by David Kapp
Published on: Sep 17, 2011
Topic:
Type: Poetry

Adult Learning, where are you? (a tribute to learners and educators)

In the beginning, CNE,
Christian National Education.
Hewers of wood and drawers of water,
Coloured Affairs, Indian Affairs,
Bantu Education,
divide and rule,
separate(d) but equal.

The silence of the 60s,
Sharpeville, Langa, underground,
the banning and dismissal of teachers.

Awaking, to Black Power, in the 70s,
Afros, Brother-man, Sister-hood,
independence struggles
in Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and Angola.

Get Up! Stand Up!
Stand Up for your Rights!

People’s Education into the 80s,
for People’s Power,
Popular Education, Alternate Education,
Adult Education, Worker Education

Learn and Teach,
Each One Teach One.
(SACHED, USWE, NLC)

The literacy crusades of China, Cuba,
Nicaragua, Brazil and Paulo Freire,
dialoguing and awareness raising,
inspiring us, taking a people to school,
looking ahead.

Workshops, Talkshops and Seminars,
formulating policy in the Nineties.
(Acronyms and more acronyms)
AB this and ABET that,
NEPI here and NEPI there.

Our first democratic elections in 1994,
Great Euphoria, Great Expectations,
Reconstruction and Development (RDP),
an end to illiteracy?
(an end to formulating policy?)
(an end to acronyms?)

Lifelong learning to the fore?
Education for All?

Adult learning and literacy
for democracy and citizenship?

Where are we now? Are we moving?
(Are we moving forward?)

Which way? How far have we come?
(Who has been left behind?)

Learner, have you learnt?
(What have you learnt?)

Are we, all, reading, together, yet?
Are we, all, celebrating, yet?

Penned the last weekend of August 2004 (timed for our Learning Cape Festival down South here in the little protectorate), inspired by staring hard and long at Bertolt Brecht’s Praise of Learning, which I had photocopied from a long departed Upbeat or Learn and Teach magazine from days gone by.

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