Increasing Student Success Through Instruction in Self-Determination

An enormous amount of research shows the importance of self-determination (i.e., autonomy) for students in elementary school through college for enhancing learning and improving important post-school outcomes.
Findings

Research by psychologists Richard Ryan, PhD, and Edward Deci, PhD, on Self-Determination Theory indicates that intrinsic motivation (doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable), and thus higher quality learning, flourishes in contexts that satisfy human needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Students experience competence when challenged and given prompt feedback. Students experience autonomy when they feel supported to explore, take initiative and develop and implement solutions for their problems. Students experience relatedness when they perceive others listening and responding to them. When these three needs are met, students are more intrinsically motivated and actively engaged in their learning.

Numerous studies have found that students who are more involved in setting educational goals are more likely to reach their goals. When students perceive that the primary focus of learning is to obtain external rewards, such as a grade on an exam, they often perform more poorly, think of themselves as less competent, and report greater anxiety than when they believe that exams are simply a way for them to monitor their own learning. Some studies have found that the use of external rewards actually decreased motivation for a task for which the student initially was motivated. In a 1999 examination of 128 studies that investigated the effects of external rewards on intrinsic motivations, Drs. Deci and Ryan, along with psychologist Richard Koestner, PhD, concluded that such rewards tend to have a substantially negative effect on intrinsic motivation by undermining people’s taking responsibility for motivating or regulating themselves.

Self-determination research has also identified flaws in high stakes, test focused school reforms, which despite good intentions, has led teachers and administrators to engage in precisely the types of interventions that result in poor quality learning. Dr. Ryan and colleagues found that high stakes tests tend to constrain teachers’ choices about curriculum coverage and curtail teachers’ ability to respond to students’ interests (Ryan & La Guardia, 1999). Also, psychologists Tim Urdan, PhD, and Scott Paris, PhD, found that such tests can decrease teacher enthusiasm for teaching, which has an adverse effect on students’ motivation (Urdan & Paris, 1994).

The processes described in self-determination theory may be particularly important for children with special educational needs. Researcher Michael Wehmeyer found that students with disabilities who are more self-determined are more likely to be employed and living independently in the community after completing high school than students who are less self-determined.

Research also shows that the educational benefits of self-determination principles don’t stop with high school graduation. Studies show how the orientation taken by college and medical school instructors (whether it is toward controlling students’ behavior or supporting the students’ autonomy) affects the students’ motivation and learning.
Significance

Self-determination theory has identified ways to better motivate students to learn at all educational levels, including those with disabilities.
Practical Application

Schools throughout the country are using self-determination instruction as a way to better motivate students and meet the growing need to teach children and youth ways to more fully accept responsibility for their lives by helping them to identify their needs and develop strategies to meet those needs.

Researchers have developed and evaluated instructional interventions and supports to encourage self-determination for all students, with many of these programs designed for use by students with disabilities. Many parents, researchers and policy makers have voiced concern about high rates of unemployment, under-employment and poverty experienced by students with disabilities after they complete their educational programs. Providing support for student self-determination in school settings is one way to enhance student learning and improve important post-school outcomes for students with disabilities. Schools have particularly emphasized the use of self-determination curricula with students with disabilities to meet federal mandates to actively involve students with disabilities in the Individualized Education Planning process.

Programs to promote self-determination help students acquire knowledge, skills and beliefs that meet their needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness (for example, see Steps to Self-determination by educational researchers Sharon Field and Alan Hoffman). Such programs also provide instruction aimed specifically at helping students play a more active role in educational planning (for example, see The Self-directed Individualized Education Plan by Jim Martin, Laura Huber Marshall, Laurie Maxson, & Patty Jerman).

Drs. Field and Hoffman developed a model designed to guide the development of self-determination instructional interventions. According to the model, instructional activities in areas such as increasing self-awareness; improving decision-making, goal-setting and goal-attainment skills; enhancing communication and relationship skills; and developing the ability to celebrate success and learn from reflecting on experiences lead to increased student self-determination. Self-determination instructional programs help students learn how to participate more actively in educational decision-making by helping them become familiar with the educational planning process, assisting them to identify information they would like to share at educational planning meetings, and supporting students to develop skills to effectively communicate their needs and wants. Examples of activities used in self-determination instructional programs include reflecting on daydreams to help students decide what is important to them; teaching students how to set goals that are important to them and then, with the support of peers, family members and teachers, taking steps to achieve those goals. Providing contextual supports and opportunities for students, such as coaching for problem-solving and offering opportunities for choice, are also critical elements that lead to meeting needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness and thus, increasing student self-determination.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

How to Build a Better Educational System: Jigsaw Classrooms

The jigsaw classroom technique can transform competitive classrooms in which many students are struggling into cooperative classrooms in which once-struggling students show dramatic academic and social improvements.
Findings

In the early 1970s, in the wake of the civil rights movement, educators were faced with a social dilemma that had no obvious solution. All over the country, well-intentioned efforts to desegregate America’s public schools were leading to serious problems. Ethnic minority children, most of whom had previously attended severely under-funded schools, found themselves in classrooms composed predominantly of more privileged White children. This created a situation in which students from affluent backgrounds often shone brilliantly while students from impoverished backgrounds often struggled. Of course, this difficult situation seemed to confirm age-old stereotypes: that Blacks and Latinos are stupid or lazy and that Whites are pushy and overly competitive. The end result was strained relations between children from different ethnic groups and widening gaps in the academic achievement of Whites and minorities.

Drawing on classic psychological research on how to reduce tensions between competing groups (e.g., see Allport, 1954; Sherif, 1958; see also Pettigrew, 1998), Elliot Aronson and colleagues realized that one of the major reasons for this problem was the competitive nature of the typical classroom. In a typical classroom, students work on assignments individually, and teachers often call on students to see who can publicly demonstrate his or her knowledge. Anyone who has ever been called to the board to solve a long division problem – only to get confused about dividends and divisors – knows that public failure can be devastating. The snide remarks that children often make when their peers fail do little to remedy this situation. But what if students could be taught to work together in the classroom – as cooperating members of a cohesive team? Could a cooperative learning environment turn things around for struggling students? When this is done properly, the answer appears to be a resounding yes.

In response to real educational dilemmas, Aronson and colleagues developed and implemented the jigsaw classroom technique in Austin, Texas, in 1971. The jigsaw technique is so named because each child in a jigsaw classroom has to become an expert on a single topic that is a crucial part of a larger academic puzzle. For example, if the children in a jigsaw classroom were working on a project about World War II, a classroom of 30 children might be broken down into five diverse groups of six children each. Within each group, a different child would be given the responsibility of researching and learning about a different specific topic: Khanh might learn about Hitler’s rise to power, Tracy might learn about the U.S. entry into the war, Mauricio might learn about the development of the atomic bomb, etc. To be sure that each group member learned his or her material well, the students from different groups who had the same assignment would be instructed to compare notes and share information. Then students would be brought together in their primary groups, and each student would present his or her “piece of the puzzle” to the other group members. Of course, teachers play the important role of keeping the students involved and derailing any tensions that may emerge. For example, suppose Mauricio struggled as he tried to present his information about the atomic bomb. If Tracy were to make fun of him, the teacher would quickly remind Tracy that while it may make her feel good to make fun of her teammate, she is hurting herself and her group – because everyone will be expected to know all about the atomic bomb on the upcoming quiz.
Significance
When properly carried out, the jigsaw classroom technique can transform competitive classrooms in which many students are struggling into cooperative classrooms in which once-struggling students show dramatic academic and social improvements (and in which students who were already doing well continue to shine). Students in jigsaw classrooms also come to like each other more, as students begin to form cross-ethnic friendships and discard ethnic and cultural stereotypes. Finally, jigsaw classrooms decrease absenteeism, and they even seem to increase children’s level of empathy (i.e., children’s ability to put themselves in other people’s shoes). The jigsaw technique thus has the potential to improve education dramatically in a multi-cultural world by revolutionizing the way children learn.
Practical Application

Since its demonstration in the 1970s, the jigsaw classroom has been used in hundreds of classrooms settings across the nation, ranging from the elementary schools where it was first developed to high school and college classrooms (e.g., see Aronson, Blaney, Stephan, Rosenfield, & Sikes, 1977; Perkins & Saris, 2001; Slavin, 1980). Researchers know that the technique is effective, incidentally, because it has been carefully studied using solid research techniques. For example, in many cases, students in different classrooms who are covering the same material are randomly assigned to receive either traditional instruction (no intervention) or instruction by means of the jigsaw technique. Studies in real classrooms have consistently revealed enhanced academic performance, reductions in stereotypes and prejudice, and improved social relations.

Aronson is not the only researcher to explore the merits of cooperative learning techniques. Shortly after Aronson and colleagues began to document the power of the jigsaw classroom, Robert Slavin, Elizabeth Cohen and others began to document the power of other kinds of cooperative learning programs (see Cohen & Lotan, 1995; Slavin, 1980; Slavin, Hurley, & Chamberlain, 2003). As of this writing, some kind of systematic cooperative learning technique had been applied in about 1500 schools across the country, and the technique appears to be picking up steam. Perhaps the only big question that remains about cooperative learning techniques such as the jigsaw classroom is why these techniques have not been implemented even more broadly than they already have.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Have Your Children Had Their Anti-Smoking Shots?

Findings

In the early 1960s, social psychologist William McGuire published some classic papers showing that it is surprisingly easy to change people’s attitudes about things that we all wholeheartedly accept as true. For example, for speakers armed with a little knowledge of persuasion, it is remarkably easy to convince almost anyone that brushing one’s teeth is not such a great idea. McGuire’s insight into this curious phenomenon was that it is easy to change people’s minds about things that they have always taken for granted precisely because most people have little if any practice resisting attacks on attitudes that no one ever questions.

Taking this logic a little further, McGuire asked if it might be possible to train people to resist attacks on their beliefs by giving them practice at resisting arguments that they could easily refute. Specifically, McGuire drew an analogy between biological resistance to disease and psychological resistance to persuasion. Biological inoculation works by exposing people to a weakened version of an attacking agent such as a virus. People’s bodies produce antibodies that make them immune to the attacking agent, and when a full-blown version of the agent hits later in life, people win the biological battle against the full-blown disease. Would giving people a little practice fending off a weak attack on their attitudes make it easier for people to resist stronger attacks on their attitudes that come along later? The answer turns out to be yes. McGuire coined the phrase attitude inoculation to refer to the process of resisting strong persuasive arguments by getting practice fighting off weaker versions of the same arguments.
Significance

Once attitude inoculation had been demonstrated consistently in the laboratory, researchers decided to see if attitude inoculation could be used to help parents, teachers, and social service agents deal with a pressing social problem that kills about 440,000 people in the U.S. every year: cigarette smoking. Smoking seemed like an ideal problem to study because children below the age of 10 or 12 almost always report negative attitudes about smoking. However, in the face of peer pressure to be cool, many of these same children become smokers during middle to late adolescence.
Practical Application

Adolescents change their attitudes about smoking (and become smokers) because of the power of peer pressure. Researchers quickly realized that if they could inoculate children against pro-smoking arguments (by teaching them to resist pressure from their peers who believed that smoking is “cool”), they might be able to reduce the chances that children would become smokers. A series of field studies of attitude inoculation, conducted in junior high schools and high schools throughout the country, demonstrated that brief interventions using attitude inoculation dramatically reduced rates of teenage smoking. For instance, in an early study by Cheryl Perry and colleagues (1980), high school students inoculated junior high schools students against smoking by having the younger kids role-play the kind of situations they might actually face with a peer who pressured them to try a cigarette. For example, when a role-playing peer called a student “chicken” for not being willing to try an imaginary cigarette, the student practiced answers such as “I’d be a real chicken if I smoked just to impress you.” The kids who were inoculated in this way were about half as likely to become smokers as were kids in a very similar school who did not receive this special intervention.

Public service advertising campaigns have also made use of attitude inoculation theory by encouraging parents to help their children devise strategies for saying no when peers encourage them to smoke. Programs that have made whole or partial use of attitude inoculation programs have repeatedly documented the effectiveness of attitude inoculation to prevent teenage smoking, to curb illicit drug use, and to reduce teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. In comparison with old-fashioned interventions such as simple education about the risks of smoking or teenage pregnancy, attitude inoculation frequently reduces risky behaviors by 30-70% (see Botvin et al., 1995; Ellickson & Bell, 1990; Perry et al., 1980). As psychologist David Myers put it in his popular social psychology textbook, “Today any school district or teacher wishing to use the social psychological approach to smoking prevention can do so easily, inexpensively, and with the hope of significant reductions in future smoking rates and health costs.” So the next time you think about inoculating kids to keep them healthy, make sure you remember that one of the most important kinds of inoculation any kid can get is a psychological inoculation against tobacco.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments Off

Early Intervention Can Improve Low-Income Children’s Cognitive Skills and Academic Achievement

National Head Start program conceptualized while psychologists were beginning to study preventive intervention for young children living in poverty.
Findings
As a group, children who live in poverty tend to perform worse in school than do children from more privileged backgrounds. For the first half of the 20th century, researchers attributed this difference to inherent cognitive deficits. At the time, the prevailing belief was that the course of child development was dictated by biology and maturation. By the early 1960s, this position gave way to the notion popularized by psychologists such as J. McVicker Hunt and Benjamin Bloom that intelligence could rather easily be shaped by the environment. There was very little research at the time to support these speculations but a few psychologists had begun to study whether environmental manipulation could prevent poor cognitive outcomes. Results of studies by psychologists Susan Gray and Rupert Klaus (1965), Martin Deutsch (1965) and Bettye Caldwell and former U.S. Surgeon General Julius Richmond (1968) supported the notion that early attention to physical and psychological development could improve cognitive ability.
Significance

These preliminary results caught the attention of Sargent Shriver, President Lyndon Johnson’s chief strategist in implementing an arsenal of antipoverty programs as part of the War on Poverty. His idea for a school readiness program for children of the poor focused on breaking the cycle of poverty. Shriver reasoned that if poor children could begin school on an equal footing with wealthier classmates, they would have a better of chance of succeeding in school and avoiding poverty in adulthood. He appointed a planning committee of 13 professionals in physical and mental health, early education, social work, and developmental psychology. Their work helped shape what is now known as the federal Head Start program.

The three developmental psychologists in the group were Urie Bronfenbrenner, Mamie Clark, and Edward Zigler. Bronfenbrenner convinced the other members that intervention would be most effective if it involved not just the child but the family and community that comprise the child-rearing environment. Parent involvement in school operations and administration were unheard of at the time, but it became a cornerstone of Head Start and proved to be a major contributor to its success. Zigler had been trained as a scientist and was distressed that the new program was not going to be field-tested before its nationwide launch. Arguing that it was not wise to base such a massive, innovative program on good ideas and concepts but little empirical evidence, he insisted that research and evaluation be part of Head Start. When he later became the federal official responsible for administering the program, Zigler (often referred to as the “father of Head Start”) worked to cast Head Start as a national laboratory for the design of effective early childhood services.

Although it is difficult to summarize the hundreds of empirical studies of Head Start outcomes, Head Start does seem to produce a variety of benefits for most children who participate. Although some studies have suggested that the intellectual advantages gained from participation in Head Start gradually disappear as children progress through elementary school, some of these same studies have shown more lasting benefits in the areas of school achievement and adjustment.
Practical Application

Head Start began as a great experiment that over the years has yielded prolific results. Some 20 million children and families have participated in Head Start since the summer of 1965; current enrollment approaches one million annually, including those in the new Early Head Start that serves families with children from birth to age 3. Psychological research on early intervention has proliferated, creating an expansive literature and sound knowledge base. Many research ideas designed and tested in the Head Start laboratory have been adapted in a variety of service delivery programs. These include family support services, home visiting, a credentialing process for early childhood workers, and education for parenthood. Head Start’s efforts in preschool education spotlighted the value of school readiness and helped spur today’s movement toward universal preschool.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

Family-Like Environment Better for Troubled Children and Teens

The Teaching-Family Model changes bad behavior through straight talk and loving relationships.
Findings

In the late 1960′s, psychologists Elaine Phillips, Elery Phillips, Dean Fixsen, and Montrose Wolf developed an empirically tested treatment program to help troubled children and juvenile offenders who had been assigned to residential group homes. These researchers combined the successful components of their studies into the Teaching-Family Model, which offers a structured treatment regimen in a family-like environment. The model is built around a married couple (teaching-parents) that lives with children in a group home and teaches them essential interpersonal and living skills. Not only have teaching parents’ behaviors and techniques been assessed for their effectiveness, but they have also been empirically tested for whether children like them. Teaching-parents also work with the children’s parents, teachers, employers, and peers to ensure support for the children’s positive changes. Although more research is needed, preliminary results suggest that, compared to children in other residential treatment programs, children in Teaching-Family Model centers have fewer contacts with police and courts, lower dropout rates, and improved school grades and attendance.

Couples are selected to be teaching-parents based on their ability to provide individualized and affirming care. Teaching-parents then undergo an intensive year-long training process. In order to maintain their certification, teaching-parents and Teaching-Family Model organizations are evaluated every year, and must meet the rigorous standards set by the Teaching-Family Association.
Significance
The Teaching-Family Model is one of the few evidence-based residential treatment programs for troubled children. In the past, many treatment programs viewed delinquency as an illness, and therefore placed children in institutions for medical treatment. The Teaching-Family Model, in contrast, views children’s behavior problems as stemming from their lack of essential interpersonal relationships and skills. Accordingly, the Teaching-Family Model provides children with these relationships and teaches them these skills, using empirically validated methods. With its novel view of problem behavior and its carefully tested and disseminated treatment program, the Teaching-Family Model has helped to transform the treatment of behavioral problems from impersonal interventions at large institutions to caring relationships in home and community settings. The Teaching-Family Model has also demonstrated how well-researched treatment programs can be implemented on a large scale. Most importantly, the Teaching-Family Model has given hope that young people with even the most difficult problems or behaviors can improve the quality of their lives and make contributions to society.
Practical Application
In recent years, the Teaching-Family Model has been expanded to include foster care facilities, home treatment settings, and even schools. The Teaching-Family Model has also been adapted to accommodate the needs of physically, emotionally, and sexually abused children; emotionally disturbed and autistic children and adults; medically fragile children; and adults with disabilities. Successful centers that have been active for over 30 years include the Bringing it All Back Home Study Center in North Carolina, the Houston Achievement Place in Texas, and the Girls and Boys Town in Nebraska. Other Teaching-Family Model organizations are in Alberta (Canada), Arkansas, Hawaii, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Believing You Can Get Smarter Makes You Smarter

Thinking about intelligence as changeable and malleable, rather than stable and fixed, results in greater academic achievement, especially for people whose groups bear the burden of negative stereotypes about their intelligence.
Findings

Can people get smarter? Are some racial or social groups smarter than others? Despite a lot of evidence to the contrary, many people believe that intelligence is fixed, and, moreover, that some racial and social groups are inherently smarter than others. Merely evoking these stereotypes about the intellectual inferiority of these groups (such as women and Blacks) is enough to harm the academic perfomance of members of these groups. Social psychologist Claude Steele and his collaborators (2002) have called this phenomenon “stereotype threat.”

Yet social psychologists Aronson, Fried, and Good (2001) have developed a possible antidote to stereotype threat. They taught African American and European American college students to think of intelligence as changeable, rather than fixed – a lesson that many psychological studies suggests is true. Students in a control group did not receive this message. Those students who learned about IQ’s malleability improved their grades more than did students who did not receive this message, and also saw academics as more important than did students in the control group. Even more exciting was the finding that Black students benefited more from learning about the malleable nature of intelligence than did White students, showing that this intervention may successfully counteract stereotype threat.
Significance

This research showed a relatively easy way to narrow the Black-White academic achievement gap. Realizing that one’s intelligence may be improved may actually improve one’s intelligence, especially for those whose groups are targets of stereotypes alleging limited intelligence (e.g., Blacks, Latinos, and women in math domains.)
Practical Application

Blackwell, Dweck, and Trzesniewski (2002) recently replicated and applied this research with seventh-grade students in New York City. During the first eight weeks of the spring term, these students learned about the malleability of intelligence by reading and discussing a science-based article that described how intelligence develops. A control group of seventh-grade students did not learn about intelligence’s changeability, and instead learned about memory and mnemonic strategies. As compared to the control group, students who learned about intelligence’s malleability had higher academic motivation, better academic behavior, and better grades in mathematics. Indeed, students who were members of vulnerable groups (e.g., those who previously thought that intelligence cannot change, those who had low prior mathematics achievement, and female students) had higher mathematics grades following the intelligence-is-malleable intervention, while the grades of similar students in the control group declined. In fact, girls who received the intervention matched and even slightly exceeded the boys in math grades, whereas girls in the control group performed well below the boys.

These findings are especially important because the actual instruction time for the intervention totaled just three hours. Therefore, this is a very cost-effective method for improving students’ academic motivation and achievement.
Cited Research

Aronson, J., Fried, C. B., & Good, C. (2001). Reducing the effects of stereotype threat on African American college students by shaping theories of intelligence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1-13.

Steele, C. M., Spencer, S. J., & Aronson, J. (2002), Contending with group image: The psychology of stereotype and social identity threat. In Mark P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 34, pp. 379-440. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, Inc.
Additional Sources

Blackwell, L., Dweck, C., & Trzesniewski, K. (2002). Achievement across the adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Manuscript in preparation.

Dweck, C., & Leggett, E. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95, 256-273.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Fashion, a Stunning Demand

Tuning into a separate segment of fashion is an overall terrible topic as to choose about what to scratch or not. Fashion could be an exciting, excellent topic, and it is hard to demand a decision that direction when it comes to exploring surface in many ways of the main stream. However, of course, in additional and extra that niche bloggers have a higher probability of obtaining income. As a result, they have a tendency to move to dedicated audiences.

That is, not all niches on fashion are for money making the same. Some simpler surface unit is a less complicated luxury niche than to get fringe benefits from a niche styling second-hand store. Do not be discouraged! With a bit of innovative, out of the box, you are thinking of anything new.

It plays a critical and vital role because it’s thought about as a way of expressing one’s self. The dresses or robes and accessories that people wear whether man or woman, make them understand with a bunch related to different

· Religion

· Region

· Profession

· Attitudes

· Families

For this reason, fashion is another substitute running in the mainstream of any country.

A passion for rich

Many factors affect elaboration of style in complete respect.it is now becoming a universal truth that fashion is only the zeal of wealthy and famous personalities of the World, only they can meet the latest trends and traits. But throwing a glance around us everyone does fashion in a way or other. Every class of society has their fashion. They also relate to religion also.

Media and fashion

Media is also playing its role positively in spreading latest trends. Films, TV shows, fashion exhibitions and last but not least, especially now a day’s social media have totally changed the trade. It has made fashion traits faster than ever. Fashion always change and limelight figures whether models, cosmetics, wardrobe, accessories, etc.

Fashion designer

In history, matter Weaver was known as a skilled person, but today an artist is recognized for his/her creativity, and it not only relate to dresses but also with the other accessories as well. Because these days’ fashion is not only related to dress but also with shoes, bags, makeup, jewelry, etc.

The manner of dress is always in a fluent one set is in trend, and the other is pushing it out to come in. New styles are always pop up in movies or shows and ladies instantly copy them; the women always want to look like as models look.

Traditions and manners

Though fashion deals with apparent looks but also with manners, because manners meant something much deeper than fashion only.

There are also traditional styles which are very fast these days. Like smoking, drinking, living in the joint family and parental care was once in trend in some societies but now changes.

Posted in Fashion | Tagged | Comments Off

Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden: Arts, Nature and Much More

While I am nearing the entrance the morning sun is already very hot. I could have asked the taxi driver to leave me in front of the gate, but I did not want to miss anything of this renowned place at the northwestern border of Cape Town.

No wonder the Sunset Concerts are such a big success. Surrounded by the mountains, merged into the nature, the location is a dream became true for both the musicians and the audience. Today is scheduled the exhibition of Zebra & Giraffe, a South African indie-rock band who is hastily making his way towards popularity.

On my way in, I meet a couple who are here to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Today is actually the 13th, but it is also Sunday and the place is worth to be visited for the whole day. “We did not know about the concerts – tells my Janine – maybe we stop for the rest of the evening, but first we want to enjoy a picnic on the grass.” Picnics are a classical here in Kirstenbosch, walking down the paths after the entrance I can see on every corner groups of friends, families and young couples eating a sandwich or a piece of cake, drinking wine or beer.

I came early to enjoy the beauty of the nature myself, so I start exploring the botanic garden. I enter the Smuts Track – Jan Smuts’ favourite path, as I read on the voucher – which loses himself into the slope of Castle Rock, to become finally the Skeleton Gorge, a very steep ravine that reaches the top of the mountain.

With a little diversion from Smuts Path I reach the Old Dam, a little pool of water crossed by a small wooden bridge. It was built in 1968 in Nursery Stream for irrigating the Garden. The large trees hide it under their shadow, so the few sun-rays that reach the pool play with its water in a dance of colours. I may reach the Fynbos Garden from here and enjoy the colours and the funny shapes of this strange plants, but the Skeleton Gorge has a greater appeal on me. I take the Boekenhout Trail, the red sand that covers it leading my way. A couple of crossroads and I am on the Yellowwood Trail. I am close, but the road upwards is hardening my legs and my bag seems now to weigh one ton. I climb on rocks and wooden ladders. Now and then crossing groups of young people or old couples on holiday, like Oscar and Martha, who are from Germany and are spending two weeks in Cape Town. I ask Martha how long it takes until the top. “One hour, roundabout. But you’re young, you’ll need less. And it’s totally worth to get there.” I was young, when I started.

I put my remaining energies in the effort and I finally reach Castle Rock. The view from there embraces the Garden and the whole town beyond it, until the sea. It really was worth to get here.

When I am back down I have roundabout one hour to relax and breath the fragrance coming from the garden before the show starts. I sit down at the Tearoom for a short snack. The service is very kind, and the atmosphere enchanting. The highest care is put to safeguard this idillic spot. In fact, I am not even allowed to use my laptop.

When the sun caresses the mountain’s slope, is time to go. The stage is not far, and a lot of people are hurrying the get the best places on the grass. The area is crowded, most of the public is very young, a lot of teenagers, but I do not miss to notice a good number of families with little children and some old couple. A live performance in such a corner of paradise is a temptation for all kind of people. I share a few chats with the ones I encounter on my way and I find out there are many Capetownian, but also a lot of tourists who were visiting the Garden just a few minutes before. I can hear people speaking in German, Dutch and English in many different accents. Orwen, on the other hand, is from Wynberg, a strong-looking tall guy in his early thirties. He is a Zebra & Giraffe’s fun and found out about the concert from his friends. Last time he visited the Garden he was only a little boy, but he still remembers which was his favourite spot, “The Old Dam, I loved that little wooden bridge.” Me too.

While the band explores his repertory, the sunset ends in front of the stage, slightly on the side. With this framework of mountains and peaks, it is a very short show, but no one seems to mind.

Zebra & Giraffe play an amusing rock, changing with ease from slow ballad-like songs to an almost crossover rhythm which keeps the people jumping and dancing. When the sun-rays are only visible on the peaks of the surrounding mountains, they greet their public, express their satisfaction and gratefulness and swiftly disappear behind the stage.

I follow the crowd to the exit and here I am again, in Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden.

The Botanical Gardens

The ground which hosts the Botanical Gardens has sheltered and provided sustenance to many different people through the centuries. First exploited and neglected, in the early 20th century this extraordinary area has been chosen as base for Africa’s biggest botanic garden.

The name Kirstenbosch first appeared in 1795, when it was listed on an inventory of property drawn up and handed over to the British Occupying forces, but his origin is uncertain. It suggests a link to the Kirsten family, whose members lived in the Cape at the time, but none of them ever owned the propriety, nor had any traceable connection with it.

In 1885 Cecil John Rhodes purchased Kirstenbosch. He planted the avenue of Camphor trees and Moreton Bay Figs in 1898. But the land was neglected and became rundown, and was overrun with feral pigs wallowing in muddy pools and feeding on the acorns. When Rhodes died in 1902, he left the land to the Government.

To fill the newly established chair of botany at the South African College, in 1903 arrived Harold Pearson, who saw the need for a botanic garden and started to look for the right place. He choose a spot on the Table Mountain’s eastern slope at the beginning, but when Neville Pillans, a young botanist and gardener, brought him to see Kirstenbosch, Pearson grasped immediately its value and possibilities.

The Botanical Society was formed in 1913. The aim stated in his first general meeting was to “encourage the public to get involved in the development of Kirstenbosch, to augment the Government grants, to organise botanical shows, and to enlighten and instruct members on botanical subjects”.

The hardships in those early years were many and the lack of funds slowed the renovation of the land. But thanks to the foresight of its founders, the commitment and dedication of the staff, and the support of the Botanical Society and its members, the garden rose to his present splendour.

Today the Garden covers 36 hectares in a 528 hectares estate that contains protected mountainside supporting the life of a large variety of fynbos and animals and a natural forest as well. Kirstenbosch is the largest of a country-wide network of nine National Botanical Gardens administered by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). The Garden is adjacent to the Table Mountain National Park, and both form part of the Cape Floristic Region Protected Area, which was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004.

The shoulders that have to carry this impressive weight belong to Philip Le Roux, curator of the Garden since ten years, but here in Kirstenbosch with different positions since twenty-two. “Ours is quite a unique botanical garden, since we do not collect species from different part of the world as most gardens do. Cape Town has already a massive amount of local plants that keep us busy with studies, descriptions and documentation. But of course we do all the other usual things. Every year about 20,000 school kids visit the Garden and we also help to establish gardens in the schools.”

To keep all the activities running Kirstenbosch employs 130 people, a number which has been reduced from the former 170. “We started to delegate many tasks to private companies – explains me Mr Le Roux – like cleansing, counters, security. It worked well.” If I ask him which is his favourite spot, he thinks deeply for a moment and then answers “the Indigenous Forest. Quite a unique vegetation.” I will have to see it next time.

On the background of the Garden, the eastern slopes of Table Mountain and the Cape Peninsula form a unique sight available for the visitors adventuring through the five different trails. Different for length and conformation, they space from the short and self-guided Braille Trail, which takes about 20 minutes to complete and is long less then one kilometre, to the extensive Silvertree Trail. This one will keep you busy for nothing less than three hours, through almost eight kinometres on a circular path that crosses the entire estate, starting and ending at Rycroft Gate, and passing the shimmering silver trees (Leucadendron argenteum) that grow wild on the slopes behind and above the Garden.

More than 125 species of birds have been recorded in the Garden. Look out for the Sugarbird (Promerops cafer), with its distinctive long tail, Sunbirds (Nectarinia species) with their colourful plumage and the African Dusky Flycatcher (Muscicapa adusta) which is frequently seen swooping down from the trees to catch flying insects. Many animals live and breed in and around Kirstenbosch, but they are not often seen because they are mostly active at dusk, or during the night, and hide during the day, like the Grysbok (Raphicerus melanotis), Caracal/Rooikat (Felis caracal), Small Spotted Genet (Genetta genetta) and Cape Fox (Vulpes chama). Kirstenbosch is home to several amphibians, including the Chirping Frog (Arthroleptella lightfootii), which can be heard, if not seen, on the Braille Trail, the Cape River Frog (Rana fuscigula), which is often spotted in the streams, and the Critically Endangered Table Mountain Ghost Frog (Heleophryne rosei), which also occurs on the estate. This pearl of the nature is open to anyone willing to enjoy his treasures, but do not leave cans or papers on the spot where you had your picnic: you have to take your trash home with you, because there are no bins anywhere.

A bin-free stage for live performances

“The first reason for a bin-free botanical garden is to keep the animals from feeding themselves with the visitors’ remnants – tells me Kirstenbosch’s Event Manager Sarah Struys – but there is a collateral effect we like to stress. People coming here are directly involved in keeping the place clean. They have to collect their garbage and take it home, and they actually do it. We are sensitizing our public about the importance and the pleasure of a clean nature.”

Sarah works in Kirstenbosch since ten years and of course she is not only busy eliminating all the formerly present bins from the Garden, she keeps running all the activities that enrich the place, from the annual Garden Fair whose income supports Kirstenbosch developing projects, to the expositions of sculptures visible through the paths that cross the Garden. Of course also the Sunset Summer Concerts are in her hands, even if they started eight years before her arrival.

It was the Summer 1992-1993 when the live performance of low profiled artists started with the aim of raising more funds for the Garden. People had only to pay the usual entry fee, and after the show they would have been asked to contribute with a small donation. Now there is an extra ticket for the concert and the performers are internationally renowned.

“Suddenly we discovered that a lot of people were eager to perform here – Ms Struys goes on – and a far larger audience wanted to attend. We had to move the stage twice to enable more people to gather for the show. Now we sell up to 6,000 tickets every Sunday, and every year there are nineteen performances on schedule. We do not plan to grow further at the present moment, Kirstenbosch is still a botanic garden before everything else.”

It is also thanks to this concerts that the Garden has been completely self-sustained in the last five years. But there was a reason more that led the management to open the gates to a new use for Kirstenbosch.

“The people visiting the Garden always belonged to a specific social group: quite old, white, middle-high class. The management wanted to attract a wider range of public” and a series of live performance worked as the perfect catalyst. “Of course young people are attracted more from the specific artist then from the place, but they come back afterwards to visit the Garden. We can tell it because we saw the income at the gates increase in the last years.”

I can not resist to ask her too which one is her favourite spot. She answers me “the Dell, I like that corner under the trees”. I missed that one too. I really have to come back.

Posted in Gardening | Tagged | Comments Off