Thandokhulu High School runs on a seven day rotating schedule of classes. Every first day there is an assembly first period. When I picture an assembly I picture a mass of students sitting, facing a stage at front, some talking, some daydreaming. I also picture teachers coming out formally to the microphone, making announcements which feel completely irrelevant and uninteresting to the blank, unmoved faces staring up at them. This is because this is how I remember my assemblies.
At Thandokhulu, this process is very different. At 8am the learners, knowing there is an assembly, stream to the back of the school to a cement area the size of a basketball court. They line up by grade, with the youngest Grade 8 learners to the very left: closest to the school. The learners are expected to take orders from the teachers, which are their elders, and obey them with respect. For this reason there are learners carrying the microphone stand to its place, and adjusting the large speakers to face the crowd.
During this time a teacher stands in the front and leads the learners in song and dance. All she has to do is sing the first four words of a song and instantly, the learners join. It is interesting to see teachers and learners dancing to songs they all know. It was often my image when I was in high school of the teachers as a different species coming from a different generation, liking different music and television, living very separate from us. At Thandokhulu the teachers appear more as parents. They live in the same neighborhoods as the learners, travel the same way to school, listen to the same songs, and buy the same fat cakes (maguena), boiled eggs (xhanda), and fruit from the back of the school.
The music is lively gospel and teachers and learners dance and sing excitedly and enthusiastically. That is, the first half of the learners do. For some reason this consists mostly of girls. The entire first row, save 3-4 learners, are all female. Most of the gentlemen stand in the back; many of them not singing, not moving, not swaying side to side as the people in front do. This section of learners who stand in the back – mostly boys mixed with some girls – look forward blankly, lips unmoved, faces untouched and blank. Their minds must be elsewhere I imagine: thinking about things outside of Thandokhulu, telling themselves that to dance and sing is not for them. I see in some faces that they want to, but shy away because the learners around them do not dance, do not sing, so they stand silently – maybe dancing and singing in their minds.
Soon the speakers are working and music blasts out and the learners dance even more passionately to the tune of their favorite songs. Some wail their hands in the air, some do a two-step with their feet, and many are smiling and moving about as are the teachers. It is extremely uplifting to see them so overjoyed and enthused at school – something I can never imagine seeing in a high school in the United States.
When it is time a speaker comes out to begin – today it was a female teacher who led the learners in prayer. Religion in school is very much practiced and encouraged among the learners. A verse from the bible is read and learners and teachers bow their heads and close their eyes. The day was cool and misty, with light rain drops falling slowly on us. Learners who were nominated for class positions such as president were also shown recognition, and learners cheered and yelled loudly as each name was called to stand in the front.
The principal also came out to speak and many of the topics were real and directly relatable for the students. He began by saying that “we love you. We love all of you, and that is why we might be strict at times. But it because we love you.” He talked about picking the right sort of people to spend your time with and that when those around you engage in high risk behavior that “you are… at risk.” A common way of speaking seems to be to pause before you say something important, as if you are waiting for others to finish your sentence. He also talked about risky behavior in terms of sexual activity and that “although I would like to imagine that all of you will wait until you are 21 to be sexually active and that all of you are innocent I know that this is not true. I cannot think of any advantages of having sex as a teenager. I cannot think of one advantage, but I can think of dozens of…disadvantages.” He talked about how he did not want to see any teenage pregnancies this year, especially because there were 8 last year.
Around this time, for other assemblies I have seen, there would be a group of learners in the field collecting trash. This is the consequence for late comers. Today, however this did not happen because there was a special performance from an anti-gambling organization. Two people did a lively skit on the dangers of gambling. Their show had costumes showing different situations where gambling may become a problem such as throwing dice and thinking it is not chance, and gambling on sports games and slot machines. After this was finished the learners scurried off to their classes at 9:20am.
