Education Studies – Essay Writing – Education Studies Assignment Help

Assignment Task

Address the following questions:

-In the article, Waghid puts forward the following question: “How does the Manifesto relate to existing ideas on democratic citizenship education?” Critically discuss his responses to this question and support your arguments by referencing relevant examples from South African context.

-Briefly explain the views of the author on what he terms ‘blind patriotism’. What are your responses to what he sees as problematic with blind patriotism? 

-What ideas on Patriotism and Democratic Citizenship can you draw from this article that can be useful to you as a preservice teacher in your practice? Giving practical examples, discuss how you would use these ideas to teach citizenship education in schools.

We hang on to our values, even if they seem at times tarnished and worn as a nation and in our own lives, we have betrayed them more often that we care to remember. Those values are our inheritance, it’s what makes us who we are as people. The key to educational reform in post-apartheid South Africa was to undo historical and racially-based inequalities, while simultaneously implementing an education system that would cultivate a citizenship education necessary for a democratic society. Democratic South Africa was in need of an education system that would instil the values critical for a humane and socially just society. In this essay I will be responding to the article by South African history brings another uncomfortable dimension as schools were previously segregated, and so were teachers and teaching. Teachers taught in schools that matched their racial and ethnic identity. While there were indeed exceptions, whereby “white” teachers taught in “coloured,” “black” or “Indian” schools, “white” learners would never have been taught by any other than a “white” teacher. The Manifesto stipulates that there is “no intention to impose values, but to generate discussion and debate, and to acknowledge that discussion and debate are values in themselves” (DoE 2001b, 3). Instead, the Manifesto recognises that values, which transcend language and culture, are the common currency that makes life meaningful, and the normative principles that ensure ease of life lived in common (DoE 2001b, 3).
Values, as Asmal told the SAAMTREK conference, “cannot simply be asserted”. “They must be put on the table,” he argued, “be debated, be negotiated, be synthesised, be modified, be earned. And this process, this dialogue is in and of itself a value – perhaps a South African value – to be cherished.” What better way, he asked, “to teach this value than to teach the history of our negotiated settlement? And to teach that out of this negotiated settlement come the documents that form the foundation of our new, democratic value system – our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. Our values derive from these documents, and they are values we moulded, together, from our different heritages, our different positions in society.  We cannot treat them as an afterthought they should govern our lives and our relationships. They encapsulate what South Africans have desired for generations – a non-racial, non-sexist society based on equality, freedom and democracy.”
According to Waghid (2009), values, such as compassion, respect, acknowledging the other, responsibility, participation and inclusion, appear to be ideas that remain remote from what it means to teach and to learn. meaning and core ideas of many religious issues, moral, values and perceptions visible to society in other subjects and disciplines should be explored. The aim of this deliberative attitude towards learners’ learning is to empower them with thinking tools to make sound moral decisions and engage in moral behaviour. Issues of citizenship, morality, ethics and social justice in which religion can have an input can help to strengthen and support a religiously just society with a respect for diversity. At the same time creating safe spaces for student’s citizenship are important in shaping how students engage. 
Citizenship education aims to instil respect for others and recognition of the equality of all, and attempt to combat all forms of discrimination by fostering a spirit of tolerance and peace. It includes educating people in citizenship and human rights through an understanding of the principles and institutions; learning to exercise one’s judgement and critical faculty; and acquiring a sense of individual and community responsibility (Meyer, 1995).