Report back: SAHA in the Classroom Spring School Workshop 2016

SAHA’s longstanding workshop series for educators is located within its ongoing efforts that aim to use history education to assist in making young people become active, tolerant and responsible democratic citizens who value diversity, human rights and peace. As part of its ongoing outreach programme which has been in existence since 2008, SAHA coordinated its pilot SAHA in The Classroom Spring School for history educators from 3-6 October 2016 during the spring break at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. This series of workshops was run over four days and comprised of six half-day workshops which focused on:

1.   APARTHEID AND THE RISE OF RESISTANCE (pre-1976) 
2.   RESISTANCE UNDER APARTHEID (1976 onwards)
3.   TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY
4.   TEACHING THE TRC
5.   ORAL HISTORY IN THE CLASSROOM 
6.   EXHIBITIONS IN THE CLASSROOM

With the generous financial support from the Rosa Luxemberg Foundation which enabled SAHA in bringing together educators from other provinces that have not been able to attend these long running workshops, SAHA was able to host 15 educators from the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Northwest and Gauteng. By drawing on existing SAHA archival and education materials for history educators, and in line with curriculum requirements, the broad aims of this series of workshops were to develop the use of primary sources to explore and discuss South African history; ways on how to develop oral history and heritage projects; the commemoration of key events and how to draw on the archive of the TRC. The workshops were intended as means to empower and guide educators in their teaching; engage with a variety of different original sources and to introduce new teaching methodologies. According to one of the participants, the workshop focusing on exhibitions in the classroom “brought into focus how useful exhibitions and excursions can be in bringing history alive and keeping it relevant for learners”. Based on positive feedback after the workshops, and on reflecting on the overall success of the pilot workshop, Zizile Matu, an educator from Mthatha commented that “I am very pleased to have been one of the teachers who attended your workshop [Spring School 2016]. You’ve equipped me with so much information.”