Addressing Barriers to Learning

ADDRESSING BARRIERS TO LEARNING
Introduction
Access to education is a human right but all over South Africa, in rural and urban areas, learners experience barriers to learning. Some barriers may differ greatly and some not at all but the main result is that they hinder each learner from reaching their full academic potential. Teachers need to look at the barriers within their classrooms and schools and find ways to overcome them in order to get the best out of their learners.

Ways to address barriers to learning within my community
ATTITUDES
Negative attitudes towards people based on their differences, like race, gender, religion, culture, sexual preferences or disability can become barriers to learning, especially if directed at a learner.
Negative attitudes are generally developed out of fear of the unknown or the misunderstanding of the person. Teachers need to ensure that they are open minded and develop the minds of their class to see that diversity is a positive thing and how we can all learn from each other.
INFLEXIABLE CURRICULUM
A big misconception is the belief that all children learn at the same pace and the same way. Every learner is unique.
An inflexible curriculum results in a curriculum that may not meet the needs of each learner. The curriculum needs to be relevant to the learner and appropriate to their everyday life. Teachers should be able to resource materials that are relevant, use newspaper articles to assess comprehension instead of the same story that has been used over and over again. Discuss topics like global warming and climate change during geography. Learners will be more interested in the things they can see going on around them. This will also help teachers to not become stagnant in their jobs and not regurgitate their knowledge, year after year. They will also be learning continuously and be challenged in the classroom.
Albert Einstein said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will go its whole life believing it’s stupid.” Teachers need to create individual learning plans; these plans could be flexible documents where the teacher and the learner discuss what the expected learning outcome is and how they will achieve it. Children should be assessed on their understanding of the subject and not on how much they can memorise.
LANUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
I live in an affluent schooling area, where the schools are predominately private schools or government schools with governing body employed teachers. All of these schools are English speaking schools with the curriculum being taught in English. Some of the learners that attend these schools do not speak English as a first language and they are at disadvantage.
In my community there are no schools where Zulu or Afrikaans speaking children can go to be taught in their home language. Even children who are deaf or blind have to attend “special” schools as schools in general are not equipped to educate them.
To overcome these barriers there should be at least one school in each community which learners can attend to be taught in their home language with the same prestige and status as the other schools in the community. Schools should also have learning materials (like Braille and audio books) that will help disabled children be educated in regular schools with able bodied children.
Conclusion
Each school, classroom, teacher and learner will experience some sort of barrier to learning. It is important that the barrier is identified and addressed as soon as possible before the breakdown in learning becomes too great.

References: www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CDwQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thutong.doe.gov.za%2Fresourcedownload.aspx%3Fid http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/pamphlet/2013/08/20130823281583.html?CP.rss=true#axzz2uVcrSNNb

References: www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CDwQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thutong.doe.gov.za%2Fresourcedownload.aspx%3Fid http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/pamphlet/2013/08/20130823281583.html?CP.rss=true#axzz2uVcrSNNb