parents and principals as partners in creating a culture of learning

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appropriate meanings to what is wrong and what is right (Du Plooy, Griessel &
Oberholzer, 1992:102-103; Kruger (ed.), 1992:55).
In the course of the child's becoming and learning there are many areas of
emotional development that may be affected. Du Toit and Kruger (1994:90)
observe that although discipline is essential, it is unnecessary to exercise rigidity
and excessive strictness in the name of authority. A child who is intentionalised
towards success in attaining the accepted standard ofadulthood, may rebel against
too much authority and regard it as suppressive of his personality or actualization
of his possibilities if there is no pedagogic love displayed. According to Nel and
Urbani (1990: 16), parents may teach children verbally to be non-violent but can
at the same time demonstrate the exact opposite by the instrumental violence of
physical (corporal) punishment as an authoritative figure. Physical punishment is
often accompanied by verbal communication which justifies the parents' behaviour
and along with it violence or the germ of violence. The best predator of future
violence has a history of past violent behaviour. Without the child being thwarted
in his journey of exploration towards his future, he should through pedagogical
love learn from an early age to obey rules and show deference to authority. When
strict discipline by parents is accompanied by emotional rejection and an
atmosphere of animosity, the dividing line between discipline and violence may
indeed be blurred (Vrey, 1990:94; Nel & Urbani, 1990:16-17; Du Toit & Kruger,
1994:61-62).
Initially, most of the life-world is concealed from or is unknown to the child. The
educator should gradually present aspects of the life-world which have been
reduced to their essential core, such that the child can grasp and learn to know the
content. It is also obvious to the educator that within the particular community
into which a child is being brought up, there are important and unimportant aspects
of the life-world as well as hierarchies of acceptable and unacceptable meanings
and behaviours. In this way the question of the responsible giving and receiving
of meaning becomes evident (Van Rensburg, Landman & Bodenstein, 1994:511).