It is, as always, a very real pleasure to welcome you, and to present the annual report of the Speech and Drama Association of South Africa at this, its eighty-second Annual General Meeting.
How would someone, born in 1943, face a group of young people today? What should a 82-year-old know about teaching them or adjudicating them? Or, indeed, any of us present? When I started teaching, I was aware of what I had to teach, and learnt how to teach it. Knowledge seemed stable, to be found in textbooks, and able to be tested. For the four years I taught in schools, the curriculum never changed.
But, according to Yuval Noah Harari, author of the international bestsellers, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, “Nobody really knows what the world and the job market will look like in 2040, hence nobody knows what to teach young people today. Consequently, it is likely that most of what you currently learn at school will be irrelevant by the time you are 40.”
Albert Einstein, one of, if not the greatest minds of the last century, said: “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he [or she] learned in school.” I am going to return again to what Einstein said and wrote to support what we do and believe.
Harari maintains that life has been traditionally separated into two basic parts: in the first part, one develops “a stable identity and acquire[s] personal and professional skills”; in the second part, one relies on one’s “identity and skills to navigate the world, earn a living, and contribute to society”. But within the next 15 years that traditional model will be obsolete, the world will be very different, the rate of change is likely to accelerate even faster, and the only way to keep up one has continue learning and continually reinvent oneself, even at age 60.
Harari therefore advises that one should focus on personal resilience and emotional intelligence, because change is most often stressful and, after a certain time in life, most of us don’t want or like to change. In one’s youth, everything is naturally changing, developing, in flux: body, mind, relationships, as one invents oneself. By middle age, one wants stability, not change. However, in the present day, that is no longer a possible luxury. If you “try to hold onto some stable identity, some stable job, some stable worldview, you will be left behind, and the world will fly by you.” Extreme resilience and emotional balance will be necessary to cope with this unstable world, and with very high levels of stress.
But can one be taught emotional intelligence and resilience? Harari doubts that; they cannot be learnt from reading or listening to a lesson. In addition, he believes that current educational models are outdated, and warns young people to not trust what we adults learnt about economics, politics, or relationships because that is as obsolete.
Harari’s views are extracted from Tribe of Mentors: Short life advice from the best in the world, compiled by Timothy Ferriss. Ferris sent the same list of questions to more than 100 ‘mentors’, including top astrophysicists, authors, actors, athletes, entrepreneurs, motivational speakers, and inventors, to ask their secrets for success, happiness and meaning. The above was Harari’s answer to the question, “What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about… the ‘real’ world. What advice should they ignore?”
In answering the second question, Harari warns against trusting technology too much:
You must make technology serve you, instead of you serving it. If you aren’t careful, technology will start dictating your aims and enslaving you to its agenda… We are living in the era of hacking humans. Once [technology, corporations and governments] know you better than you know yourself, they could control and manipulate you and you won’t even realize it.
Tribe of Mentors was published 8 years ago; personally, from my own experience of what appears on Facebook, Pinterest, and many of the Apps on my cell phone, Harai’s warning has come to pass.
In the last century, Einstein, had already foreseen the very issues we face today: “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots”.
If current education will become irrelevant, what should young people include in their studies? Because the classes she took in digital circuits have long become outdated, Ann Miuro-Ko (described as the most powerful woman in investment technology), advises young people to fill their minds with courses in the Humanities, as she found their lessons on “fundamental human nature [are] timeless”, lessons she still draws on.
In support of her ideas, Lewis Cantley (a pioneer in cancer research), warns against pursuing a profession where you believe there are many opportunities to make the most money, as it is impossible to “predict what will be the best profession 4 years from now… Technologies and infrastructures are changing at an unprecedented rate”. Instead, if a young person is unsure of their talent, he advises, as he did, to choose an education in the Humanities, as it taught him “the best skill… to be able to communicate efficiently both in writing and speaking”.
Surveys repeatedly indicate that employers give priority to applicants with good communication skills. In the firm belief that Speech and Drama is “a basic tool in the development of all children’s powers of thought, imagination and communication”, Professor Elizabeth Sneddon established the Speech and Drama Association in 1943. We must continue to uphold her belief, with the same indefatigable energy and relentless persistence, that one’s power to communicate is vital to life in terms of health, in terms of creativity, and in terms of the acquisition of knowledge.
A former student, now a lawyer at an international legal practice wrote to me to say: “Everyone needs to communicate well, and if they want to communicate well, they need to understand the power of language, both the spoken and the physical. Drama gave me that power, so that when I speak, people listen.”
What should teachers aim to instil? “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge”, Einstein believed.
And it is the art of the supreme teacher not only in the so-called art subjects: “You can be creative in anything – in math, science, engineering, philosophy – as much as you can in music or in painting or in dance,” wrote Sir Ken Robinson, British author, speaker and international advisor on education in the arts, acknowledged as one of “the world's elite thinkers on creativity and innovation”, and ranked in the list of the world's top business thinkers. In 2003, he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts.
Steve Jurvetson (then Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship), believes we should “celebrate the childlike mind”. Sadly, as one grows, to be called ‘childlike’ is derogatory. As regrettably, the words that we use when we speak of drama, like ‘play’ and ‘act’, the very activities that are fundamental to personal growth in one’s formative years, become suspect with age.
But, as Jurvetson points out, “the best scientists and engineers nurture a childlike mind. They are playful, open-minded, and unrestrained by the inner voice of reason, collective cynicism, or fear of failure.”
Hence my focus on Einstein, who also maintained that, “Play is the highest form of research.” One of the major conclusions of Scientist in the Crib, by Alison Gopnik, is that babies are just plain smarter than we are, at least if being smart means being able to learn something new… They think, draw conclusions, make predictions, look for explanations and even do experiments… In fact, scientists are successful precisely because they emulate what children do naturally.
It has been found that, between the ages of 2 and 3, children have their highest synaptic interconnectivity, the ‘electric’ signals that link and communicate with one neuron (or nerve cell) and another. In fact, at that age, children have 10 times the synapses and twice the energy activity of adult brains.
Jurvetson believes that from there, “it’s all downhill”. The Memory and Aging Centre at the University of California, San Francisco, has measured the rate of cognitive decline, and found that there is no difference between our 40s and in our 80s: “We just notice more accumulated decline as we get older, especially when we cross the threshold of forgetting most of what we try to remember.”
There is hope, however. The Memory and Aging Centre found that it is possible to affect that progression, because their research showed that the brain’s ability to change its structure and function in response to experience, in other words, its “neural plasticity does not disappear in adults. It just requires mental exercise”. Jurvetson warns: “Use it or lose it… Embrace lifelong learning. Do something new”. Einstein warning was even stronger: “Once you stop learning you start dying.”
Another contributor to Tribe of Mentors (Drew Houston, the co-founder of Dropbox) told young people that, when he was 24, his attitude to life had been strongly influenced when he read about the number 30 000; “most people live for about 30 000 days – and [he] was shocked to find that [he] was already 8 000 days down”. When I found that out, I calculated that I have 3 040 days left. If there is any lesson to learn from that, it is that I “have to make every day count”.
A quotation that has always provoked me is by Pablo Picasso: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once they grow up.”
What happens to every child that prevents them from remaining an artist? Usually, at the onset of adolescence, young people begin the stage in art development known as “the crisis period”. For many it marks the end of their artistic development, because they become extremely critical of their work and frustrated at not being able to create what they feel are realistic representations, and so they give up original creation and personal expression. Further development of their powers to visualize and even their capacity for original thought and for relating themselves through personal feelings to their environment, could become blocked at this age. It is a crucial stage beyond which many adults have not advanced.
As a significant aside, more than 80% of our festivals take place in Primary Schools; to rephrase Picasso: “Every child is an actor, in the widest sense of the word. The problem is how to remain an actor once the child grows up.”
At about the same time of their lives and in their education, young people are compelled to make decisions about subject choices which will affect their career choices, influenced by their parents and their guidance counsellors. We know the sorts of questions parents and pupils ask: “Why should my daughter – or son - study Art, when there aren’t many career prospects?”, and “What use is Drama to me when I intend to become an accountant or an engineer or a lawyer?”
For years, the Minister of Education has placed stress on and demanded improvement in the gateway subjects such as Mathematics and Science and Technology. Such vocational and technicist attitudes are widespread. So much so that young people are advised against studying the arts. Career supplements in local newspapers aimed at prospective students advise them to “Forget Shakespeare and study shareholder value, ditch classical literature and concentrate on corporate culture.”
Ken Robinson believed that “Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not – because the thing they were good at, at school, wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatized.”
And the decrease in the number of festivals in high schools may well be attributed to the strengthening of such attitudes: a decade ago, in 2014, 12 festivals were held in high schools and 15 in colleges, compared to 5 in 2024.
Speech and Drama was only accepted on the Standard Grade by the Joint Matriculation Board in 1977; the culmination of 37 years of striving for the subject to be accepted, and a further 4 years to be accepted on the Higher Grade, an effort Professor Sneddon described as “like moving a mountain”.
Our syllabi had an “Open category”, for which I would select items, but over time there were fewer and fewer entrants, some years none, and so it was decided to discontinue that section of the syllabus.
But we know that our country needs a society that is literate and imaginative, skilled and creative. We know the value of the arts remains unchanged; in fact, I maintain that their value is even more necessary now than ever before. As Einstein claimed, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
Creativity needs to be fostered and utilised and give joy and encouraged not only for young people, and in education, but throughout our lives. It isn’t entirely true that, even if Ken Robinson believed “passionately that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out of it.” On a positive note, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have,” is a quotation by Maya Angelou that I have often referred to.
A review of the year indicates both what we have achieved, who has benefited from our mission, and how we have fostered creativity in schools. I am very proud to report that, in the last year, the total number of festivals held was 86 (71 in primary schools, 5 in high schools, 7 in combined schools, and with 3 studios participating), 8 more than in 2023. Let us hope the growth trend keeps reaching pre-Covid 19 years. As an aside, ten years before, in 2014, 117 festivals were held, 10 schools joined the association). Pleasingly, however, Waterfall College and Carlyle College joined in 2024.
Extending our membership is vital, given the fact that, in these straitened financial times, schools may not be able to participate annually. In the past year, members of the committee have marketed the benefits of joining the Association. Our most sincere thanks to Les Coull for bringing in St Henry’s, Marist College, and Philippa for Northlands Primary. These were ‘dormant” schools who hadn’t entered since Covid, and have new convenors.
In February an Adjudicators’ Workshop was held at the Manning Road offices, attended by 8 adjudicators (Margie Marnewick, David Spiteri, Philippa Savage, Carla Tate, Carmen O’Donoghue, Tracy Laubscher, Carien Wandrag and Rosanne Hurly-Coyne); this was highly successful, and the focus on report writing and standards of grading will continue to be useful. Our thanks here must be extended Rosanne for arranging the workshop and venue.
The success of our festivals would not have been possible without the involvement of the 19 adjudicators who worked and for the association during 2024. We are indeed fortunate to have a loyal and dedicated panel of adjudicators who can provide their services throughout KwaZulu-Natal and, increasingly, elsewhere in our country. To each of you, our deepest thanks; you are one of the principle means by which the value of speech and drama is fostered and maintained. Sadly, Seren Coetzee and family have emigrated; nevertheless, we welcome the following new adjudicators and look forward to a close and fulfilling relationship with you: Tracy Laubscher and Carien Wandrag, and Carmen O’Donohue, who we are pleased has rejoined the panel.
As importantly, given that they are two of the main ways of enhancing the benefits of speech and drama as an essential element of education, 8 staff workshops were held during 2024, with an estimated 135 people attending. Our gratitude must be extended to those who so willingly lead the workshops and share their expertise: Les Coull for the workshops at Cowan House, St Henry’s Junior Primary, and St Henry’s Senior Primary; Mbali Nguse for the workshop at North Coast Primary; Rosanne Hurly-Coyne and Sharon Carby for the workshop at Izotsha Primary; Margie Marnewick for the workshop at St Raphael’s; and Margie Marnewick and David Spiteri for the combined workshop attended by staff from St Monica’s, Bergview College, King Edward, and Focused High.
As an indication of the Association’s concern that as many young people as possible benefit from participation in the festivals, in 2024, SADASA subsidised 2 schools, for a total of R5 400, Berg Street Primary (R3 400) and Rosehill Primary (R2 000). Again, as a means of comparison, in 2014, subsidies to schools amounted to R2 135, far less than in the past, owing to a lack of funding, despite the fact that there was in increase in the number of free entries, to 378 free entries which, at R15 per entry, amounted to R5 670.
Given our belief in the value of Speech and Drama for everyone, we have to pursue funding as much as we can, so as not to exclude those who cannot afford to participate, and to offset SADASA’s running costs. In April, we received a letter from the Concord Trust, stating that our application for funding was successful, and that an amount of R400 000 had been granted by the Trustees (a substantial increase from the R100 000 awarded in 2014). Rosanne has written to thank Concord Trust, profusely, but I think it appropriate for us to rise and give them a standing ovation.
In 2024, bursary donations were received from Durban Preparatory High School (an amount of R3 500 awarded to Thomas Walker), and Westville Senior Primary (R500 each awarded to Kukhanya Xulu, Kylah Hattingh, Kaya Moodley, and Siphosethu Zondo). Margaret Marnewick selected Tao Hudnett (Rosehill Primary) and very kindly offered 2 terms free tuition.
SADASA bursaries are awarded annually, and last year, the recipients were Wenzile Zuma from Berg Street Primary (the Hazel Meyer Bursary; Makanaka Mudzudza from Glenmore Primary (the Jilian Hurst Bursary); and Inothando Gebe from King Edward High (the Elizabeth Sneddon Bursary), each receiving a bursary for R1 100, totalling R3 300. (As an indication of the rise in costs, in 2014, the Association awarded bursaries to the value of R1 300.)
The Bruce Piper Monologue Competition was held in October at Cowan House for the second time. There were 10 candidates from 5 schools: Dundee High, Grosvenor Girls’ High, King Edward High, Port Shepstone High, and Wembley College. Our gratitude must be extended to Mr Derek Braans, and Mrs Julie Meikleljohn for the privilege of using such a beautiful venue; particular thanks to Julie Meiklejohn, who so ably acted as my co-adjudicator. The winner was Tina Nyembezi (from King Edward High), and the runner-up was Nokwazi Nyandeni (from Dundee High). Including a runner-up was a very good idea, and makes the final choice easier.
In July, in the best interests of the Association, the office moved from the Berea to new premises at the Burnside Office Park, in Hillcrest, which have proved to be most suitable and convenient. (2014 also saw another move for the office; to the office block at Davenport Square.) Thank you, Rosanne, and Chris, for so efficiently and seemingly effortlessly, making the move. Thank you too, to the Sharks Business centre, and Mandy Wright in particular, for the use of a comfortable and well-appointed venue for our meetings before the move.
Important as Professor Elizabeth Sneddon’s vision was of the use of speech and drama as vital to education, a vision is abstract. No vision can be realised in concrete terms without the finances to sustain it, and no vision can last without the right people to support it. Some of those people are present, and I pay tribute to my colleagues on the Executive Committee for their ongoing service to the mission we believe in: Margie Marnewick, our most able Vice-Chairman, and alphabetically by surname, Brett Beiles, Lesley Coull, Mbali Nguse, Philippa Savage, David Spiteri, and Jean van Elden. Thank you so much for your valued support, for your belief in the vision, and for your continuing loyalty and commitment. At this meeting, we welcome Irene Govender, and hope your association with SADASA proves as beneficial to you as your contribution and expertise will no doubt be to us in the future.
Regretfully, two members resigned during 2024: Brett Beiles and David Spiteri. In both, we have lost loyal colleagues, adjudicators and friends. Brett was never one to stand in the spotlight, but he was also never in the wings; his unassuming presence belied the quietly spoken and perceptive advice proved to be so valuable on many occasions. David joined the committee 29 years ago, and only resigned because he has relocated to Cape Town. One theory of the meaning of David’s surname is that Spiteri means ‘stronger together’, and here we have to express our gratitude to David for his contribution over so many years: as a dedicated committee member, for his expertise as an adjudicator, for his vitally useful knowledge of fundraising, for frankly advising us about the financial procedures we should follow, for his understanding of changes in the education system, and his experience as a teacher and principal.
Brett and David, we thank you both sincerely, wish you the very best of health and happiness in the future, and hope that your new adventures are fulfilling in every way.
There is one person present who deserves special acknowledgement: Rosanne Hurly-Coyne, who exemplifies who we are and what we stand for. Rosanne, we are fully aware of your concrete achievements in the 2 years since your appointment as Festival Director, the meticulous planning and publicizing of meetings and events and workshops, the continuing quality and value of the website and The Platform, the visits you make to schools, the liaison work that is our ultimate connection with the beneficiaries of the vision, the meticulous handling of our finances which initially you found daunting, but all that is but a part of your ‘job description’, because there is so much more that you do for SADASA, selflessly and unstintingly, and with such genuine warmth and care. All we can do is sincerely express our gratitude, and on behalf of all those not here, including every young person who has benefited from what we do, thank you again and again.
I present this report to you for adoption, and thank you all for your kind attendance and attention.
Doctor Mervyn McMurtry
22 March 2025
Ferriss, Timothy. 2017. Tribe of Mentors: Short life advice from the best in the world. London: Penguin Random House