Margot Stern Strom Award Winner Takes a Journey to Understand Power, Reconciliation and Justice

Inspired by her students' curiosity and compassion after engaging with Facing History's Truth and Reconciliation Commission resources and Transitional Justice Module, Meg Arbeiter set out on a personal and professional journey to South Africa.  Meg, a 12th grade Humanities teacher at ACT Charter School in Chicago, traveled to South Africa in 2007 with the support of Facing History's Margot Stern Strom Teaching Award.

Meg's visit allowed her to immerse herself in exploring and understanding the extent to which the country has reconciled its past and moved towards democracy.

"During my trip, I took a multitude of photographs, documenting everywhere that I traveled, in order to create a visual journey for my students to see the wide range of economic conditions.  I conducted and recorded interviews with a diverse group of people so that my students could hear a variety of perspectives on how different people view the situation today. All of this work helped me to develop a curricular unit to engage my students in a critical examination of power, resistance, truth, and justice in South Africa," she wrote.

During her stay, Meg was very moved by a public debate -in a packed room-on the subject of punishment and incarceration, and she was struck by "the degree to which people of every community engaged in the discussion of democracy."  Meg was invited to the debate by Dylan Wray, founder of Shikaya, an organization advocating democratic education in South Africa.  Dylan, a Facing History International Fellow, also coordinates "Facing the Past" - a 9th grade curriculum created in partnership with Facing History, the Cape Town Holocaust Centre and the Western Cape Department of Education.

Indeed, the post-apartheid movement in South Africa has not been easy.  In addition to a split within the Africa National Party, "the country is currently facing enormous challenges including poverty, violence, an electricity crisis, an economic crisis and a rise in xenophobia and political intolerance," says Karen Murphy, Director of International Programs at Facing History.  "While the challenges are enormous, so is the hope and a history that people seem to draw on that reassures them that they can do it."Meg returned to Chicago eager to develop a curricular unit about South African apartheid that examines themes of resistance and reconciliation, and asks her students a tough question:  Is democracy in South Africa "more real" than it is in the US?

Group discussions, presentations and a careful examination of images and cartoons hooked her students into grappling with big ideas about "levers of power" used to maintain control.

In drawing parallels between the U.S. and South Africa, one student in Meg's class challenged another by saying, "You say that if you had been there [during apartheid], you would have protested and died for the cause, but I don't believe it...people always talk about how much Martin Luther King, Jr. has done, but they never really follow his teaching...not fighting back with weapons, but with movements."

It is the hopefulness of the younger generations in these two countries that will help to further such movements toward positive change.  Looking forward, Meg hopes to return to South Africa to continue working with South African educators to develop the comparisons between U.S. and South African quests for democracy, and plans to build the framework for online dialogues between her students and students in South Africa.