Remedial & Special education blog

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Read the rest of the article here.

There is an interesting article on IOL about homework being “a waste of time”.

The article cites research by US author Alfie Kohn and his “new” book ‘The Homework Myth’.

Just for clarity sake the book was originally published in 2007 and readers can buy it from local online retailer Loot for R117.

Anyway that aside, Kohn argues that teachers dish out homework simply because its what is expected of them and that society has this concept that children must do schoolwork after school.

You then have tired children coming home to then deal with tired parents who have spent a long day at work. The parents want to then rest and the children are hammering on about having to sort out projects or homework in each subject and you end up creating a tense learning environment.

Kohns research seems to indicate that there is no correlation between doing homework and academic achievement  / professional success which on its own is probably not groundbreaking.

On the flip-side  of that a lot of kids do need repittion and to be taught the self-discipline of having formal homework time.

But then I look at our typical working day as it stands. We both wake-up before  6 and between getting the kids ready we are doing some form of work including checking e-mail and planning our day. Our kids (two in Grade 1 an 1 in Grade 6) go to after-care where they do formal homework sessions as well as an extra-mural activity.

We fetch them between 4:30 and 5:30. They come home, they’re exhausted from a long day and they just want to flop. Then it’s dinner and bath-time. The little kids are in bed by 7:30 and the older one is having to work until 8.30pm to get her homework done. She is often not asleep before 9:30 and this is in primary school.

Yes this child procrastinates and doesn’t have the best time management skills but the reality is that she cannot finish her day-to-day  in the allotted hour for homework.

Maybe I am wrong but I see it like this:

• There are roughly 190 school days in a year
• The average 12 year old child receives about 2 hours of homework a day which translates into 380 hours which translates into another 16 “days” of extra work outside of school.
• During that time she is not really learning much. She is simply going through 20 or 50 repititions of a particular concept.
• During that time she could be reading a book or surfing the internet and growing her general knowledge. Go and ask your child some basic general knowledge questions about things which are topical at the moment e.g. what is in the news. A lot of them will draw a blank simply because what they learn at school is limited to what was in a textbook printed years ago. Kids are not stimulated to respond to what they see on the day to day basis.

Would love your thoughts on the subject.

One of our community members is seeking a “Cranial technology physical therapist” (assume this means craniosacral therapist) in either South Africa or Malawi.

Presently the community member is based in Malawi but is prepared to travel to South Africa if necessary. If you have any recommendations for a suitable therapist please post below.

There has been a lot of debate in South Africa around the inclusion policy and whether or not the mainstream schools are in fact able to support the needs of those children who have remedial requirements.

Paula says that as both a parent and a therapist she is not convinced that it is actually working. What are your thoughts on this and what you would like to see change.

One of my greatest concerns is that: denial that there is a bit of a problem often robs a child of early intervention. It is alarming that over the past 10+ years I have heard nursery and pre-school teachers claim that they always knew there was something developmentally not up to par with a child, but they did not inform the parents as they were concerned that the parents would:

a) think they are a bad teacher

b) blame the school and remove the child from the school (not the most ethical of concerns!)

c) blame it on a personality clash and do nothing about it…

So the problem is left because the first time the parent is told there is a difficulty is in the 2nd term of grade 1, and then they do think the teacher is crazy – because hey! There was no problem at pre-school. It is then shelved till mid grade 2 when the next teacher picks up the delay, and the child’s self esteem is taking strain because the child can see there is a problem.

Yes, high horse but it has been a real experience over the past years, and where better to raise it? But it is not only the preshool teachers, it also comes down to sound parenting. In almost all cases, the parents already know that something is not quite the same as other children.

So why is early intervention important?

a) the less developed the brain and body; the more opportunity there is to optimise development in the right direction.

b) the older the child the more “bad habit” coping strategies (stiff pencil grasp, etc) they adopt. Now the “bad habit” needs to be kicked before new ones can become habitual… Ever try stopping smoking???

c) economically this means a shorter duration of intervention, which costs less.

d) intervention happens befor self esteem is really impacted.

Do you have any opinions?

I attended the OT workshop on the Kawa Model (Kawa = River) by Prof Michael Iwama. I have to say it is one of the most beautiful OT models about, and is not even restricted to OT. It uses the metaphor that the journey of life is like a river from its source (birth) to the delta (passing on).

While there may be rocks and debris that hinder the flow, where there is water there is life, the sand and riverbanks are the environment and social context of a person. The river may need to divert a bit to continue flowing, or there are difficult times (rapids), but working on dislogging the largest rock may not be the answer to improved flow, you may rather address a few smaller stones and debris. He also highlighted the importance of the influence that each person’s experience has in shaping individual views.

Relevance of this post? I think we sometimes view a child’s difficulties as being caused by one rock, yet one rock seldom halts the flow of a river, look for the debris and stones…..

This is a question which we regularly have submitted to our “Ask RemSpecED” column and it is one that needs to be approached on a case-by-case scenario.

One of the discussion board scenarios we have on the RemSpecED Facebook group is as follows:

My daughter has been in a very good remedial school for the past 2 and a half years, and the school has recommended that she is ready to mainstream for grade 6. Though we are all a little anxious this is a very exciting time. She is still struggling a bit with working fast enough, but everything else has clicked into place! Lets hope that she can work as fast as the others next year! Please tell us your stories…

If you would like to contribute to this discussion board topic you can do so via this blog or via the Facebook group.

South African Remedial & Special Education resource RemSpecED (www.remspeced.co.za) is now on Twitter. We will be providing updates on article links, blog posts, teaching and therapy jobs and other related topics.

If you would like to follow us on Twitter please go to – https://twitter.com/RemSpecED

If you would like to contact us regarding the RemSpecED website or about the RemSpecED therapy centre in Gauteng then please e-mail paula@remspeced.co.za or contact Marc on 082-561-1585.

We look forward to engaging with South African therapists, teachers and other medical professionals to continue to establish ourselves as a premium resource for all stakeholders.

We look forward to hearing from you and would like to remind therapists who wish to submit expert articles to the site to please e-mail newsdesk@rival.co.za or via Paula’s RemSpecED e-mail address above.

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