Reaching for the Cosmos JONATHAN PATON AND HILARY JANKS In his article "A Critique of the Dominant ideas in Departments of English in the English-speaking Universities of South A f r i c a ", Michael Vaughan writes I have no doubt that the relative neglect of African/South African literature which characterises Departments of English in South Africa . .. has social as well as aesthetic causes . .. The question therefore arises to what extent profound changes can legitimately be campaigned for in relation to a structure -- the Department of English — where social and political pressures are not (yet) very dramatically in evidence. Vaughan's purpose is "to contribute (his) voice for change in one direction rather than another". Our purpose is to add our voices in support of h i s. Our 'campaign, however, has already been put into practice in our contribu- tion to the courses that we offer in English teacher education at the Univer- sity of the Hitwatersrand. Our political position, in a state of transition, is d i f f i c u lt see ourselves as broadly socialist and engaged in an ongoing process of strug- gling to emerge from a liberal-humanist background. to define, we He believe that conservatism in University English Departments has two basic tenets. The f i r s t, explored by Vaughan in his a r t i c l e, relates to the choice of literature considered worthy of study, with i ts focus on the Great Tradi- tion, and with practical criticism as i ts central method. The second tenet, ignored by Vaughan, but equally important, is a narrow conception which limits English studies to the study of Literature. This standpoint excludes, for example, the study of the Media, Writing and Language. The University of the Hitwatersrand has a pattern of teacher training which places methodology lecturers in their subject departments. Those of us re- sponsible for training English teachers have our home in the English Depart- ment. Because we have a responsibility to train teachers to work, in English Departments of South African high schools we are l e ft by our home department to design, teach and administer appropriate courses. This autonomy frees us from many of the existing constraints within our hone department, leaving us to face the conflicts which exist within our own team of English Educa- tion lecturers. What count as appropriate courses for teachers in training 1s strongly contested. The design of the course is such that students are offered the battleground. Neither language nor literature is presented as whole or monolithic. He hope that students are led to understand the fractures. It is necessary to consider the work of school English Departments in rela- tion to the above two conservative tenets. Literature teaching in schools is influenced by three traditions: "the elitist/academic idea of High Cul- ture, the necessity for vocational training and the ' l i b e r a l' ideal for educating tht whole w n " '. In every matriculation examination administered by goverTMtnt Departments of Education, British High Culture Literature pre- dominates. In recent years the Transvaal Education Department hoi included some South African Literature in Standards 9 and 10. While we welcome these changes, wt nott with concern that the workschosen are exclusively by white wrtttrs and most of them offer very little challenge to the itatui quo. We believe that atoxj/ ol an Ajitcan Fa/un was chosen because it was perceived ai 'Mft'. Is Cty die tttovud CounUy, set in 1985, now also considered 'safe'? Clearly Sotiman and Lena, is not. What other explanation can there be for the burning of hundreds of copies of this play by the Cape Education Department? Tht situation with prescribed texts in Black Education 1s even more critical. For example in 1979 lion Solve* the tyhteiuj by Topsy Smith was set for Stan- dard B. This book is set in an English-type public school and 1s hardly re- cognisable as South African. In I960, the same pupils had to study The Vkxiso* oi Cai-ttubiUdge. In their Standard 9 year and 1n 1981 ScAu&ty by Paul Galileo was set for matrie. We deplore the policy underlying the choice of networks for black South African pupils believing that the Department of Education and Training wishes to prevent their pupils from studying relevant literature. High Culture Literature 1s no longer the sole reading diet in South African High Schools. Increasingly white schools are encouraging pupils to read popular American and British fiction written for young adults. Students have taken some of this literature into black schools but the lack of re- sources in these schools makes it unlikely that this literature will be easily available to pupils. Much of this popular literature deals with white bourgeois adolescent concerns, e.g. divorce, anorexia, drugs. Some of 1t, however, considers problems of race, class and sexism. All of it is un- known to student teachers; popular literature is not part of an undergraduate English curriculum. We include it as a part of our teacher training course. As yet, there are no South African fiction writers addressing themselves directly to South African adolescents. The teaching of South African and African literature in schools is the exception rather than the norm. Setwork choice means that: Young black people see models for their way of living and judging not in their own country but in a far off country unknown to them and inaccessible to them on account of distance, money, time and quite possibly the colour of their skins. This can lead to lack of Interest 1n, and, more seriously, the undervaluing of their own civilisation and environment. Daffodils and red roses are what the poets write about, so why bother to look at the cosmos?1 But of course 1t Is not only black pupils who would appreciate studying literature that reaches for the cosmos. KU South African pupils need to study literature from their own continent. In relation to the second tenet the work of school English Departments is not narrow In conception. The syllabus is not limited to the study of litera- ture but includes language, writing, film studies, newspapers, drama and ad- vertising. While these aspects of the syllabus are often studied uncritic- ally, the syllabus in no way prescribes method. Teachers can choose to explore advertising, for example, as a set of techniques designed to sell products or they can explore society's values as revealed by the advertise- ments, along with a consideration of the economic structure that depends on advertising. Because method Is left wide open by the syllabus, teachers English Studies In Transition can choose to politicise the curriculum. For some years themes discussed in English classrooms have raised social and moral issues. Peter Abbs shows how English teaching in British schools has used literary extracts to raise these issues in the classroom thus taking English in the direction of social studies. He i s, however, opposed to a conception of English that places it within the humanities: history, socio- logy, politics, ethics. He is concerned to reconstitute English as a creative art believing and that English teaching should nurture individual creativity. The back- to-the-arts-Abbsean school, strongly influenced by Leavis, is the counter movement to the Hoggart school in Britain. Abbs is opposed to "the polit'- cisation of literature". We do not believe that literature is politically neutral and are concerned that our students studying to be English teachers COM to understand the ideological biases which underlie differing practices and conceptions of English teaching. that its proper home is with music, art and dram The breadth of what is included in the school English curriculum allows us the freedom to offer a wide-ranging course in English Education. Rather than attempting to describe all aspects of our curriculum we have chosen to focus on the two strongly contested components of our course in an attewpt to show that by engaging students in the process of contestation they ex- perience the turbulence; they become part of the struggle. Students are taught language in two concurrent courses. The f i r st course, called traditional grammar, is a rule-based prescriptive course which insists on the correctness of the standard dialect. The second course, called Language Studies attempts to challenge conceptions of language as a whole, as given or static. Grammar in this course is seen as a theory of language where successive grammars attempt to answer questions not even asked by pre- vious grammars. A grammar is a description of language and prescriptive approaches to language teaching are often at odds with the preferences of native speakers. Instead of focussing on langue/competence only, students need to understand that language use (parole/performance) with all its variation offers a pers- pective on language teaching that ties it to its social context. A study of socio-iinguisties contests the status of the standard dialect — and students begin to explore the many dialects of English in South Africa. The existence (and persistence) of these dialects is related to social distance and is a reflection of political, social and cultural division Maintained by a policy of apartheid. An examination of Saussure leading to an understanding of the arbitrary nature of the sign helps students to understand that meanings are culturally produced and that dominant culture has greater control over these Meanings. We explore in some detail the relationship between language and social con- trol in the South African context. By examining language and politics. language and class, language and sex, monolithic notions of language are fractured. Language considered in relation to its functions and purposes is continually shifting. A language In use requires an understanding of comunicative competence with appropriateness rather than correctness as its yardstick. Contextualised in South Africa, the Language Studies course has clear links with the South African Literature course. Students asked to conaent on the 'incorrect' uses of language in the following three extracts from South African poetry no longer dismiss these choices as poetic licence: OutUal Axis Vot % Ho J »9*5 Mozambique did it Zimbabwe did it Why c a n 't we did it too? (Unpublished Open School Poet) ^ W (D Hattera "Ordeal" in Kzanian Love Song) Eyes must once more embrace The woe of my unfreeness Listen Man, I'm in boep For something I hardly didn't do (J C/wtun "PotUmoon Sketches" -in Inside) Having heard one of the writers declare that black writers in South Africa have decided to reject externally imposed standards of correctness and "to usurp the language as a tool" for their own purposes (Mattera lecture, 1984), they are encouraged to begin to unpack the meanings of the language to dis- cover these purposes and the appropriateness of the language for these purposes. The South African Literature component of our course is the second area of contestation. The liberal humanist voice in the struggle is brought partly by students themselves who come as graduates from English Departments. For many students our South African Literature course is their f i r st serious exposure to the literature of their own country. At f i r st many of them find that they are unable to appreciate or enjoy i t. The problem is captured in these words by one of our students: The f i r st tine I approached South African literature I was very sceptical in my evaluation of i t. stereotyped form of literary criticism and applied these criteria to South African literature. It just did not work. At f i r st the literature appeared to me to be rubbish. One has to home in on the author's perception of reality. It was only after extensive reading that I gradually got the 'feel' for South African l i t e r- ature. I think the reason for this is that one cannot apply the sane literary assessment criteria to all literature (C Newman). I had been schooled in a rather Where we manage to create in our students this sense of dislocation their assumptions of what counts as literature can be contested. The South African Literature course combines literature of liberal individ- ualism with literature that "Speaks the language of Black Consciousness and Populism" (Vaughan). Cny the Betoved Coun&iy and The Stony o& an Kf,iUcan fanm are there but so are the poems of Cronin, Mattera and Serote. The course begins with a lecture on the socio-political background to South African literature since the Second World War. The lecture covers in detail events such as Sharpeville and the death of hundreds of innocent individuals — mainly youngsters — during the 1976 unrest. It also points out some of the tragic consequences of banning orders and detentions without t r i a l. The lecture attempts to point out the link between social issues, ' p o l i t i c a l' events and South African literature. One of our main concerns is to bring the conflict openly into the seminar room. Over the past few years we have been very fortunate in getting many well known writers to address our students and to read from their works. The writers have been drawn from both liberal individualist schools as well as from Black Consciousness and Populist schools. These writers have i n- OUtical hvU Vol 3 No 3 !9S5 51 eluded Sipho Separala, Alan Paton, Peter Wilhelm, Stephen Gray, Don Hattera and Oiggs. Our course has also included a variety of performances ranging from Johnny Clegg of Oaluka on the one hand to the Open School poets on the other. ("Weeds are more powerful than roses" one poet remarked. Our visiting writers often engage in open confrontation with one another and with the students. Black writers, writing the literature of the oppres- sed, have challenged white South African writers f or writing e l i t i st l i t e r- ature. The white writers have fought back. Black writers have challenged white academics, questioning their right to set themselves up as experts on black writers. Words have been defined as AK47s. Some poets have said they do not write poems but utterances, p o l i t i c al speeches and statements of love and hatred. Poetry has been defined as worthy in terms of i ts use- fulness. poems are weeds"). Literature as a written form of communication only, has been challenged. Performance poetry, community poetry — for funerals and comiei«oration days — oral poetry, a ll need to be included in our understan- ding of what constitutes l i t e r a t u r e. Literature has been defined for our students as a compulsive cultural act, as a revolution. All of these views are contested. At heart of course is the sense of struggle. Many of the students retreat, frightened, into positions more conservative than they began with. Some of them join us in our struggle to emerge from our liberal humanist backgrounds. We hope that enough of them w i ll take this struggle with them into the schools. "My REFERENCES A Critique of the Dominant Ideas in Departments of httk. Vaughan , H. 1984: English in English-Speaking Universities of South Africa Vol 3 No 2, 1984 Reid, J. 1982: Engllih LiteAatuAe. in South Kinican SvrUoK School*: A C>Utique. ol Set Boofei. Centre for African Studies in Association with the Centre for Intergroup Studies, Cape Town Abbs, P. 1982: Engliik Within the. Astti. Hodder and Staughton, London Widdowson, P. (ed.) 1982: Re-Reacting EngtUk. Richard Clay, Suffolk. STATEMENT BY PAUL MATHEW ON REVIEW OF As a Jehova's Witness I do not join any protest or resistance against existing order. My conscientious objection was not motivated there- by, nor has any of my writing ever expressed such protest. The refer- ence to me on pages 58 & 59 of Vol 3 No 2, could be construed incor- rectly in this regard. F i r s t l y, the a r t i c le is introduced by "May it not unteach us/to dream, to resist to f i g h t ". Secondly, Mr Gottshalk states that Mr Cronin's poems espouse the following values "Honesty in demythologizing and exposing the reality of oppression and exploi- tation. Rigor in describing tyrants and their tyranny . . ." (p. 56). The last line of the review could be construed that I have the same values. been a phenomenon of West Germany and South Africa, but also the USA, Great Britain and many other lands. The universality of this 1s due to our utter Political neutrality. Any impression given to the contrary I would to hereby contradict. I do not. Detention of Jehovah's Witnesses has not just (Dated 6 November 1984). Outinat huU Vol 3 Ho 3 1915 52