teaching tips

TIPS FOR TEACHERS

BY KHALIL OSIRIS
All my life (I grew up during the height
of the American struggle for civil rights)
I have been taught that education is the
key to having a better quality of life.

for blaming others was over. My maximum sentence was 75

years. Given that I was 25 and on my way back to prison, the
choices that I would make going forward would truly be a
matter of life and death.
In prison, ones options are diminished. But there was a
national movement afoot at the time to use education in
prisons as a way of reducing recidivism. Boston University
was committed to the prison education movement and sent
some of its top professors to provide us with an opportunity
to earn a world-class education. It was decided that the only
major offered to us was a liberal arts degree. Their reasoning
was that this was a degree befitting free men. It was the
intention of all those who designed and
offered this programme and
asked of us a commitment
bigger than ourselves, that we
should see ourselves as free
human beings and use this
freedom to transform our lives
in the midst of incarceration.
That experience showed me
how to take abstract ideas and
apply them in a way that I was
able not just to help myself, but
to help others as well.

t sounded good, it seemed to make sense, but I was

increasingly unclear as a young person what this meant
practically for me.
During the civil rights struggle, there emerged a more
radical ideology embodied in the
Black Panther Party for Self
Defence (BPPSD).1 BPPSD
came into my area and targeted
seven- to 14-year-olds to
participate in its community
mobilisation. I became a youth
organiser, and it was the first
time in my life that I and my
peers had been asked directly
what we thought about the
struggle, social injustice and
what our role should be
therein. This had a profound
effect on me.
Meeting the Mandelas
Not long after the party
I originally came to South Africa
started its free breakfast
in 2011 with a group of recording
programme, free health clinic Nelson Mandela: an example
to millions arou
nd the world artists from New Orleans for the
movement and political
Joy of Jazz festival.2 My role was to
education classes, the party came under attack by the US
work with the artists to identity social causes that were being
government and eventually was crushed, leaving a generation
addressed through local community organisations. Many of
of youth like me all dressed up for the revolution but with
the musicians wanted to make a difference in South Africa
nowhere to go. So, having been fed a steady diet of antibeyond their music. In the course of travelling around the
establishment ideology, I did not have the maturity to act on
country, I had the opportunity to visit some schools and
that ideology in a principled way, and it was then that I
prisons, and it was during my visit to Leeuwkop prison in
started to justify criminal behaviour.
Gauteng that I had an epiphany. It stemmed from a
I became so involved in juvenile delinquency that by the
relationship I developed with Makaziwe Mandela while I
age of 17, instead of going to university, I was on my way to
was in Norfolk Prison Colony in America. At the time,
prison. It was 1976. I served five years and, by the time I got
Mandela was working on her studies at the University of
out, I had received a prison education. Within three years I
Massachusetts Amherst, and I was working on my studies
was rearrested, and when the judge sentenced me, he said:
with Boston University in the prison education programme.
Young man, you have the potential to be sitting here today
Norfolk is the same prison where Malcolm X served time
hearing this in a capacity similar to my own. But you chose
and Martin Luther King Jnr (MLK) earned his doctorate
to be here today as a criminal defendant and you have
degree.3 Having been a youth organiser with the BPPSD,
squandered your gifts.
these two great freedom fighters and their life experiences
Never too late to learn
and commitments to social justice helped to shape my view
What I recognised in that statement was a truth I needed to
of my own contribution that I could make to my community
hear. In so doing, it became crystal clear to me that the time
and American society. So, I had the opportunity to write to

44

Independent Education Autumn 14

Dr Martin Luth
er King Jr deliv
ers one of his
famous speech
es

Nelson Mandela through his daughter Makaziwe.

By that time, Malcolm X and MLK had both been
assassinated, leaving Mandela as the only living
breathing example of the need for continued
principled struggle, and I was inspired by his
example. My question was: how was he spending
his time in prison? It became clear to me that he
was educating himself and using that education to
the benefit of others. So, I applied that to my own
journey with two core principles which guided
the rest of my incarceration. Principle 1: Dont
break the rules. Principle 2: Turn the cell into a
classroom and the prison into a university.
Keeping a promise
That was in 1987. So, my epiphany was a
remembering of that commitment. Twelve years
after my release from Norfolk Prison, I had done
well for myself personally, socially and financially.
Oftentimes when we find ourselves in crisis, we
tend to make promises that when the challenge of
the situation is gone we soon forget. My being in
South Africa was and remains a remembering and
a fulfilling of a commitment made at a time of deep
crisis in my personal life, as well as an honouring of
the sacrifice made by Mandela and countless others
who paid the price for freedom and democracy.
It is often difficult to understand how young
people respond to this legacy. Every school is a
microcosm of the larger society and all behaviour is
learned. Misbehaviour can be unlearned. Positive
behaviour must be modelled, practised and
reinforced.
Now, having said that, I believe there is a lack of
awareness of the connection between the violence
of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s in South
Africa much of it involving the parents of today
and the increasing violence in our schools and

Independent Education Autumn 14

45

I became so involved in
juvenile delinquency that
by the age of 17, instead
of going to university, I
was on my way to prison.
It was 1976.
communities currently. Our children learned violence from
parents who came through a very turbulent time themselves;
who responded to injustice and victimisation ultimately
without understanding the long-term societal implications.
The only question that matters is: where do we go from here?
School-wide system of support
Positive Behavioural Interventions and Supports (PBIS)
Africa provides a school-wide system of support that includes
proactive strategies for teaching, modelling, practising and
reinforcing appropriate learner behaviour to create positive
school environments. A continuum of positive behavioural
support for all learners within a school is implemented in
areas including the classroom, non-classroom settings and
shared spaces (such as hallways, buses and toilet areas). In
addition, parents are consciously targeted and provided with
practical ways to support their childs school experience in the
home environment.
PBIS Africa replaces rules with values and clearly defines
behavioural expectations. Teachers and parents work together
to teach, model, practise and reinforce behaviour based on
three core values:
1. Be safe.
2. Be respectful.
3. Be responsible.
These values are effective in achieving immediate positive
behaviour when teachers, learners and parents are trained to
apply them in various situations, both within and outside
school.
The PBIS programme has been successfully implemented
in a growing number of schools in the USA, particularly in
New Orleans, and is now operating in South Africa.
Its a question of legacies
My decision to move to Africa to do this work is because this
is a unique opportunity to stand on the shoulders of giants.
How we respond to the growing challenges of building safe
schools to educate a generation to fulfil the promise of
democracy requires each of us to find our unique opportunity
to participate. What I know to be true is that our individual

46

Independent Education Autumn 14

Whilst serving
a prison term,
Khalil Osiris de
change his life
cided to
and the lives
of others

responses to the challenges of the day say more about each of

us than about the other person.
I was 17 years old when I first went to prison. I reiterate
that because I want my readers to understand that it is never
too early to start a dialogue with young people about the
contribution they can make to their community and society,
which more often than not will be informed by their level of
education. I was 40 years old when I was released from
prison. And the fact that I did not allow my 20 years of
incarceration to disadvantage me is evidence that it is never
too late to make that contribution. For me, I am going to
spend the rest of my life working in schools and prisons
doing what Ghandi taught being the change I want to see
in the world.4 And I invite you to do the same. 
Professor Khalil Osiris is our Tips for Teachers columnist
for 2014. He is founder of The Circle of Courage Mentoring
Programme (COCMP), a positive behavioural support
model through which he is bringing PBIS to schools to
decrease disciplinary challenges. He conducts workshops
with parents and teachers, as well as doing long-term school
teacher development training. He also provides
interventions with at-risk learners.
References:
1. See for example: http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rightsmovement and http://libcom.org/library/the-black-panther-party-for-selfdefense.
2. See, for example, http://www.joyofjazz.co.za/index.asp.
3. See, for example,
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/05/19/Malcolmx.king/.
4. See, for example, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/opinion/falserwords-were-never-spoken.html?_r=0.