4.4 Informal conversations with selected school friends to help me in recalling my
4.4.2 An informal conversation with my high school friend
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memories of how our teacher Mrs Motsoeneng used to support us and many other learners in our class during our primary school days.
However, I have also discovered that learners do not easily forget teachers who made them feel uncomfortable and initiated brutal and uncalled for treatments during their school days. They do not easily forget the unsupportive relationships directed at them by their school teachers.
This is evident in our conversation, where Thabo reminds us of the unpleasant memory involving Nokuthula, one learner in our Grade 1 class, where her exercise book was thrown to the point where it was damaged, and how that incident made her cry. This affected Nokuthula and many other learners in our class, as they became scared due to the frustration they had seen our teacher show, which was uncommon. Therefore, teachers in schools must support all of their learners, irrespective of the differences they bring with them. For it is these practices and behaviours that they show that these learners will remember in the future when they think about them.
Moreover, as discussed elsewhere in this chapter, I was also reminded that teachers in schools can work collaboratively in supporting their learners to reach their potential. This means that if individual teachers cannot help their learners with their particular struggles, they may refer them to other teachers or other relevant personnel in schools, such as social workers, to help them. Such an initiative can play a significant role in supporting different learners with different capabilities and challenges. Furthermore, Thabo affirms this in our informal conversation as he argues that Mrs Motsoeneng could have referred Nokuthula to Mrs Blose, since there were two Grade 1 classes in our school. He further contends that perhaps taking Nokuthula to Mrs Blose would enable her to grasp the concepts she struggled with and improve her work. This made me consider how supportive teacher-teacher relationships can benefit both teachers and learners (Paravato Taylor et al., 2020).
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us. The text generated from this informal conversation was later translated into English by me, to meet the requirements of this research dissertation. It is also to be noted that since this informal conversation was conducted by phone, I had earlier sent Siyabonga some of the data sources that I had generated on my high school memories, so that he could have a look before we commenced with our informal conversation.
It is also to be noted that although our conversation was informal, it was guided by the prompts shown under section 4.4.1 above.
After explaining the focus and purpose of this research study to Siyabonga, we started with our informal conversation, which is transcribed below.
Siyabonga: I did look at your data sources. For me, one thing that stood out was your journal entry on one unsupportive teacher-learner relationship you experienced in Grade 10. That was the sad and unfortunate part to read, because it reminded me of how I was also unfairly treated in Grade 10 by Miss Buthelezi (pseudonym). This was when I was at my lowest and was very sick. I think you also remember that unfortunate incident.
Luthando: Yes, I do remember, my brother and I am sorry that you had to feel that way and that my journal entry on unsupportive teacher-learner relationships had to remind you of how you also experienced an unpleasant incident in the same 10th Grade.
Siyabonga: Don’t worry, my friend, at times, we do need to talk about these experiences for the healing process, and so that they do not bother us anymore if we accept them as they are and as they happened.
Luthando: Thank you, Siyabonga. Therefore, you can continue telling me about that Grade 10 incident and how it made you feel.
Siyabonga: I think you can remember very well, my friend, how I became so sick in that year and how I missed a number of days at school since my sickness was serious. I thought I would not survive that year, the way it was so difficult. Thank God I’m still here today. I think you remember how I used to tell you and our other friends how serious it was.
When I started to feel better and came back to school, Miss Buthelezi body shamed me in front of the whole class on how I had lost weight, as I was reporting to her about my sickness. I will never forget that day; I was so embarrassed, and I felt like that was the end of the road for me.
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I felt like never coming back to school, because I had not fully recovered by that time and that incident made me feel worse.
Luthando: I’m so sorry about that unfortunate incident, my brother, and yes, I can still remember everything that happened in class that day. That incident really left you so torn apart.
Siyabonga: It is through that incident that I never liked her again. I hated her. My self-esteem and self-confidence dived through that incident because I never believed in myself anymore.
That is where my marks started to drop, because of that incident. I felt like all eyes were always on my body after I became sick. What Miss Buthelezi did in front of a whole class was so uncalled for!
Luthando: We can’t shy away from that, my friend, because it is a true reflection.
Unsupportive relationships directed at learners by their own teachers in schools are uncalled for. Those unpleasant memories you remember with Miss Buthelezi are exactly what I remember about her the most, and that is why I had to bring that into my journal entry.
I think I must mention that talking more often about that incident, at times, makes me feel healing and it makes me accept that the incident did happen and, more importantly, what it is that I can learn from it.
Siyabonga: I must agree with you on that one, my brother. Talking is indeed therapy. Although it brings back those sad memories, it heals in the process.
[After about a minute of being quiet, he continued talking.]
You, as a teacher, my brother, I think it is important to love and respect all your learners at school. It is important to create those supportive teacher-learner relationships with them all the time and maintain them. Because you know exactly how the opposite of that makes them feel, you did experience it, and I also did experience it. Therefore you do not want the same thing happening to them, because you know precisely all the pain and struggles it brings.
Luthando: Eish, you can say that again, my brother. I know it very well, and thank you for those kind words and advice.
[For about a minute, we wished each other some well on our different journeys and peaceful healing from our unsupportive teacher-learner relationship experiences in high school. That was then the end of our informal conversation.]
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4.4.2.1 Lessons learnt from the informal conversation with my high school friend
I learnt from this conversation that teachers’ unsupportive relationships with their learners in schools can have a significant adverse effect on their education. This is evident in Siyabonga’s case. He argues that the unsupportive teacher-learner relationship he experienced in high school led him to lack self-confidence and self-esteem in his own abilities. Furthermore, he argues that his marks dropped at school because he experienced an unsupportive teacher-learner relationship. His story shows unsupportive teacher-learner relationships as a negative factor for learners, diminishing their emotional well-being and academic achievements.
Moreover, what I learnt from this conversation is that unsupportive relationships directed at learners by their own teachers in school can make them lose interest in classroom and school- related activities. Unsupportive teacher-learner relationships make learners isolate themselves and not participate in any of the activities and initiatives conducted at school. They fear that more unsupportive and unpleasant actions might occur. This again is evident in Siyabonga’s case. He argues that because he experienced an unsupportive relationship with his teacher, he felt like isolating himself and never returning to school. That is when he was body-shamed by his own teacher after being sick for some time. As Luthuli’s (2021) study of South African teachers’ memories of their schooldays highlighted, “classrooms and schools should be places of emotional security and affirmative relationships to influence learners’ attitudes and behaviour positively” (p. 156). Therefore, supportive teacher-learner relationships must be built and sustained in schools so that learners can gain self-confidence and be motivated to participate in classroom- and whole-school-related matters.