HISTORY OF THEOCENTRIC CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
As a young couple, Graham and Alison Shortridge were always very interested in education. As they eventually had six children (and to date have ten grandchildren), this concern was justified! One of the things that bothered them when their eldest children started school, was that the school curriculum paid lip service to God and Christian values, but was actually humanistic in orientation. Back in 1980 they tried to change things, both at the local school level and even at departmental level, unsuccessfully, of course.
At first the Shortridges thought that changing the children’s school would solve the problem, but having tried this, they found that the problem ran far deeper. In 1984 they attended an education seminar run by Youth With A Mission. At this seminar, Margaret MacIntyre, an Australian, presented the idea of a God-centred education. The key to developing a course of study was to begin by recognising that God Himself is the Creator and Originator of all we teach. HE IS THE CURRICULUM.
The Shortridges took this concept to heart. Shortly afterwards they joined YWAM and became part of the education vision, working on a school curriculum based on twenty-seven character qualities of God. When YWAM decided to withdraw from the educational field in 1988, Graham and Alison went on with the vision, founding Theocentric Christian Education in October, 1988. They then started “El Olam Christian School” in Boksburg in 1989. This tiny school, consisting at first of eight pupils (five of which were the Shortridges’ own children, and two others a niece and nephew) sought to implement God’s character qualities as the foundation for all the school subjects. Unhappily, the required number of pupils was not forthcoming, so after two years the school had to close.
Graham and Alison moved to Cape Town with their growing family (there were now six children) and soon became involved in helping to establish a Christian high school. Due to circumstances, they were able to be involved for only one year. It seemed that they had run out of options.
At this point the Shortridges heard of homeschooling. They realised that if they wanted to give their children the Christian education that they wanted, they would have to do it themselves. Accordingly, they started in 1993 with the homeschooling of their four younger children (the two eldest had started university by this time).
At this time homeschooling was illegal in South Africa. Within five weeks the Shortridges had been reported to the educational authorities, and the fight was on! Realising that they would probably be jailed (a couple in Pretoria, the Meintjies, had been jailed in January 1993), they wrote a letter to the department detailing the reasons for their decision to homeschool their children, and quoting the relevant Scripture passages in full. They reasoned that as this document was likely to be read out in court, the people concerned might as well hear the Word of God for themselves, rather than be given simply the Scripture references! As a result, his letter was very long – eleven pages!
Somehow the letter became known and people started asking for copies of it. One was sent to America to the Home School Legal Defense League in Virginia. By God’s providence, it landed on the desk of Christopher Klicka, an American of Huguenot descent, who was passionately interested in South Africa! He contacted the Shortridges and together they began to work on a strategy to have homeschooling legalized in South Africa. However, the immediate concern of the Shortridges was the Meintjies, who had been jailed in January and had their children taken from them. Graham and Alison had already protested about this, without result. Christopher Klicka mobilized his American and Canadian homeschoolers, who bombarded the South African embassy with protests, with the result that the Meintjies were released and allowed to continue homeschooling their three children.
At this time the Shortridges came into contact with the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP). They were extremely interested in the concept of Christian homeschooling, and gave the needed support and access to parliament that the Shortridges needed. Graham and Alison were asked to head up an education sub-committee, in order to draft a proposal for a new White Paper on education. After months of work, the proposal was submitted. In the meantime, with the help of Christopher Klicka, literature on homeschooling was being distributed to all the members of parliament, educating them on what homeschooling was and how successful it had been in the USA.
Finally the matter was debated in Parliament, and homeschooling was legalized in 1996. Since that time, parents are enabled by the Constitution to choose the education for their children: state, private or homeschooling. This is a tremendous privilege, and many thousands of South African families have taken advantage of it over the years.
At about the same time as homeschooling was legalized, the Shortridges were able to import attractive, high-quality Christian textbooks from America. They thus changed the system to include the American books, while maintaining the South African content by writing their own material for South African History and Geography, and by using South African books where the American books were unsuitable or not available (for example, Afrikaans). The result was a South African curriculum, backed by high quality, academically superior, Christian textbooks.
TCE is a programme still being developed. The Shortridges have continued to work on the curriculum, writing new material (the latest being the TCE Afrikaans programme), introducing continuous assessment and trying various options for the final school-leaving exam. Currently, TCE pupils write Cambridge IGCSE exams in Grade 11 in most subjects, and Cambridge AS Level exams in Grade 12. The AS Level is acceptable in South Africa for a Matric exemption. Some pupils have gone on to write the A2 Level in Grade 13, but this is not necessary in South Africa.
Important features of TCE include the character qualities of God as the basis of the system (twenty-seven character qualities used as themes over a three-year period), a Scripture memorization programme, memorization of poetry (both secular and sacred), a high academic standard of material used, a continuous assessment programme run by the parents, exams twice a year set and marked by TCE, and a helpline always available to those who run into any kind of problem with the material or with homeschooling in general. It is difficult to know exactly how many pupils have benefited from TCE (as of course many continue year after year, and others stay on TCE only for part of their school careers), but over a hundred have graduated successfully with a Matric certificate, and of those approximately two-thirds have gone on to university or other tertiary institutions.
(28 June 2010)
