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Education requires listening as much as it does teaching
Church in the Community - Media Release in the Herald: 21st November 2022
Source: TCN / Rob le Roux
Date Added: 2022-11-21
Category: General News, TCN News, Issues - General, Issues - Education, Issues - Parenting,
Date Added: 2022-11-21
Category: General News, TCN News, Issues - General, Issues - Education, Issues - Parenting,
After having the privilege of teaching all my life, and always in government schools, I can say with certainty that there is nothing wrong with our education system. You just have to look at the quality of the youngsters leaving our functioning schools to see that it is world class.
What is wrong is the way schools are being managed. Here I am not talking about the dysfunctional schools where the management and teachers simply do not care.
Where teachers are prepared to teach and invest in their pupils your schools are going to be good. Unfortunately, that's not the majority.
But it is possible to turn dysfunctional schools around and to make those which are working even better.
It all comes down to leadership.
The Bible tells us to love and respect others. These were my guiding principles for 14 years as head of Westerford High School in Cape Town, which is one of the top performing government schools in the country.
I make no bones about the fact that I had the privilege of working with an excellent team and the cream of the crop academically. The pupils, who come from all backgrounds, are both bright and demanding.
What we found is that there is strength in diversity – as long as you treat everyone with respect. Pupils, parents and staff alike.
Then there is a balance between listening and changing for the sake of it or to avoid conflict. There is a big difference between entitlement and reasonable requests.
Soon after I started we were presented with a long list of demands from senior pupils. It was written atrociously and there was no way as management that could give in.
Instead of rejecting the demands outright, we worked with the group to refine their document to the point where it was a list of suggestions and requests rather than demands.
Through this process they learned a valuable life skill. Most of the requests were subsequently implemented because they made sense.
One was changes to the uniforms.
Starting from the fact that wearing uniform at government schools is a non-negotiable, we sent out questionnaires to the pupils and parents and did research of our own.
Some requests were unreasonable, but others were good.
The girls wanted to be able to wear trousers, which makes sense in a cold and windy Cape Town winter.
They also really did not like the dress and wanted us to switch to skirts and a T-shirt.
They modelled the new uniforms for us, and it went through without any hassle whatsoever. The skirt has since become a “skort.”
For the boys, the main bone of contention was hair. They wanted to wear their hair long – pointing out that it was discriminatory for girls to be able to have long hair and not them.
The girls wanted to be able to have different styles, such as braids.
Again, we sent out a survey to staff, parents and the pupils.
Please understand that we were experimenting. As a management team we were treading on new ground.
The school system allows you to do that – as long as you can show that it will have a positive impact on the quality of education offered by the school.
Our decision was to have uniform regulations for boys and girls. If you wanted to wear your hair long, it had to be neat, tidy and clean at all times.
We introduced the regulations in November to give the boys time to grow their hair over the summer. When they got back it was great to see the girls showing them how to pin it back.
There were no issues because we listened to the pupils, and we consulted widely with the parents and staff.
We took the same approach with jewellery – if the boys wanted to wear earrings, they had the same rules as the girls.
Much more challenging is the issue of gender. We were faced with what we thought would be a big issue when one of the boys told us that he had identified himself as a girl, and that he wanted to be able to dress like a girl and be treated as a girl.
Again, we listened. We consulted with her parents, and she was evaluated by a specialist psychologist.
The management team agonised over what the response by the other pupils and parents would be, but we decided to allow her to come to school as a girl and – nothing. She was accepted and teaching went on without any disruption.
Teaching is the bottom line. I worry that post-Covid some schools have not reinstated sport and societies. At Westerford it was compulsory to do sport, even it was as part of the walking club, and to belong to at least one society.
This is where valuable life and leadership skills are learned.
You don’t need massive facilities. There are under-resourced township schools that are turning out great athletes and leaders.
Westerford pupils also learned about tolerance at the Friday assemblies. With post-apartheid diversity we could not have only a Christian devotion – which for me, as a Christian, was a challenge.
Friday assemblies evolved into motivational and inspirational messages shared by academic staff, non-academic staff and pupils on a roster basis.
We would have members of the Christian and Muslim societies sharing the stage – having found common ground.
Rob le Roux
Retired as principal of Westerford High School in Cape Town three years ago.
What is wrong is the way schools are being managed. Here I am not talking about the dysfunctional schools where the management and teachers simply do not care.
Where teachers are prepared to teach and invest in their pupils your schools are going to be good. Unfortunately, that's not the majority.
But it is possible to turn dysfunctional schools around and to make those which are working even better.
It all comes down to leadership.
The Bible tells us to love and respect others. These were my guiding principles for 14 years as head of Westerford High School in Cape Town, which is one of the top performing government schools in the country.
I make no bones about the fact that I had the privilege of working with an excellent team and the cream of the crop academically. The pupils, who come from all backgrounds, are both bright and demanding.
What we found is that there is strength in diversity – as long as you treat everyone with respect. Pupils, parents and staff alike.
Then there is a balance between listening and changing for the sake of it or to avoid conflict. There is a big difference between entitlement and reasonable requests.
Soon after I started we were presented with a long list of demands from senior pupils. It was written atrociously and there was no way as management that could give in.
Instead of rejecting the demands outright, we worked with the group to refine their document to the point where it was a list of suggestions and requests rather than demands.
Through this process they learned a valuable life skill. Most of the requests were subsequently implemented because they made sense.
One was changes to the uniforms.
Starting from the fact that wearing uniform at government schools is a non-negotiable, we sent out questionnaires to the pupils and parents and did research of our own.
Some requests were unreasonable, but others were good.
The girls wanted to be able to wear trousers, which makes sense in a cold and windy Cape Town winter.
They also really did not like the dress and wanted us to switch to skirts and a T-shirt.
They modelled the new uniforms for us, and it went through without any hassle whatsoever. The skirt has since become a “skort.”
For the boys, the main bone of contention was hair. They wanted to wear their hair long – pointing out that it was discriminatory for girls to be able to have long hair and not them.
The girls wanted to be able to have different styles, such as braids.
Again, we sent out a survey to staff, parents and the pupils.
Please understand that we were experimenting. As a management team we were treading on new ground.
The school system allows you to do that – as long as you can show that it will have a positive impact on the quality of education offered by the school.
Our decision was to have uniform regulations for boys and girls. If you wanted to wear your hair long, it had to be neat, tidy and clean at all times.
We introduced the regulations in November to give the boys time to grow their hair over the summer. When they got back it was great to see the girls showing them how to pin it back.
There were no issues because we listened to the pupils, and we consulted widely with the parents and staff.
We took the same approach with jewellery – if the boys wanted to wear earrings, they had the same rules as the girls.
Much more challenging is the issue of gender. We were faced with what we thought would be a big issue when one of the boys told us that he had identified himself as a girl, and that he wanted to be able to dress like a girl and be treated as a girl.
Again, we listened. We consulted with her parents, and she was evaluated by a specialist psychologist.
The management team agonised over what the response by the other pupils and parents would be, but we decided to allow her to come to school as a girl and – nothing. She was accepted and teaching went on without any disruption.
Teaching is the bottom line. I worry that post-Covid some schools have not reinstated sport and societies. At Westerford it was compulsory to do sport, even it was as part of the walking club, and to belong to at least one society.
This is where valuable life and leadership skills are learned.
You don’t need massive facilities. There are under-resourced township schools that are turning out great athletes and leaders.
Westerford pupils also learned about tolerance at the Friday assemblies. With post-apartheid diversity we could not have only a Christian devotion – which for me, as a Christian, was a challenge.
Friday assemblies evolved into motivational and inspirational messages shared by academic staff, non-academic staff and pupils on a roster basis.
We would have members of the Christian and Muslim societies sharing the stage – having found common ground.
Rob le Roux
Retired as principal of Westerford High School in Cape Town three years ago.
Source: TCN / Rob le Roux
Date Added: 2022-11-21
Category: General News, TCN News, Issues - General, Issues - Education, Issues - Parenting,
Back to News IndexDate Added: 2022-11-21
Category: General News, TCN News, Issues - General, Issues - Education, Issues - Parenting,
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