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Brothers Still Not in School Just Three Streets Away

by Nonikiwe - Editor on 01 Feb 2012   |   

Two brothers have not yet opened a book at school this year because of a legal battle to establish whether they should be allowed into a school in the south of Johannesburg.

The mother of the two boys and her brother-in-law took the school, its principal, its administration clerk, the school governing body and Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga to court to get the children admitted to the school.

The mother claimed that the school failed to admit the children even though they lived only three streets away from it.

The complainants and the respondents, who were expected to appear before Judge Kathy Satchwell, failed to reach an out-of-court settlement but agreed to meet again at the court on Friday.

• Read complete articel at Timeslive

Storytime with Ballerinas at the Book Lounge This Saturday

by Nonikiwe - Editor on 01 Feb 2012   |   

Ballet is the stuff of dreams for little girls (and some boys!) who love to feel light as a feather on their feet and dance around pretty in pink.
Today we are reading ballet stories and feeling like princesses on our toes.

Storytime is every Saturday at 11am.

• Visit The Book Lounge

Jonathan Jansen Finds a School That Still Cares

by Nonikiwe - Editor on 26 Jan 2012   |   

It is early Monday morning and, after rising at 4am for the early flight from Bloemfontein, I was not in the mood for small talk. I expect the teachers on their first day back from the holidays to exhibit that semi-depression that we all go through on returning to hard work.

Exactly the opposite; these teachers are bristling with excitement, almost literally jumping for joy.

“Are you people on uppers?” I ask the one smiling face after the other as they pass by with their joyful countenances.

There are no children yet, but the place is busy. The principal rushes a few to a management meeting. Others read earnestly from what seems like planning books. Nobody is lazing around, and then the shock: one teacher after another comes to tell me how excited they are about teaching and what a great principal they have as leader. This is not choreographed; they really mean it. Time to find out why.

The first thing that strikes you is that nobody talks about academic results. The emphasis at Leicester Road is on caring, and the vision and mission statements on the school website are filled with words of compassion and belonging.

Two teachers tell me with great passion about their love for the children and how hard they work to make every child feel accepted. They raise money to feed hungry children. They employ additional teachers as specialists to guide and counsel troubled children.

The school is basic but clean, efficient and welcoming. The ethic of care is everywhere.

• Read Complete Article at Timeslive

Living in the City Story time This Saturday at the Book Lounge

by Nonikiwe - Editor on 25 Jan 2012   |   

Story time this Saturday looks at ‘City life’ all around the world. What’s it like for you? Come share any fun or interesting stories about cities.

We are so lucky, we are living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and we get to have a mountain and a sea! Today we are reading stories about cities and what makes them so special, and maybe we will even get to build our own city.
Story time is every Saturday at 11am.

• Visit The Book Lounge

Beach Day for Storytime this Saturday at the Book Lounge

by Nonikiwe - Editor on 01 Dec 2011   |   

Finally summer is here and it is nearly holiday time for many, which in Cape Town means days at the beach (not when it is too hot though remember!)

We will read some summer stories and make suns for our room.

Storytime is every Saturday at 11am.

• Visit The Book Lounge

Matric Student Refuses to be Set Back by Crushed Leg

by Nonikiwe - Editor on 25 Nov 2011   |   

Matric pupil Zanele Zondo had every excuse to throw in the towel when she was knocked down by a bus on day two of the matric exams.

But, despite a broken leg, the 18-year-old has refused to give up.

The teenager, from Orlando West, in Soweto, wrote three papers while being treated in hospital and had to be picked up by the school bus and taken to class to sit for other exams.

A bus hit her in Dobsonville, Soweto, while she was walking home after extra maths and science classes. Her leg was crushed between the bus and a parked car.

“It happened so fast. I was screaming,” the pupil of Chris J Botha Secondary School, in Bosmont, Johannesburg, said yesterday.

She was taken to Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital where she was operated on.

School authorities advised Zondo to write her exams next year, but she refused.

“I have plans. I want to study next year. You have to do what you have to do. It’s life.”

Zondo, who with 12 relatives survives on her grandmother’s pension , wrote two maths papers and an Afrikaans paper during her time in hospital.

“I had to study in hospital. It was difficult. I told myself to ignore the pain, but you can’t.”

Zondo said nurses told her to study using the light of her cellphone after they switched off the lights at night. Other patients in her ward were very supportive.

• Read complete article

Storyteller Gcina Mhlophe Shares Tales About Preserving Nature

by Nonikiwe - Editor on 23 Nov 2011   |   

Popular and talented storyteller Gcina Mhlophe will be sharing tales about preserving nature in the coming weeks.

Mhlophe, best known for izingwanekwane (African traditional folk tales), is scheduled to perform storytelling sessions to teach communities about preserving the Earth at the two-week 17th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP17) that starts on Monday.

African culture teaches children that they must not listen to tales during the day because they will “grow horns”, but Mhlophe has encouraged many storytelling enthusiasts, who are inspired by her zest for the oral tradition.

I recall waking up every Saturday morning and running to my hi-fi to hear Mhlophe tell the stories of The Princess and the Frog and The Singing Chameleon.

I was seven and it was music to my ears.

So it’s on the basis of my experience that I predict that this is going to be an electrifying experience for young children – and the young at heart.

Mhlophe is well known and respected for keeping history alive in the oral tradition.

Talking about the climate change conference, she said her role was to teach people about the importance of preserving nature.

• Read complete article at iol

Come Have a Whale of a Time This Saturday at the Book Lounge

by Nonikiwe - Editor on 23 Nov 2011   |   

Did you know? A single breath from a Blue Whale adult is enough to inflate 2000 balloons and its heart is the size of a small car. Amazing!

Big fish, small stories!

Do come along and listen to stories about a sea creature we all adore and can often see from our shores.

• Visit The Book Lounge

SA Children Perpare for Exams Without Learning

by Nonikiwe - Editor on 09 Nov 2011   |   

With these ubiquitous examinations upon us once more, it is a good time to ask a very unsettling question: how much learning actually goes on inside South African schools and universities?

I do not mean how many facts are memorised at short notice to regurgitate in the final exam. I mean learning, variously defined as a transformation in the meaning of a student’s experience; the altering of beliefs; the changing of behaviour; the things we think we actually send our children to school for.

Sometimes seismic shifts in education take place without anyone noticing. It kind of sneaks up on you so you take what happens in school and classroom life for granted. One of those shifts, I dare to say, has been the move away from a concern for learning to a preoccupation with testing.

The next time you have a child in school, simply tick off the number of times the child writes tests and examinations. In many high schools teachers early on begin to focus on “what is required for” the upcoming examinations; this obsession takes on feverish proportions as children move from Grade 10 to Grade 12.

To understand this obsession with writing tests you have to understand what propels the school system in this direction.

There is enormous pressure on students to do well in these often mindless tests because of an often misplaced interest in the children’s future.

The smartest children pick up on this cue that doing well in academic subjects is good for them and draws praise from all quarters. So what did some of them do?

They took more than a dozen subjects. I remember a child at a Pretoria school who somehow got more than 20 distinctions in what was then called “matric”. Such a child is not only a danger to society, but a danger to higher education. Can you imagine the kind of stress this child must have passed through to attain this ridiculous feat?

What does this say about the overall health of a child when obviously all the time available for living was consumed in this senseless game of impressing adults? When, in fact, did learning take place?

But, of course this pressure on children to do well in school examinations is good for the school. Principals obsess with looking good in the eyes of their peers, the parents and their province.

I endlessly hear principals claiming things like a 99.3% pass rate in Grade 12. So what? Did the children learn anything? Now that would be something worth boasting about. The teachers have a stake in the results as well.

I remember how an anxious mathematics teacher told me that if she had a failure in teaching this subject, she would be “demoted” (her words) to teaching mathematical literacy. And imagine as a parent being able to boast that your Sipho or Sanna got straight As in the senior certificate examination; the genes do wonders! And there you were, thinking that this whole game was about the children or about learning. It is, let me be honest, simply a game.

Nothing demonstrates the demise of learning in our society more powerfully than what happens to poor children in serially disrupted schools and classrooms.

Somewhere around June of the school year, mindless bureaucrats and politicians decide you can cram into weekend and vacation ovens thousands of little facts that children will remember long enough to give back on the date of the dreaded examination.

You do not need to be an educational psychologist to recognise this is not learning; it is the education equivalent of force-feeding an undernourished patient on junk food.

• Read complete article at Timeslive

Nine-Year Old Free State Twins Set to Launch Novels

by Nonikiwe - Editor on 09 Nov 2011   |   

WHILE most children under 10 cannot wait to get home after school to have fun with friends or play the latest TV games, twins from Qwaqwa are busy writing short stories.

Yuvadiya and Sonal Ranjith — nine-year-old Grade three learners at Harriston Primary School in Harrismith, will launch their books, Huvera and A Christmas Miracle, later this month.

Huvera, an eight-page book written by Yuvadiya, tells the story of a little girl who gains respect in her community through her own good efforts.

Sonal’s book is about a very sick girl who sees a star and makes a wish which is granted to her.

Surev Ranjith, father of the twins, said his daughters have always been different from other kids their own age.

He said his daughters’ books would be ideal reading material for other children “as young people easily identify with stories by young writers”.

The twins write about everyday events in their surroundings and also tackle issues that trouble young children.

“Furthermore, being a young author develops confidence in children who often find careers at a later stage that incorporate creative writing,” Ranjith said.

“The books will inspire other children to write and it also shows that you don’t have to be an adult to write a book.

“They are so confident that they are not scared to be put under the spotlight.”

From early on in their lives, they preferred to read children’s books or express themselves through drawings, the proud father said.

When he heard about the “Dancing Pencils Literacy Development Project” in Durban, a non-profit organisation which assists young authors, Ranjith knew it could be a chance for his children to make some history.

• Read complete article at FreeStateTimes