From: mokaba@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Subject: Black Gavan Tredoux (continued) read my other posting first!
Reply-To: mokaba@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 15:05:42 GMT

Please read my other posting first (it is surposed to be follwed by this
one)
By higher primary Gavan (oops Qaqambisa as his teachers know him was doing
well) was doing well.. his changed school to one about five miles away
and (no school bus this time Gav) he walked to school... waking up early 
in the morning to run.. because of the dirt in the road he was never seen
clean in school his feet were always dusty... With his mother support
he finished higher primary school and was to go to secondary school..
his parent (like many parent had no more money to buy books and uniform..
or feed him .. his father lost a job beacuase of a strike, retrenchment,
lost a leg in accident or just never came home because of distance ... he
moght have found himself a "nyatsi" since he could not bring his family
to stay with him... Gavan life was miserable, his news school everything was 
in either English or Afrikaans,,, he could not understand maths in afrikaans
or connect brandstof, suurstof, floistof and  other stofs he learnt in 
the chemistry class with the fuel, oxigens and acids he learn in pramary
school and in biology... In agricultural sicience he learn in primary
school he new how to define soil, but here it's called grond...he 
just memorised it... on his was to school he would be reciting
"Wat is grond?" ......"Grond is die boonste laagie van die aarde bestaan
uit klein rots deeltjie ming met oganiese materiaal!!!!" by 1976
his mind was bogged down ...he was in form V... he was getting
tired of thinking in Venda and reasoning in English and answering
questions in Afrikaans.... For than matter his good teacher had been
arested for subversive activities these included his Maths teacher
heography and physic... with the standard as it is he new there was
no way he was gonna make it( by the way he cosiders himself lucky
because 90% of the people he started sub A with have dropped out..

By the end of that year he got an S (school leaver) he was bitter 
he repeated the class in the following year and passed JMB through the
help of a private study club... it was 1976... he wated so much to be
an Enginneer... but the law did not allow such... he applied to UCT but
he need ministerial concern to enter those universities... he knew he 
could make it as long as someone gave him a chance. (Meanwhile his friend
were killed by the police) By shear luck he got the Anglo American scholarshi
p he was to enter UCT under special permission... he left ,,, for UCT
and "welcome to Town Jim"!!! your white counterparts are ready for a fair
contest... linguistic, content and productivity... it was tough ...
at the end of that year he dropped out... became a statistic the 50-60  
% who never finish first year...
He went to University of the North and finished his undergraduate degree
in Sociology because he wanted now to have a degree..but that was not
free either he tried taking math, but left it because the prof told
everyone that black would never learn math amd that "only the squareroot"
of the class of twenty was going to make it to the end of the year and th
cuberoot of that would pass... he then took political science as a minor
but was discouraged because prof van der Broederbond allowed no deviation
from the agenda, not talk of universal frenchise...
in that year 70% of the students failed across the board....


watch this news group for more on
"Gavan Tredoux the African student: Black man can't count!!!!"
comming on the computer monitor near you!
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african