Reverend (Doctor) Vuyisile Sonti’s journey dates back to 1998 when he completed his teaching diploma at the then East Rand College of Education.
He started teaching in 1986 at Hulwazi secondary school in Daveyton. He later joined Rolihlahla primary school in Etwatwa, when that community established its schools in defiance of the apartheid regime that refused to give black people land to build houses and schools. Rolihlahla and W. J Mpengesi primary schools were established in 1992 under the motion “Operation–Siyahloma” lead by the Etwatwa Civic Organization. Vuyisile became the first Principal of W.J Mpengesi.
In 2003 whilst at Mpengesi he had a calling to ministry. He then registered with TEE College and studied BA in theology in that particular year, “Which I could say I was already planning to answer my calling and planning to exit my teaching career,” Rev Dr Vuyisile stated. He then left teaching (as Principal) at the end of 2013, after obtaining his Honors degree in Practical Theology from the University of Pretoria. On the 2nd of February 2014, he was then appointed as a Priest in charge of Manche Masemola Parish of Spruitview by the Anglican Church – Diocese of the Highveld, till to date.
Rev Sonti went on with his studies till he got his Master’s degree in 2016. His Thesis was on “Bullying of Educators by Learners: A Pastoral Challenge.”
On the 14th of April 2021, the University of Pretoria conferred with him about a PhD degree in practical theology. His dissertation is “The Impact of Izikhothane Youth Sub-Culture on Parents: A Pastoral Challenge”. Rev Dr Sonti focuses on social ills related to the younger generation of our society, trying to find ways and means by which they could address these. As a priest, he found practical Theology to be relevant.
Prof M.J Masango (his Supervisor at U. P) describes Practical Theology as a “Space where one enters the life of a troubled soul and journey with him/her towards healing by listening, by loving and caring without interrogating him or her (Masango M.J, 2003). Rev Sonti, unpacks Practical Theology as a study whereby a priest or a pastor would learn skills to implement sermons rather than preach. Practical Theology empowers us to move out of the pulpit and meet the people where they are, as they face all the different social ills in our communities. Our responsibility is to journey with them as they heal and not to judge them. We expect practical Theologians to respond to people’s spiritual and physical needs.An example of that is “When Jesus Christ was with a crowd that was following him, he observed that the people were hungry, he didn’t pray, nor preach: yes, he was going to teach them that day, but he sat the people down and fed them,” (Matthew 14: 13 to21), that is practical theology, Sonti explained.
Rev Dr Sonti’s concern is the high rate of bullying in our schools and he believes that the involvement of the priests or Pastors is important in assisting all other school stakeholders in dealing with bullying in our schools. “Bullying is a repeated aggressive behaviour to hurt the recipient. The negative use of power manifests over those who are weaker or vulnerable. The one who has power targets the weaker victim.”
In a school, a bully could be a learner, a teacher or even a parent. The Rev explained that Bullying has very distractive effects on society. It may lead to depression and trauma on the affected party. Some Children often drop out of school or commit suicide because of bullies, whilst some teachers have left teaching silently because of being bullied by learners, parents or colleagues. Different kinds bullying happen in our schools, physical hitting or beating is not the only one, Name calling, teasing, touting and threatening are a few.
Bullying has many causes, the most prominent one is anger that develops through failure to deal with the social challenges one experiences or experienced, for example, divorce or abuse.
Scholars like Rev Sonti agree that poverty fuels bullying tendencies in our country because most of our social ills in the townships directly result from the painful history we experienced before 1994. These townships are overpopulated, schools are overcrowded, when everyone is fighting for his or her space, the one with more power is most likely to get what they want through exercising their power negatively on the weaker ones. “South Africa is a violent country; we are an angry nation, and that on its own fuels bullying, some children learn violent behaviours from their parents,” Sonti states. The failure for us to curb bullying might be because we are reactive rather than being preventative. We need to strengthen the existing bullying policies and strategies to prevent incidents of bullying from occurring. We need to come up with bullying eliminating exercises and skills, the starting point to implementing these is through Bystanders who are always near the incidents.
Most times, victims of bullying incidents avoid coming forward to report those cases. They feel ashamed and belittled in public; they wish for the incident to happen fast and be forgotten quickly by everyone, hoping that it won’t happen to them again. On the other side, the perpetrator will always pick on such victims who are not even strong to cry out for help, thus bullying becomes a repeated act. The department of education expects the educators’ reaction to being above the student’s action. Bullied teachers die in-silence, because they may not defend themselves. School regulations and policies force them to follow procedures in all circumstances.
Rev Sonti is currently rewriting his thesis into a book. He believes the book will help schools detect bullies at an early stage and help them deal with their anger before they hurt others.
A bully is the one who needs help most; he or she is a wounded hunter moving around the school, looking for weaker prey to revenge on.
Rev Dr Vuyisile Sonti alludes to the fact that bullying in boarding schools was a norm. He remembers back when he was a student at St John’s College in Umtata. New students underwent initiation whether they wanted to take part or not. The ritual by old students to new ones was official. The following year, those bullied the previous year, bullying the newcomers, doing the same initiation act on the newcomers. Rev Sonti echoes the sentiments of many researchers when he says, “It is easy and common for a bullied person to become a bully himself or herself.”
In schools, we need school counsellors, psychologists or priest in dealing with trauma. We could refer bullied educators to psychologists linked with school issues. “We have been having these incidents in our schools for too long. They are deadly and lead to loss of life. Our communities are to live a traumatised life. If there’s a way, I request the department of education to lead us and call for a conference that would look at ways TO PREVENT AND NOT DEAL with bullying in our schools,” Rev Sonti proclaimed.
Practical Theologians have studied different methodologies that can help “The Positive Deconstruction method by Nick Pollard” is one example to explore and I believe it will yield excellent results in our schools. In our schools, we must introduce literature material that builds one’s character. Books like “Raising Champions” by N. N Molapo are such books. (One could reach Rev Dr Sonti at 082 953 8598 or email: vuyisilesonti@gmail.com).
By Karabo Lekgwate
