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only if you have the time and it doesn't affect the lesson, the section you doing. I will learn - but there are limits. Especially time. S9

If it's not the result of gene transfer it should not be part ofthe class discussion. Like

homosexuality. It doesn't have a place in the bio class. It's not worth it. Homosexuality is a reality you know. But what can we get from such a discussion. Homosexuality is controversial. It's a very harsh thing. But we can't speak about it in any lesson. Any discussion in school must happen in free time ... if we finish our schoolwork. It depends on the teacher you know. Just informal discussions.

510

Informal discussions. These will also allow us to correct ideas that some may have like Blacks are more intelligent in the bush and Whites are more academic. It doesn't mean that change the person's personal understanding - just like you can't change a person's religious understanding.

You might just change the person's understanding for that moment in time. But a discussion will let the person know it's not like that. Not a discussion in the bio class. That wouldn't be beneficial to us. But it must be discussed because it raises some concern - about how some people became people of power. An informal discussion. One that's guided by somebody who's informed about such things, somebody who can guide the feelings, somebody who can focus the discussion. Not just anybody. 511

For me biology is interesting. I don't find the language a problem. I'm sure I speak for most of our biology students. But I would like to do biology that is both practical and general. Then I get to pick whatever knowledge I want. That's the way to go in the 21stcentury. 512

I was comfortable with my bio class - I wasn't nervous and could share my thoughts. But now with the new class group - I'm nervous. I'm no longer comfortable. Even the other classes, the school - the children they keep to themselves. The Blacks, the Indians and the Coloureds. That's become normal for us. The different racial groups must keep to themselves - we're taught that. I mean we sit with one another but ... I've had my fun at this school. Fun for me is having good friends - people that didn't mock me, interfere or fight a lot. I've been happy. S13

I did get angry though. I got angry during biology - when you shared the information written by SJ Gould with us. I got angry that biology actually encouraged racism, encouraged people to believe they were superior. We need to learn about the kind of biology that Gould writes about. It's

controversial, racism is, but it should be part of our syllabus. I'm not sure how things operate in the education system but maybe it's the way the people in the system themselves were taught. It's how they were taught in the universities and that's why the syllabus is designed the way it is. The

universities only taught what people believed were facts and brainwashed people. It's now up to the teachers to explore, to teach ... for the 21^stCentury. 514

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5.11 I Am Not A Robot ...

Waseela's story

When I take in knowledge, put it into my head and spit it out again without understanding ... I am choosing to be ignorant. That's what I'm doing. I am behaving like a robot ... not communicating, not thinking, ignoring my feelings and ignoring the feelings of others. That's not learning. Learning happens when I understand and I cannot truly understand if I ignore feelings. I want the space to express my feelings - even in the bio class. If teachers treat me like a robot without feelings and I am not allowed to express my feelings in a class then that's what I'll be when I finish school ... and I too will treat the world like that! Wl

I have to question. I have to know why I am learning what I am learning. I will be passing the knowledge I have to my children. I am going to influence the future. I have to question sexism in the biology class. I have to question the sexism in my world. Even biology represents the woman as the one who has to do everything; to bring up and look after the child. That's not right. For a better world it is this kind of thing that needs to be tackled first. You can't pass it off as a small thing in the class.Itis these small things that lead to bigger things - bigger catastrophes. W2

At home my mother loves her boys more. My father loves his boys more. He even admitted to me he didn't want a girl. I still cry when I think about that. I try to understand but I can't. They were supposed to stop me from going to school when I was in Grade 7. Itwas because, you know, girls end up doing the wrong things according to my father. They get ideas and stuff like that there - things that should not happen. I know at one time when I was small I used to wish I was a boy.

Because boys had all the fun. Girls have to be tidy and clean up and do things like that. W3

Women are required to wait hand on foot on the men in my home. They are required to be

considerate and caring of the feelings of the men - the same is not there for them. My religion says that men are supposed to protect the women and things like that. I love my religion. But that does not mean women cannot stand up for themselves; that we are so fragile that we will break if we are touched. W4

Biology does nothing for women. Itdoes not promote respect for women. Biology does nothing for a woman who falls pregnant outside of marriage. Itallows for that woman to be called a whore, a bitch. There is discrimination against women. Such women are fallen - women to be disowned by

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fathers, by parents. Even when a girl is raped it's not the man's fault. They just disown the girl. The girl is a source of disease. W5

But the discrimination has made me stronger. I work hard at school to show my parents, to show my father, that girls are not like that. I have become more responsible, unlike my brothers. I'll never want a child of mine, a girl especially, to go through the same thing. So it has obviously made me a better person. I want to make them proud of me - that's the main thing. You know since I started talking about my oppression, my so-called oppression, at home my mother has been more

understanding. She's much fairer now. If! had had kept quiet it would have gone on. I told my mother about this. We had a heart to heart talk, I cried. My father - I spoke to him too. He pays more attention to me now. I guess I empowered my mother as a woman in a way. W6

Even in the bio class when somebody says 'Only Black township girls get AIDS' we have to talk about it. I'm not shocked when people say things like this in class. It's always the girl who's the source of the disease. But it's not only how girls are seen - it's the racism as well. Ifwe don't talk about this when it is said in the class then the pupils who will be the future leaders will continue to have these kinds of things in their heads. They will bring up their offspring as racists and we'll have a nation of racists. We can't ignore such statements. We can't ignore the feelings. We are not robots. W7

Talking about HIV and AIDS. At present in biology we don't talk about our own experiences with HIV and AIDS. How we feel when somebody close to us dies of HIV and AIDS. But it is

something that we should do. We have to communicate with each other and to understand each other. Watching somebody close to you dying of HIV and AIDS and not being able to talk about it - even in the bio class. That's why people continue to have ideas like only Black township girls get AIDS. It's because we don't talk about it; we don't share what happens. W8

We have to talk about different understandings. We come from different backgrounds. We can't expect to learn about only one type of background. We have to learn about others as well. It makes us better people. Then we won't mock others, we won't discriminate against them. Culture and racism are definitely part of the biology classroom. We need understanding and tolerance and patience with each other. I think we don't have that. W9

Racism is definitely part of the school. I've never seen a Black pupil hanging out and being best pals with an Indian pupil. Italways seems like the Black pupils are always on one side having their fun. When they sing and dance all the Indians just look at them like there is something wrong with them. The Indians talk and pass comments and say things like they think this is their township. Yet I've got some wonderful Black pupils in my class; they are just like you and me; just like Indians and Whites.

Wl0

When we study reproduction we should also talk about teenage pregnancy. We need to talk about understandings from Naseema's and Nolwande's backgrounds, about abortion, about the disgraced pregnant girl and her disgraced family, about children outside marriage as a part of an accepted lifestyle and children being a gift from God. Itdefinitely must be part of the bio class. Itwill give us knowledge. Itwill give us not only one type of belief, not only one type of understanding. It will give us better understandings and if we are ever faced with this situation we'll do the reasonable thing, the rational thing.

Wll

As for homosexuality - you know I agree with Naseema. Homosexuality is shameful. I ... I'm not discriminating against homosexuals. If you want to be homosexual it's fine with me. I choose to pass it of. I don't discriminate against it nor do I give my opinion against or for it. It's there. I can't help it. It's part of biology - we going into sexual reproduction. We have to talk about it. W12

This understanding that has been there for ages that we have of Blacks at the bottom level, then maybe we have the Indians, then the Coloureds and then the Whites at the top - that's how we are.

Whites as the goody-two-shoes because they were fair-skinned and treated as pure and good and innocent; Blacks like trash, like dirt ... like evil. Believe it or not this is still peoples understanding of Blacks even though we have the Bill of Rights. That's why we have to discuss these issues in the bio class - when we talking about HIV and AIDS, when we talking about genetics and designer babies. Race categorization, scientific racism should be part of biology teaching, part of the biology syllabus. W13

I think that most teachers would think it's too much of work to actually go into things like this.

They're just interested in finishing the syllabus. Understandings and feelings and things like that there. I think they think that way because they feel its no use. They pass it of as a small thing; it doesn't matter. They don't know that it's this that makes us human. We have feelings, we have

choice and we have a brain which we think with - and to think they say that this is not important.

W14

It's as if they don't finish their aim in biology they will get into trouble with the office. The office definitely exerts a power on the teachers. And there's a hierarchy in school in school even between the pupils - the power between the richest and the poor ... then we go into clothes and labels and things like that. Just like the power of the White man over the Black. White men wanted power over the Blacks so they brainwashed them. They did this by telling the Blacks they were stupid until they got it into their minds and then they oppressed them; they had power over them. W15

It's important to finish our syllabus. We need to finish our work. But if we don't talk about certain things we are not going to understand. If we understand what we are learning we will be better equipped for the exams. I'll tell you the truth - when you first brought in those kinds of discussions in the bio class I used to get annoyed with you. I wanted to just get on with the work. Maybe it's the way I was brought up. School is where you must do work; you don't worry about people's feelings and about people crying at school. I wanted to do work - I was worried about getting the work done by the final exams you know. I didn't want to be stuck with the work at the end of the year - as it happens with some teachers. The lessons were interesting but I found myself pushing it back

because I wanted to get done with my work. I wanted to give in to the lesson and I wanted to push it back because I wanted to get my work done. Then I got used to the lessons and understood better. I am not a robot. W16

5.12 CONCLUSION

How this Grade 11 experienced biology education is revealed through the stories of the ten students. Students came into the class expecting a traditional biology education that they were familiar with, a biology education that taught the facts of biology from an objective, rationalist, technicist and neutral position. This factual biology was reinforced by how the textbooks too presented the biology that students had to learn. This traditional biology had no place for feelings and everyday, real-life issues.

In this biology class, the students came into contact with the facts of biology but the facts themselves were challenged. The challenge occurred through for example, examining biology education's role in perpetuating the notion of races as superior and inferior by remaining silent on this issue and in this way escaping the acknowledgement of biology's complicity in racism and also through women, because of their inherent inability as decision makers, being confined to the role of nurturers as decided for them by men. The dialogue in the biology class then moved from just the facts of biology and brought into the lesson student understandings about what it was that should make up biology education. These dialogues around whether biology education should remain within the facts of biology or whether everyday issues linked to student social realities highlighted the conflicts that the students had to deal with. The academic facts of biology were a requirement for successful schooling. Open, conversational biology that focused on facts and also on students' everyday realities provided students with some understanding of how they themselves were shaped as persons within the class, the school and the wider society.Itwas this biology education that was distressful and caused conflict for the students The conflict for students lay in not wanting to deal with: personal oppressive realities that when highlighted was painful to the student; the reality of the student in a position as an oppressor; or with wanting to focus exclusively on being a successful student.

Despite the conflicts about whether a factual, academic biology or an open conversational biology that challenged social realities could contribute to the students development, for the students tests and examinations were recognised as that which had the greatest value because it was only through tests and examinations that success in biology, and other subjects as well, could be achieved. Itwas this success that would then determine a students place in society once schooling was complete and whether the student went on to achieve 'better' or not in society. This contradicts then what the curriculum policy identifies as what should be valued by students. The curriculum policy envisages the student as one who values and acts in the interests of a society based on respect for democracy,

human dignity and social justice, amongst others, as promoted through the Constitution of the country Curriculum realities and student realities about what it is that must be valued continue then to be distantly removed from each other.

In the next chapter the events as they unfolded in the biology classroom when lessons were taught on cell division, human reproduction, genetics and biological determination are presented as lesson stories. In these stories the various instances of provocation and the student responses to the

provocations are highlighted.

CHAPTER 6