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Home Schooling
| Date: |
11 April 2004 12:00 |
| Producer: |
Linda De Jager
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
Cassidy is five years old. She is about to start a normal school day, yet her classroom is next to the dining room.
Her sister Savanna who is eight years old, is, like Cassidy, academically grades ahead of other children her age. Their mother Ivana is a qualified chemical engineer. She has no teaching qualifications, yet she is more than 'Mom' to her children. She is also their fulltime teacher at home.
Ivana Ries (Chemical Engineer and Home Schooler): 'First and foremost, we wanted to bring our children up rooted in God's word. The second thing was that we wanted a very high level of academics. Marc and I have both been very fortunate to have had our fare share of years at university, so we place a high value on a good quality education.'
One of Marc's main concerns was that overcrowded classes place an impossible burden on teachers' shoulders.
Marc Ries (Ivana's husband): 'Really, their day has got to be comprised of making sure that the really quick and bright kids are not getting too bored and that the really slow ones are not getting left behind. So what are you going to be ending up with? And, I mean, I use this in a very general term - you're going to end up with a slightly more average education.'
Derek Watts (Carte Blanche presenter): 'This is the way most of us see education, but thousands of South African children are not in the classroom today, and home schooling is a growing international trend.'
In America, it is estimated that there may be as many as two million home schoolers.
In South Africa, there is an estimated 30 000, yet, no official figures are available. How does the Ries family approach home schooling?
Ivana: 'We have an attendance register. One has to register with the department - that is a requirement. One has to meet the minimum requirements of the curriculum being run in the state schools; so, you need to meet the minimum requirements. And then the fourth thing is that you need to have your child tested at the end of every period.'
The monitoring and registration of home schoolers is a provincial matter. The Department of Education has set guidelines in place, but still no system to enforce them.
Ivana: 'We have a very large, generous and broad curriculum. We do cover what is required in the revised new national curriculum statement but, because you're in a home schooling environment, it's so easy to complete that in a short period of time.
While we're on the subject, let me just demonstrate that this is, for example, the textbook on natural sciences and technology. That is the textbook for Grade 5. Now we complete that textbook and then we have another eight textbooks that we complete.'
Leendert Van Oostrum feels the Deparment of Education's curriculum is so prescriptive that it borders on the unlawful.
He runs an organisation which guards the legal rights of home schoolers. He played an instrumental role in legalising home schooling in 1996. Yet, for Leendert the battle is not over. He says government uses education as an ideological tool. A government conference two years ago confirmed his beliefs.
Leendert Van Oostrum (Head of the Pestalozzi Trust): 'They, for the first time, specified that they're involved in an ideological struggle within our society. They designated as targets within what they choose to call the 'arena of battle' - education, the family, religion, culture.'
Tidimalo Nkotoe from the Department of Education explains their position.
Tidimalo Nkotoe (Senior Manager, Department of Education): 'We are gunning for the same critical outcomes. We are gunning for the same South African citizen. And therefore there is no way that we can discriminate the home school sector from the entire picture of the Education Department.'
Unlike Tidimalo, Leendert believes that it is his democratic right to choose an education for his children that is different from that of government. As a result his eldest daughter, Cornelia, like her two younger sisters, never saw the inside of a school. Leendert has done his Master thesis in home schooling and their mother Karen teaches them at home.
Derek: 'We've spoken to quite a few home schoolers and they don't have these problems, Leendert.'
Leendert: 'Possibly why I have this problem is because I might be more aware of the ideological cargo involved in the curriculum, being a specialist in curriculum design myself.'
Dr. Caroline Leaf is also well versed in developing learning systems for teachers. She specialises in brain research and has written extensively on how to teach children and teachers. Caroline home schooled two of her four children for extended periods.
She believes that quality schooling is subject to many factors.
Dr. Caroline Leaf (Home schooler): 'Every school has got good and bad learners and every school has got good and bad teachers. And I'm telling you, every single time it comes down to the teachers. And you can be in a terrible school with no facilities and have an amazing teacher... and I've seen this... I've seen, out at schools where there's 50, 60 kids in a class, but there's an amazing teacher and those children are captivated.'
Caroline warns that home schooling is not for everybody and that the stress on the mother is substantial.
Caroline: 'Now I know moms that home school all day, and then will do their work in the evening. At the end of the day, you're going to wipe out.'
Derek: 'Stress on the parent?'
Caroline: 'Absolutely. We are human, we've got a biological clock and we need to rest.'
Marc: 'One of the comments that are made by a lot of people is that it's a lot of pressure on the mother. But I don't know that it's that much different to holding down a normal job, if I could say that. You have to get up in the morning, you have to go to work; you have bad days, you have good days. You've still got to go to work.'
Derek: 'If you have got the time and the patience, along with the skills, home schooling seems like a workable option. But what about the question of social interaction, or the lack of it?'
The Ries family do everything in their power to cater for their children¹s social needs. They run a support group where home school children in the area interact socially, and their children enjoy a wide range of extramural activities.
Ivana: 'I believe that the classroom is an abnormal way to socialise kids, and everyone goes, 'Ah, how can she say that?' But at the end of the day, when was the last time that you were cooped up in a room of 50 or 30 or 22 adults all exactly the same age as you? Life is not like that. You have to be able to talk to anybody from any creed, any walk of life, any age.'
Like Ivana, Caroline also home schooled two of her four children. However, she decided after two years to put the youngest back in school because she felt that the home school environment was isolating her to the extent that she was lacking socially. However, she still home schools her eldest daughter.
Caroline: 'And I know that this is something that the home schoolers will deny - you can go to the internet and you can see all the studies - socially, they're well adapted. Let me tell you where they're adapted socially. They're mature, they can sit and have a conversation with an adult. They will be... well, very employable. They will cope well at university, they will cope well at school; they just cope well. But that's one element of development in a child, the other element is play.'
Caroline has other reservations about home schooling.
Caroline: 'You know, because home schooling, you then tend to mix with people that you choose.'
Derek: 'You tend to manufacture situations.'
Caroline: 'You manipulate to a certain extent. Yes. I think there is that. You manufacture, you choose the - this is now another Christian family, or another whatever like-minded. But how does the child then learn to deal with the world out there?'
Ivana believes that recent American-based research proves that her children will be able to function well in society. The research shows that 70% of all home school children have fewer social hang-ups and they also achieved better academic results than their school-going peers. For Ivana, the only problem is that she is still waiting for her registration certificate from the Department of Education.
Ivana: 'In terms of the law, they're meant to do that within 30 days of application. We applied June last year and we're still waiting for an education official. In their defence, I suppose we have contacted them several times since June to say, 'When is your official going to come?'. They've said, 'Look, we've got a huge backlog. We're coping with 115 families to one inspector and we will get round to you in due course.'
Tidimalo and her team deal with registration matters in Gauteng.
Tidimalo: 'I do, yes. I do acknowledge that there is a backlog. We had 265 application forms by the year 2002. And before we make even a submission to the head of department, we have got to go back and verify the entire information. So we have got to visit 265 homes.'
Unlike the Rieses, there are many home schoolers who do not want to register at all, because they disagree with the national educational policy.
Leendert: 'The result is that approximately 85%, according to research of home schoolers, are not registered with the education department.'
Derek: '85%?'
Leendert: 'That is correct.'
Derek: 'Leendert, if somebody from the department of education knocks on the door now and asks and says, 'You will register and will follow the approved Gauteng curriculum for the education of your children'', what would you do?'
Leendert: 'I would simply ask the official to go home, go back to his office. Should it go to court, I will defend the case.'
The case for and against home schooling will still be hotly debated, but the fact is - it is here to stay.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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