I've been teaching long enough to know which mistakes matter. Today's was small—forgetting to ask a student how she was—but it's the kind that reminds you what you're actually doing this for, and what gets lost when you forget. Today a student in my online class reminded me that I had forgotten to ask her how she was. I do that every lesson, to the global classroom that sits comfortably in my sun-filled upstairs room. Today, I was tired from illness, and I failed in what I se

[Published in the Daily Maverick , 9 June, 2020] When we talk about transformation in schools in the leafy suburbs of Cape Town or other cities, do we talk about why it is that they remain so racially homogenous? Do we say what needs to be said: That equal access to education in a market economy can never result in e(quality) in education? It was a deliberate decision, the decision I took – or rather have taken thus far – to sit quietly on the sidelines as #yousilenceweamplif

[Published in the Daily Maverick , 28 April, 2020] It is not easy to teach apartheid. It has become even more difficult to teach the transition through the lens of rainbows, restorative justice and reconciliation. And indeed, the greater the historical distance, the more challenging it has become. It seems counter-intuitive. The further away the past is from our present, the easier it should be to interpret. What do we tell our children, now that history happens at home? Do w