What we learnt about Apartheid

How we imagine black people felt under Apartheid in South Africa

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Apartheid by Rory Mc Namee, 4^th class.

Our teacher, Jennifer recently taught us about Apartheid. I was gob smacked that this actually happened and had only been stopped recently. We did loads of fun activities to help us learn about Apartheid in South Africa. I particularly enjoyed when we created freeze frames depicting the difference between the black and white people. Jen tapped us on the shoulder and we had to say what our character was thinking. This was fun and helped me understand how people were feeling in those times. I also really enjoyed learning about Nelson Mandela because he’s really cool and he is a hero for black South Africans.

Apartheid by Tia Wade, 4^th Class

Our teacher, Jennifer, recently taught us about apartheid. I was shocked to find out that black-skinned people were not treated the same as white-skinned people! I think that this was so unfair just because they had a different skin colour. Sometimes white people kept black people as slaves. Slaves are people who work for no money. I really enjoyed when we made a silhouette of a black an white person and we stuck on words to describe how they might have felt at that time. I really like learning about apartheid. Did you know that Nelson Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999!

Apartheid by Ann-Elise Clinton, 4^th class.

Our teacher, Jennifer Gallen was teaching us about Apartheid and how coloured people were treated unfairly. We did a lot of activities about this. My favourite activity was when we made a silhouette of a coloured person and a white person then we stuck words on them saying how we thought they felt. Then we made posters you might have seen during apartheid saying things like ‘White Café Only’ and ‘No Blacks Allowed Here’. Then we made a big banner with Nelson Mandela’s slogan ‘I have cherished the ideal of a free society’ and decorated it in fabric and fibre. I am so glad that apartheid doesn’t happen anymore.

Apartheid by Alessio Meurs, 4^th class

Jennifer, our teacher, decided to teach us all about Apartheid. I felt very angry that coloured people were treated so unequally. We did freeze frames in drama where we froze in different poses and our class had to guess what we were depicting. Jen tapped us on the shoulder and we had to say what our character might be thinking. I loved this part the most. We made posters saying things like ‘Water Fountain for Whites Only’ and ‘Step off the path if a white person approaches’. Jen read to us about Neslon Mandela’s time in prison. He was in jail for 27 years and released in 1990. We wrote letters pretending we were prisoners too and described the jail conditions. Finally we decorated Nelson Mandela’s slogan ‘I have cherished the ideal of a free society’ using fabric and fibre. I thought it was interesting and fun.