts, desires, fears and concerns of students and assist in articulations,
in the deepening and broadening perspectives, and in critical self-reflections,
etc. One such engagement took place around conceptions of land. It was pointed
out that access to ‘land’ signifies the ownership of the means of production that
is essential to protection and survival.
·
An educational and academic
vice is the ‘pedagogical attitude’ which does not really engage with student
views, but rather aims to ‘teach’ them what to think and do. This pedagogical
attitude suppresses the emergence of ‘self-organisation’ and is experienced as
irrelevant since it claims to know how the world should be renewed.
I detected
an impatience among these students about the lack of change and the futility of
many conversations. The opinion was expressed that the issues students struggle
with have been well-known, but very little has been done to address them. In
order to further engage meaningfully with these students a commitment is needed
to bring about real changes.
While these
kinds of conversations with various marginalised groups on and off campus are
essential to ‘reinventing education’, they have to be part of an activism for
change.
Dirk Postma
9 May 2016
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