Day 5

So, for my daily peace action, I made peace with the fact that the resources won't be shared and I'll take notes of what is said. Should I have continued to fight for access to information? Why stir the pot for someone who has made up their mind about a topic only to anger yourself in the process. 

I thought going into the class, peace goal achieved. All was forgiven and notes were taken. An activity was done where we had to categorise our social identity awarenesses and how from what we see as important and how we perceive others to see us. An interesting discussion came about during the sharing of our findings. I stated that I like to mess around with my socio-economic identity whenever I can. To appear as poor as I can when conducting professional activities in my personal life (Going to the bank, buying cars, getting finance etc.). My goal is always to surprise others with biases. My privilege suddenly became very real when a fellow South African of colour stated that they would probably be thrown out by security if they tried the same tricks in their personal life. The sad fact was, I knew this to be true. 

Then, to my biggest surprise, my current reality was dragged onto the classroom floor. My wife had been a teacher at one of the most prestigious schools in the country for the past 5 years. At this time, my son was also born and it became clear that he was autistic. Last year, there was a drive at her school to enroll teacher's expat children to create a community of inclusion. After much deliberation, my wife and I decided to let him enroll. We were promised by the director of the school, that all the facilities and resources would be made available to our son and he would enjoy the same benefits as all the other SEN students. When classes started, he was put in a normal KG class with no additional resources given to him. He was left to his own devices for an entire year where he would play by himself in the corner of the room as the teachers had no training on how to deal with him and there weren't enough staff to accommodate him. We begged and begged to have the resources the director promised us allocated to our son, but nothing came of it. My wife cried countless afternoons in the principal and director's offices to no avail. At the end of the year, she was told to find an alternative solution (a different school for our son). At any school, my son's school fees are expensive and almost double the normal fees. It was stated in her original contract that her employer would cover the full cost of schooling for 3 kids, then to our surprise, they changed the policy and stated only a certain, much, much lower amount would be covered. 

Luckily for us, my son's new school, gave her to option of being employed there as well to give our son the option of free enrollment. A true blessing after being let down for so long by her previous school. When returning to her previous school to inform them of the options she had now been given, they made her sign a resignation letter and took her gratuity of 5 years and made her pay in 2 months worth of salary. 

All of this has nothing to do with Peace Education. But the fact that my wife and her best friend's story got dragged into the classroom, who also had the one other autistic kid, who was enrolled at the same time as my son, because the director of the school promised to take care of our kids, was now a topic of discussion made me fly into a fit of rage. It was the most intense rage I have ever felt in my entire life and ironically, it was in a peace education class. 

Ending the class with a video of a child telling us the importance of communication within the first five years of a child's life also left me with a crushed spirit as my son has only started looking me in the eye now and has been completely non-verbal for the whole of his life (so far). He is five. 

Daily Peace Action:

I should make peace with the fact that the director of my wife's old school was only looking out for her own family and needed to enforce cost-cutting mechanisms at the "business" to maintain the bottom line. I should also stop wishing her ill and that her gratuity payouts get taken from her when she finally decides to leave the school. 


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