Thursday, September 30, 2010

Now might be a good time to consider homeschooling

After weeks of lost teaching time due to the national teacher's strike; our colleagues have engaged in a sympathy strike with those who face disciplinary action for their conduct during the strike.

Once again, the message to our students is clear: discipline is not important, not even for those who break the law. That some SADTU and NEHAWU members behaved badly is beyond question. That they need to face the consequences of their actions goes without saying. That their colleagues and comrades embark on a sympathy strike to avoid this disciplinary action is frightening to say the least.

We all send our children to public schools in good faith. If we can afford it we send our children to private schools. When an entire country's public schooling system is in chaos; an often neglected option, but a sensible one is the homeschooling choice.

One needs only to browse the Internet for a few minutes to discover just how many resources there are for those who choose to set up a home classroom and a home school. If you can afford to be a stay at home parent, it makes sense to spend the valuable early years of your child's life teaching him or her yourself.

Free resources for homeschooling are readily available. Ideas are everywhere you look. If you are a teacher trained in only one or two specialist areas, you will be more than capable of following a guided curriculum in all the required learning areas. Even if you have no training as a teacher,there are so many online resources to assist you that you will be an expert in no time at all. Start learning with your child from the pre-Kindergarten stage and move along grade by grade with your child.

Another option is to home school your child for the primary school years and then identify a suitable high school for him or her to join a mainstream classroom. Research has shown that children who have been home schooled fare far better in college and tertiary institutions as they are able to pace themselves and engage in self-study.

In the long run, home schooling can in fact be a cheaper option in monetary terms. One saves on transport costs and uniform costs to name but two savings. Obviously you will need to spend money on stationery, equipment, course materials and the like, but you will have the benefit of remaining your child's primary teacher for the years he or she is schooled at home.

The choice to home school your child cannot be taken lightly and one should do the research carefully. Speak to others who have followed this route, join a support group and weigh up your options carefully.

Visit my website at http://resourcesforteachersandschools.webs.com/ for ideas on how to go about setting up a home school classroom and obtaining teaching resources.

Can we really continue to entrust our children to teachers who teach not for the love of teaching, but for the money ?

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Overcoming an Aversion to Mathematics

Many a mathematics teacher has been accused of "putting a child off" mathematics for life. In our current curriculum, every child has to offer Mathematics or Mathematical Literacy to attain a National Senior Certificate (Grade 12).

Pass requirements for mathematics have been increased for the Intermediate Phase. It has become critically important then to make sure that our children are taught not to fear the big mathematics monster that has been created in many a child's mind.

Mathematics instruction and classwork need to be presented in a non-threatening and fun way. Children learn best through doing and so hands-on concrete exercises will assist teachers in conveying new concepts more easily.

Teachers of mathematics need to constantly go back to basics when they present a new topic or concept. An experienced teacher will take exercises from Grade 1 right up to the Grade he or she is teaching as an introductory lesson. Learners then are made to feel confident from the outset. A few simple exercises for revision purposes will ensure that no child is left behind. Reviewing the building blocks will also enable teachers to fill in the gaps created by poor teaching in previous years.

Teachers who are privileged enough to have access to computers in the classroom will find that moving from hand work to keyboard work keeps children interested in the mathematics classroom. There are many wonderful free programs and online activities one can use. A teacher with a data projector and whiteboard can also make use of Powerpoint and video tutorials to maintain the learners' interest.

Time spent reviewing the basic building blocks is never time wasted. Graded online activities will ensure that students can work at their own pace and attain success in a specific area before moving on. Mathematics teachers would be well advised to browse the Internet for Mathematics games, quizzes and fun challenges to download for class activities.

Making mathematics fun is the best way to ensure that learners learn and want to learn. Providing mathematics games which can be played by one, two or more players will have children focusing on winning and minimize the possibility that they will feel threatened or exposed if they provide the wrong answer.

I have found one such product in my Internet searches that I really believe will work for mathematics teachers. This resource "Making Math More Fun - Math Games Package" comes in the form of down-loadable e-books. Teachers can then make as many copies of the pencil and paper worksheets and games they may need, dependent on class size. The games are graded in terms of difficulty and cover the basics and building blocks of mathematics in a fun and simple way.


"Making Math More Fun Printable Math Games"
Gives you 4 books jam packed full of kids math games and fun math activities to make math exciting and easy to learn.

Math Board Games - Printable Math Board Games
Math Print and Play Games Sheets - Printable Games Sheets for 2 Players
Math Card Games - Printable Math Card Games
and Math Games Ideas - Math Games for School or Home

Make mathematics fun again. Simply click on the link below and you could be using these wonderful resources within a few minutes.

Click Here!

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Study Methods Make all the Difference to a Student's Grades

The final examinations are just around the corner. Teachers the world over will be instructing their students to go home and "study". Some teachers will even use classroom and tuition time to get their administrative tasks up to date while they inform their students that they will be given the English lesson, for example, "to revise for the examinations."

Unfortunately, many students do not actually have the tools or techniques required to equip them to study. Many a teacher has been horrified to see little Johnny sitting staring at a textbook for twenty minutes or so. When asked what he is doing, he will very seriously reply, "I am studying, Ma'am."

Teachers need to make sure that along with the content of their subject which they teach; that they have given their students study method tools to enable the students to prepare for tests and examinations. When a student receives low marks for a test, he or she will be asked immediately, "Did you study for this test?" The child will generally feel aggrieved and reply in the affirmative. The question posed should not necessarily be "Did you study for this test? " but rather, "How did you study for this test?"

Believe it or not, study skills are are in most high schools a so-called scarce skill. Teachers the world over need to equip children with study skills and techniques that work. Study skills will obviously need to be slightly adapted to suit the particular learning style of the individual student. A well-constructed study methods course will make provision for individual learning preferences, and probably include a mixture of the various styles of memorizing and retaining knowledge.

There are many wonderful products out there which teachers can access to assist their students. One such product is a book which one can download in PDF file format called "Get The Best Grades With The Least Amount of Effort" written by Dr Marc Dussault. The title alone will entice the laziest of students to agree to follow the program presented.

This incredibly useful and effective book includes a five step program to organize study and homework tasks, six powerful recall methods, seven studying shortcuts and tested methods to improve test and examination performance. For more information, teachers and students can visit Dr Dussault's website and order a copy of this very helpful book. Simply click the link below to place your order:

Click Here!

Here's to improved final examination results next month; students need to "Study smarter, not study harder".

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Budget Time - Save Energy and Money

The Department of Basic Education has again announced curriculum changes to be implemented in 2012 in South Africa's classrooms. Now is clearly not the time to invest money in Intermediate Phase textbooks which will soon become irrelevant and outdated.

School Principals should focus instead on class workbooks to tide the classes over until new textbooks are available. Teachers should be encouraged to make use of the many websites which offer free teaching resources and ideas to compile these workbooks.

As long as teachers acknowledge their sources properly and do not violate copyright laws, they can save time by downloading ready-made worksheets, assignments and rubrics for use in the classroom in 2011. Teachers need only Google "free teaching resources" to access pages and pages of content. A review site such as www.sitesforteachers.com provides an overview, ranked by users of the many sites available.

A thematic approach has never been easier. These sites offer free posters for your display boards in addition to classroom resources. You will even find recognition certificates and awards to reward your learners ( in line with the themes you are working on).

Teachers could be encouraged too to download and print free E Books to promote literacy and refine research skills. If one is lucky enough to have access to computers in the classroom, learners could be kept busy with online tests and quizzes. The beauty of such an exercise is that the learners have fun learning and the assessment is done for the educator. Talk about pain-free marking and saving time!

When the annual budget is presented to the parent body, the adjustments in expenditure need only be explained - a cut in textbook expenditure has been moved to the paper and reprographics budget line-item instead. Once the parents see the workbooks provided for their children the following academic year, they should agree that the expenditure in time and money has been worth it.

Principals should encourage their staff members to have fun creating workbooks. A staff competition with a decent reward will encourage teachers to ensure that the workbooks are professionally presented and a worthy replacement for an equivalent textbook.

Teach the "old dogs" on the staff new technological tricks and cut your teachers' preparation time in half. Teaching websites have been created by teachers for teachers. The quality of the lesson materials is excellent. No teacher would put a lesson idea or materials on a website for millions of viewers, if it were substandard in any way.

Many websites for teachers even offer chat forums, where one can connect with teachers from all over the world and share ideas, problems and solutions. Teachers who are new to the profession need mentoring. Instead of piling hundreds of textbooks in front of them; hand them the current textbook or workbook in use and direct them to an Internet-enabled desktop or laptop. They will soon realise that they need have no fears about how they will gather content for their lessons.

A visit to a teaching resources site will also enable new teachers to cut down on administrative duties in that work programs, lesson plans and so on are freely available on the Internet.

Principals should assist their teachers to save time and money on resources so their teachers can spend their time doing what they are paid to do - teaching children.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

"What did you learn at school today, son?"

The words of a popular old song come to mind as I write this. It goes, "Teach your children well..." Well we seem to have been doing that in South Africa just recently.

As if the teachers' strike did not do enough damage, the class of 2010 is now imitating their teachers and taking to the streets. Their cause - their teachers let them down at a crucial stage of their matric year; just three weeks before the very important Preliminary examinations. Their "demand"- a "free" 25% towards their final CASS (Continuous Assessment mark).

We can blame the teachers for setting a poor example, we can blame the government for not paying teachers decent wages in the first place or we bemoan the fact that history does repeat itself as we watch the modern-day post apartheid students face the wrath of the security forces brought in to quell the students' not so peaceful protests; or we could look at the root cause of this 2010 "student uprising".

The root of the children's fear is that they will fail matric. That many learners will indeed fail matric goes without saying. What we need to ask ourselves, however is how three short weeks of lost tuition time spread across twelve long years of formal schooling, could have such a disastrous impact on our final examination results?

The answer is quite simple. With the final matric examination being the only reliable benchmark of learner performance we have in our country; many teachers from the lower grades (Grade R to 11) rest on their laurels and offer sub-standard instruction and tuition and get away with it.

South Africa's schools are in crisis. Our schooling system is an embarrassment to our new Government and our country as a whole. That intervention is needed is obvious; that it should have happened "yesterday" is not really acknowledged.

We need to start from the bottom up. We need to hold teachers responsible for their learners' results, from as early as Grade R. We need to give teachers the power to decide if a child is ready to proceed to the next grade with his or her "age cohort" of not.

We need real evaluation strategies to determine a teacher's effectiveness or ineffectiveness. We need to reward the professionals teachers who do their job well and dismiss those who do not.

Government needs to stop cow-tying to Unions and start addressing teachers directly, in the workplace. Teachers' Unions collect millions of rands in membership fees each month. With this amount of economic and political clout, surely a trade union representing an entire profession, could negotiate with the state to improve conditions of service for teachers without calling a chalk-down? If we all did our work properly and our final examination results improved would this not be a more effective bargaining tool than taking to the streets?

It is high time that the Department of Education enforced the IQMS system in the manner in which it was intended - as a reward for those whose performance is above average as far as teaching is concerned. In the Eastern Cape year after year, every teacher regardless of their results, is given a minimal 1.5% bonus which is supposedly a performance-based reward. That performance has not been properly monitored or evaluated is ignored.

What are we teaching our children ? That one can be rewarded without any effort and without any measurement of one's performance? No wonder our children do not see the irony in demanding marks for "free".

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Changing South Africa's schools; one school at a time...

School managers, are by the very nature of their position, knowledge gatherers and disseminators of this knowledge. Managers need always to be on the lookout for materials to encourage their teachers to be the best possible teachers they can.

The approach when deciding on school improvements should be two-fold. Firstly, we can look at what does not work (what should be avoided at all costs) and, secondly, we can look at effective schooling systems the world over to analyse what works in practice and how and why it works.

In the McKinsey&Company report entitled, "How the World's best-performing school systems come out on top", the Introduction (page 13) sums it up for us. McKinsey states that the three most important factors which separate functional from dysfunctional systems are based on the fact that:
1) The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers;
2) The only way to improve outcomes is to improve instruction;
3) The only way for the system to reach the highest performance is to raise the standard of every student.

The three statements above should guide School Management(by providing a solution to school improvement, in three easy steps) to success. We need first to acknowledge that the quality of a school or system is not then based on how much money we spend per capita, nor is it based on class sizes. The quality of an individual school, or school system is determined by the teachers who work within the school or system.

So how do we attract quality teachers into our schools? How do we make teaching an attractive profession again? Government needs to look at allocating more of its spending on education to teachers' salaries to start. To make up for the severe shortage of teachers in South Africa, the government needs too to offer attractive bursaries to top matric candidates who would otherwise enter the private sector on the completion of their studies.

School Management teams need to be rigorous and alert in the selection process when they set out to hire new teachers. A successful teacher has usually been a successful learner; so results matter. Only literate, intelligent and driven people will succeed in the classroom.

In the selection process, apart from a sound academic history, soft skills are of paramount importance. Teachers must be excellent communicators, for that is the essence of their profession. Teachers must have "servant" hearts because the nature of their profession rests on their determination to affect young lives, for generations to come.

Today's teachers need to garner respect not through the threat of corporal punishment (which I believe should be re-introduced)but by their presence in the classroom; a presence which speaks volumes before the teacher has uttered a word. The presence of an excellent teacher in the classroom should say "I am here: to serve, to help you uncover the wonderful mysteries of the universe itself, to share, to guide, to draw alongside and to make sure that you are passionate, enthusiastic, achieving and wanting to learn more, by the time you have passed through my hands."

School Management teams, need therefore to ensure that the interview and selection processes are designed to uncover the soft skills an applicant has. The ability to work with others, versatility, flexibility and a willingness to accept and embrace change will ensure the success of a modern teacher.

If the interviewee appears to have a stock solution to every conceivable situation posed during the interview process, it would be best to move on to the next applicant. If your interviewee is more concerned about discipline than individual learner performance, you may well have a teacher who will spend all day focused on learner behaviour rather than learner achievement; move on.

Move on until you identify the candidate who acknowledges that teaching is most definitely not a half-day job, that teaching is an all-consuming passion, a lifelong commitment, a creative process which strives to attain not an end product, but offers just one small contribution at a time to the ever-changing, developing, growing young clients' lives entrusted to our hands - our learners.

Friday, September 3, 2010

The Government Gazette: NOTICE 752 OF 2010- DEPARTMENT OF BASIC EDUCATION. No. 334343 Action Plan to 2014: Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2025 was released for public comment recently.

Reading through this hefty 192 page document today, I got to thinking again how we as individual teachers could work towards and contribute daily to the improvement of the quality of our Education system. In this gazette, our Minister of Basic Education outlines the Department’s plan. She states:” The action plan has 27 goals. Goals 1 to 13 deal with outputs we want to achieve in relation to learning and enrollments. Goals 14 to 27 deal with the things we must do to achieve our 13 output goals.”

Goals 1 to 13 highlight all the problems which need to be addressed within our current system: the need to improve literacy and numeracy in Grades 3, 6, 8 and 9; the need to ensure that more matric learners attain a Bachelor’s degree pass; to retain learners in our schools at least until age 15; to help learners gain access to FET facilities and opportunities after Grade 9.

I found some of the points in the implementation strategy outlined in Goals 14 to 27, very interesting. Goal 18 is “to ensure that learners cover all the topics and skills areas that they should cover within their current school year.”

The Minister goes on to outline the problem. She says that many children move into the next grade without having completed the teaching program for the year. And so it continues year after year and bottlenecks at the exit points – Grade 9 and 12. She states: “The problem is partly caused by insufficient time being spent in the year on teaching and learning. Time is lost because teachers and learners arrive late, or leave early. Time is also lost during the school day when breaks are extended and teachers are not in class when they should be.”

How much more damage then has been done this year, where in addition to “normal” loss of teaching time caused by unprofessional teachers who are “not in class when they should be”, we have had time off (1 week) for the World Cup Soccer; and teachers have taken to the streets to participate in strike action for the last three weeks?

As with any profession, teachers too have a code of Professional ethics by which they must abide. In addition to this, we have all been asked to commit to the Code for Quality Education, the preamble to which reads: “The power to improve education lies within all of us. We call on all department officials, teachers, students, parents and community members to make a commitment to a `Code for Quality Education’. In line with this code teachers are to make the following pledge: “As a TEACHER, in line with the SACE Code of Professional Ethics, I promise to: teach, to advance the education and development of learners as individuals…”

As the teachers’ strike drags on with seemingly no end in sight, and teachers have forsaken their learners and use the loss of learning time as ammunition to get the government to acquiesce to their demands, it is abundantly clear: that many of South Africa’s teachers see the Code of Conduct for teachers as an irrelevant document, not binding on their consciences, with which they have chosen not to abide.

I plead with our Minister to look into declaring teachers as essential services staff so this debacle of the last few weeks will never again be repeated. I plead with our Minister of Education to enforce the Professional Code of Conduct and strike teachers off the roll (not only for serious criminal offences) but for failing to adhere to their professional oath: to TEACH.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

While the strike drags on...

This morning the news was, once again, almost completely dominated by stories of the ever-burgeoning public service strike. Some unions are poised to accept government's wage offers, while others remain "bloody, bold and resolute" in their demands, to quote `The Bard'.

One news item piqued my interest and fanned my strike- ire flames: The Justice and Social Development departments have announced that more child, and youth-care centres are to be built.

While we spend government money on institutions to take care of young law-breakers; should we not be looking at how, as a society, we "birth" young criminals?

School buildings are and should be, a priority. The more functioning schools we have, the less we will need to cater for school drop-outs and scores of unemployed youths; who turn to crime to "pass the time" and "earn" an income.

Look at the statistics, and you will see how many children are "lost" to the education system between their enrollment at Grade 1 level and their final Grade 12 year. High-risk behaviours and premature deaths account for only some of these drop-out statistics.

What are we doing wrong to cause our youth to turn their backs on education and opportunities for self-growth and self-improvement? Quite a lot, it would seem.

In dysfunctional schools all over the country, teacher absenteeism rates have soared. Many schools simply do not open, or close very early on teachers' payday. Teachers are tasked with inspiring our youth to pursue knowledge and gain lifelong skills to equip them to face the adult world, the world beyond the classroom. Teachers are expected to broaden children's horizons, to get them excited about "the great big world out there". Can this happen if teachers are not in their classrooms?

If teachers are not in their classrooms, teaching, what motivation do children have to go to school, to learn? The government needs to re-open the good old-fashioned Teacher Training Colleges which worked. These institutions produced teachers of a high calibre who had a clear idea about their roles, functions, and subject matter.

Today, many teachers opt to study through distance learning programs and only start gaining practical experience when they are employed in their first teaching post. Teaching is a hands-on, experiential process and teachers need more than just subject knowledge and expertise to be effective in the classroom and the broader society.

A dwindling respect for teachers has resulted from the many unprofessional teachers on the ground who have, unfortunately, tainted the reputation of ALL of South Africa's teachers. Our truly professional teachers, need first to earn our pupils' respect, before effective teaching can really take place. In the "good old days", teachers were respected by virtue of the high-standing they held in society.

And so the problem grows and slowly starts to spiral out of control. Learners no longer see teachers as members of a "helping" profession so they do not turn to us when they should. A child in trouble, in a functional school, will often share a traumatic event or crisis with his or her teacher, before sharing the experience with a family member. In dysfunctional schools, to whom can learners turn?

As learners no longer respect their teachers, it is difficult for them to see teachers as authorities on their subject; or indeed authority figures at all. How can we expect learners to look up to teachers; when teachers are very often not worthy role models?

The government needs to build new schools. Statistics show that, in the Eastern Cape alone, at least 1000 new schools need to built, to start. If schools are full, and in short supply, we are creating and feeding the drop-out rate problems.

However, a school is not just a building; it is so much more. The quality of our teachers is the single most important determining factor in the success or failure of our individual schools, and the education system at large. Unions who fought to see the inspection system dissolved have created a monster - thousands of teachers simply go through the motions and teach for the money, and not for our children or our country's future.

Government needs to move quickly to ensure that our teachers are listed among essential services staff in our public service. Teachers need to realise that is unprofessional and immoral to stay away from the classroom in times of strike action. The very essence of our positions revolves around the children we teach. What happens to children when their teachers are on strike?

A teachers' strike is more complicated than just a "chalk-down". Teachers during times of strike action, literally turn their backs on their learners and use them as pawns. What do you think our children are doing now? Do you think they are studying; do you think they are safe; do you think they are off the streets and keeping themselves busy with gainful pursuits?

In our small town, the streets are full of children, the taverns are making huge profits during school hours, and the drug sellers are rubbing their hands in glee. If our teachers continue to fail our children, government will indeed need to invest money in the building of youth-care centres, rather than schools.