Bibliography life orientation
Answers
Life Orientation has been defined in the national curriculum as a holistic study of the self, the self in society, an opportunity to develop the emotional side of young people, the citizenship aspects of life in South Africa, democracy, human rights - it is actually a whole conglomeration of many different things that contribute to life orientation, not forgetting the health side, lifestyle, healthy living and physical fitness.
Dr Ferguson highlights some of the challenges that LO faces within the education system:
I've have the privilege of visiting numerous schools when we go with our students on school experience twice a year. In the last year, I was actually able to sit in about 17 or 18 different schools and observe what was happening in the classroom. Sometimes, it's good news and sometimes, I just wanted to weep. I think the problem is, what is taught in schools depends on which textbooks teachers are using. There are numerous textbooks that the Department of Education has sanctioned for use in the classroom and of course, schools tend to buy the ones that are affordable or sometimes they don't have textbooks at all and then it's reliant on what the teacher extracts out of existing textbooks. I always think that the actual national curriculum itself has many valid and worthwhile topics in it, but actually what happens is that, once it's interpreted into textbooks, teachers are tending to rely on the textbooks and not becoming interpreters of the curriculum itself. But I don't want to generalise because there are some fantastic teachers out there doing a sterling job and they are teaching worthwhile and valuable topics that are influencing the lives of young people to take with them when they leave school. The problem is when teachers are JUST reliant on textbooks and I've coined a saying 'death by textbook' because there is no attempt to use other resources that will stimulate and inspire the kids in our classrooms to want to learn, to want to participate, to want to encourage thinking around controversial issues.