SPORTS AS A TOOL OF EDUCATING CHILDREN

SPORTS HELP IN LEARNING

One of the objectives of our new curriculum is empowering learners in all sides of life and identifying their talents. Sports is also part of one of Life orientation's learning outcomes. By participating in sports learners can also builid on their health.

Using sports such as indegenous games also helps in teaching our learners about their culture.Most of the cultural games such as muravharavha, ndode and mufuvha helps learners to enrich their knowledge in mathematics and creativity. Sports made learners busy that they do not spend time lingering arround doing nothing.



Sport can also be used in crime prevention because when learners are participating more on sport they are always busy. Most of the crime prevention teams use sport as the tool of fighting against drug abuse amoungst students. Sports events are also used during campaigns against HIV and AIDS.



Sport are very important and they have to be taken into consideration at schools,who knows we might spot olympic medalists in our schools.

MOTIVATION IS ANOTHER WAY TO ENCOURAGE LEARNERS

Most of our students do not underperform because they are not capable, it is because of the stress and lack of motivation. Therefore I argue teachers and parents to give motivation ad full support to their children.

Motivating learners helps them to perform better in the class, increase self confidence and higher self esteem. Motivation can also serve as a relieve to psychological breakdown. Motivating learners helps as a source of strength and perseverance. Motivation boost the morale of learners.

Motivation also helps learners as an armunation to conquer fear. Most of the schools that invite motivational speakers at their school tend to perform better. Learners has to be exposed to their rolemodels so that they can learn from them and be motivated to achieve more. Teachers also can be motivators by encouraging learners to achieve more. Teachers has to always give positive comments about learner's partipation at the same time showing them that they still have a room to improve.

Parents also play a role in motivating learners, negative comments always kills the sprit of learners,so parents has to encourage their children and give them support even when they are struggling. Giving children positive comments brought hope and encourages them to do better.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR TEACHERS?

It was monday morning and I was reading the newspaper the headline read as "A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL RAPES A LEARNER". I was very ashamed and betrayed by that bad behavior by my fellow comrade that I even ask myself if the news repoter was just making it up.

This has become a very bad disease in most of our teachers, they no longer see their learners as their children. One wonders wether they chose the teaching carrer because of hunger or the passion of building the strong educated future children. As a teacher and a rolemodel one ask questions on what does young children learn from a person of such behaviour.

Most of the teenagers become pregnant because of their teachers and they keep quite because of fear. Some children are promised to be given money and free marks just because they slept with the teacher. This behaviour is destroying the good image of teachers.

The question is as a teacher, a public figure what do you feel when you start to approach young children. Don't you feel ashemed of yourself? Don't you care about the child's future? Most of the learners who has gone through the abuse lose focus in school work.

Even female teachers are involved in this acts that leave them naked, one of the female teachers was found busy seducing and kissing a student at school. As teachers we took the outh that we will treat students as our children but why now?

This disease is taking us down teachers is about we say enough is enough.

CORPRAL PUNISHMENT IN OUR SCHOOLS

One of the major problems facing schools today is the ill-discipline in our learners, the problem has caused a lot of tensions between teachers and students. Some state that teachers has no power as the government has passed the law that corpral punishment is illegal in our schools. But the question is, is corpral punishment the effective way of keeping discipline in the class?

Taking into consideration that schools teach children civilization I find it not necessary to whip children like donkeys. Using corporal punishment is like telling them that the only way to solve problems is by being violent. Most of the students become pain-resistant that they no longer feel anything no matter how many times you beat them. They see beating as a little game they play with their teachers.

According to the researches corpral punishment gives pain in the flesh not the inner person. It does not make any difference. The only thing that can maintain discipline is by talking to them, there no powerfull disciplinarian as the mouth. The pain can go away but words stay forever in the mind.

As professionals whipping children look as uncivilized and having problems with problem solving and maintaining discipline.

SHORTAGE OF MATHS AND SCIENCE TEACHERS

The South African teaching industry has a huge problem regarding the shortage of teachers, mostly Science and Maths teachers. The problem is not new in the industry, it started a long time ago during Bantu education(apartheid era), Maths and Science are one of the most important subjects in our school curriculum because they are foundation of engineers,doctors and financial fields of which there is a shortage in South Africa.

The root of the problem was during the implementing of Bantu education. Most of the primary school teachers were given jobs to teach Maths and Science in the secondary level without exprience. Most of the students failed because teachers were failing to reach the maximum expectation and they relied mostly in text books. As a result most of the learners opted to do other subjects such as History.

The problem is felt now as we are living in the world of science and technology, South Africa is facing a huge shortage of manpower in the fields of technology and science.It is clearly possible that it because of the shortage of teachers in our schools.

However, a little of the teachers we have leave the industry to join private companies, which means the problem is here to stay unless we have good options to prevent it. Some of those teachers end up holding big posts in the department,and the department fails to find best replacements.

The government tried to give bursaries to students who want to do teaching in Maths and Science,but the question is how many years will those students stay in the industry without thinking to quit because of poor wages.

The problem is affecting our whole development as the country so is about time the government redress its system in teachers wages and rights.

PROBLEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

As from 1994 when South Africa obtain its democratic government many changes were implemented. Even our education system faced some major changes including higher education in form of colleges and universities. The government tried to work on problems in universities by combaning them, they stopped the issue of Afrikaans only universities,but it seems as the problems are far from the end.

Many incidence of racism are reported in our country,with the recent one in University of Free State. The question is what kind of a human being urinate in other peoples food. Aren't Africans people?By Africans I mean blacks I just can not find it to use the word black,because we have been insluted enough by the word,beside that I do not see human beings Black or White people has to opt for other colours.

Every edition of "the observer" u.j newspaper there always incidence of racism which brought questions on what is happening in our universities and democracy. The problem is that youth are the one involved which brought a question on what does the future hold for us as South Africans.

Another problem is that universities are still seen as the privilage for the wealthy South Africans. Only minority of the poor people made it to the universities, which brought a question on "education for all" which government motto on bringing education to all South Africans.

EDUCATION,A SPEAR OF THE NATION!

There was a time when a man was judged according to his power. Men's power in the battle earn them respect, wealth and land. During those times being violent was not seen as being uncivilized and violeting other people's rights but as the way of making a living.



Today things have changed, a man is judged by his educational background, a man has to acquire education and to have status in their lives, and live successfully. Education is the key to every door of success now. Without it one is like an empty vessel which makes a lot of noise than full vessels.



Education helps one to survive in this world. Education give all tools of survival such responsibilitty,confidence and discipline. Education also teach people with respect. Education stimulate peoples mind and build their creativity.



A nation that is not educated suffer a lot from violance, crimes and wars as the learders are shorting necessary skills needed to make wise discions. Education is the only thing that brought civilization and peace. Educated people use their mouth to solve problem not weapons.

They say in Venda a pen is better than a knobkrie,which means that education is far better than fighting. Proffessionals know how to solve their problems without using bombs and guns. Education promotes peace and can be the only thing to combat crime and other social problems in South Africa.



Education helps one to find his/her own ablity. Education lay the foundation to the successful future. A nation without education is ill..

WORKING WITH DIVERSE STUDENTS.

Like leaves of the trees, like flowers and colours of the sky children differ according to their pontential and abilities, some of the learner has imparements of different kind while others are gifted. As a teacher you need to work with them because our differnces are what made us and make us unique.

They say no one does not have disability in life,it can be either be visible or not. As teacher in the class you are faced with learners who come from different back grounds,races and who have different disabilities is your job to work with them.

Most of the teachers are afraid to work with children with the disabled because of challenges they brought in the class. Working with disabled children is a challenge indeed but the teacher can overcome the challenge by changing his teaching style in order to include other children.

A teacher can use a lot of media to learners who are intellectually impared, give them more time on an assessment and give them assessment that fit their mentality.

While the teacher is assessing wether children understand the teaching content he/she can make use of oral test on learners with hands disability. The teacher has to modify his/her teaching content to cater for every learner,so that other learners will not feel descrimated.

Gifted learners also need their special needs in the class. Most of those learners feel bored if the teacher keeps on reapeating the same thing while trying to cater for slow learners. The teacher need to give them some challenging tasks to stimulate their learning.

South Africa is country of diverse cultures,races and religions. As a teacher you to make sure that you do not make comments that can make other group of religion discriminated such as, blacks are criminals,whites are racist and improper discriminating religious speeches. As a teacher you have to show respect other cultures and traditions.

WHAT IS AN EDUCATOR?

Some people does not know the main reason behind being a teacher, some see it as just going to the class and teach get a small wage at the end of the months, teaching is more than earning money and TEACHING. The main reason behind the carrer is serving the nation,is spotting talents and developing them.

Being an educator means being a parent to your learners, you have to know when they are happy or not.It means helping them in any means to get them going,reaching their goals.
An educator is a light that shines in the dark non stop,it means putting burning fire in the lives of learners.

An educator is the motivator who keeps on sitimulating the willing of learning to his/her students. A teacher start something from where there is nothing, a teacher build a strong foundation of success to his/her learners.

An educator is the last friend a learner has during dark days where no one sees light. A teacher gives psychological advice to all his/her learners in need of being saved from all the problems of life. A teacher is someone who does not see cracks in his/her learners, he/she see a raw talent and pontetial that needs to be developed.

A teacher is an example of to his/her learners, someone who is prepared to sacrifice for his/her learners. Is someone who has a burning passion of building the successful tomorrow. A teacher is soldier in the army of bringing civillization to his/her country ,His weapons are books,pens and his strong heart with a passion and love.

TEACHERS REMUNERATION

When other government worker leave the ATM's with a smile, teachers do the opposite because for all the hard work they do they get peanuts. There is a big question why teachers are not treated well as the employees in the government.

Most of the talanted teachers have left the industry hence the shortage of Maths and Science teachers in our schools. One of the Venda reggae singers who is also a teacher symbolizes teachers with the baboon that has fallen into a deep valley where there will not be anyone to come and save them.

While other government worker enjoy many benefits such as big houses,luxury cars and fancy medical aids, teachers get nothing but a living wage worth a pocket money of a university students. At the end of the year Naledi Pandor steam out her anger at teachers blaming them for poor result, how will they perfom well while hungry. She the minister and other education officials run arround doing nothing but the teacher faces the hard day at school building on the future.

The reason why most of the young people do not want to follow the carrer is because of its burdens which goes unrewarded. Teachers has nothing to show off for their good work. How can a young person who dream about having a big house and a luxury car follow the carrer while he/she knows that her/his dream will not be fullfilled.

I think is about time the government announce that teaching is a voluntery job, then everyone will not expect to much. Teachers pull hard like a donkey pulling a cart as the donkey get nothing teachers also get nothing.

Shame on those baldheads who sit in the parliment lying to us saying that they want to bring service,while their aim is to feed their big bellies.

JACK OF ALL TRADES MASTER OF THEM ALL!

When people are settled with everything they forget where they come from,I'm reffering to those who undremine teaching career and forget that the reason why they are what they are is because of teachers.

On one of the gathering of one of the biggest companies the CEO once told people in the meeting that he see nothing from a person who decided that he wants to do nothing with his life than teaching. He procced by saying that he saw nothing to learn from that person.

One of the directors pointed at a woman who was a teacher and said Mrs Jane tell us what you do? the woman under pressure answered with confidence and said"I make everything from doctors to company CEO, I make a difference I make C student be an A student and an A student achieve more. Do you want to know what I MAKE I make children work harder than they thought. I make them realize their dreams I builid their confidence and make them see that they are the best" from there the woman kept quite and as I was thinking I try to figure out the face of the CEO at that time well figure it out in your minds also.

Teaching is the mother of all carrers without it there is no progress. So to you teachers hold your head high because without you there is no development.

Lee Lacocca an american motor industry leader once said" In a completely rational society the best of us would be teachers the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and highest responsibility anyone could have"

OBE CURRICULUM

Our education system seem to be based on the political eras happening in our country, the education during apartheid system is totally different from education now during democracy. When ANC won the government in 1994 they came with the plan of changing the education system in South Africa. Therefore they introduced the OBE system.

The OBE system came with its advantages and disadvantages. Amoungst other disadvantages is the lack of the teachers who can carry the objectives of OBE, by that problem it turns out that OBE is not effective. Most of the teachers teaching in our schools has no exprience in the new curriculum and the government is to be blamed because they did not train their staff before implementing the curriculum in schools.

OBE as a curriculum is very good in our schools, the curriculum is composed of subjects that are aimed at enriching our children with knowledge.There is a subject like Life orientation aimed at teaching learners about their lifes and different systems that surround them. The subject is aimed at enriching young children with human values such as respect. Life orientation also teach children about other challenges that lie upon their lives such as teenage pregnancy, drug abuse HIV & AIDS and peer preasure. The subject also teaches about respecting other people's religions and cultures as South Africa is a country with diverse culture.

Amoungst other subject there is arts and culture aimed at developing art skills that young children has. As we are living in the world of technology there is subject like Technology aimed at developing technological skills in learners,there is economic managent sciences that is enreaching children in the economic world. There is also mathematics and mathematical literacy used to enriching children's knowledge in numbers.

OBE curriculum allows children to work in groups in order to help each other,the teacher is now a facilitator. The aim is to enrich children with knowledge not exam driven. The assesment is countinous which means everything done in class count as pass mark.

OBE also gives parents a chance in education of their children, some tasks needs to be done at home with the help of parents. OBE curriculum is aimed at developing the community and the lives of children.

The teaching content of OBE is relavant to things that happen in our everyday lives and pratical things unlike Bantu education were in learners were taught about frogs as if they are going to be frog doctors.

If the curriculum is implemented well learners and the whole South African community will benefit a lot.

PEREGNANCIES IN OUR SCHOOLS

The number of teenage pregnency in our schools is increasing, the big question is wether pregnancy at schools have an impact on learning ? Some people are blaming the government for allowing teenage preganancy to rise by allowing pregnant girls to attend school even when they are pregnant. The other question is what is causing teenage pregnancy to rise drammatically?

Poverty is said to be one of the factors that causes teenage pregnancy, many of South African famillies are living in poverty that it becomes difficult sometimes to put food in the table. Many teenage girls opted to selling sex as the solution to their sufferings. Some of them become impregneted by older people who were supposed to give such children advices on how to break poverty and live successful life.

One of the factors influencing pregnancy is time, the time that children are living in today is tatally different from the olden days where in children has to respect elders and do what they are told without objecting. Now there is televisions and other medias which show sex actions which influence teenagers to practice.

The other thing influencing teenage pregnancies is the fact that traditional education in form of initiations is now neglected which learners to grow up without that human values and traditional knowledge which arm them against any wrong doing.

Most of the researchers state that disallowing girls to come to school while pregnant is stepping over their rights of learning which the consititution gave them. They also state that it also makes them feel guility and unwanted and kill their morale on being productive people.

Some state that pregnent girls must not be included to our schools because they set a bad example to other learners. They support their point by stating that school is a place of learning not a clinic so it will be hard for teachers to help the learner during labour times.

Inclusive education and the constitution give every learner a chance to get education wether pregnant or not. But the question is wether a teenage parent to be can be able to concentrate on school work while at the same time expecting a child and the unknown future.

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

There have been drammatic changes in the education system in South Africa since 1994.The major change was the changing of the curriculum and the introduction of inclusive education on white paper six of education.

Inclusive education means that all learners from different races, cultures, religions and mentality are incuded in the same kind of education ruling out their ability and disability. Inclusive education gives power to the previously disadvantaged like people with disability, blacks and old illitterate people. Inclusive education came up with the idea of adult based education and including all learners in the same school.

Previosly the system was discriminating because black students has their own syllabus totally different from white's syllabus. Bantu education ,which was black people education was not effective while white education was more advanced as the result of that South Africa became unevenly developed . Inclusive education caters for every students there is no longer education for the whites, blacks and disabled.

Inclusive education also caters for students with illinesses such as HIV, no one is left out according to inclusive education.

VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOLS

The rate of violent is increasing dramatically in our schools,while schools are suppossed to be the modt peaceful place the have changed to be the shaolin temples,one wonder what is really causing those violence that have claimed the lives of many students. School violence is a desease in our schools that needs to be wiped the question is how? The nation is still surprised about what happened in Krugersdorp but what do we have to do to stop it from occuring again.

The causes of violence in our schools are caused buy ill discipline on our children,most of the learners lack discipline which raises a question on what must be done to improve their discipline.It has become possible that parents who withdraw themselves from their children are putting their childrren in a huge risk of being violent the character which they brought to our schools. Children who lack discipline always lack respect and they tend to slove everything in violent way. Psychologists state that behavior is learned,so familly violence also mould learners to be violent.



Bulling is also the cause of violence in our schools. Many children who are victims of bulling become violent in a way of protecting themselves. Reseach state that most of those children burst out in anger and end killing other students,they are also in huge risk of committing sucied.



As school practitioners we can not afford to sit down and look while the acts of violence are mounting in our schools like this. Schools need to have psychologists who will monitor that every learner is psychologiucally fine, again the parents need to be told that they should be involved in their children's life and offering them discipline.



Schools has to hire securits in the schools to increase safety on the students and teachers, students need to be searched before enteering the school premises because most of them enter the school premises with weapons and drugs that take part in increasing violence in our schools.If we just sit and watch the number of children to die in our schools will be higher than the number of iraqies dying in the war.

SCHOOL UNIFORMS IN SOUTH AFRICA

There is still huge diffferences on wether school students in South Africa have to wear uniforms or not. The topic is very broad and not easy to decide. School uniforms has been part of our school since colony. Those who support school uniform state that school uniforms help in reducing crime, gangs and violence in schools. Most of the school teachers, principals and parents are said to be in favour of school uniforms. The supporters of school uniform also add up to their claim by stating that school uniforms help with descipline and creating a good image in schools.

School are said to teach learners maners and values as human being. Researches made state that school uniforms reduce morning fights between students and parents. School uniforms also are said to reduce bad competition between learners on who is wearing the best brand.Learners from poverty stricken familly can feel included in the school.

Those who oppose school uniforms state that there is no concrete evidence on the fact that school uniforms do reduce violence,gangs and crime in our school. Recent tragedies in Krugersdorp emphasises their point. They also state that some options such as increasing number of teachers patrolling in hallways during period changes can be used,also increasing security by hiring security can help in reducing violence,gangs and crimes. Using uniforms take away learner's rights of freedom of expression. Any breaking of law is a crime so schools are said to be violenting learner's rights.A research was done on wether school uniform increase pass rate and the personality of the students and found out that the claim is vacant,personality is what comes from within a person also uniform has no magic that can make learners to perform better.

In our curriculum which promote inclusivity uniforms might be seen as agents of exclusion because some parents can't afford buying uniforms,which resulted in some learners suffering humilision because there does not have uniforms.

To the supporters of school uniforms, uniforms reduce crime, violent and gangs,promote learning but to the opponents uniforms are nothing but a burden on school chlidren and parents, they see uniforms as enslaving learners and violeting their rights.