Our Photography Workshop

On Monday last week Jennifer, D.J., and I taught and set up a photography workshop for “twenty” high school students in Cape Town. I put twenty in quotations because, in reality, closer to forty-five students showed up for our workshop. I was incredibly nervous, as this was not the type of work I generally participate in, but luckily it went very well. Other than one minor technological issue, the entire workshop went off without a hitch.

The first thing that became immediately apparent as the students arrived was, as our boss Mandy predicted, there would be no white students at the program. Thus I was not surprised, but I have thought about that topic a lot throughout our week of workshops.

Mandy frequently laments their inability to bring white students into their ever-growing group of students who frequent the museum’s programs, and I understand why. From my observations, it continues the mentality of “us” and “them.” For example, I remember during the night at the museum weekend programming with the primary school children, a young girl standing up and talking about how all white people supported apartheid because it benefited them. Mandy was quick to point out that this was not true, although she correctly did not deny that they all benefited whether they liked it or not.

I believe, as Mandy does, that the best way to educate these students about how a unified, and diverse, group can make a difference is to find a way to incorporate white students into these programs as well. It would obviously help the white children’s education, but I also think it would be good for the other students to add white students that truly care about these issues to the mix. Maybe I am just being optimistic by believing that they exist, but I wish I knew how to help Mandy seek them out.

However, I do understand why some of the current students may believe that white students do not have a place in these programs, and at a few times I felt a little bit out of place myself. This mainly was due to the fact that we were often teaching these students about their own culture, which frankly was kind of embarrassing for us as we believed they knew so much more than we did. While we may have felt this way, the students were incredibly welcoming to us and they appeared to be way more appreciative of our effects than angry about the mistakes we had here and there. Despite my nerves, these workshops were an amazing opportunity to interact with the local youth and hopefully teach them a few things that they can use in their lives.