Children develop in several interlocking systems–in the context of their family, and within the interaction of settings such as home, school, and church (Russell, 2011). In South Africa, children’s diverse backgrounds within families, neighborhoods and socio-cultural environments provide them with varied experiences and opportunities to learn. Whether growing up in urban or rural communities, belonging to a specific race and ethnic group, or being poor or rich, all imply exposure to cultures, lifestyles, amenities, and living conditions that differ in marked ways (Makoe, 2006). With 79% of the total population being Blacks, the racial and ethnic heterogeneity translates into a complex mix of languages: English, Afrikaans, nine indigenous languages and five Indian languages are spoken (Reagan, 2001).
Children from diverse backgrounds come to school with different experiences, and the schools struggle with meeting their assorted educational needs. The poor performance of learners in South Africa reflects the continued use of an instructional model that emphasizes school-based learning with abstract outcomes, and evaluates pupils on the basis of constructs and concepts that ignore what children know and learn outside the school environment. In the context of South Africa, much attention centres on improving achievement rates within a framework where knowledge is treated largely as objective (Shisana, 2011). Such perceptions of education and achievement ignore other forms and sources of knowledge and seek to fit learners into existing frameworks of formal learning.
In this manuscript, we outline different home and community-based activities that create useful learning tools, and can therefore help bridge the gap between home and school learning environments. The section titledChildren’s learning contexts and activities describes two activities in detail. Then in the section dedicated to discussing curriculum and children’s prior experiences, we highlight the mismatches. The activities listed on the table demonstrate the several informal learning activities that occur in various contexts within the environment. The manuscript concludes with suggestions for teachers.
