Peter van Alphen

Peter is training South African teachers to use new classroom techniques designed to improve education and redress inequality.

Peter has created a teacher training program that emphasizes creativity and experiential learning on the part of teachers as well as students. Peter argues that South Africa’s ongoing attempts to reform its education system can only work if changes in theory and curriculum go hand-in-hand with new teacher training methods. Otherwise, the state might design a brilliant system—brilliant on paper, that is—that is completely ineffective in practice. Peter believes that in order create change the system, teachers have to experience the change themselves, rather than read about it. His training is based on the Waldorf teacher training method which, though taught in special institutes in South Africa, has never been adapted and applied to the national education system. Beyond improving teaching and learning in the conventional sense, Peter’s training will help teachers dedicate their efforts to the long and difficult task of healing the damage apartheid did to society.

The new post-apartheid South African government is struggling to reform a failing education system by imposing new curricula and methodologies. Money put into implementing the reforms, however, is wasted because teachers are not effectively trained to incorporate the changes. Teacher enrichment is a component of the national education strategy, but the current model falls far short of creating a cadre of qualified and effective educators.

A survey of schooling in South Africa in the year 2000 found that 24% of the teachers countrywide were insufficiently qualified for their jobs. The investigation also revealed that South African students had the worst results in Africa where literacy, numeracy and life skills were concerned. The study observed that “People have been treated as objects of instruction, coerced into rigid patterns of thinking and behavior, and left empty at the end of the process, just when they need to find their place in society. The high rate of corruption, crime and general moral decline is a direct result of this inadequate system.”

On the first day of the new school year 2000, Education Minister Kader Asmal visited a Soweto school with one of the worst records in the country. Meadowlands high school had a 13% pass rate in the previous year. In an effort to demonstrate a more robust commitment to education, President Thabo Mbeki had ordered schools to open on time on the first day of term, and to begin classes immediately. But when Asmal arrived at Meadowlands he found pupils milling in the street, empty classrooms and teachers absent.

The Gauteng Institute for Curriculum Development (GICD) studied the implementation of Curriculum 2005, the government’s new syllabus, in for first graders in state schools. It found that the new effortwas badly hampered by inadequate teacher training, lack of materials and poor communication between officials and teachers. Another study, conducted by the national Department of Education, found that only 15% of the curriculum materials even reached the teachers who were supposed to use them. The study reported that teachers said they needed classroom-based training — not the theoretical training they had sat through. Some trainers lacked primary school teaching experience, and teachers felt their own expertise with primary school teaching had not been used. Clearly, teachers were intimidated and confused by the training’s complicated new terminology.

Peter established the Centre for Creative Education in Plumstead in 1993. He developed full-time and part-time training courses in Waldorf teaching at the kindergarten and primary school levels. He also began meeting with friends and other contacts in the Cape Town townships to probe how the enriched methods of teacher training could be applied to the urgent needs of those communities. These meetings resulted in two groups of township teachers undergoing a three-year full-time training course in primary school education. Peter then initiated three-year part-time training courses for educare workers to become high-quality pre-school teachers.

The Philippi township community responded to the Centre’s work by allocating a piece of land for the construction of demonstration centers, an educare training facility and skills-training/job-creation facilities.

In 1998, the Centre established two reception year classes (pre-school) to prepare 5 and 6-year-olds for primary school. These classes were such a success that the parents requested that the Centre establish Grade One classes to continue the enriched education of their children. Grade One classes commenced in January 1999.

The Centre currently offers two-year training courses in Educare Teaching, followed by a third-year course in Reception Year Teaching. The Centre has 80 part-time students per year in the three-year primary education course and 6 graduates and 63 students in the 3-year educare/reception year course. In addition, the Centre has built two demonstration educare centers and two pilot primary schools. The Centre employs teachers for these primary schools from the two full-time township groups that completed the training course.

The Centre’s courses are part of the National Access Consortium, a pilot project of the Western Cape Education Department and have been submitted to the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) for accreditation.

Peter has a three-fold vision for the future of his idea. First, he plans to use what he has learned in the pilot programs in Cape Town to develop experiential change workshops that can be provided elsewhere in a cost-effective way. He will formalize the Centre’s courses into modules and develop further the content, resources, and procedures of the training. Second, he will build a foundation of creative, holistic and culturally-rich resources, primarily involving videos and extensive training manuals. These resources will incorporate African cultural elements in order to re-instate the original cultures in South African education. Third, he will collaborate with other integral parties to set up change-programs throughout the country.

While the program currently focuses on children aged 3-9 years, the Centre plans to expand the project to also cover children between birth and 3 years and older than 9 years.

The Centre has trained and re-trained close to 100 teachers, whose work affects close to 4000 children per year. Peter is working on spreading his method to other educational institutions and getting the government to recognize the value of his approach that he believes will bring genuine change to the education system. As part of his threefold vision for the future, Peter plans to collaborate with government, universities and training colleges, NGOs, CBOs, churches, and community organizations to launch a national campaign for the improvement of education throughout South Africa that involves his idea of combining personal development with training. This would involve establishing “change teams” – groups of people to run the workshops, provide the supporting resources, and do follow-up visits to support the implementation of enriched, holistic education. Peter is already working with the Baobab College in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg and two other sites in the Eastern Cape province. He has also gained attention elsewhere in Africa and has been working with a project in Nairobi, Kenya.

Peter Van Alphen began his career as a musician and obtained a BA in Music in the early 1970s. He was drawn to teaching and having come into contact with the methodology created by Rudolf Steiner known as the Waldorf method, Peter felt that his creativity could be used to inspire pupils.

Peter was a Waldorf teacher for many years. He taught South Africa's elite, using this highly acclaimed method of developing creative human beings. He was acutely aware of the inequalities within his country, though, and desired to respond in some way. Although convinced that much change was necessary, he felt disempowered to affect such change under the repressive apartheid regime. His convictions, however, led him in 1989 to facilitate teacher enrichment in the townships of Cape Town. Peter soon discovered that the poor quality of education had many causes, not just teaching method. Inadequate training of teachers and the destructive psychological effects of apartheid were preventing teachers from becoming being well-rounded, creative educators. He realized that mere enrichment would not suffice “if we were to start a process of transformation in which healing and empowerment could become a reality.” His discoveries led him to establish the Centre for Creative Education.

Peter is deeply committed to working with teachers to facilitate their healing and self-empowerment. His philosophy is to work with his colleagues rather than direct them, and he believes in consultation and joint decision making wherever possible. He is concerned about the welfare of children and feels strongly that his idea could have widespread impact on children throughout South Africa and beyond.