3.2 Setting the scene: Unpacking and learning from the support I received from home
3.2.2 Emphasising the value of education through storytelling time
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and shown how valuable their general knowledge and the teachings they continuously instil in their children’s minds at home are. Moreover, he argues that even if they have limited formal education, parents and guardians at home can go the extra mile to develop their children’s capabilities. Furthermore, he argues that “this demonstrates the need for schools to organise programmes where parents would be empowered on how they can play their part as important partners in their children’s learning” (p. 140). Therefore, by extension, this can also be done through parents taking the initiative to voluntarily schedule regular meetings with and visit their children’s schools to check on their work and progress in various subjects. Such visits can also be used to track their children’s behaviour and participation in extramural activities, as well as all their other strengths and weaknesses.
As earlier described in my memory story, during break time on days when there was a parents’
meeting, I remember hanging around near the school fence and on the school grounds to see our parents as they made their way to the scheduled appointment. I recall how some of the learners used to stay in those places until the very last minute before the bell rang and we had to go back to our classes. If their parents didn’t make their way to the school, they were so sad;
you could see that their hearts were broken that their parents or guardians did not arrive to support them, unlike many other children. When this happened, you could see tears rolling down some of the learners’ faces. I learnt from this experience that unsupportive relationships with parents decrease children’s self-confidence and lower their self-esteem at school. I acknowledge that those unsupportive relationships might be caused by parents not completing their own schooling and therefore lacking knowledge and confidence about how they can support their children on school-related matters. It might also be caused by parents having experienced unsupportive relationships during their schooldays, and therefore they might have no idea how to do it. If learners are not supported by their parents on school-related matters, they might not recognise the value of education in a broader sense. However, it is argued that if learners are supported on school-related matters, by their parents and all other relevant stakeholders, this can increase their self-esteem and self-confidence (Mokhele, 2006).
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this memory because it reminded me of how my grandmother and other older family members at home always emphasised the value of education to us growing children through telling stories.
Figure 3.2: My memory drawing: My family emphasising the value of education through storytelling
The evening was always filled with telling folktales or stories about events that happened in the past. Many stories related to our upbringing. For example, my favourite folktale my grandmother used to narrate was that of a wolf and a cannibal, which goes as follows:
It happens that they were very close friends. They always played and ate together, and they performed many activities together. They always loved each other and promised that they would never eat nor betray one another. One day, a wolf, who was way beyond smarter than a cannibal, thought of a plan he would use to betray his cannibal friend by eating him. He quickly thought of a game
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that they would play so that he could not see that he wanted to betray him. The wolf made a huge fire and asked his friend to play a game of cooking each other in the pot with boiling water to see who was stronger than the other one, and that the game was going to make both much cleverer. The wolf emphasised that they would play this game interchangeably and he himself was going to start.
His cannibal friend agreed. The wolf quickly jumped into the pot that was on the fire full of hot water and the game started. After some few minutes he called his cannibal friend and said, “Open, the meal is ready to be served”. His friend never delayed and quickly opened the pot and took him out. They played the game interchangeably until it was the third round, where the water was now very hot. When it was the cannibal’s turn, he shouted several times to his wolf friend that the meal was now ready to be served, and therefore, he must open for it. The wolf just sat there and smiled that his cannibal friend was going to boil until he died, and therefore he would be ready for him to eat him. After some time the cannibal cried there, so helpless in a huge hot pot being boiled until he died, and that was the end of him. He became his friend’s best meal for the day.
I learnt from this story that you must never, ever trust anyone with all your efforts or everything because people can just turn their backs on you any time they like and without notifying you.
The people you trust with all your heart and all you have can betray you and bring you down.
Not everyone comes to you intending to associate themselves with you to lift you up – some can be there just to pretend, and bring you down in the end. I live by the saying ‘Love them all, but never trust them all’.
The storytelling was followed by asking us questions and asking us to tell them the paramount life lessons that can be learnt from those stories that were told. Little did we know that our family was teaching and training us to think critically and actively engage with issues presented to us. This taught us many thinking and problem-solving skills. It gave us an opportunity to think critically, creatively and independently.
Through the process of storytelling, our older family members, particularly my grandmother and my mother’s sister, used to tell us stories of people who came from poor families but were able to make it in life through education. They argued that what allowed them to make it in life was working hard and dedicating all their time and energy to their books. I listened attentively and with much interest as I pictured these told stories. My face was filled with an endless smile
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as my heart learnt that one does not need to come from a wealthy family to make it in life;
instead, it is through hard work, dedication and perseverance. These words flew endlessly in my mind and heart, and always gave me hope. As Huber et al. (2013, p. 214) state, “as generation after generation circle around the fire, stories flow endlessly, gathering us together”.
Furthermore, by telling us those education-related stories, our family wanted to plant them in our mindset so that we would never forget them and subsequently follow suit. That is how they supported us. That is the least they could do – giving us the best knowledge, skills and best advice they had. We appreciated these stories, as they helped us grow in life and have a clear vision for the future.
In researching the educational value of family storytelling, in Pithouse-Morgan et al. (2019a), Thokozani Ndaleni argues how he learnt the skills of listening attentively, and oral communication through the exchange of ideas, thoughts and information, and how he felt the idea of belonging through family storytelling sessions. He later practised these skills as an English teacher at both secondary schools and an HEI. Furthermore, Pithouse-Morgan et al.
(2019a) posit that “re-membering and storytelling can come together as evocative learning resources, through which teacher-researchers and others can engage with personal insights and culturally imbued ways of knowing and being” (p. 171). Therefore, storytelling can become a rich creative and critical tool for learning relevant knowledge, skills, and values that can transform individuals and their significant others in their daily interactions and learning routines. We learnt different listening skills and strategies for tackling various challenges through family storytelling. Family storytelling taught and presented us with an opportunity to support each other as family members, as elders took the informal teaching role in the process.
This is where informal teacher-learner relationships were developed.
Moreover, during the storytelling time, we shared the events that happened at school during the day. Hearing about such events made our parents and other family members identify the gaps and come up with strategies for how they could continuously support us in our learning.
This was also the time when we used to read our books and do our homework. Our parents and other family members helped us where they could, even though some did not finish school, and those who completed school had no university education. Through the support of our families, we indeed succeeded.
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3.3 “I am, because we are”: unpacking and learning from the support I received from my village and the community