CHAPTER 5: CARVING UNIQUE PORTRAITS OF TEACHERS’ PERSONAL-
5.4 STORIED VIGNETTE THREE
5.4.1 Scenario one: From progressive girl to well-adjusted learner
Bernell is a 28-year-old woman. Her narrative account allowed us into the inner workings of her family and community. Like most Indian families, Bernell’s family also experienced the pain of the Group Areas Act, forced removal, and relocation to the Indian township of Chatsworth during apartheid (Vahed, 2013). Chatsworth lies to the south of the Durban city centre and was the dumping ground for people of Indian origin who were forcefully removed from places such as Magazine Barracks, Clairwood, and Cato Manor, where they had resided for generations (Vahed & Desai, 2012). Bernell stated:
My family are from the township of Chatsworth. My grandparents had their roots in the Cato Manor area and were moved to Chatsworth as a result of the Group Areas Act.
Although Bernell did not experience the ills of apartheid first-hand, the generational knowledge that was passed on through stories told by her grandparents was to play an important part in moulding her into a compassionate and caring young woman. The importance of telling stories is supported by Rodgers and Scott’s (2008) finding that identity is both interpreted and constructed through the stories that someone tells of them and of others. Bernell recounts what was told to her:
I remember sitting at my nana’s (grandfather) feet and listening to the stories that captivated my attention of life in Cato Manor before I was born. They lived in wood-and-iron homes. There was a sense of community. Indians, Blacks and Coloureds lived side by side in Cato Manor. What little people had they shared and watched out for each other. People mattered, families mattered. However, because of the forced removals, families were also torn apart and communities destroyed.
This forced movement of people concurs with Vahed’s (2013) observation that the uprooting of Indians under apartheid, often without compensation, from the once racially mixed area of Cato Manor, and their subsequent relocation to the township of Chatsworth, created physical, financial and social despair. However, listening to the stories her grandfather told provided Bernell with cultural capital and emotional nourishment which was to influence her identity (Rodgers & Scott, 2008) as a caring, nurturing teacher. She learned the importance of sharing and caring for people, irrespective of colour or creed.
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Becoming emotionally aware was essential for Bernell’s identity formation, because emotional awareness is imperative to serving and having a life of meaningful purpose (Deutschendorf, 2009).
However, Bernell’s socialisation did not follow the normal course of most Indian families. According to Kulanjiyil (2012), Indian parenting can, at times, be authoritarian and can limit individual autonomy, which can be disadvantageous to the development of personal self-identity. The overprotective tendencies of many Indian parents can have the potential to inhibit personal agency, confidence and assertiveness. On the contrary for Bernell, she was allowed to discover life for herself. This journey was supported by her proactive parents and grandparents, who refused to limit her because of her gender.
Instead, they imparted to her the spirit and fortitude to push against the dominant and repressive powers of patriarchy (Sultana, 2011), sexism (Charles, Guryan, & Pan, 2018), and race- and gender-based discrimination (Hutson, 2007), all of which can constrain women from appreciating their optimal possibilities. Bernell describes her grandparents’
attitudes as follows:
Family is important to me. My grandparents, Leela ma, Cynthia ma and Dudu nana, played a huge part in my upbringing. They did not slot into the typical profile of Indian grandparents. When other grandparents were encouraging their children and grandchildren to get married, my grandparents were telling us to not think about marriage but concentrate on our studies.
Bernell’s family did not subscribe to specific socio-cultural trends that defined what an Indian girl should be and behave like. During the apartheid era, the period within which Bernell was born, patriarchy and sexism held sway in the South African macro- environment and within the home environment and communities at large. Women of all races were relegated to an inferior status to men. Women were also deprived of power and were not allowed to make decisions or take up leadership positions (Charles et al., 2018). As a result of patriarchal customs, it was uncommon for Indian women to enter the workforce (Hiralal, 2010). However, Bernell’s family became a space where problematic notions of gender were transformed (Helman & Ratele, 2016), and which offered her a platform and context to practise her identity of being an independent, strong, capable woman (Rodgers & Scott, 2008). While other girls were restricted, Bernell “was
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allowed to fly, but I had to soar on my own wings.” As a result, Bernell’s resistance to gendered behaviour and socialisation within this unorthodox Indian family were carried forward into her adult life (Carter, 2014), when she was forced to make sound decisions as a teacher within a deprived school context.
Bernell also grew up in a middle-class community that offered her economic and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1996a), and the luxury of a good home and social status. However, her secondary socialisation (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) was not restricted to her middle-class community. Bernell spent her primary school years attending a township school, despite her family living in a middle-class, formerly white neighbourhood with well-resourced ex-model C schools on their doorstep. Attending school in a more impoverished area of Chatsworth, along with the values instilled in her by her family, offered Bernell another perspective on life. They shielded her from being caught up in a money-oriented world (Chaplin & John, 2007):
The primary school was in one of the poorer parts of Chatsworth bordering the Welbedacht and Naickers Farm area. Most of my friends’ parents were either unemployed or had average jobs. They worked in factories or engaged in farming and hawking. In primary school, most learners did not have certain “luxuries” I took for granted like transport to and from school.
Bernell’s grounding by her parents was instrumental in raising a well-balanced child.
Such parental intervention concurs with Poraj-Weder’s (2014) finding that materialism in young people is linked to parental attitude towards their upbringing. Despite coming from a middle-class family, Bernell still maintained her friendship with learners she regarded as “less financially fortunate” than her. This behaviour was important for her identity formation, because her location as a product of a middle-class family could have led to ideas, beliefs, and opinions that had the potential to create a barrier to her socialisation with people deemed less fortunate. By not giving in to class distinction, she was able to develop friendship bonds that transcended class and race.
In addition, Bernell was also able to reach out to Black learners: “I also had Indian and Black friends. Race was never an issue.” Bernell was able to respect the diversity that existed amongst the learners at her school in respect of race and social status (Lickona, 2016). Bernell’s attitude, whether conscious or unconscious, had the potential to affect
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her relationships with those around her. Thankfully, her approach was empowering and enabled her involvement with all her fellow learners (Lickona, 2016). Bernell’s transition into high school, however, was met with a little apprehension. In high school Bernell became more aware of social class differences (Kraus & Park, 2014):
I attended a high school in Kharwarstan [an area near Chatsworth]. But it was not a familiar schooling environment. There were a lot of learners from affluent homes. However, being in primary school was easier. At primary school, it was not about branded clothes and shoes, the luxury cars, or about how much money your parents had. Money was not a criterion for friendship or to even judge others on. In high school, this became the norm. However, I made friends very quickly. I learnt to adapt and move with the times.
Chaplin and John (2007), states that children begin to show signs of materialistic orientation from about the age of 8 to 12 years. According to Lindström & Seybold (2003), children become brand conscious during this phase and resort to demanding and displaying their branded items amongst their peers. Thankfully, Bernell’s socialisation and habitus (Bourdieu, 1989) created a buffer for her, and this phase of her life was not allowed to become a source of identification and a means of acceptance for her at school.
Bernell’s experience in this new environmental context increased her awareness of and her reaction to “others” (Rodgers & Scott, 2008). Bernell learnt to embrace change rather than to fear it. Her economic capital and the luxuries she enjoyed did not change her as a person. She was able to accept and relate to all she came into contact with, both those she regarded as “less fortunate” and those from affluent homes. Her ability to balance the issue of class and status was because of the firm grounding and socialisation she received as a child within her family.