Cross-cultural communication: a program addressing the effect of migration on South African education.

The 2001 Annual Theme issue of Childhood Education focused on migration and education. Guest Editor Navaz Bhavnagri located too many excellent articles to include in one issue. Therefore, we have been publishing additional theme-related articles in subsequent issues. This is the last of the series.

Migration has always been part of the South African experience. For the purpose of this article, the authors give a general background of migration in South Africa and examine its effect on education today. The focus will be on a cross-cultural communication skills development program funded by Saambou Bank (a South African commercial bank). This program creatively addresses the outcomes of migration in South Africa, and has successfully benefited the communities where it has been implemented.

HISTORY OF MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

People began migrating to South Africa when it was colonized by various groups from Europe, including missionaries, who played an important role in education. In 1841, government aid was extended to mission schools; as a result, the education of non-white people became exclusively the domain of churches and other religious institutions.

The discovery of the South African mineral wealth (e.g., gold and diamonds) in the late 19th century sped up the migration process. The shantytowns that grew out of the mine operations and trade eventually became the major cities of South Africa, many of which became overcrowded. People migrated from neighboring African countries, as well as other countries, to Egoli (Johannesburg), the place of gold, in order to carve out a living.

As old ways of farming gave way to sophisticated mechanized methods, much of the agricultural workforce moved to South Africa's cities looking for employment in the gold mines and related industries. The industrialization, diversification, and social integration of the economy also drew people to the cities. Many men left their families behind to work in the mines, leading to a weakening of the family structure, and the fragmentation and depopulation of rural areas.

The control of education was divided between white and non-white education from as early as 1909. The political ideology of apartheid (established in 1948) greatly affected the migration of people in South Africa. The Group Areas Act (1950), SA resulted in the forced removal of black people from predominantly white urban areas. The removed populations were relocated in areas called "townships," the most well-known being Soweto. These forced removals separated people according to race and culture.

The dismantling of the Group Areas Act in the late 1980s resulted in another great migration of people to urban areas. Informal, "squatter" settlements sprung up overnight. These informal settlements had no infrastructure such as schools or roads, nor even basic amenities such as electricity and sewage systems. The number of these informal settlements increased after the transition to majority rule and democracy in South Africa in 1994; at that time, migration from townships to traditionally white city suburbs, and to schools, accelerated.

THE EFFECT OF MIGRATION ON EDUCATION

Given the various reasons for migration, great inequities, conflict, and strife exist among different groups in South African society. As noted earlier, South Africa has not been a completely free and democratic society. There have rarely, if ever, been institutional governmental mechanisms to encourage communication among different ethnic groups, for example. Thus, many students from different groups in South Africa have never mixed with each other. Some may have had no reason or opportunity even to be in close proximity with students from other immigrant groups.

Reports of conflict in schools were common; mistrust and misconceptions were prevalent among learners from different races, causing political strife and racial stereotyping. This was the basic challenge facing the authors when they first began seeking creative solutions in 1994.

Communication within a multilingual society is another major challenge. South Africa has 11 official languages, and even more ethnic groupings. Although mother tongue education is provided until grade 3, the preferred language of education in urban areas seems to be English. Many parents opt to teach their children English from a very young age, as it is believed that it will give them greater social mobility and open up more possibilities to succeed, both locally and globally. The problems created by this situation have to be squarely faced both by teachers and, ultimately, parents. Only by reclaiming and honoring our cultural roots and mother tongue can we preserve our personal and collective self-respect and identity. It is therefore critical that carefully designed therapeutic interventions be undertaken to bring various language and ethnic groups into harmony.

An Example of Internal Migration in a School Setting

A school in Laudium, Pretoria, offers a glimpse into the effects of internal migration on a school environment. During the apartheid years, Laudium was primarily an Indian and Asian community. In 1993, migration from other areas accelerated. Today, pupils come from nine other areas, as far as 57 km (about 35 miles) away from the school. Currently, Laudium Secondary has a total of 1,168 learners representing the following languages: Afrikaans, English, Hindi, Gujrati, Tamil, Telegu, Arabic, IsiNdebele, SiSwati, IsiXhosa, IsiZulu, SeSotho, SePedi, SeTswana, TshiVenda, and XiTsonga. If one bears in mind that 16 different languages are represented in one school, one can begin to get an idea of the challenges that using English as the exclusive medium of tuition must pose to educators.

THE CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION PROGRAM

Former South African president Nelson Mandela started the process of making businesses more aware of their social responsibility towards young people, especially those from marginalized communities. In response, the South African business sector started supporting various projects in schools, including communication programs.

The authors first initiated their Cross-Cultural Communication Program in 1995 at various colleges and universities that had significant numbers of migratory students. The program, after various reviews and refinements, is now in its fifth cycle.

Theoretical Model of the Program

The theoretical underpinnings of this program are based on the works of two groups of scholars. The first group of scholars, who work on African issues (Kidd & Coletta, 1980; Mda, 1993; Mlama, 1991), find that communication skills are critical to increasing participation at all social levels, achieving self-reliance, and promoting equity. The second group of scholars, who work in the field of drama, focus their research specifically on the integration of body, voice, and movement (Alexander, 1923; Barlow, 1990; Bartenieff, 1981; Lessac, 1997; Madaule, 1993; Warner, 1991). The educational approach of "body-voice-movement integration" used in the Cross-Cultural Communication Program combines these two theoretical frameworks.

Application of Theoretical Approach to Practice: The Talking Drum Activity

Alfred Tomatis (Madaule, 1993) states that understanding and building on the connections between the ear, the brain, and the voice is invaluable for developing listening skills. The Tomatis method uses chants and music as external stimuli to energize the human auditory system. The authors decided to use the music of Mozart, Vivaldi, and Halpern compositions; Gregorian chants; and indigenous music from all cultures to stimulate listening, focusing, relaxation, and visualization. This served as a prelude to an activity called "Talking Drums."

Lessac (1997) developed a method for training the voice, in which imagination is expressed in words and sounds. He emphasizes how learning is affected by the physical sensations associated with the production of vocal sounds and the mental ability to recall those sounds. During the Talking Drums activity, speech patterns are explored and linked to the rhythms of multilingual learners' names. These speech patterns then are translated into the warm sounds of African drums. This interpersonal, nonverbal communication is effective because language barriers disappear and the varying degrees of English language proficiency among the learners loses significance.

Orff (Warner, 1991) suggests the integration of sound and movement, using the voice as instrument, both melodic and non-melodic. In the Talking Drums exploration, a verbal sentence is constructed in different languages and used as a basic rhythm pattern. From this rhythm pattern, six or seven different rhythms are created and added, using words from the sentence. Through this "drum talk," the 40 participants came to know each other in 45 minutes. The majority of them had never touched a drum before.

According to Laban and Bartenieff (Bartenieff, 1981), one can develop a relationship with the immediate environment by exploring one's kinesphere (personal space). In the Talking Drums exploration, one half of the group plays the drums and the other half of the group responds by interpreting the rhythm through movement. Thus, different cultures discover one common rhythm and become cognizant of the rhythms unique to each cultural group. It is always a magical moment when students from different cultural groups, who have known each other for only a relatively short time, learn to operate cooperatively.

Although this method of sound-voice-movement integration was designed specifically for the South African internal immigrant population, the authors believe that it can be adapted for other immigrant groups who experience language barriers, have no earlier contact with each other, and hold stereotyped and hostile views toward each other. Other percussion instruments, representative of the particular cultures, can be used to promote communication between different cultural groups of immigrants within the same school.

Program Operation

Preparation for the program started four months before implementation. At meetings with officials from the Department of Education, eight schools from historically white, black, colored, and Indian/ Asian areas were identified. Then the principals and four educators from each school met with the program developers to discuss details about the program and set intervention dates. Because the program is considered an extracurricular activity, it takes place after school hours. The program consists of two parts, which run simultaneously:

Program for Learners. Forty learners at the 10th-grade level (ages 15 to 22) from four schools are gathered as one working group per intervention. Eight interventions are conducted over a period of six months. During these interventions, the participants are put through interactive explorations and processes in an open creative space without desks, papers, pens, or lectures. The open space creates equality for all participants, regardless of their backgrounds. The main goals of these interventions are to break down cross-cultural barriers and to build trust between groups that once were separated. The program develops and builds social skills in a cooperative learning environment.

This program stresses learning to communicate with a person first as a human being before attempting to communicate with him as a person from a different cultural group. The immigrant learner benefits from this point of view because the initial contact focuses on aspects of shared humanity, rather than on differences among cultures or individuals. This allows every learner to feel safe and accepted within a multicultural group. Throughout the program, participants acknowledge and celebrate cultural similarities as well as differences.

The program explores awareness of the self through movement. Amplified energetic music sets the scene for moving within the safety of a circle, focusing on the self while building trust between participants and facilitators. Movement to music facilitates the exploration of human movement, at all levels. This releases tension and results in a lot of laughter.

Sound-voice-movement integration guarantees involvement of the emotions, which are linked to all the interactive activities in the program. Drums and rhythms, as part of sound-voice-movement integration, put the stamp of Africa on this program. Throughout the program, participants are invited to predict, plan, recount, and report on the explorations they have experienced. They have to negotiate and mediate, and defend and justify a point. At the end of the intervention, they must reflect on the learning experience. At this final stage they are able to share the conviction that it is people, and not cultures, who communicate.

Another exploration, called "Our Dream House," illustrates some of the cognitive and affective processes addressed in the program. Two participants from different cultures sit down together and discuss their dream home. They verbally plan this house and convey what it will look like on a large piece of paper. Ample time is provided for discussing, negotiating, and planning. It is always wonderful at this stage of the process to observe the mutual respect, friendliness, and cooperation that are established between the participants.

The facilitators provide each pair with one thick, brightly colored felt-tip pen. The challenge starts when the students have to draw the house together--both holding the same pen--with no one student allowed to lead. This process elicits on-the-spot negotiations, compromise, tolerance, cooperation, and clear communication as the pairs strive to complete their house drawings. Adjustments of bodies and movement into each other's personal space happen spontaneously as they direct the pen on paper. This process inevitably causes a lot of frustration, yet also some laughter. When the house is completed, the participants reflect on and review the process. In the next stage of the exploration, the pair proudly defends the merits of their dream home against other homes. This results in a wonderfully creative and chaotic process.

The rewards of using this exploration cannot be overemphasized, especially for immigrant students learning to function educationally and socially. In the authors' observations over the past several years, the participants blossomed as they laughed together and defended what they cooperatively owned.

In the words of a female Tswana learner, who was describing her male Afrikaans partner during this exploration: "We can and we are able to understand one another. My partner was very funny. I have never laughed the way I am laughing today. I will always be his friend."

Program for Educators. The second part of the Cross-Cultural Communication Program is a training element for educators from participating schools. The educators are all from different areas and come from diverse social and cultural backgrounds. This training includes an introduction to the same processes used with the learners. The review helps the educators when observing the learners during interventions. Interactive training sessions, interspersed with interventions for learners, culminate in a cross-cultural social event that celebrates traditional dress and culinary tastes.

Throughout the training cycle of the program, the educators continually explore the process of interpersonal communication (see Appendix). On completion of their training, educators report that they use the newly acquired skills daily in enhancing their presentation skills and managing their classrooms. They also link the method of sound-voice-movement integration to the outcomes-based education model of the South African Education Department. These skills are then directly incorporated into such curriculum areas as life orientation, communication and languages, human and social sciences, and arts and culture.

Once the intervention and training cycle is complete, the facilitators take ownership and responsibility of the program and use the concept to get more learners involved, as well as the greater communities. Follow-up interventions for learners, as well as training for facilitators, are currently being developed and tested.

Program Challenges

The feedback from learners and educators involved in the program is remarkable. However, challenges remain. Transportation for learners and educators from different areas is time-intensive and costly. Infrastructure (such as public transportation) is underdeveloped in South Africa. Implementation of follow-up projects, which would support and sustain the initial input, is still delayed due to limited funds. Although there are other programs operating in schools funded by the South African business sector, they concentrate more on health, poverty, entrepreneurship, social issues, and mathematics and science education. This crosscultural program designed for secondary school learners in South Africa is the only program focusing on communication.

LESSONS LEARNED BY MIGRANT LEARNERS

In conclusion, the authors offer comments from learners who participated in the program. Their comments bear testimony to how cross-cultural groups received this program and how it benefited their lives.

Regarding cross-cultural understanding in migrant groups, one 15-year-old female learner, from a traditionally Indian school, commented as follows: "Understanding comes from being more socially interactive with other cultures and learning about them; therefore, I must say that I understand them a lot better now than before. We learned to accept people for who they are and not from which cultural background they come. It gave me a better understanding of myself, my surroundings, and the people around me."

Another girl her age, this one hailing from a traditionally white school, observed that removing communication barriers allowed her to converse freely with people from other cultures: "The skin color wasn't important anymore ... I would like to know more about their culture. I have realized that they are the same as us and it is only the cultural package that is different."

The political history of South Africa--with its stereotyping and labeling--is addressed in this comment by a 16-year-old girl: "As a young person I was taught to hate other cultures because of apartheid, but now this program has helped me a lot. Thank you for letting me see things differently and learn other things of life, like when you are angry how you can control yourself."

Another learner, a white male from an Afrikaans school, found his stereotypes were challenged in an other way: "I have realized that other people don't bite. I will not be mean and cruel to other people anymore, and I won't bite back."

The experience of overcoming fears in an unfamiliar social environment led a 17-year-old migrant female to comment: "I was so afraid of people from other cultures before the program. After the program I am able to talk to them and share my feelings. If you laugh with other people you find that you can understand them."

An immigrant learner from an integrated school, age 17, made the following remark: "I felt safe and accepted. I wish we could do this every day. This program was not only educational but it [also] boosted my self-esteem and confidence. How to love one another regardless of skin color and accepting each other were the most focused aspects in the program. I was also very surprised that people who are so different can cooperate so well."

In the final analysis, this program helps lead young people who live in a diverse society, and are faced with migratory challenges, to a more able, joyous, and self-directing adulthood.

APPENDIX:

THE HUMAN PROCESS DURING INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

All human beings have individual genetic and historical histories. We all function according to our particular value systems (religious, spiritual, etc.). We all have certain perceptions about other people that affect and involve our emotions and behavior. We call this the "cultural package" of the human being. We came to realize that this cultural package functions well within a homogeneous social structure; within an immigrant or integrated social environment, however, each individual has to know and accept his or her own cultural package. For interpersonal contact within a migratory environment to succeed, people also have to accept, respect, and tolerate others' cultural packages.

Any person confronted with an unknown social environment, a daily part of immigrants' lives, must ask three questions: "Am I safe?" "Can I cope?" "Will I be accepted?" These three questions form the core of the human process during interpersonal communication, and are closely connected with all explorations throughout the program.

The model below is a condensed representation of the three basic systems that have to be operative in all human communication; the model can be used in any society affected by migration.

The Implications of This Model for Other Settings

This model of interpersonal communication, because it focuses on shared humanness, has potential for other settings where immigrants have difficulty in communicating. The program contains many activities in which participants can acknowledge and celebrate both differences and similarities, while maintaining their respect, compassion, and consideration for themselves and others. The exploration discussed in the article, Our Dream House, is only one of many such activities. These activities are specifically designed to enhance interpersonal communication among individuals who belong to different groups.

One of the major challenges in interpersonal communication between different groups of immigrants is overcoming language barriers. Nonverbal communication cues are used as a tool to facilitate interpersonal communication. The crosscultural communication program uses specific activities and processes, such as the Talking Drums exploration, to overcome these barriers.

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References

Alexander, F. M. (1923). Constructive conscious control of the individual. Long Beach, CA: Centerline Press.

Barlow, W. (1990). The Alexander principle: How to use your body without stress. London: Vista.

Bartenieff, I. (1981). Body movement: Coping with the environment. New York: Gordon & Breach Science Publishers.

Gardner, H. (1993). How children think and how schools should teach. Fontana Press.

Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness. New York: Continuum.

Kidd, R., & Coletta, N.J. (Eds.). (1980). Tradition for development: Indigenous structures and folk media in non-formal education. Berlin: German Foundation for International Development.

Lessac, A. (1997). The use and training of the human voice: A practical approach to speech and voice dynamics. New York: DBS Publications.

Madaule, P. (1993). When listening comes: A guide to effective learning and communication. Ontario, Canada: Moulin.

Mda, Z. (1993). When people play people: Development communication through theatre. Johannesburg, South Africa: Witwatersrand University Press.

Mlama, P. M. (1991). Culture and development: The popular theatre approach in Africa. Sweden: Motala Frafiska.

Pederson, P. B., & Hernandez, D. (1997). Decisional dialogues in a cultural context: Structured exercises. New York: Sage.

Seelye, H. N. (1996). Experiential activities for intercultural learning. Maine: Intercultural Press.

Smith, C. A. (1993). The peaceful classroom: 162 easy ways to teach preschoolers compassion and cooperation. Beltsville, MD: Gryphon House.

Warner, B. (1991). Orff schulwerk: Applications for the classroom. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Suggested Readings on the History of Education in South Africa 

Allais, C., & McKay, V. (Eds.). (1995). A sociology of educating. Johannesburg, South Africa: Lexicon Publishers.

Christie, P. (1991). The right to learn: The struggle for education in South Africa. Pretoria, South Africa: The Sached Trust.

Hartshorne, K. (1992). Crisis and challlenge: Black education 1910-1990. Cape Town, South Africa: Oxford University Press.

Kallaway, P., Kruss, G., Fataar, A., & Donn, G. (Eds.). (1997). Education after apartheid. South African education in transition. Cape Town, South Africa: University of Cape Town Press.

Nasson, B., & Samuel, J. (1990). Education: From poverty to liberty. Cape Town, South Africa: David Philip.

Christo Potgieter and Esther Bredenkamp are Communication in Diversity Consultants, Pretoria, South Africa.