The new Outcomes Based Education system has the potential to produce utter chaos in the classroom. Many CFT members who are educators have reported on OBE crash courses they've attended. Some excerpts:

1. Learners should NEVER stand in single file as it is too humiliating and militaristic. Children are citizens of South Africa just as much as their teachers are - so, they should be allowed to move around as they want.
2. Children must be allowed to copy from each other - it is part of democracy. If a learner has an answer it must be shared with all the others.
3. The more advanced learner must wait for the others to catch up and should be teaching the others.
4. Noise should be the norm at school. If there is silence then it shows that no learning is on the go.
5. It is discriminatory to classify learners as fast, middle or slow readers.
6. There should be no tests or exams as this is "unjust". It is unjust for some to know answers whilst others don't.
7. There should be no drill work in math's of the alphabet. Learners must discover knowledge.
8. The educator must never be prescriptive but should develop the self-image of learners.

The 4 day course, meant to be 20 hours worth, initiates teachers into the new OBE system. They are then sent back to introduce this egalitarian "paradigm shift" into their schools.

OBE has produced disastrous results in previously good schools. New Zealand, the model upon which South Africa's Curriculum 2005 is based, has recently dropped OBE. Dr. Bill Spady ("father of OBE) during his November (1997) visit, expressed doubts about the possibility of OBE success in South Africa. Why is the Education Department still insistent on bringing chaos into the classroom?

by, K. Olsen

Bob & Barbara Tennison
78612 Halderman Rd.
Cottage Grove, OR 97424
(541)942-0703
http://www.jb.com/~btennison