Since the schools project is finished, many of you have
asked me “What’s next?”
This year is the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the
Jews from the village in Romania where my grandfather is from. It is also the town
that Elie Wiesel is from. In May, the town is having a memorial weekend. People
from across the world will be there, including a few Holocaust survivors. I
want to make a short film that chronicles what happens over the weekend –
talking to people about their memories and why they made the trip and telling
the story of how a community celebrates and honors a difficult history. It will
also be a personal story about my experience of the weekend and reflections
about family and history and where that leaves me today.
I am trying to raise $10,000 for the filming and to edit a
short clip that I can use to raise additional funds. If you know of any
organizations or individuals who would be interested in supporting this
project, please let me know.
Ideally, this would be the first step in making a longer and
broader documentary.
************
And now on to the latest Dispatch.
The first time I screen any of my films is always powerful.
There are so many unknowns. How will people respond? Which moments or ideas
will resound with them the most? And which might upset them or spark debate?
How will different people experience the videos? And in the most recent
screenings, will they impact their future? That was part of the conversation at
the University of Fort Hare last week in East London in the Eastern Cape.
There is a book called, Why
Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other
Conversations About Race. I thought about that book when I saw students at
Fort Hare sitting separately. In a classroom of 80 students, the white ones
were sitting on one side of the room. In another class, there was a smattering
of white students amidst the others – which on some unconscious level made me
happy. I think about where this separation comes from and what experiences they
have had that bring them into that space.
Why do people sit where they do? What does it say about
their comfort levels with each other and the way they grew up? I wonder and
watch how different racial groups respond to my videos –course on deeper
reflection, these responses are far more based on past experience, not on race.
There are many scenes in the videos of students eating food, cooked by women
from the community. Some are eating with rulers, the backs of cell phones or
hands.
Every time this scene came up, the room would fill with
laughter. The black students were laughing and the white students were silent.
I think the laughter comes from seeing something that is familiar – and the
silence comes from surprise, this may be the first time they are seeing this,
realizing what school is like for most of their classmates. It isn’t actually about
white or black.
Over the week, I started to wonder why I always analyze
these things.
Coincidentally, I just had a meeting with a professor who
works on race and I got the chance to think about this. As an American I
sometimes see race as a proxy for progress and transformation – I look at
interaction between races here as a test of how far the South Africa has come
since 1994.
I not only notice the separation, but also interaction. I
have done a lot of work at the University of the Free State, a historically
Afrikaans campus that has undergone major transformation in the last several
years. When my cameraman and I go around filming, we are always looking for
black and white students sitting together or talking to each other so we can
film “transformation.”
Of course I never ask the students questions and I imagine
they are not even analyzing their behavior. Do they need to be? Do they have
the space to?
Regardless of class, race or seating arrangement, we always
have dynamic discussions. I can only share highlights and moments.
Someone asked me, “How do we mold them?” This is not mold
like a robot, but shape them into active and thoughtful citizens.
Some were calls to action:
“As future teachers we must think of our own discipline and
model, we can’t be late or underprepared. We can’t expect students to do this
if we don’t.”
“If we teach kids in grade 1, we need to remember that we
are teaching them and trying to get them to grade twelve, not just through the
grade we are teaching. We must always think about our power as teachers.”
“We need to push students telepathically and academically.”
This last comment reminds me of a teacher in Limpopo who
told me about the importance of the hidden curriculum in addition to the formal
curriculum in class.
And then, we got here. “I noticed that the girl in the video
spoke very good English,” said one student.
I don’t know if my face registered my shock. I started to
answer, but I wasn’t doing a very good job and realized most of the students in
the room speak English as a second language. So I asked them.
The first student said that the education system is
inherently biased. He said that second language students are at a disadvantage
and they are not able to succeed.
One agreed, rightly saying that students in more rural areas
are less exposed to English.
But another classmate argued back, “I would respectfully
like to respond to my colleague,” he said. “In the location, kids are not dumb,
everyone is smart and as a teacher we need to show them the vision. We must
teach English. We can’t dwell on kids not speaking English or put out ideas of
dumb or smart, we need to push them.”
Six screenings over two days left me exhausted, but one
professor brought it all together.
“This is showing what we have been theorizing, teachers with
power, as a national builder. These clips show the power and authority that you
have as teachers. It all depends on how we use that power. We have the power to
build, but sometimes we destroy it. Today we say how to use our power to build
a nation. At the first lecture I said, “What are you bringing into the
profession?” There were lots of sad stories. But this tells us the positive
capital that you bring. We want to build a nation of stories. The message is
that these schools CAN. You are one of the important tools to make them CAN.”
I am amazed and honored to play a small part in this.
*******
It turns out I am
unable to sell the book directly. For now, you can purchase it at www.kalahari.com.
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