harmony developed by, and ennobled by, folkways, mores and/or religion. On the other hand, social order for the latter is maintained through a 'union of rational wills'.
Such wills rest on convention and agreement, are safeguarded by political legislation and find ideological justification in public opinion (op cit).
gathered later about this other school was that it was, in the same way that Fundiseka was, one of the few schools that produced good matriculation pass rates in the
township. Implied by the enthusiastic cheering by both schools, therefore, was not only the communality but also its enabling capacity for good performance, be it academic or otherwise, in HDATSS.
This 'good feel' was not confined to special occasions but tended to diffuse the school's day-to-day activities. Conveying the feel was not only informal chattering among all of the school members but also formal interactions among the members.
The feeling was so intense and widespread that it also permeated corporal
punishment. This was even though this form of punishment was illegal and at that time had one of the school's teachers on suspension. The suspension had resulted from a week-long student class boycott in objection to the teacher's lashings
perceived by the students to be cruel and inhumane in comparison to lashings by the rest of the school teaching staff. What was found to be responsible for maintaining the 'good feel' during the lashings was a lack of vindictiveness. Such a perception found students sufficiently confident that on occasions they would bargain with teachers over the number of strokes to be administered or over areas of the hand the lashings were not to cover. The following tearful request by a student during a lashing offered one illustration of such bargaining:
Please sir, sekwanele. Sengicela uyeke! Sekuba buhlungu kakhulu sir! (Please sir, it's enough! Please stop! The lashings are getting to be too painful sir!).
Also helping to sustain the 'feel good' during punishments was student conviction of good intentions by teachers regarding the punishments. Incidents that helped convey such perceptions and intentions included comments on one occasion by the DP as he handed lashes to a student who had been caught playing truancy the previous
afternoon. The DP had assured the student that the punishment was out of love and was aimed not merely at inflicting pain but at helping the student overcome his truant behaviour. His actual comment was:
Mntanami ngikushaya ngoba ngiyakuthanda. Ngikushaya ngoba ngifuna uyeke lomkhuba wakho wokweqa Angiqonde kukulimaza. Okudlula lokhu sengizobikela
abazali bakho uma uqhubeka nalento yakho. (My child 1 am lashing you because I love. I would like to see you to stop your truant behavior. This is not intended to harm you. If the lashings do not help solve the problem I will then have to inform your parents)
The importance of this 'feel' for HDATSS is understandable considering that the schools' historical disadvantages deprived individuals populating the schools of such a 'feel'. The deprivation found a large number of the population exposed to alienating experiences such as rejection, abuse and/or neglect. Such feelings made it difficult for most students and some teachers at these schools to focus adequately on academic performance.
Also potentially enabling about communality for HDATSS and helping bring about the related 'good feel' are the three features claimed by Tonnies (1974) as comprising gemeinschaft, namely, kinship; neighbourhood; and friendship. Issues demonstrating the gemeinschaft kinship at Fundiseka included the fatherly manner in which the school principal interacted with the school community. Such interaction was
conveyed, among other things, by the school community's practice of addressing the principal by his clan praise name, as is customary among Zulus when addressing their fathers or other father figures in their communities.
Adding to the perception of fatherhood about the school principal was a claim by the school community that he never failed the school. A number of interviews and chats with the school community revealed that the community relied on the principal, for example, for fatherly problem solving, advice and 'correctional services'. A question posed by a teacher to a troublesome student during one of my observations of his class further entrenched the perception that the principal was viewed by most as a father figure. In this incident the teacher had asked the student whether he wanted his troublesome behaviour reported to the principal or would rather correct the behaviour before such reporting became necessary. An explanation that the teacher gave me following the incident was that such a question always succeeded in eliciting the desired behaviour from students at the school. According to the teacher this was because even though the principal was friendly with students, his wrath, whenever provoked, was feared by all.
In addition to having a father figure, the school also viewed the female teacher
identified as the most influential female teacher at the school as a mother figure. Most Fundiseka students addressed the lady teacher as 'Ma' (mother) and approached her for nurturing when in need of a shoulder to cry on or for economic assistance when in need of such assistance. Also contributing to kinship feel among the school's
community were perceptions that the members viewed one another as brothers and sisters. This was conveyed by the ease with which all communicated with one another and were also protective of one another. An illustration of the latter was, among other things, provided by the practice by a group of male teachers of protectively guarding the gate at breaks, as described in Chapter 4.
Neighbourliness, the second constituent of gemeinschaft propounded by Tonnies (op cit), was conveyed by the tendency of the school community to help one another in times of need, as exemplified by monetary contributions for bereaved members. The third of the constituents, friendliness, was one of 1he very first features of the school's culture that revealed itself at the commencement of the fieldwork. This feature was also discussed in detail in Chapter 4.
Common understandings
Part and parcel of communality, and forming the basis of the 'good feel', are common understandings. Even though 'community', like culture, means different tilings to different people, at the core of all the meanings is 'an understanding shared by all its members' (Bauman, 2001:10) or a gemeinschaft as Tonnies (1974) would label it. In line with this, common understandings, or gemeinschaft, were found to be at the centre of what is potentially enabling for academic performance in HDATSS. This was found to be the case with the Fundiseka school culture, but not with that of Umzamo. The capacity of common understandings to enable good performance is that they provide a ' starting point of all togetherness; provide a reciprocal binding sentiment; represent the proper and real will of those bound together' (Bauman, 2001:10). For Bauman (op cit)'... it is thanks to such understandings, and such understandings only, that a community of people remains essentially united in spite of all separating factors'.