In this essay I am going to look at how my family has contributed, influenced and steered my education, putting emphasis on my parents’ influence on my education and my grandparents’ influence on my parent’s educations. I will discuss important occurrences that had an effect on my family’s education.
My father was born in 05/11/1933 and attended Bethal Primary school and Hoogenhout High School after school my grandfather worked at Bethal train station in 1952, in 1953 he enrolled at the University of Pretoria and obtained B Com Accounting – 3year STR, Honors, Chartered Accountant. He then worked at Coopers & Lybrand / Price Waterhouse Coopers in 1956 after which he retired. My father’s mother was born in 20/02/1938. She got a Nurse certificate in HF Verwoerd Hospital and worked there until 1958 when she became a housewife. My mothers father was born in 28/10/1945 and went to Lykso Primary School Primary and Vryburg high school and after school he did a view management in house training at pep stores and metro and then he worked at PEP Stores in 1965 and worked in Metro Cash n Carry in 1970 until he retired. My Mothers mother was born in 13/02/1948 and went to Vryburg Primary School Primary school and Vryburg high school and did a librarian course at Vryburg Library in 1968 where she worked until 1985 when she worked at Coal Company. In 1989 she worked for herself and sold clothes.
My father attended Monument park Primary school and Waterkloof high and attended a series of courses at Damelin in 1988 obtaining Programming, MCSE, CNA, Business Management – Certificates. He then worked at Mixmega in 1988 as a supervisor, he then worked at Coopers & Lybrand in 1994 as a supervisor. My mother went to Empangenie high school and Heuwelland primary school. She then did a computer course at Umfolozi College. She then worked at Edwards Pharmacy in 1994. She then worked at Coopers & Lybrand in 1994. In 2005 my parents started a company called ITWindow and they still work there as partner’s owners. Because my parents didn’t attend university they had to work harder and longer to attain good careers they had to compete with college graduates for positions and they experienced conflict theory described by Dahrendorf (1959) where they had to engage in conflict with greater classes, because of this they wanted to make sure that their children go to university so that we would not struggle early in our careers like they did. They did everything in their power to assure that I would be able to go to university. They spent many hours helping me with work and when I got older when they could no longer help me with the work they spent lots of money on tutors, reading academy’s and extra classes. If my marks started to drop they would go and see the teachers. In conclusion my parents were very involved in my education. Because my grandfather did attend the university I felt a large amount of pressure to attend tertiary education. Throughout my schooling the syllables have changed a number of times.
The inconsistency of my education caused the foundations of my schooling to be unorganized and had a negative effect on my education. Yee (2014) highlights the effect’s like class or Weather they attended college has on how well equipped a parent is to help their children navigate college. My parents did attend tertiary education however, they struggled to help me to enroll at the university of Pretoria. They also struggled to help me when I was accepted and attending classes with other more routine things like composing my timetable. A person has an innate desire to be like their parents. In Albert Banduras work on role models he describes a sort of learning called observational learning this sort of learning happens trough a person (most prevalent in childhood) learns a certain behavior thro seeing other people (commonly a child’s parents) doing the behavior
In conclusion your parent’s history, class and level of education do largely impact one’s chances of attending college. Ones grandparents also indirectly influence one’s parents’ whether it be to install a desire to attend tertiary education or to help them in an academic light.
