Being human today: sharing stories to shape teachers

Abstract

Five years ago, some 16 years since the end of apartheid rule in South Africa, I noticed that final year pre-service teachers in the faculty of education rarely mixed across racial lines. They avoided talking, integrating and working with each other.My institution, the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, attracts students from all of South Africa’s race groups. Once they graduate, our teachers work in schools that cater for all of these groups. But, nearly two decades since the country became a constitutional democracy, the “born frees” seemed to be perpetuating the very racial divisions the anti-apartheid struggle had fought against.I wondered if we could find ways to connect across these divisions. Working with my colleague Daniela Gachago, the Digital Storytelling project was born in 2010.Last year one of our faculty’s alumni shared an experience from the classroom that proved how valuable the project can be. Committed to giving back to the community, he’d chosen a school in a poor area for his first teaching post. There was a rubbish dump next door and through his classroom window he could see people scratching through the trash.