Forget ANCYL...what freaks out South African children?

“Today’s children are worried about more than just their homework and peer pressure — they are also worried about terrorism and climate change and whether there will be a future for their own children. These are just some of the serious issues a group of more than 170 New Zealand children have cited as major stresses in their lives.” This was third page news in a recent edition of The New Zealand Herald and it got me to thinking about what is stressing children in South Africa and my own childhood. My childhood up to age 16 in SA was very cocooned (in that I knew precious little about was really going on politically and globally) compared to what I read in the Herald and what I experienced in South Africa both as an adult observer and in my work role, a children’s “motivational facilitator” in various privately run courses. Sometimes I feel I could just trot out a book on the “transformation” of schools in Johannesburg from 1992 – 2002. During that period I taught in virtually every area of Johannesburg, from Sandton to Soweto. (Sometime prior to that I taught in a “black township” school at the end of the PW Botha regime for two years.)

Inevitably, I witnessed racism in classes I taught during the Nineties as more and more children of a different pigment poured into so-called “Model C” schools. Bear in mind my private classes were seldom larger than nine children (as young as eight) and personal opinion and individuality were things I strongly encouraged. I was not floundering in a crowd of 40-plus pupils. Children expressed themselves in my classes and were — and I am sure children still are — definitely fearful of divorce due to the formidably high rate of divorce in SA. But in the classes there was little talk about the future of SA and little fear in the early Nineties. This was corroborated by the schools’ teachers, with whom I liaised. That changed towards the end of the century and up to 2002 (when I left to try out England and wound up in China) as more and more children became fearful about the violence and what their futures held. This I gleaned from both the parents that I confidentially interviewed for the courses and the children themselves. This ties in with the research I quoted above from the New Zealand Herald.

But, I had to think in astonishment, as I reflected on the Herald article, New Zealand is a far more stable, peaceful country. Its politics are about far less vitriolic affairs than what the ANC is going to do about Malema (or the alleged fact that the NEC cannot do much about Julius Seizure as they feel their political futures rely on him). Here in Kiwi-land we have front-page headlines like a cyclist killed in a train collision. I am not saying the story is not tragic and horrible, but it is unlikely to make even the first five pages of a leading SA newspaper, if at all. To state the obvious, there is far less violence and crime in New Zealand. “Statistics” and Zuma’s speeches may speak otherwise about a post-Fifa World Cup South Africa. But just by following the media, Thought Leader commentary which speaks from the ground, and speaking to fellow Saffers, SA citizens are enormously concerned about the future of their country. So … how much more, surely, are our SA children stressed out by what they see going on in their home country? What fears, insecurity, unresolved anger and loss of morals are they internalising?

I mentioned a loss of morals. Here is an example. In 2000 I was teaching a number of classes in Johannesburg my self-motivation programme when the Hansie Cronje scandal broke. As my coursework inevitably dealt with integrity as a highly desired life habit, the topic of Hansie’s role in match-fixing came up. I was appalled by the response from all my teenage students. They all believed Hansie should go unpunished and be allowed to return to cricket. “He just took a chance and got caught out. So what?” was the general response. Sure, peer pressure may have played a role in the response. SA teenagers in Joburg — like most school kids — struggle enormously with peer pressure. But in my courses they had already been strongly encouraged to be individual and soon rose to the occasion, disagreeing with me or others and sometimes strongly substantiating their cases with regard to parents’ and school rules, role models, and various values.

Children are the future of any country. What are children internalising in SA? Are they hopeful, happy, and do they feel secure in their environment, or … ? What do they think of their president, of Malema et al? The readers’ thoughts would be appreciated.