Polly Slingers a true revolutionary, a giant of Trafalgar High School

Shortly after Polly Slingers, a former history teacher at Trafalgar High School, died on Monday, aged 91, principal Nadeem Hendricks typed a farewell message to him in capital letters.

“Hamba kahle to a giant of Trafalgar,” Hendricks wrote.

“Slingers died with his integrity intact and his boots on. He was an unrelenting revolutionary for truth and justice. He was a true giant and an untainted humanitarian.”

Anyone who attended Trafalgar High School in the sad, turbulent 1950s and ‘60s will speak with gratitude about the corps of dedicated teachers who went far beyond simply trying to impart knowledge.

In many ways, their main purpose was to “conscientise” their pupils and to prepare them for freedom.

And to a large extent they succeeded.

Many would argue that best among the best remembered of a list of teachers who included Ernie Steenveldt, AE Lennert, Solly Edross, Vernie Hoffman and Cynthia Fisher, was Slingers.

At a time when the apartheid jackboot was marching unhindered across the country, seeking to crush all opposition, educators had to tread carefully to avoid being detained, transferred or simply sacked.

The most committed and fearless teachers in this respect were members of the Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA), an organisation aligned to the Non-European Unity Movement (later to be renamed the New Unity Movement).

Slingers, a member of the TLSA, taught history. In terms of the syllabus, it was one of the most difficult subjects to teach during the apartheid era.

It was difficult because National Party functionaries had instructed South African history to be written from a white, Christian Afrikaner point of view.

And yet Slingers was able to navigate these difficult waters, and instil in his charges a love of history and an appreciation of the role played by all South Africans in the troubles and triumphs of the past.

In his blog, “Trafalgar High School in the Sixties”, former pupil and former Cape Herald journalist Warren Ludski wrote yesterday: “It is with a sense of sadness and deep regret that I learned of the passing of Polly Slingers, one of the most highly regarded educators to have graced Cape Town’s teaching profession and one to whom I will forever be indebted

for helping to shape my thinking.

“He was my teacher, a mentor, unofficial guidance counsellor for a sometimes wayward student and, most important, a ‘conscientiser’. In his teaching he made me aware of the

history that really mattered.

“I can say, without equivocation, ‘Polly’ Slingers was the standout history teacher at Trafalgar in the late Fifties and Sixties,” Ludski wrote.

What made him such an inspirational teacher?

He was like all the others - from maths to science, from history to geography and from English to Afrikaans - in being able to convince pupils not just to accept what was written in their textbooks.

Slingers and other teachers inspired pupils to reject National Party propaganda.

They inspired pupils to question everything - and to seek alternative facts elsewhere.

“He gave his classes a history lesson that helped shaped their lives beyond Trafalgar,” said Ludski.

As increasing numbers of teachers fell under the punitive gaze of the apartheid authorities, Slingers quit teaching in 1966, to pursue a new career in business.

But he remained a popular figure in teaching circles.