Fixing it, together. With humanity.

By Carel Nolte

I recently had the privilege of interviewing education royalty (and my high school headmaster) David Wylde at the UCT Summer School about his book We Can Fix It Together. Part memoir, part call to action, the book appeals to all South Africans to think long and hard about what we want our country to become – and how we can all be part of its development, specifically when it comes to education.

I was asked, in David’s words, to be a “questioner”. I felt two obligations. First, to honour David (and his wife, Ingrid). Second, not to bore anyone and give value for money to those giving up their Friday evenings to discuss the role of education.

The room itself mattered. Educators, friends, family, people who have walked parts of this journey closely, and others encountering David’s work for the first time. It meant a lot to me that a group of close friends and colleagues of mine – Kurt, Catie, Michele, Lisa and Ratna – were there to support. The diverse mix felt right, because this book does not sit neatly in one category. It resists being boxed. It was also delightful to chat to many former teachers, parents of friends and “old” connections from Saints. People who had a massive impact on my values and the person I am today.

The book is not a memoir in the conventional sense, and it is not a policy text either. It lives in a more uncomfortable and more honest space – between experience and reflection, between education and formation, between loss and meaning. It refuses easy answers. It does not shout or posture. It listens. In an education system, and a public discourse, that seems to reward certainty and noise, that restraint felt quite and quietly radical in the reading.

I, like many in the audience, read a lot, but this book surprised me. Not because of the biographical chapters – those are warm, curious, sometimes funny, full of school anecdotes, journeys and experiments – but because of the final section. The last chapters are shorter, tighter, and far more concentrated. That is where the book, for me, stopped being a travelogue of educational encounters and becomes an argument about what kind of people we need to form if we want our country to work. That felt, to me, like the real reason this book was written.

At St Stithians, where I now serve as chair of the Endowment Fund Trust, David’s influence is part of the lineage. And a big part of my story. I would not hold the role I do today if David and his family had not formed part of my life. A good school widens the possibilities of who you might become. Educators like David widen them further. Reading this book reminded me how much I have inherited and how important it is to acknowledge the chain of influence that produced it.

Rather than a linear interview, I structured the conversation as a series of doors. Each door opened onto a different part of the book, and a different set of questions. We did not open every door fully, conflated some and maybe didn’t do all of them justice. I share below not a word for word retelling of our conversation, but rather some of the thinking I had before our chat and some of what we spoke about.

Door 1: Origin and purpose

The first door was about intent. This book resists easy categorisation, and that is deliberate. David spoke about the moment he realised it was no longer about his own journey, but about our country. He drew a clear distinction between education as instruction and educating as formation.

Door 2: Literacy as human formation

One of the book’s strongest provocations is its insistence that literacy is not merely technical. It is emotional, relational, and civic. In South Africa, we too often treat reading as a mechanical skill, detached from dignity and agency. David reframes literacy as entry into shared humanity. If we get reading right, we change who people believe they are allowed to be. If we do not, we entrench exclusion far more efficiently than we admit. A great question from the audience challenged David’s articulation around maths and led to some lively debate – maths does matter. He argues in the book that starting with the focus on maths and marks before entrenching humanity is not useful.

Door 3: Trauma, safety and belonging

David leans heavily on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and for good reason. When individuals, schools, or entire communities operate permanently at the bottom of that hierarchy, performance frameworks and curriculum reforms are largely beside the point. Belonging, he argues, is not a soft add-on. It is foundational. Without safety and belonging, learning does not stick. David has a great skill of listening and reminded us that excellent listeners, see a lot. I definitely need to open my ears more to many of those around me.

Door 4: Equity and equality

The book draws a sharp distinction between equality and equity, one that South Africa continues to struggle with. Treating unequal contexts as if they are the same does not produce fairness. It produces frustration and failure. Equity requires judgement, humility, and proximity. It requires knowing communities, not administering them from a distance.

Door 5: Leadership and presence

One of the ideas that resonated most strongly in the room was David’s insistence that leadership is presence before programme. Presence not as charisma or visibility, but as attentiveness, steadiness, and moral clarity. Leadership, in this view, is not primarily administrative labour. It is emotional labour. Many educators recognised themselves in that description, perhaps for the first time.

Door 6: Africa as relationship

Perhaps the most powerful phrase in the book is the simple claim that “Africa is relationship”. This is not a slogan. It is a demand. Relationship resists standardisation. It takes time. It requires presence rather than process. David’s encounters across the continent shaped this conviction, and they challenge us to rethink what progress and success look like in African education.

Door 7: Nature, eternity and hope

The final chapters feel almost like testimony. David writes plainly about grief, nature, eternity, and hope. Loss runs quietly but unmistakably through the book. Rather than weakening the argument, it strengthens it. Loss clarifies what matters. It strips away the illusion that education is only about outcomes and performance. It reminds us that education is, at its core, a deeply human endeavour.

Despite everything, the book refuses cynicism. Not because the problems are small, but because cynicism absolves us of responsibility. Hope, in this telling, is not naive. It is an act of commitment.

Door 8: The fix

The title of the book is not a slogan. We Can Fix It Together is a claim about agency. Fixing education, David argues, will not be achieved by saviours or silver bullets. It will be achieved by people, in relationship, doing patient, unglamorous, difficult work over time. Parents matter. Communities matter. Presence matters.

I am grateful to UCT Summer School, and to Melody Wessels in particular, for creating the space for this conversation. And I am grateful to David for writing a book that invites reflection rather than applause, and responsibility rather than comfort.

If the book does one thing well, it is this: it pushes the question of human formation back into the centre of our education debate, where it belongs. Get your copy from Exclusive Books or via Kindle.