For the Year of the Parent, I have in mind a daily undertaking by children to validate their parents. Make a resolution to say something nice to Mum or Dad every day.

Parents can remember their own parents, now grandparents.

My agenda remains improved literacy. This mission could be the lodestone to reunite families and take our children back into our bosoms. Remember, praise is more productive than blame.

I notice, and welcome, an addition to us freelancers who sound off on our own domain specificities with the added bonus of getting paid for it. We write columns. Its not difficult, but its tricky in that were never sure what we cover is relevant. In education, I think the fuss made over matric results is just a media-driven event.

Each child who passes the exam deserves praise, not polemic about statistics that lump all candidates together into one melting pot for the purveyors of polemic and statistics.

One might reach the end of ones school years at matric.

It doesnt follow that we have given the learners anything, what with the cloddish OBE that has been transformed stubbornly and stupidly four times up to now.

George Bernard Shaw is noted for his observation: The time I spent in school interfered with my education.

To arm parents with my Year of the Parent project, I invite suggestions from my readers (how many are we now?) via my e-mail, WhatsApp (which I just love to hate) or telephone.

Im acknowledging that parents are the first teachers. Thats where the important start to education resides. Pundits call it the first epistemic encounter.

Given that we have not yet resolved the mother-tongue issue, I would like to refer to an interview with Makhaya Ntini, one of the best bowlers and most charismatic personalities this country has produced. He recounted his days at a school where only English was spoken. He recalled the terror of not knowing what was being said.

He remembers a white class-mate moving desk to sit next to him. This boy could speak Xhosa and he translated for Makhaya. I wonder whether he instinctively acted out of a premonition of the greatness Makhaya would achieve.

The point of that interview was that peer support is vital. Also, lessons should be child-friendly, or pedocentric, not top-down.

Here are a few interesting little shocks to the system which can flesh out your conversations with your children:

The word Pacific Ocean contains three cs. Each one has a different pronunciation. United means to bring together, yet it is also an anagram for untied, taken apart, separated. The following sentences read the same in English and Afrikaans: My hand is in warm water. My ink is in my pen.

* Literally Yours is a weekly column from Cape Argus reader Alex Tabisher. He can be contacted on email byact[emailprotected]

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.

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Tips for year of the parent | Cape Argus - Independent Online