EDUCATION: Jonathan Jansen’s Worth the Fight — Fixing failure in SA schools
The renowned professor of education explores classroom transformation in his latest book.
Education professor Jonathan Jansen's latest book, "Worth the Fight," explores the transformation of an underperforming school on South Africa's Cape Flats. Jansen, a well-known public intellectual, initially set out to collaborate with a principal to improve a school's academic results. However, he soon discovered that his assumptions about teaching, learning, and leading in working-class schools were misguided, and the story of change at this school was worth sharing more widely.
Jansen's observations led him to question the effectiveness of academic teachers who are often distant from the classroom, perpetuating inequality in South African primary and high schools. This realization sparked a research project, known as "sending professors back to school," which influenced colleagues to change how they prepare future teachers.
Jansen's investigation into Cherry High School revealed that its students mainly came from nearby Steenberg and Retreat or from Lavender Hill, Seawinds, and Hillview, areas characterized by poverty, trauma, and family instability. The school was plagued by dysfunction, as evidenced by a Grade 9 class where a student was reclining with both feet on his desk while the teacher continued to instruct.
Through a 22-month research journey using "live data," Jansen aimed to theorize about the causes of dysfunction in poor schools. He found that culture, not strategy, often determines whether reform succeeds or fails. Schools with unpredictable results are indicative of an unstable institutional culture that cannot be addressed through policy changes alone.
Key to Cherry High's turnaround were the quality and composition of its leadership team, a deliberate change strategy, cooperation with the education department, and the gradual inclusion of parents and alumni in the school community. Jansen emphasizes that no single intervention model is a panacea; success requires the convergence of sustained personal investment, mobilized resources, and committed local leadership.
To address the realities faced by students and teachers outside the classroom, Jansen proposes practical measures such as shortening the school day, providing proper nutrition, establishing consistent routines, practicing a "pedagogy of love," and maintaining good teacher and student welfare. He stresses that teacher and student wellbeing are inseparable from academic success.
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