Defining moments

Yesterday in the middle of my Postcolonial Literature class, a class that has spent three solid weeks reading and discussing and writing about literature by twentieth-century African authors, a senior in the back raised his hand and asked, "What's apartheid?"

I covered my consternation by turning around to write "apartheid" on the whiteboard, and I vividly recalled the time I had asked the same question. I pronounced it "apar-thade," but I was in eighth grade at the time and I was a reader, not a talker. I don't recall now where I had encountered the term, but I asked a classmate to define "apartheid" and she gave me a look I'd seen before--the glare of consternation she wore whenever I provided further evidence of my mis-spent youth--and then she corrected my pronunciation and explained the concept. I've often wondered what ever happened to Diana: if any eighth-grader was cut out for a career in teaching, she's the one.

I thought of her as I was writing "apartheid" on the whiteboard and then I turned to the class and asked for enlightenment, which, thankfully, they were able to provide. But how did we get through three weeks of reading and writing and discussing (including a major reading assignment establishing the historical context) without a clear understanding of such an essential concept? And, more importantly, how did a student manage to make it to his senior year of college without knowing the meaning of the word? Where have I gone wrong--and how do I make it right again?

I wish Diana were here. She would know.