Project description: South Africa celebrated fourteen years of democracy in April 2008. This new nation continues to suffer deeply from its history of apartheid. The combination of post-apartheid segregation, its ensuing extreme poverty in the townships, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic creates a devastating effect on every aspect of life. Nelson Mandela cautioned that while the overthrow of the apartheid system was difficult, the most difficult challenge still lies ahead in the education of the disenfranchised so that full democratic participation can be a reality. This is the daunting task that lies before South Africa.
P.E.E.R. (Partnerships for Educational Excellence and Research) is a consortium of behavior analysts from the U.S. and the Active School Coalition from Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Active Schools is a group of dedicated South African educators and psychologists driven to improve the quality of life for students and their families living in impoverished township communities where unemployment and illiteracy rates typically exceed eighty percent.
For the past five years, P.E.E.R. International has focused on bringing effective, evidence-based educational practices based upon the experimental and applied analysis of behavior to the education system of South Africa. P.E.E.R. is currently sharing effective, behavior analytic teaching and learning practices with the faculty of several township schools in the Eastern Cape of South Africa with plans to spread those successes throughout South Africa.
The first meeting was at Morningside Academy in Seattle, Washington and was followed shortly thereafter by a week-long series of interviews in Port Elizabeth. Utilizing Israel Goldiamond’s Constructional Questionnaire, P.E.E.R. was able to ascertain achievable goals and identify important individual and societal consequences needed for program success. It was clear from the interviews that the strengths and passion of the South African educators would enable as much growth as the coaching and training team could foster.
This project intends to affect the quality of primary and secondary education available to disadvantaged students by applying behavior analytic principles to teacher training, student learning, and the development of instructional materials. Educators in the new South Africa are in need of inexpensive, radically effective and efficient procedures that will prepare their township students to become successful citizens and future leaders of their free and changing society. P.E.E.R.’s goal from the outset has been to move from training-the-teacher to training-the-trainer in order to promote self-sufficiency and maximize growth of behavioral methodologies in the city’s township schools and then throughout the nation. The analysis, design and evaluation of classroom instruction, classroom management, and school performance management offered by behavior analysis provide great promise to these school communities and hopefully, one day, to the nation as a whole. Motivated by the dedication, hard work, and inspiration of its South African partners, P.E.E.R. is moving rapidly from promise to practice.
All behavior analysts or interested persons who believe they can contribute to these efforts are welcome to contact Joanne Robbins at joanne@peerinternational.org or Amy Weisenburgh at amy@peerinternational.org. For more information about P.E.E.R go to www.peerinternational.org.