The Educator in a Pastoral Role
Name: Voxi Gatani
Module: The Educator in a pastoral role Course Code: EDPHOD8 Assignment 01 Unique Assignment Number: 320619
You as a pastoral educator are therefore concerned about James’s wellbeing and decide to assist him. Provide your plan of action using the following as guidelines: SECTION 1: BACKGROUND
James is a Grade 9 learner at a secondary school where a strong Western culture existed before the school had to accommodate a diversity of cultures (White Paper on Education and Training 1995). Previously this was a school for English speaking learners with more or less similar backgrounds, cultures and values. Recently the school has come to consist of learners with Afrikaans, Northern Sotho and Zulu as their mother tongues – many of these learners are experiencing formal education in English for the first time. James and his friends have been building up a strong bond of friendship since their primary school years. Most of them came from the same primary school. They have also built up a lot of confidence in how they handle conflict, and support one another whenever one of the group experiences difficult circumstances. As he was quite a leader in the group, James was accepted and liked by all. He had also been popular with most teachers, with good behaviour and high school marks. However, James’s class teacher noticed a sudden drop in all his school subject results. Lately his behaviour was also unlike that of the carefree person he used to be. His class teacher had received a notice from James’s mother earlier that year explaining that she and his father divorced last year and that she had remarried during the December school holidays. Her new surname was indicated on the letter. Last Tuesday James and another classmate, Thabo, got into a fight. James pushed Thabo through a class door, which caused school personnel to rush Thabo to hospital because of serious injuries. The other learners were shocked by the anger James showed, and by the fact that he
Module: The Educator in a pastoral role Course Code: EDPHOD8 Assignment 01 Unique Assignment Number: 320619
You as a pastoral educator are therefore concerned about James’s wellbeing and decide to assist him. Provide your plan of action using the following as guidelines: SECTION 1: BACKGROUND
James is a Grade 9 learner at a secondary school where a strong Western culture existed before the school had to accommodate a diversity of cultures (White Paper on Education and Training 1995). Previously this was a school for English speaking learners with more or less similar backgrounds, cultures and values. Recently the school has come to consist of learners with Afrikaans, Northern Sotho and Zulu as their mother tongues – many of these learners are experiencing formal education in English for the first time. James and his friends have been building up a strong bond of friendship since their primary school years. Most of them came from the same primary school. They have also built up a lot of confidence in how they handle conflict, and support one another whenever one of the group experiences difficult circumstances. As he was quite a leader in the group, James was accepted and liked by all. He had also been popular with most teachers, with good behaviour and high school marks. However, James’s class teacher noticed a sudden drop in all his school subject results. Lately his behaviour was also unlike that of the carefree person he used to be. His class teacher had received a notice from James’s mother earlier that year explaining that she and his father divorced last year and that she had remarried during the December school holidays. Her new surname was indicated on the letter. Last Tuesday James and another classmate, Thabo, got into a fight. James pushed Thabo through a class door, which caused school personnel to rush Thabo to hospital because of serious injuries. The other learners were shocked by the anger James showed, and by the fact that he
References: Pasley, K and Ihinger-Tallman, M. 1995. Step Parenting: Issues in Theory, Research, and Practice. Greenwood Publishing Group. Geldard, K & Geldard D. 2004. Counselling Adolescents 2nd Ed. SAGE Publications. Gillis, H 1996. Counselling Young People. Kagiso Publishers. Lewis, J 1996. Perspectives of Parent Involvement in Public School Education. McKimm and Jollie, 2007. Educational supervision, personal support and mentoring www.social.jrank.org/.../Stepfamilies-What-Affects-Children-s-Adolescents www.psychology.about.com www.en.wikipedia.org www.intropsych.com www.parentvoiceineducation.org/english/ March 2005, p.4 www.ibe.unesco.org/publications