| dc.description.abstract | History, as outlined in the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements for
GET and FET (CAPS) is both a journey of enquiry and an evidence-based
construction of the past. It enables learners and teachers alike to understand better
our human condition. The role of the history teacher is to create an environment
in which such an historical gaze can be fostered in the classroom. A precondition
of this is, however, a relationship between teacher and learners that allows its
development. In this article I explore my position as a History teacher in relation
to the position of my learners, taking cognisance of the power relationship between
educators and the learners they teach. I consider how this relationship may be
complicated by structural inequalities in the South African context and may stand
in the way of the learners accepting that they can develop an historical gaze of their
own. To do this, I construct a narrative of the significant turning points in my
personal journey of understanding human rights as a teacher. Themes that emerge
are ‘voice’ and/silence, and the moral dilemma of responsibility (and sharing of
resources) versus voluntary abdication of power in the way of redress for injustices
of the past. Through the form of a personal, first-person narrative, I endeavour
to make explicit the ethical dilemmas of my own conscience and to promote the
language of the personal and of feeling. I begin with an assumption that teaching
and learning of the CAPS curriculum is a given, and, accepting its values and
aims, I reflect on how to embody them. This includes reflections on positionality
and subjectivity, trying to answer, “who is the gazer, and from where is she gazing?”
This is an exercise in multi-perspectivity that accounts for my own perspective,
recognising that I, too, am embedded in history. Ultimately, I suggest that it is
only as a reflexive history teacher that I can assist learners towards understanding
history with their own gaze. | en_US |
