Building a culture of responsibility and humanity in our schools A ...

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This has been interpreted into school
legislation such as the South African
Schools Act, 1996. Are you familiar with
all this legislation and what it means for
you as a teacher?
Building a culture of responsibility and humanity and
accountability in our schools
A guide for teachers
Responsibilities at school
The Bill of Responsibilities focuses on ensuring
that responsibility becomes part of our practice of human rights
at school. School-based research on values and education
conducted for the Department of Education shows that the
two values people feel are most lacking in schools are respect and dialogue.
Respect is an essential precondition for communication, for teamwork, for
productivity.
The South African Bill of Rights s contains provisions to
protect the rights of both learners to learn, and educators to teach in a safe
environment free from all forms of discrimination, violence or fear. Despite
this some learners have said things like,
'We have lost respect for our teachers as they abuse us in so
many ways that we occasionally retaliate. The teachers are not
there as parental figures we are meant to learn from, but rather
they are people who are there to misguide us’.
Schools cannot
function funct if there is not mutual
respect respe between educators and
parents
Source: South African Human Rights Commission Report on Violence in Education, 2006, P11
Learning cannot happen if there
is not mutual respect between
educators and learners.