Can schools help to bridge hurtful and divided pasts? This is the question that Professor Jonathan Jansen, a Shikaya Board Member, and recently appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Free State, asked in his column for The Times newspaper, History needs an ambulance.

In the article, Professor Jansen, answers his question and highlights Facing the Past as one programme that is helping teachers and learners transform:

I do not think so. History is an elective subject in high school, one of the most serious flaws in the post-apartheid curriculum. But even if history was required of all students, the lack of inspection and supervision in most schools means that many teachers either completely ignore “sensitive material” or teach such content in a mechanical and uninterested manner.
Nor am I convinced that we have teachers in the system at the moment who have been trained well enough to enable them to bring children into honest and constructive dialogue about our difficult past.
But it is not simply a matter of technical training. These kinds of “difficult dialogues” require teachers who themselves have confronted their bigotry and their pain to teach empathetically rather than judgmentally.
Fortunately, there are models of good practice in South Africa. One of them is Facing the Past, an NGO project in Cape Town that has transformed black and white students and teachers through its innovative approach to teaching history.”

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