Human mediation is the key element that prepares the ground for learning

In any discussion on the state of education in South Africa you will hear about learning outcomes, standards and accountability, yet very little about the conditions that make learning possible at all. Children are expected to read, reason and solve problems at speed, while many in our country have never been supported to build the cognitive foundations these tasks depend on.

Too often, we reward performance and punish the absence of it, mistaking speed, correct answers and visible output for understanding, and interpreting success or struggle as a measure of fixed intelligence. What happens when we confuse performance with understanding? What is often overlooked is that most learning failure is not a deficit of ability, but a mismatch between the system’s expectation and learners’ preparation for learning.

Recent shifts in education policy rightly emphasise foundational learning, but without clarity about what those foundations are and how they are built cognitively through human mediation, we risk reproducing the very patterns we are trying to change.

The problem is not simply poor schools or weak teachers; the biggest issue is that we routinely expect children to learn without cognitive foundations. When this expectation fails, we pathologise children and scrutinise schools, instead of confronting the deeper issue: cognitive development is forged through experience, language, mediation and social interaction. These are environmental conditions, not inherited deficits, and they are profoundly changeable. To focus on teachers while ignoring cognitive foundations is to miss the point.

Primary relationships

If learning depends on foundations, then human mediation is what prepares the ground. Children’s interest, confidence and willingness to engage are shaped by the quality of their primary relationships. Trust, warmth and attentiveness are not add-ons to learning; they are the medium through which learning travels.

A mediator who listens, shows curiosity and brings energy invites the child into thinking, while emotional depletion can leave adults less able to notice, respond, and draw children into the learning moment.

In South Africa, many parents live under sustained pressure due to unemployment, economic uncertainty or long working hours that limit the time and energy available at home. This is not to be seen as a judgment of parents but reflects their lived reality. Interest is contagious, and without supportive human mediation, curiosity and engagement struggle to take root. Learning flourishes when relationships signal to children that their thinking matters.

When sustained human mediation is absent, its effects are often misread as problems within the child. In many South African classrooms, we see learners who appear passive, tired, or disengaged, sitting quietly at the back, or others who struggle to sit still, act impulsively, and battle to regulate their behaviour. These children are frequently described as unmotivated, inattentive, or disruptive.

Yet, what looks like a lack of interest or self-control may reflect something else entirely: learning encounters that move too fast, demand performance without understanding, and offer little opportunity for guided thinking. In such contexts, children are blamed for disengaging from a process that has not meaningfully engaged them in the first place.

For parents, teachers, and community members, being part of the solution may be far simpler than it sounds. It can begin with listening, truly listening, to how a child responds, allowing time for thinking without interruption, and taking their explanation seriously, whether it is elaborate or uncertain.

Reorganisation

Sometimes learning appears to move backwards before it moves forward. A child may call a square a triangle again, only to self-correct moments later when touching the block, noticing its corners, angles, and straight lines. What looks like regression may in fact be reorganisation. A brief detour through the concrete can reignite attention and deepen understanding.

When the adult responds with patience — “Yes, that’s right, this is a square” — and shares the moment with a smile or a high five, something important happens. Through human interaction and language, perception and thought are bound together, the concept stabilises, and the relationship is strengthened. Learning, in this sense, is not just cognitive; it is deeply human.

If we are serious about improving learning, we need to shift our attention back to the child, not as a set of outcomes to be produced, but as a thinker whose capacities are still forming. This means asking what a child can and cannot yet do cognitively, and responding through patient, intentional mediation, rather than imposing expectations they are unprepared to meet.

In learning environments shaped by pressure, overcrowding and relentless demands for results, teachers are often forced to prioritise performance over understanding, even as large numbers of learners fail to reach basic literacy and numeracy benchmarks, and South Africa continues to rank near the bottom of international comparisons.

The cost of this misalignment is paid by children who are labelled, overlooked, or written off far too early. A different future begins when we stop asking what is wrong with the child and start asking what forms of human, relational, and cognitively attuned mediation this child needs in order to learn. DM

Dr Louis Benjamin is an independent educational consultant. He is the author of the Basic Concepts Programme, which has been implemented across South Africa as well as in other countries to address learning backlogs of children from severely disadvantaged communities.