parents and principals as partners in creating a culture of learning

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A child is a human being, a person. He is born weak, unable to help himself, but
he has a great deal of potential for maturity. To mature in a specific culture, the
child needs to be educated (Vrey, 1990:11). In its purest and most original form
education is characterized through the mother's intimate involvement with her
child. The mother gives birth to the child and creates security for him by
establishing for him an intimate and safe space at home. Education at home,
according to Griessel, Louw and Swan (1993:8), constitutes the primary educative
milieu (environment). The safe space at home becomes the springboard for the
child in his exploration of reality surrounding him. Because of an intuitive feeling
for the child's need - a need based on the fact that the child knows and
acknowledges his dependence on an adult who calls upon him to realise himself ­
the mother gives herself unconditionally (Vrey, 1990:22-24).
A child needs both parents to provide him with enough self-confidence to lead him
to extend the horizons of his life-world and simultaneously to accept his task as a
co-designer of a world of human coexistence. Practising a particular occupation.
the father leaves the intimate atmosphere of home every day to earn a living in the
outside world, and the child experiences this world as alien and threatening. In
this way the father provides for the livelihood of his family. and to the child he
becomes the trusted symbol constituting a bridge between the known (home) and
the unknown (world of adults). Thus he not only represents the unknown living
·space, but he also provides the child with a glimpse of the future (Kruger (ed.).
1992:56; Griessel. Louw & Swan. 1993:8-9).
3.2.3 Parenthood embraces changed attirudes
Parenthood implies in all circumstances changed attitudes among the members of
the family concerned, and more particularly the parents. Even before the birth of
the baby, the attitude of the mother changes when she experiences it as a reality.
After the baby's birth her attitude changes to one of gratefulness and she welcomes
this unique being as a new member of the family (Vrey, 1990:95-96).