To create an ACADEMY of personhood, which drives children forward to live their lives with a powerful sense of purpose and meaning...
Welcome to BenHale Academy, where your child's learning experience is enhanced, enurtured and engaged. We are so pleased that you are visiting us online! Our Story will leave you with a thought provoking but very relevant and important question every parent should be thinking about or most probably has already thought about. Sit back and take your time as you journey with us.
We have long realized that our education system is failing our children in two very important and significant ways:
Number 1: The system is designed to prepare your child for life as an employee – the age old philosophy is: “Get good grades, find a good job or some form of self-employment and live happily ever after”! Problem is, in today’s world, high grades and university degrees no longer guarantee a good job! Our education system has reduced success to a list of boxes to be checked: graduate from school, get married, have kids, settle into a well-defined career and hang on until retirement! This well-worn path pushes people in the direction of conformity, not purpose!
Number 2: The number of incidents of ADHD has grown parallel to the growth in standardised testing. ADHD is a modern misplaced epidemic and we are getting our children through the system of education by dulling their senses, anaesthetising them! We should be waking them up to what they have inside of them and not putting them to sleep. Why is it that there is no cure in sight, in this highly sophisticated, modern world but only pharmaceutical companies reaping the “gold-rush” from the demand for these drugs used to treat ADD / ADHD.
As a normal South African family, we have experienced along with millions of others, our fair share of the trauma experienced through job losses and the months and months of stress that follows until another suitable job is found. We know what it’s like when income suddenly runs dry. As parents ourselves, my wife and I for many years have endured the hardships, the tears, the struggles, pain and humiliation, synonymous with children who live with the realities of ADD / ADHD. We understand the plight and hopelessness of caring parents who have children in similar situations. We have experienced the tremendous pain and rejection a child goes through when he or she is turned away from a private educational institution because they are not performing to the academic standards expected of them, the ridicule the child goes through when they are labelled by teachers and peers as the “disruptive child”. In the heart of the education system is the idea of academic ability, which describes two types of people - smart people and people who are not so smart, and the consequence of this is that many brilliant people think they’re not, because they are being judged against this view of the mind. This model has caused chaos in the lives of many people and many children have been alienated, especially in private schools where academic performance & achievement is the primary objective.
Economic uncertainty and future job opportunities for our children are top of mind for every parent and parent-to-be in South Africa. Parents are trying to figure out: “How do we educate our children to take their place in the economies of the 21st century when we can’t even tell what the economy will look like the week after next?” We live in a world that no longer guarantees a good job beyond school or even university!
The question we should be asking is: If our world has changed so dramatically, why do we educate our children the same way we were educated, the same way our parents were educated and the same way our grandparents and their grandparents were educated? Why do we fill classrooms and educate the class as if every child is one and the same? Why has our education system failed to recognise that it is no longer relevant to prepare a child for life as an employee when we live in a world where access to a good job is fast becoming the new global crisis, a world plagued with uncertainty! In the past, setting 10-year business strategies was possible but today’s business leaders can barely plan 3 years ahead! The answer lies somewhere in the fact that the very people working and running our educational institutions are a product of the same system and therefore fail to recognise the growing gap between education and real life!
Your child’s economic future will look very different to ours today. Tomorrow’s world will place a very different set of demands on your children as they enter the world beyond school. Your child will need a very different set of skills! Academic excellence is important but is no longer the primary key to success beyond school. The job market will favour creative talent and those who are not afraid to challenge the status quo, those who are able to bring creative ability to improve and change things, those who are able to take teams forward with transformational thinking and game changing ideas will have a higher chance of employment success!
Over-population and shrinking economies call for a different education system. We have a different set of imperatives and that is for our children to be economically independent, which is what every parent wants for their children. The problem with the education system is that it is one of conformity rather than creativity. We are benignly steered away from things we are good at towards things that other people advised would be more useful to us.
Our only escape is to develop our God-given capacity for imagination and to do it systematically through education and to connect people to their talents.
South Africa needs schools and an education system that will create jobs! The fate of our nation rides on the value system, financial literacy and entrepreneurial energy of our kids.
BenHale Academy is tightly connected to bringing solutions to the number one crisis threatening the future sustainability of the South African economy, which is job creation. Our passion to see ALL children succeed, to grow, to be stretched, to reach their full potential, has taught us invaluable lessons that no matter the challenge, there are ways in which all kids, academic or non-academic can achieve their God-given potential, without having to segregate the “smart kids” from the “not so smart kids”, without labelling, without discrimination and without medication!
BenHale Academy not only seeks to focus on your child as an individual but on creating balance for your family, ensuring all projects and homework is done at school.
Are you experiencing pain in any specific area of your child’s schooling? Does the reality of the challenge described above resonate loudly with you, the concerned parent?
If so, we want to encourage you to make the right choice - don’t delay!! Choose BenHale Academy as the educational choice option for your child’s future success!
As our school motto says...Vivet Vita, Vivet Magnum – Live Life, Live BIG – and we do this by doing it together!
Academy Mission
Impart in every child a firm moral foundation and belief in an eternal God, and then through educational excellence & creativity:
- Connect every child to their element – bringing together their personal passion and natural talent.
- Give every child the capacity to be future job creators through a powerful combination of academic excellence, creativity and practical business skills.
- Develop young leaders of the 21st century who will lead leaders.
