"Philosophy of Education?"

 

Apart from my own formal schooling I have had the privilege of being in the education sector for almost 50 years. Today, as I write seated at my desk the busy sounds of education echo down the passages of the school where I continue to enjoy my task in attempting to follow in the footsteps of the greatest teacher the world has ever known:  "They were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority…" Mark 1:22.

The life, profound teachings, and example of Jesus Christ have influenced the whole development of education worldwide and certainly mine.

As I reflect on my philosophy of education per se forgive me if I do not refer to the plethora of men and women who have waxed lyrical on what education is all about. Allow me though to simply state that whether Plato, or Aristotle, Hegel, Kant, Scheffler or Russel or the many that have had bearing on education generally, they too exist within me and both sharpened the saw of my own understandings and mellowed the edges of my youthful endeavours.

 

The educational word for 'school' comes from the Greek word 'scholē' (or schola), which means "leisure."[1] Leisure for me implies enjoyment, fun and within this context much of my own philosophy has developed. It truly frustrates and angers me when I see a teacher leaning on a podium and droning on and on reading from a textbook with little or no explanation and the young people before him or her sit in silence perhaps struggling to remain focused and awake. And if this is repeated by successive teachers it is no wonder that many of these young people become disillusioned by the idea of school. And certainly, the example I have given does not fit into an acceptable picture of the good teacher. Whilst I today no longer teach nearly as much as I used to as my role is more administrative and I spend a great deal of time writing, the words of an English Professor echo frequently: When asked by a group of teachers as to how he had managed to write numerous books on education his philosophical response was: “Your job is far more difficult than mine. I write words on paper, and they stay there. I do not have to deal with them running up and down the corridors.”

What though is education for? Do we furiously have to unpack world philosophies, delve into reconstruction and deconstruction, essentialism or any other “ism” before we understand the said philosophy?

I believe that it is all and more than the aforesaid. I do not mean that one’s youth has to be spent on hours reading and researching but rather as Adam Zagajewski has quoted:

“Read for yourselves, read for the sake of your inspiration, for the sweet turmoil in your lovely head. But also read against yourselves, read for questioning and impotence, for despair and erudition, read the dry sardonic remarks of cynical philosophers like Cioran or even Carl Schmitt, read newspapers, read those who despise, dismiss or simply ignore poetry and try to understand why they do it. Read your enemies, read those who reinforce your sense of what's evolving in poetry, and also read those whose darkness or malice or madness or greatness you can't understand because only in this way will you grow, outlive yourself, and become what you are.”[2]

“Who I am and what I am is what I have been becoming and will still be” –  This is my present Facebook status or profile and echoes part of my philosophy of life and education philosophy as they are interconnected/twins born of one foetus!

 

What this means is that one never stops learning, growing and developing. This is what I teach my young students. Or more correctly how I educate them, for in education one has the implication of something that they take with them into adulthood and which they can then grow from. Teaching is something one does to impart a skill. One can teach a mathematical skill or how to ride a bicycle, and which is part and parcel of the teaching conundrum, but educating enables the recipient to educate her/himself thereafter.

Ben Franklin once said, “If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the highest return.”

 A huge part of education has always been to impart knowledge. Regrettably it is only in recent times that the world has begun to realise (with the advent of access to information via the digital medium) that knowledge is less important than understanding how to use the knowledge and where to access it. The tools to the building rather than the building itself is the challenge in the 21^st Century.

 

In essence while it was once (not so many years ago), possible to learn all that there was to learn in terms of information, it is no longer possible to do so.

(Data is growing faster than ever before and by the year 2020, about 1.7 megabytes of new information will be created every second for every human being on the planet. - 44 trillion gigabytes) [3]

One wonders how Plato’s students would react if they knew then when they sat at his feet on the Praesidium steps, what we know now and what we have access to in terms of instant knowledge/information gratification.

The challenge inherent in Education Philosophy remains as it was though as much now as it was then and I believe it is even more crucial now to understand how we can educate to improve the human condition. Here I include all the imponderables that exist as we wrestle with a pandemic across the globe and how we deal with it. The future is as exciting as it is daunting.

In closing, some words from Milton and Kipling, both of whom are well worth meditating on:

 

The Purpose of Education:

The end of learning is to repair

The ruin of our first parents

By regaining to know God aright

And out of that knowledge,

To love Him,

To imitate Him

To be like Him- John Milton (English Poet : 9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674)

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling- 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936, Novelist/Poet/Journalist.

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[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com 

 

[2] Adam Zagajewski, A Defense of Ardor: Essays

[3]  https://www.forbes.com › sites › bernardmarr › 2015/09/30

 

 

Conflict Resolutions: Tools to Success

 

Perhaps not quite fascinating but more concerning is when one googles “Conflict Resolution” one receives over 400 million hits in less than a second. No, I have not investigated these sites and have no intention of doing so. It was merely a brief moment in time when the mind wanders and I became a statistic… Nonetheless according to google,  and I quote: “Conflict resolution is a way for two or more parties to find a peaceful solution to a disagreement among them. The disagreement may be personal, financial, political or emotional. When a disagreement arises, often the best course of action is negotiation to resolve disagreement.”[1]

An article from AIU (Atlantic International University) suggests that some 22 000 people search the internet under the heading “Conflict Resolution” each month and further suggests this gives the topic relevance. If we play with statistics and use the population of the world to understand how many could then be searching the internet… then 22 000 out of 7.9 Billion becomes infinitesimally small and one can argue that this number searching for said topic is statistically irrelevant. But let us not dwell on the merits of numbers and allow ourselves to become “conflicted” shall we say. Instead it is my intention in this short paper, not to try and do what the Sumerians did in lower Mesopotamia[2] (Modern day Iraq) in the 4^th century BC and try and reinvent the wheel, or perhaps in this case “reinvent the plethora of conflict resolution methods” which abound, but rather to explore some of the causes of conflict as this tends to be overlooked as one delves into the “how’s” of resolving conflict.

Since I began exploring this topic earlier, (a brief bit of research done in 2023) some 91 000 people have died and some 216 000 have been born. Interestingly with the Covid19 pandemic not far from most thoughts, I decided to do a quick bit of research and found that out of the 91 000 deaths, approximately 12 000 have been Covid related. Why am I mentioning these facts in a topic with the heading “Conflict Resolution”?  Very simply I believe that in reading this, the average reader has begun to develop a point of view in relation to my discussion and could well have moved to a contrary position. He/she could well be frowning and saying: Why am I mentioning these things? Why is he bringing Covid into the discussion? Why is World Population/World Deaths relevant?

Holding a point of view, suggesting certain ideas and leaving words on paper with little or no explanation, but merely putting them out there holds the possibility of conflict. I started this conversation suggesting that perhaps we should be looking at the causes of conflict rather than how to resolve conflict for surely if we are able to isolate the causes, we have the means to resolve it.

In Genesis 1 vs 25 we read that God created the animal kingdom…and afterwards announces that “it was good”. He then creates man and from then on nowhere do we read that He says it is good. It is only man who pronounces thereafter, “that God is good”. Is this perhaps not a sad indictment on mankind? Once Man (and I use a capital to denote, all of Mankind) had been created and Man usurped the knowledge of good and evil, conflict entered the world. And ever since then we have wrestled with the how to of solving the conflict that we, ourselves brought into the world. No this is not a religious or Christian or Muslim or Hindu or any one of any other religions attempt to solve the world’s challenges, but rather a statement to assert that we do not have the answers to solving conflict.

As I write armed conflict rages across the world,  (as usuaL?) Africa being a centre for conflict across the world with most of Africa involved in one form of conflict or another (and I specifically refer to armed conflict) This conflict is essentially caused by the need for power. Power to control, rule and assert authority. But what for?  So that we can live in peace is oft the response. How absurd!  But sadly more than a modicum of truth in that statement.

Allow me to digress briefly as I again consider the pandemic that raged  across the world and how it caused conflict. I do not refer to death as a cause for conflict even though Covid is ostensibly responsible for many deaths, but rather how the world reacted to the pandemic. The so- called rich nations immediately were able to launch into vaccination programs. Purchasing vast quantities of personal protection equipment, ventilators, oxygen, medical personnel trained and equipped. Poorer nations stood by and waited for handouts. Here in Africa and I refer to my own country, South Africa, with a population of over 60 million, to date (late 2021) some 400 000 had been vaccinated. Compare this to the United Kingdom for example where 70% of the population of 67 million (2021)[3]

 have been vaccinated at least once.

The sad fact that the world consists of haves and have nots, will always cause conflict. That people are hungry whilst others have surfeit of food will cause conflict.

It is very easy to consider how one can attempt to resolve conflict. The methodology is not complicated. Here in South Africa we have the CCMA, The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, which arose essentially out of a need to resolve Labour related disputes… (Unfair dismissals from work for example). The CCMA uses basic legal arguments to resolve issues. The Aude alteram partem rule which simply means to listen to the other side, is crucial to resolving any dispute, and one would certainly add that the ability to listen, and listen attentively without prejudice is crucial in any conflict situation.

As a School Headmaster I deal with conflicts at all levels on a daily basis, some are serious, others easily resolved, but allow me to share an aspect of the ability to “LISTEN” which one needs to develop early on and which goes a long way to allowing peace to reign. Some years ago I had a delightful Art teacher, a young man filled with amazing ideas and not easily satisfied or able to “tow the line”. He would rage at the way things were done, forms that needed completion, interviews with parents and a legion of other things which did not fit his paradigm. We, him and I, then developed a system where  he would , unannounced enter my office and proceed to bewail his fate, launch into all and sundry in terms of what he wanted in life and the school and this would take some 20 minutes at which point he would smile, turn around and quietly leave, knowing that I have listened to him and that nothing he said would leave my office, and indeed his relationship with me would remain intact. He would never ask me to comment or to offer some advice, but merely to sit and listen attentively. And I was delighted to do so as I knew he needed to vent and I as his superior was there to listen. I must admit that unbeknown to him many of his ideas mentioned in his ranting took root and I have used them over the years, but that was not the purpose of having a devoted and well inclined listening ear!

Perhaps without pertinently intending to do so I was able to ensure his morale was high and which then enabled him to pass on positive feelings to other staff.  Lacoursiere [4]identifies two key variables that have an effect on each stage of group development. These are “work” on the task and socio-emotional tone or “morale”. I believe the second one, “tone or morale” to be key for me in my work over many years in various countries as once the morale of the organization is good, conflict tends to either disappear or be easily resolved.

Some concluding remarks:

Allow me to end with two quotes: One from Tom Peters, [5] “The old saw of it ain’t broke, don’t fix it needs revision. I propose, if it ain’t broke, you just haven’t looked hard enough. Fix it anyway.” We have a world where we need to fix things before they are broken but sadly we do not do so and we end up with trying to fix the broken and resolve the conflicts therein.  The second is from Dr Spencer Johnson[6], “It works best, of course, when everyone in your organization knows the story-whether it is in a large corporation, a small business, or your family- because an organization can only change when enough people in it change”. The world…its people, need to take hands, understand each other, smile and know that we care and love each other long before we look at all the other needs apparent. And I include Maslows hierarchy of needs in this.

 

Bibliography- Conflict Resolutions: Tools to Success

1.     Leadership & Organisational Climate, Bottyàn Sandor: Zytek Publishing, 2004

2.     The Independent School Governor’s Handbook, Andrew Maiden: HSBC Insurance,2009.

3.     Thriving on Chaos, Peters Tom: Pan Books, 1989

4.     Total Leaders, Schwahn Charles J. & Spady William G., American Association of School Administrators, 1998.

5.     Who Moved My Cheese, Johnson Spencer Dr: Penguin, Random House UK,1999.

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[1] https://ctb.ku.edu (Section 6. Training for Conflict Resolution)

[2] https:www.citeco.fr>the origins>invention-of-the-wheel

 

[3] https://www.worldometers.info

[4] Leadership and Organisational Climate, Sandor Bottyàn, page 7

[5] Thriving on Chaos, Tom Peters, page 3

[6] Who Moved My Cheese, Dr Spencer Johnson, page 94

Just Another Fake Statistic

 

Dear Mr Ramaphosa I have just become part of the statistics which

you say are spurious and basically are all fake news created by enemies

of your wonderful State. (read Whites under the heading enemies obviously!)

Strangely enough though I am white or perhaps the correct nomenclature should be pinkish.

But I am not an enemy. I run a school, filled with… mmm, Black children… Grade R through to Matric (distinctions et al for 18 years so far!) I am trying to build our country…

Recently, due to my school not having our own fields (we rent from a neighbouring school for sport activities- by the way my wife trains Drum Majorettes- her team has won all competitions here for the past two years- yes they are Black children)… we purchased a 19Ha site some 10kms away and have started developing fields… my son and his wife stay in a house on the site. Yesterday morning at 9:05 two men broke into the house and stole pretty much everything of value including the inverters and batteries (no there is no electrical Eskom connection- so we installed solar). Fortunately my son and daughter in law were not home… one does not want to imagine what might have been the case had they been there… (unarmed!)

We could not afford insurance… so we start again today with installing new solar unbudgeted.

But as you so rightly point out sir, there is no White genocide… Whites are not being attacked on farms… the lists of attacks and/or murders are spurious. Created by evil people hell bent on breaking down your regime.

The break in on my farm is highly unusual and must be regarded as just one of those things… in any event those responsible are just trying to make a living and after all the land I purchased was stolen from them anyway.

My apologies.

EFIL SI SUSEJ

 

THEY SAY

YOU NEED TO LIVE LIFE BACKWARDS

TO BECOME ETERNAL.

SO “ JESUS IS LIFE” MUST THEN BE

EFIL SI SUSEJ

OR SOMETHING? OR IS THAT NOT WHAT THEY MEAN?

NO THEY SAY

YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN

NOT RECITE JESUS IS LIFE BACKWARDS!

OH…BORN AGAIN?

LIKE MY LITTLE SISTER BORN LAST WEEK?

PUZZLED I STAND MY EYES BIG QUESTION MARKS

ON MY FACE.

NO, START LIFE ANEW THEY SAY…

GET RID OF ALL MY BAD YESTERDAYS

AND START ON MY KNEES WITH JESUS

THEY SAY.

JUST PRAY

THEY SAY

AND ASK HIM TO WASH AWAY THOSE YESTERDAYS

THEN YOUR HEART WILL BE NEW…BORN AGAIN.

SO I CLOSED MY EYES AND KNEELED DOWN

AND WAS WELCOMED INTO A NEW TOMORROW.

AH YES

JESUS IS LIFE

THEY SAY

AND NOW I KNOW WHAT THEY MEAN.

 

Reaping today’s rewards in 2040

 

The financial world entreats us to invest in stocks/shares/various financial markets or even in long term basic savings where the reward (we are told) will become visible in the long term future. I am not going to go into this as I am not a financial planner or anything like that but as many might well attest, care with finances is wise but unless you are into the risk market, the only ones who benefit from your investments are the Banks etc. I know this might elicit a multitude of wisdom from those who may have a contrary view so let me rather dwell on another area of rewards that we will almost certainly reap when the young people of today become the oldies of tomorrow. The adults/parents of the New World Order!

I suggest that the investments we are making in the youth of today, and here I mean the digital investments primarily, are going to create an entirely New World Order- I borrow this terminology from Huxley’s Brave New World written just prior to the Second World War.

I would posit that unless we can dramatically halt the headlong rollercoaster rush down the slippery slope of the digital explosion (apologies for the many mixed metaphors), we are going to reap the reward of young adults totally unable to cope in a world which raised them with values still echoing the 1970’s onwards. The generation of today and yesterday may well have coped with the advent of radio/television/radar/computers/calculators/floppy disks/stiffy disks/VHS/DVD’s/ memory sticks/ and the plethora of thumbnail sized digital information cards which are able to hold more information than once was in all the libraries of the world, and a world that is still changing with electric vehicles/drones… but unlike the 5 year old/ten year old/15 year old in the classroom of today (which has not changed since classrooms began- desks etc facing a teacher and blackboard/whiteboard/digital board), the adult of today, generally speaking, was able to “grow” with the changes and adapt. There was a firm foundation on which we could base our tomorrow’s. The lifestyle required an active engagement with the surroundings. We were encouraged to get off the TV couch and throw a ball through a hoop. Nowadays the “tv” goes with the child…

So what does the world of 2040 onwards look like?

·         Sporting Activities: The number of people actively involved in sporting activities will dramatically decrease. Local clubs will all but become extinct- why must the young person play a sport which is not going to bring him any financial gain when she/he can rather watch via TV/Hologram/Cellphone or similar. AI may well provide simulated sport of various natures…

·         Marriage/Relationships/Bearing of Children: The idea of fixing oneself to a significant other will almost disappear. Why does one need to have only one partner, when physical satisfaction (of various kinds) will be catered for via robots which will look/feel/and be able to perform sexual acts if required without any consequences. (the “doll” from the local Adult shop is surely antiquated). AI is already able to offer companionship able to answer almost any question posed to it and even border on “caring” advice.

·         Education: Education will of necessity have changed from learning how to do things, to how to get the digital world to do it for the child. Classrooms/school buildings/actual human teachers, school academic reports will have little value in the future world.

·         Finances: The world of money will no longer be as it is in 2025. We have already moved a long way beyond just paper money and cheques (what is a cheque he asks?). The chip in your arm/neck will calculate your value to society.

·         Food: Protein (steaks etc) are already being created in laboratories. Artificial eggs have been in powder form for years. The need for animals for food will all but cease.

Are we going to see a dystopian society? I would suggest that if we are no longer able to recognise that it is indeed a dystopian society that we are moving towards and/or will be in, then it cannot be one. It then becomes a normal society.

We will be rewarded.

Living in a "like" Society.

 

Living in a “like” society

I’m not sure that I actually belong in the world/society I live in. By belong I mean I kind of don’t fit in mainly due to the fact that I have great difficulty if “belonging” to a multitude of different “social apps”(is that what Instagram/twitch/X/Whatsapp/Facebook/LinkedIn/ ad nauseum are known as?)

Everything I come across needs me to “like” and I feel so out of it if I don’t… an article comes across my desktop and it has 397 “likes”- and I read it and am quite neutral about it so don’t really “like” it. Is there something wrong with me?

What does it mean to “like” something?

Used as a verb I am told it means as follows:

• To feel attraction or pleasure in something or someone
• To want or wish to have something
• To do well in something
• To electronically indicate approval of something, such as a social media post
• To feel inclined or disposed
• To prefer or wish to do something

I see the 4^th bullet seems to tell me that if I “like” a post on social media it means I indicate approval of it. 397 people approve of the post I have referred to. Approve? Really? Or have we simply reached the point where we automatically click on “like” as a matter of course? I tend to think the latter.

If 397 people like what I have written do they also like me? My ego needs it!

Any chance we can include an “unlike” somewhere?

The unseemly veneration of political leaders

I am not an American, nor a citizen of any of the major countries of the world… but I have visited, stayed, taught, and held leadership positions in a number of them.

I respect the country of my birth- no I do not love my country (even though I donned a uniform and fought like many others in so-called preservation of it). I do not understand how one deems a country to be loveable. I love my wife, my children…

And so? Your point pray do tell dear sir!

Leaders of countries, politicians (yes presidents/prime ministers and similar ilk) are employees of a country. They are placed in positions of power by the people. Hence the people being their employers. Nothing more nothing less!

Yet I read too often of politicians who are viewed in glowing terms, even revered! What nonsense!

It was Harry S. Truman 33^rd President of the USA who apparently said the following: “Show me a man that gets rich by being a politician and I’ll show you a crook.”

How do we manage to speak of country leaders almost in the same tone as that of the Mother Teresa’s/Mahatma Ghandi’s/or perhaps even Martin Luther King? They are certainly not altruistic, self -sacrificing, servant like beings. They are human! Filled with the same foibles as you and I.

It is time we stopped venerating them. The leaders of my country are not truly interested in alleviating the lot of the poor (even if their speeches say so)- or raising the living standards of all, or making the access to medical practices easier for all. They are in power to stay in power and to ride generally roughshod over anyone who stands in their way.

Make a country great again! Was any country ever great? Oh yes perhaps once Rome was… but that was then.

 

Enough!

 

Enough!

I have been in Education for almost 50 years… if I include my own initial schooling then indeed I move beyond 60 years. As a Headmaster/Principal/Director in 3 countries over the years and a teacher/lecturer and leader I now need to say enough is enough!

Education CANNOT be reactionary! We cannot be speaking about how to fix things in schools/classrooms/districts/countries when what we ostensibly are preaching about fixing should never have been broken. Educational leaders (and here I include the teacher in the classroom) know what works. The list of “how to’s” is endless but all I read and hear is the modern world bewailing the same things that have been echoed since time immemorial. We use a multitude of excuses to cover up inadequacies… Insufficient funding/too many in a classroom/no support from the so-called upper echelons/and and and!

A teacher… is a teacher! She/he knows how to teach… what is needed to take a child from almost infancy to adulthood- and this is what is needed from teachers/educationalists/Principals/Headmasters/Directors/District Heads. Get on with the job and stop bleating. Follow in the footsteps of those who have taken young people from nothing to greatness while teaching under a tree or only having the basics with which to work.

Teaching… being an educator is a calling… and if you do not know what this means then get off the bus now! You are not going to become a wealthy yacht owner with two homes in the Bahamas and a Lamborghini in the driveway as a teacher. But you are going to be far, far more wealthy in who and what you are and have achieved with those who have sat at your feet and prospered. ( and NO I am not suggesting that an honest days work does not deserve and honest days wages!- this may be another debate for another day!

Our world needs dedicated teachers with dedicated support people. If you are a Principal/Headmaster/District Head, get off your rear end and support the people who are actually doing the job of teaching in the classrooms of the world. That is your job! Not to sit and enjoy the comfy office and the fancy coffee! You are a servant of those in the classroom! Not the boss!

I have said enough for now.

The soon to be physically dysfunctional society

 

The soon to be physically dysfunctional society

Some time back I commented on the need for proper, well- structured education to begin in the Pre-School arena.

Allow me to expand on this.

I am seeing more and more little ones unable to cross their midline. More and more unable to do things which need fine motor skills. More and more already in the early years of their little lives with eye problems.

And the reason for the above?

Children being supplied with tablets/computers and phones almost before they can walk. Parents who are so focused on themselves (why have children I ask myself?) that it is easier to get the kids out of their hair by letting them immerse themselves in the digital world.

So let me provide a few early parenting rules: (if you are considering having a child then READ- If you already have a little one, then READ:

FROM BIRTH

1.       Talk to your child- Sing together/read with her /him. The earlier the better.

2.       Introduce good music to your child (No NOT rap etc.- That’s NOT music)

3.       Play with your child ( yes- you are not too tired after a day at work- if you are, see a doctor!) By the way… the onus to do these things does not rest with one of the parents- Both are responsible.

4.       Playing includes: (as the child grows older so these skills will develop- they will not though develop if the child has been deposited in front of a tablet/computer/phone.

a)        Sitting and cutting out pictures with your child (no not looking at video’s/television).

b)      Using playdough to make sculptures. (No you do not have to buy playdough- make your own using flour- google will help you and your child will love making the dough as well.

c)       Pasting pictures to form artwork.

d)      Drawing on paper (not on the walls!)

e)      String beads

f)        Eating with a spoon (use different sizes) Yes messing is part of the growing up process!

g)       Get dad to cut different blocks of wood so that different structures can be created.

h)      Paint pictures with fingers/paintbrushes (when a little older)

i)        Pick up sticks

j)        Play outside in the rain/mud/water- Allow their immune systems to become strong!

k)       It is not just a teacher in a classroom who needs to tell your child to sit up straight- you do too!

The above begins as early as possible.   I have listed but a few activities that will allow children to avoid sensory deprivation and to be able to be properly physically active.

So when do I advise you to provide your child with access to the digital world?  
If you are doing all of the above with your child then a tablet/computer can easily form part of the process, but NOT (personal view) before the age of 2 or 3. Under strict control and not being allowed to sit for hours playing games. You brought her/him into this world, now raise her/him. Do not abrogate your responsibilities and devolve this onto a remote world. Let them explore the digital world with you in control.

A child does not need a cellphone with internet access until they are in High School!

 

Let our stories be told

Nobel Laureate (1992) and St Lucian poet Derek Walcott once stated, “The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination.” Is it not the imagination that has brought us the developments the world now enjoys? Buildings that tower, bridges that span vast distances, medical advances that have people now walking when paralysed, science launching into the realms of the previously impossible. These all existed in the mind(s) of those that imagined beyond the here and now. And how is this imagination developed? Not by fingers scrolling through mindless reels on a cellphone, nor spending hours vegetating in front of a television. Reading and losing oneself in the world thus created is where the imagination runs riot. Where colours are most vibrant, where the world of anything is possible exists.

Professor Dorian Haarhoff, South African-Namibian writer, poet and a storyteller par excellence, reminds us that each of us has a story to tell but few actually are given the space to tell.  Years ago I shared “The Stolen Child”, a poem written by William Butler Yeats way back in 1886, when he was 21 years old. It is a reverie of his homeland Ireland, written almost as a fairytale. I remember wondering if the young people would get the gist of the story- they more than did so! One student, a girl born and raised in the then Northern Congo wept as she recounted part of her childhood and how she missed that world filled with the simplicity and wonder of nature she had been surrounded with.  I cannot remember her exact words but I do remember that she hoped that one day her dreams would come true and if so that the world she lived in would always be radiant and never be dim with prejudice. Powerful thoughts!

We need to give space for the imagination that lies within each one. How wonderful would it be if a young person, immersed in the Shakespearean world of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, sat down and penned a rewrite of one of these immortal works in her/his own milieu, with characters drawn from the village of her ancestors. This is where the imagination can take us. And our young people are not going to get there, nor understand the beauty of our different cultures and backgrounds unless we grow our youth together and more than that, we read…and read.

Allow me to end here with the words of Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, words he quoted from one of his books “Indaba My Children” as I sat at his feet in the 1980’s and listened to his story : “My child never must you doubt for one single moment that there is a God, because to deny or doubt the existence of God is the greatest form of madness there can be”… God is more in you and is more part of you than you are in any part of yourself. Your soul is immortal because God is immortal”

 Let us allow space for our stories to be told.

 

 

 

Environmental Nutrients

 

We previously mentioned “Interventions” and suggested one of the most important early interventions in the life of the human child is that of attending a good Preschool. This needs emphasising! This is where our authorities need to focus! Personal experience in various countries underlines this need. One of the challenges countries face in education is the need to understand cultural diversity. Many refuse to accept this challenge and create Preschool environments consisting of a particular “culture”. It is my contention that the preservation of a “culture” lies in ensuring the home environment is solid and exposing the growing child to a Preschool which celebrates different cultures.

But enough! I am sure you get the picture.

Interventions later on in the development of the child are equally important. Read to your child- often! This is an early intervention. Each time you read to your child you are investing in their future and opening a world of opportunity which may only become apparent in later life, but apparent they will become.  (it is both exciting and amazing how quickly your child will want take the book from your hand and read her/himself.)

In my last article I suggested removing the cellphone and placing a book in your child’s hands. I am not telling the world that the 5^th Industrial revolution should be negated and we should go back to using a coal stove- not at all! We need to develop, to grow, to understand and to have young people (and older ones) who never stop learning and finding new ways/better ways of doing things, but to get there we need to grasp the basics of life and AI (Artificial Intelligence) cannot replace the reality of being truly human. Children (and adults?) scrolling through mindless reels on Facebook or the like I posit has NO VALUE at all except to waste the wonderful time that allows the mind to experience words in a book, or the smell of the flowers in the garden, the sound of the sea crashing against the shore and yes, even being stung by a bee!

Interventions which some call “remedial actions” have a place in our world and I believe AI will ultimately assist in this at various levels but in this article allow me to finish by suggesting that the best intervention is to build a relationship with the malleable, growing child. I was delighted to hear a grade 3 teacher frequently praising various individuals in her class during a Mathematics lesson. “Well done!” she said many times and I am confident there are going to be many confident young Mathematicians emerging from her class.  Kids need environmental nutrients. If they get these environmental nutrients perhaps no intervention will be necessary.

 

 

Interventions

 

Interventions!

With the dropout ratio (young people leaving school before matriculating) in South Africa exceeding 40%, Education (Capital “E”) may well be deemed to be in a crisis. Are we alone in this? Certainly not, many developed countries cry out for interventions that will alleviate the problem.  (The USA for example quoted some years back figures of 30% not completing high school and some 40% + of 8^th graders not being able to read!)  Quoting figures of other countries though does not solve our problem (although detractors will use said figures as an excuse for us not to worry of course)

So where to now? As the title above suggests “Interventions” holds part, if not all the keys to solving the challenges. After some 48 years in Education in countries across the globe that word “Interventions” which often strikes fear into the average parent, remains key for me!

Interventions are a normal part of life in a lifetime of learning! When are they most effective?

·         Preschool: Invest in genuine, positive Preschools! Not backyard creches! Years ago in conversation with a Federal Reserve Chair in the USA, he suggested Preschools to be the “ one cure for inequality”- and I agree with him! Make sure you send your little one to the best Preschool you can afford! It is an investment in her/his matric. Health and social skills are improved and entering Junior or Elementary school becomes far easier. (Education Departments should apportion the biggest part of their funding in this area)

·         Is your child lost if the early years have been fraught with problems (for whatever reason)?  Not necessarily. Early intervention is possible and good at any age. Human development is a long and continuous process. Age appropriate interventions are needed. The child who struggles with reading and is in Grade 8 or above… DOES NOT want to be assisted at elementary school level- her/his world is different.

·         A word to end: Take away the cellphone- give her/him a book. The sooner the better. More on the topic of Interventions next week.