Search

In this chapter, we are interested in how a critical-social educational theory can most appropriately advance human existence. To this end, we draw on Seyla Benhabib’s (Critique, norm and utopia: a study of the foundations of critical theory. Columbia University Press, New York, 1986) re-articulation of Jürgen Habermas’s notion of critique to ascertain how the practice of academic activism ought to be amended. According to Benhabib (Critique, norm and utopia: a study of the foundations of critical theory. Columbia University Press, New York, 1986: 279), Habermas’s theory of communicative action is a justifiable form of critique as it re-establishes the relation between self -reflection and autonomy and it explains autonomy in communicative terms, that is, autonomy is not synonymous with self-legislation or self-actualisation or mimesis, but rather ‘the cognitive competence to adopt to a universalist standpoint and the interactive competence to act on such a basis’ (Benhabib, Critique, norm and utopia: a study of the foundations of critical theory. Columbia University Press, New York, 1986: 282). In relation to the notions of self -reflective autonomy and communicative autonomy, we examine what a philosophy of higher education looks like and what the implications of such a form of critique hold for academic activism.

In this chapter, we take the opportunity to reflect on the kinds of stigma and shame students and academics can and do experience in higher education – from experiences of discrimination and marginalisation to violence. As troubling as these might sound, higher education has always been a convergence of hope and academic performance, on the one side, coupled with the struggles and tensions created by issues of race, ethnicity, culture, religion and gender, on the other side. It is important, therefore, to take stock of the potential experiences of stigmatisation and shame. Immediately, however, it is equally important to ask who bears testimony to and takes responsibility for the shame and stigma, as symbolised through Agamben’s (Remnants of Auschwitz: the witness and the archive (trans: Heller-Roazen D). Zone Books, Brooklyn, 2012) Muselmann. To us, this is the role of academic activism – the act of bearing witness or testimony resides in a preparedness to do so on behalf of others. To bear testimony, we argue, is to make manifest our humanity and our activism.

In this chapter, we highlight some of Judith Butler’s main pronouncements about the university and offer some ways to think differently about philosophy of higher education and academic activism. We consider three ways in which the idea of a university of critique intertwined with notions of non-mastery and ‘error-living’ education might be possible. Firstly, an open and speculative university should cultivate forms of education where making mistakes is considered not only as routine to learning but as a necessary process for learning. Secondly, a university grounded in academic freedom is not only pertinent for free, critical engagement that is unafraid but can play a pivotal role in calling into question existing norms and hegemonies, policies as well as political structures and discourses. It also opens up the possibility of free and critical thought, including intellectual positions. And thirdly, dissent is critical not only as a recognition of alternative or controversial views but for the very cultivation of academic activism.

Conventional teacher education programmes do not equip practitioners adequately to navigate ethically complex situations that arise in teaching (Maxwell et al 2016). One initiative responding to this deficit is ‘Philosophy for Teachers’ (‘P4T’), a twenty four hour residential approach to community philosophy. Piloted originally in England (Orchard et al 2016), a further workshop took place in South Africa in October 2017, comprising student teachers, teacher educators and philosophers from three historically different universities in the Western Cape . Significant new insights to emerge included greater clarity on the respective contributions of P4T and other initiatives already applying ‘P4C’ to address professional ethics (e.g. Murris 2016) within teacher education. In particular, P4T re-framed within this new context can be seen to create shared space for reflection on teacher identity and the complexity of difference amd ‘otherness’ in classroom practice.

Die meerderheid staatskole in Suid-Afrika het voortdurend met geweldige hoë vlakke van geweld te kampe. Die toenemende aantal insidente van fisiese geweld tussen leerders sowel as tussen leerders en onderwysers bring nie net vernedering teweeg nie, maar het ook daartoe gelei dat skole minder funksioneel geword het (Leoschut & Bonora 2007; Mncube & Harber 2013; Zulu, Urbani & Van der Merwe 2004). Die nasionale Departement van Basiese Onderwys (DvBO) het met verskeie beleide, prosedures en strategieë gereageer wat onder andere die volgende insluit: Alternatives to corporal punishment (DvBO 2000) en verskeie veiligheidsprogramme, soos A national school safety framework. Hierdie beleide en strategieë was nie net onvoldoende nie, maar het ook die onvoorspelbaarheid van geweld blootgestel. Gevolglik poog hierdie artikel om, eerstens, die aard en voorkoms van geweld in Suid-Afrikaanse skole te openbaar, en tweedens, aan die tekortkominge van huidige beleide en strategieë rakende die ontwikkeling van veilige skole aandag te skenk. Daarna poog ons om 'n interpretatiewe analise van wyses om oor geweld wat deel van demokratiese burgerskap uitmaak, te beredeneer. Die bedoeling is om die gedagte van burgerskaponderwys in wording wat die onvoorspelbaarheid van geweld in eie potensialiteit die hoof kan bied, te belig. Ons probeer nie om 'n resep vir die hantering van geweld in skole te verskaf nie. So 'n poging sal veronderstel dat ons die aard van geweld verstaan, wat nie moontlik is nie. In stede hiervan verwys ons na Rancière (1991:15) se mening dat leerders gemaan moet word om hulle intelligensie te gebruik, om juis deur die toepassing van spraak gewelddadige optrede die hoof te bied. The prevalence of violence in South African (notably disadvantaged) schools has shifted from the apartheid to the post-apartheid landscape. The levels of violence in post-apartheid (notably disadvantaged) schools is so rampant that researchers have shown that children have a greater chance of encountering violence in schools than in their homes (Leoschut & Bonora 2007:107). Adding to this scourge is the fact that violent behaviour and language cut across learner upon teacher; and teacher upon learner, and seems to be as ubiquitous among girls, as it is among boys. To this end, violence has not only brought untold humiliation and harm to teachers, and more tragically, death to learners, but has forced schools to redefine the way in which they function, and indeed, if they function at all. Under pressure to provide safe classrooms and playing fields, educational leaders have often resorted to measures of equal violence in the form of humiliation, isolation, exclusion, and of course physical harm, even though corporal punishment is prohibited. As such, educational leaders and teachers have also begun to understand violence as the only language of response. Mncube and Harber (2013:14) report increased levels of violence upon learners, particularly from male teachers, which include corporal punishment, physical assault, and rape. Consequently, the dilemma is that if teachers are resorting to violence in order to restore orderly behaviour among learners, who, and how, will order be restored among teachers? The response from the national Department of Basic Education has been a flurry of policies, strategies linked to safe(r) schools initiatives; various programmes to capacitate teachers to manage disciplinary problems and identify learners at risk; as well as random drug searches and testing. In turn, schools located in (historically) disadvantaged communities have surrounded their schools in barbed wire fencing; introduced access control via community members or neighbourhood patrols; restricted playing fields, which probably curbs the scope of violence inasmuch as it promotes it through confined spaces. With the levels of violence continuing to spiral, it has become clear that repeated forms of condemnation, policy re-strategising and punitive measures have not only been inadequate, but have laid bare the sheer unpredictability of violence and its forms. What appears to be missing from the myriad strategies and policies is that the learners, who commit the acts of violence and humiliation, come from particular communities and social constructions, which exist outside of the school, and where violence might be a norm, rather than an exception. To assume, therefore, that the behaviour of unruly or violent learners might be remedied as separate from these communities, is to discount, on the one hand, that each learner enters a school with his or her own community. And on the other hand, that although these acts of violence might happen on school premises, they are in fact as much school-based problems as they are society-based. What this means is that the response to violence cannot simply be from the vantage point of what schools ought to teach and do, or what is good for a school only. Any response to violence in schools also has to be in the best interest of society, because the learner cannot be divorced from the society of which he or she is a part. This article commences by exploring, on the one hand, the nature and prevalence of violence in South African schools, and on the other hand, the inadequacies of current policies and strategies in creating and cultivating safe schools. Following on this, we offer an interpretive analysis of how to think about violence - that is, as a necessary part of a democratic citizenship. To this end, we explore how a citizenship education of becoming can deal with the unpredictable consequences of violence in its own potentiality. Our intention is not to offer a remedy to violence in schools. Such an attempt would presuppose that we understand the nature of violence - which we do not, and cannot understand. Instead, we turn to Rancière's (1991:15) notion of summoning individuals to use their intelligence, so that they might use their speech to respond to acts of violence.

Bibliography: leaves 65-69., The purpose of this study is to examine the interplay between learner choice and the school selection of learners. This interplay has two points of departure. The one is whether the logic of school choice is different depending on the choice-maker (parent or learner). The other is the process of school selection processes at each school, and how this impacts on, or constrains the choice of the choice-maker. The study is based on two comparative micro- case studies at two high schools - one a former HOR, and the other a former HOA school - in the Western Cape. Data was collected at the two schools by means of interviews with selected staff and questionnaires were issued to 410 grade eight learners at each school. The conceptual framework, incorporating the literature review, has positioned this study on two levels. Firstly, through setting the scene for the international school choice debate, with a specific focus on what parents and learners want from the school of their choice. And secondly, in establishing the trends amongst schools in terms of selection processes. Linked to both these positions is whether school choice policies lead to the empowerment of the choice-maker.