COSAS

I had a rather unusual day on Wednesday. I was teaching my fourth lesson of the day (the last lesson before lunch). The class was settled and were quietly getting on with their classwork and religiously making notes whenever I drew their attention to the blackboard. About halfway through the lesson, a student from another class burst in, saying something in one of the home languages – probably Zulu. Suddenly all my students stood up, grabbed their bags and stormed out of my class. Bewildered, I followed shortly, having packed together all the teaching resources, and soon found the entire student body congregated in the quad where they usually have assemblies. The teachers were scattered around the edge of the crowd, seemingly concerned. Then I spotted someone too young to be a teacher, yet was clearly not a student. He was addressing the kids, and everything he proclaimed (again in Zulu) was followed by a cheer from the masses. After a couple of minutes, he led all the students out of school.

An emergency staff meeting followed where everything was explained. COSAS (Congress of South African Students) had visited to persuade the children to join them on a march to campaign for free University Education, cheaper transport fares and to raise the drinking age to 21 amongst other things. They were apparently visiting all the schools in the vicinity to build up numbers for their march.

This got me thinking. Where is the union for school students in England? Is it needed? There are plenty of Teachers’ Unions, why can’t the students have the same kind of protection? Would they abuse it? Or would it be a good way for keen students to get a clear message across about how their local schools could be more successfully managed? I am still undecided.

So all the learners had left by 11.30 in the morning and Hope and I had established that the other schools, in which our Warwick in Africa friends were working, were still running as normal. We decided it wasn’t worth just hanging around at school for over 3 hours until Vincent (our driver) came to collect us in the minibus with everybody else, so we became tourists for the afternoon.

I don’t think I can stress enough how much history there is on the road in which Phefeni lies. Vilakazi Street is one of the most famous streets in Soweto. Desmond Tutu, Hector Pieterson and Nelson Mandela all have very close connections with it.

Me outside Nelson Mandela's house!

So we spent our Wednesday afternoon looking round Mandela’s house (which is literally opposite our school) followed by a few drinks in the tourist-filled tavern at the bottom of the street. We did feel a bit guilty when returning to the minibus, but what else could we do? We had nobody to teach!

Me and Hope at the tavern with a few drinks!