My last
blog update was a bit of a downer, truth be told, but it came from my attempts
to deal with difficult thoughts and experiences. For many of us, all over the
world, the outlook for 2016 still is not particularly rosy (possibly even less
so in light of the turmoil being caused by the recent Brexit vote). However, on
a personal level, I have had much to enjoy and cherish in this year, as Helen’s
pregnancy has gone well (our second child, also a boy, is due by mid-July) and
Calvin continues to grow and develop into a cute, friendly, kind little boy
(who clearly takes after his mother in temperament and innate goodness).
I spent a
few months earlier this year working on a possible business idea to provide consultancy
to schools, but after some very interesting and frank interviews with various
people in senior positions at schools around Johannesburg, I realised that our
schools like the way they operate, it is by design, not by accident. And hence,
there will always be a place in our traditional schools (nay, several places)
for jocks who teach even though they may not be particularly good at spelling
or grammar, but who are more than willing to coach several sports and give up
their weekends and holidays for sports fixtures and tours.
Since
then I have also been doing a fair bit of research into the possibilities of
pursuing tertiary education - both in terms of studying further and also of
teaching in a university or college setting. I still feel rather daunted by the
possibility of studying a 4-6 year PhD - remembering that a Masters Thesis over
3 months nearly drove me to gouge out my own eyes, but it appears to be a
necessity, even a prerequisite for becoming a lecturer or university faculty
member. Before I launch into such an avenue fully, with all the commitments
this would be likely to entail, I am hoping to gain some experience of
lecturing first, to see if it is something I enjoy more or less than my current
role as a high school teacher. On one hand, university students are in attendance
by choice, and many of the weaker school students have already been culled, but
on the other, there is much less connection between teacher and students (which
is both good and bad, given the burdens of pastoral care and sports coaching
expected of teachers) and academia is generally acknowledged to be intensely
competitive as well as very political. In South Africa, that political element
appears to be particularly prevalent and it seems that my chances of being able
to join the faculty of a reputable university, as a white male, are exceedingly
slim.
Meanwhile,
I am also looking to re-position myself to teach in the English department in
my school next year, so I can avoid the unending frustration of dealing with my
overly-controlling head of History. In addition, I will no longer be coaching 1st
team basketball and hope that a move to coaching a lower age group and increased
delegation of responsibility for all basketball matters to the Basketball Co-ordinator
who was appointed at the beginning of this year, will allow me to spend more
time with my family in the summer. I will certainly be going to fewer
basketball tournaments, and it is a natural break-point for me because I will
part company with the group of boys I have been coaching since February 2015
when I ended up in the hot seat as the 1st team coach - a really
fine group of young men, and they have certainly left big shoes for the teams
that follow them to fill.
While I have
enjoyed coaching sports, it has never been a career path for me and I would
rather specialise in education, which has also made me consider whether in the
long term I should be looking to teach in an International School. This would
make sense given my experience of the International Baccalaureate and also the
tendency of these schools to hire teachers for their academic commitment rather
than as all-rounders who also coach sports. But that is likely to involve
considering spending at least some time abroad to gain the necessary
experience, not a decision to be taken lightly given that I have a soon to be
larger family with two quite short people in the mix.
One of
the great perks of being in a school environment is having school holidays. I
do spend fair chunks of these working on my teaching materials and curricula
for the following term, but I also get to spend some valuable time with my
family. In April we took our nanny with us and spent 10 days down at St Francis
Bay on the Eastern Cape coast. The weather was not always as warm as we’d have
liked, with some days of exceptionally cold sea water, but Calvin had a
fabulous time playing on the beach, and having the nanny there with us meant
that Helen and I could sometimes go out for lunch together or simply go for a
walk or to the beach without taking Calvin with us. It is definitely the right
way to do a holiday with small people, to take along someone who can babysit!
I have
enjoyed my rugby refereeing again this season, having made a conscious decision
to withdraw from the politics of the society and leave others to solve the
chaos that has arisen. I have been fortunate to have some good games, and some
important games. During the Easter Weekend I was fortunate (mostly due to
withdrawals by others) to be asked to referee at the prestigious St Stithians Rugby
Festival on the Thursday morning - refereeing a great game between Bishops
(Diocesan College) and Durban High School (http://www.durbanhighschool.co.za/oldboys/?p=2264)
Then on the Easter Monday I was appointed to the St John’s College Festival, for
what was a much more difficult game between two of the tournament’s struggling
sides, neither of whom had won a game in the previous two matches of the
tournament, so it was a game of desperation rather than discipline, always
tricky for a referee - and I learned a lot from a game that I should have
managed better (http://www.sarugbymag.co.za/blog/details/easter-schools-festivals-results-day-3).
During our holiday down in the Eastern Cape I was also fortunate enough to
referee Pearson vs Volkskool Graaff-Reinet, and a hard-fought and well-played
game between Humansdorp’s Nico Malan against Landbouskool Marlow. In club rugby
back in Gauteng I have had the privilege of refereeing my first two regular
season fixtures between 1st teams in the Pirates Grand Challenge,
which is our top division clubs tournament. I first had University of
Potchefstroom (Pukke) vs Police (Bobbies) - with the result a 69-10 victory to
a Pukke team apparently almost wholly made up of the Leopards region U21 provincial
team. Not long ago I then refereed Pirates, one of Johannesburg’s oldest clubs,
and currently top among the open teams in the league, against Union, who
unfortunately are struggling this year so the result was rather lopsided at
106-6 to the hosts Pirates (you can see the theme here, somewhat less
experienced or less senior referees like me get given the runaway 1st
team games, or tightly contested top 2nd teams games!) I have
enjoyed my rugby this season (having already taken part either as referee or
assistant referee in over 50 matches so far). It is likely that I’ll have to
cut back quite a bit in my commitments to refereeing once we have a new baby in
the house, at least for a while, so I’m making the most of things while I can.
Being involved in so much rugby in the Highveld winters when the sky is blue
and as the sun sets the air turns crisp, is certainly one of the great things
about being in Johannesburg.
But all
is not entirely well in South Africa. Since the beginning of this year, race
and racism seem to have risen to the forefront of our national consciousness
once again. Even in my own school I seem to observe that many of the senior
boys still appear to form friendship groups along colour lines, or find myself being
drawn into debates the boys have had around statements like ‘black people can’t
be racist’ (the argument here being that racism is about power structures and
privilege, so only those with structural power can be racist). Even in Helen’s
world of advertising, usually a relatively poorly paid and overworked sector
which has therefore held less appeal for transformation, new codes have been
agreed under which by 2018 middle management is meant to be 75% black and 50%
female - which seems quite a big leap given that Helen is at one of the most
diverse firms and yet there really aren’t very many people with her decade or
more of experience who are the ‘right’ colour for these targets. Being the
cynic I am, I can’t help but notice that this issue seems to have risen in
prominence just as the dominant ruling party of South Africa, Nelson Mandela’s
ANC, has come under serious pressure in the global economic slow-down, and yet
steadfastly refuses to consider any replacement for our current president,
despite our top legal body, the constitutional court, finding him guilty of
inappropriately benefitting from public funds, along with a host of other
obfuscations of justice thereafter. We are at a crucial juncture in the democratic
development of our country. In August this year, municipal elections are due to
be held across the nation, and it appears that for the first time, the ANC may be
at risk of losing its dominance in a number of major cities. On one hand, the
prospect of having real political competition seems an appealing one, as it
should prompt greater accountability to the electorate and hopefully a return
to governance and delivery of basic government services rather than simply
politicians being in a most unseemly rush to put their snouts in the trough of
corrupt dealings and ‘tenderpreneurship’. However, the last few weeks have also
seen some appalling scenes of wanton destruction and violent protest - merely
at the ANC’s decision to nominate a less popular candidate for the mayoral
elections in the Pretoria region. Many have been left to wonder what may happen
if, in fact, a place like Pretoria or my hometown of Port Elizabeth is won by
the largest opposition party. Will power be relinquished peacefully?
Thinking
longer-term, Helen and I have begun to have some tricky conversations about
whether South Africa is the right place for us to be going forward. The issue
has hit home for me - wondering whether my own sons may find their opportunities
in the future being limited by skin colour. Singing the national anthem at the Springbok
rugby game against Ireland at the stadium here in Johannesburg, I was hit by a
wave of sadness, wondering whether I will do so again, whether my sons will
grow up with a very different identity. It is a very hard choice to face. I
came back to South Africa for many good reasons: the climate, the beauty of the
country, rugby, our complicated but exciting and compelling peoples and
cultures, the vibrancy and sense of opportunity, a sense of home. We also have
Helen's parents and siblings here in Joburg, and family is a huge support with children,
and we have many very good friends here.
So we
feel quite torn. And have decided not to be rushed in our decision. We are
going to see happens over the next year or so. We’ve also said that we need to
decide if there are any lines that should not be crossed - events which for us
would be a watershed as far as our future prospects are concerned. As a History
teacher, I can’t help but wonder how each family of Jews in Germany in the late
1920s and early 1930s tried to make sense of what was happening around them.
They were people who knew themselves to be German, had even lived there for
generations, and the optimists among them were still there in 1935 when they
suddenly lost all basic rights and began to be persecuted in earnest - but by
then it was too late for most of them to escape.
Of course
one of the difficulties is trying to figure out where to go. The prospect of
folding up all of one’s life and attempting to begin anew is not only daunting,
but these days, an incredibly wide-ranging decision. Living in the UK with
children would be quite different to being young and free in London. New
Zealand seems awfully far away and still a bit damp and cold, while Canada
sniggers at the New Zealand idea of cold. I no longer know how easily we could
live elsewhere in the EU with British passports. Latin America, appealing as a
temporary adventure, seems too much of a linguistic and cultural bridge to ever
be a permanent home. In many other parts of the world, particularly the Middle
East and Asia, English-speaking life is based around an expatriate population
which seems to bring with it a transience that suggests some significant
challenges to building lasting and meaningful relationships with others - again
therefore perhaps good as an experience, but not a permanent solution. The USA
has much that I can identify with and understand, and even some places that
seem a reasonable compromise between stinkingly hot summers and arctic winters,
but culturally it is by no means an easy transition - speaking English is not a
shared understanding in itself.
When I
look around the world though, it seems that South Africa is not the only place
in the grip of some rather discomfiting events. Who would have predicted the
many effects already being felt in the UK in politics and the economy, since
the Brexit vote. Suddenly, the ascendance of Donald Trump (vs Hilary’s corporate
machine) in the US presidential elections doesn’t seem so far-fetched. China,
for so long the engine of the world’s economic growth, seems likely to
encounter a tricky balancing act between individual freedoms and state control
now that growth there is slowing. India, for some the next rising prospect,
still seems too regulated and insular to take China’s place. The last time we
saw such potential for isolationism and navel-gazing like this in America it
was coupled with increasing aggression in Asia and apathy in Europe that
eventually ended the Great Depression by means of a World War.
For now I
suppose the answer is to consider and to shape what possible opportunities I
have before me: professionally, in my sports and activities, and with my lovely
family. With apologies to John Maynard Keynes, “In the long run we are all dead”,
so I’ll do what I can while the clock is ticking and try to take a moment to enjoy
the view every once in a while, as life rushes by.
