TINA-LOUISE SMITH reviews Refreshing Reading: Six Workshops for Teachers, Lecturers and Students Involved in the Teaching of Reading by Eleanor Russell (Macmillan, R31,35) THE aim of Refreshing Reading is to get teachers to get to grips with the process of reading and so facilitate change in the way we teach reading. The six units of […]
TINA-LOUISE SMITH reviews two novels for young readers: The Bughouse by Lesley Milne (David Philip Publishers, R33,95) and The Girl Who Wanted to Be an Actress by Chris van Wyk (Maskew Miller Longman, R21,99) THE Bughouse is 140 pages of compelling reading. The bright cover and paperback presentation promise an interesting journey. Set in present-day […]
Curriculum adviser EMILIA POTENZA answers questions from teachers about outcomes-based education (OBE) and Curriculum 2005. Q: I am a grade 7 teacher trying to implement the new Learning Areas, but the completely new Learning Areas like Economics and Management Sciences, Technology and Arts and Culture are causing problems. Most of our staff don’t feel confident […]
Editorial: PHILIPPA GARSON IT’S a relief to see that education is at last being treated as the national crisis that it is. Steadily dwindling matric pass rates, exemption rates and university enrolments year after year are proof that, beneath the sheen of grand policies, our education system is a very sick animal indeed. Minister of […]
At a private school pupils have helped design their own casual uniforms. PUPILS at Theodor Herzl High in Port Elizabeth started the new millennium with an injection of freshness — Debbie Casalin came to school in stylish dark denims and a navy blue T-shirt, Valyn Kaplan preferred the navy shorts with the skirt overlay and […]
Efforts to promote maths and science have not been wholly successful. AFTER the failure of a key initiative to improve maths and science performances, the search for the winning formula continues. In 1994, educationalists within the Mass Democratic Movement successfully lobbied the National Education Department to establish a project called Students and Youth into Science, […]
Marguerite Poland’s new novel Iron Love is set at St Andrew’s College, Grahamstown. TWO years ago, Marguerite Poland and I were sitting at school desks in a classroom at St Andrew’s College, Grahamstown. ”My great-grandfather (an alumnus of the school) would have a fit if he could see me here!” she murmured, conscious of the […]
The oldest culture in Southern Africa faces huge changes if it’s to survive LOOKING like odd anthills, the hundreds of dark brown army tents set up between the scraps of bush and vast stretches of dusty nothing add to the outlandish appearance of this harsh Northern Cape area. This is a tent-town called Schmidtsdrift. It […]
While learners at Volkskool Orania receive an education for the 21st century, they’re also taught a philosophy tied to the racial divisions of the past. LEARNERS at Volkskool Orania seem to embody two contradictory forces: that of the future, with their extremely modern schooling system; and that of the distant past, with an exclusively all-white […]
Adult Basic Education and Training aims to ”break the back of illiteracy among adults in five years”. MINISTER of Education Kader Asmal recently announced that he will ”break the back of illiteracy among adults in five years”. Twelve-and-a-half million South African adults are functionally illiterate, according to a survey by the University of Natal’s Centre […]