What does it mean to be an ally across race, class or age? How might you have been an ally across one of those lines?
Discussion
- Review packet re Fugard, glossary and South Africa
- Scene 4 vs Scene 6 (Mr M & Thami) (in four groups)
You and your group members are going to re-read your assigned soliloquy and re-write it, being sure to answer the following questions. You can be playful with your writing, but you must capture the basic elements listed below. The goal is to really understand your character, where he's coming from, and where he's going.
Who he is? (the facts)
What inspires him? (the events)
What frustrates him? (the circumstances)
What does he want? (the ideas)
What tone does he use? (how does he share his information)
What has he experienced in South Africa? (be specific)
How have those experiences shaped his view of the world?
How will he survive?
- Review the poems
- Look at scene 5 (tension/how staged?)
Harper, Cate, George
ReplyDeleteThami
I was once a young boy who was very eager to come to school everyday because I wanted to become a doctor when I grew up. Now that I have grown up in a society where white people have more privileges and a better chance at being successful, I realize that being doctor cannot solve the issues that my people feel. I was inspired by my hard working parents and my people who are in need. Freedom is the only medication that can help. Earlier in the year, an inspector came to our school, Mr. Dawid Grobbelaar, and promised us a role in the future of Africa. He said that our education is a great privilege and that the future is bright but it frustrates me that I see that that future is not possible. I have noticed the life of a wealthy white person and I have experienced the life of being a part of a black family. I see a generation of tired, defeated men and women crawling back to their miserable little pondoks at the end of days work for the white baas or madam. When we walk through the streets of the white town we see the big houses and the beautiful gardens with their swimming pools full of laughing people, we compare it with what we’ve got. Growing up and noticing the difference between my life and a white people’s lives it has helped me realize that no matter how hard I work I will be at a disadvantage. Even with the wonderful education Mr. M has given me, I have no chance of making a difference for the 26 million people put into poverty because of the unlucky happenstance that they were born with dark skin. In my future of africa, generations will remember what happened in Kliptown in 1955, in Sharpsville and in Soweto because they will be the most influential to their history. The Zolile classrooms do not prepare us for the real world, but instead prepare us for a future we will never receive. We need to learn from people like ourselves, hear their stories, their histories and their beliefs and share them with the world in order to create the future we deserve.
AMANDLA!
“I am a man who in the eager pursuit of knowledge forgets his food and in the joy of its attainment forgets his sorrow, and who does not perceive that old age is coming on.” This quote represents an ideal that I strive for. Yet I understand that it has become an unachievable goal. As a black man in this society, it is wearisome to maintain any sense of hope or idealism. Hope is like a wild animal that dwells inside me, and like an animal, Hope needs food to survive. My education for my extended family is the food for my hope. While keeping it alive, I may be playing into the arms of the whites, but I yearn for the education of small minds. I have become isolated in my own world of pure education, traveling only between grading papers at home and teaching at the school. My only salvation is the knowledge of Confucius, but he also angers me because I know that I can never attain his values due to the current system of South Africa. I walk the streets briskly and with fear of violence and hatred in my world. When I escape to my classroom, the illusion of happiness is broken when my teaching is wasted on those who will perish from the oppression of our people.
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