Throughout this dissertation all proper names, including that of the school, its teachers and its learners have been allocated pseudonyms. All the respondents were from White House Primary. This primary school in the Verulam district was purposively selected to reflect the context which is an impoverished school bordering the area of Amouti and Inanda. A profile of this school was provided in chapter three. Five teachers were selected to be the main respondents in this study. Brief biographical details for each respondent are presented below:
Respondent One: Nancy
Nancy is a 37 year old, loving, caring, Indian female and is currently teaching in the Foundation Phase; she has 18 years teaching experience. She holds a Masters degree in education and is currently studying towards her Doctorate. She is currently acting as Head of Department. She is soft spoken and thinks about her answers before she responds. Teaching has always been a passion of hers and in spite of the current challenges in education her passion has not abated. During lunch breaks and after school she spends time with learners, either counselling them or helping them academically on a voluntary basis.
56 Respondent Two: Abraham
Abraham is a Black male teacher, who has been teaching for seven years in the Senior Phase.
He coaches soccer and cricket and promotes sports at the school and in the community.
Abraham specializes in isiZulu. He is currently studying towards completing his Diploma in Education to improve his capacity to perform his duties. He does a lot of charity work in the community, helping destitute children and families. He believes that religion plays a crucial role in the lives of our children and community members and that instilling these values in our learners will help them become more disciplined individuals. He doubles as a pastor in the community.
Respondent Three: Nelson
Nelson is an Indian, 46 year old male who teaches in the Senior Phase. He has been teaching for 22 years at the same school. He holds an Honours degree in education. He is currently studying towards a Diploma in Remedial Education. He is a level one educator with senior educator status. He specializes in Mathematics, Natural Science, and Arts and Culture in the Intermediate Phase. He is a very artistic gentleman who assists the school in all their artistic endeavours.
Respondent Four: Carter
Carter is a senior educator of Indian descent and is 45 years of age. He has 18 years of service with the Department of Education. He holds an Honours degree in education and is currently studying towards his Masters degree. He is one of the Heads of Department in the Senior Phase. There are eight Senior Phase teachers in his Department. Carter is a dedicated teacher who cares very deeply for the learners in the community. He serves as a volunteer police reservist in his spare time.
Respondent Five: Bill
Bill is a senior Indian educator who is 63 years of age and has been teaching for 40 years. He is a very seasoned and learned teacher who holds a master teacher status and has completed an Honours Degree in Education. He served the child welfare society in the district as a volunteer for 25 years. He specialises in Social Sciences and English.
57 First interview findings
The initial first stage interview aimed to gain an understanding of each respondent’s biographical and demographic details. These characteristics ought to be unique to the respondents, and they provided valuable insight into how different backgrounds and experiences shape perspectives and perceptions of teaching in general, and how each individual teacher reacts to the changing ways in which they fulfill their responsibilities within the school environment.
Descriptive qualitative measurements
A purposive sample based on a preselected sample of teachers from one school was selected.
Each respondent was aged between 28 and 63 years of age, with an average of 22 years teaching experience. Sixty percent of the respondents were level one teachers in the initial to middle years of their career, with the remainder comprised of teachers within management.
The school is relatively large, with a learner population of 889 learners. This translates into fairly high learner-per-class ratios, and, counter-intuitively, yields higher learner-to-teacher ratios. The respondents reported class sizes ranging from 35 to 45 learners.
An encouraging observation was that every respondent reported being “happy” with their current roles at school and being very satisfied with their positions. Many of the respondents differentiated between professional interactions and social interactions with their colleagues.
This indicates that teachers understand their professional roles and responsibilities, as well as having an understanding of the need to be sociable and courteous in striving toward the core function of providing quality education, given their limited access to resources.
All the respondents mentioned that the relationship with their learners was most enriching, with teachers often going beyond the call of duty when needed. When this issue was probed further, it was ascertained that all the respondents were aware of their roles as teachers, and had a sound knowledge of the correct avenues to pursue in the management of learners. All of the respondents categorized the performance of their learners as falling into the range of poor to excellent.
The teaching environment is changing constantly, with teachers having to evolve in their teaching methods and in reaction to external factors such as curriculum change, the use of
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new technologies, government interventions and other unique circumstances which may arise. Here again, it was encouraging to observe that most of the respondents actively chose to develop themselves both academically and practically. This was done by taking their personal education beyond the minimum level required to teach, as well as attending courses and training that improves their expertise and skills,
In terms of strategies that teachers used to relax and the manner in which they used their spare time, most of the respondents indicated that they engage in hobbies and stress relieving activities such as sport and gym. This is symptomatic of the level of stress associated with teaching and provides insight into how individuals choose to manage their stress levels in a positive manner.
All the respondents have extensive teaching experience. All are also studying or have completed additional qualifications and some have management and leadership experience.
In addition these teachers are involved in activities other than academic ones. These factors are important to keep in mind as I explore the way they manage learner issues within impoverished communities. This may also be a limitation of the study as the profile of teachers within the public schooling sector suggests that these biographies are not representative of the overall body of teachers. The responses of these teachers may therefore be influenced by their personal biographies as reflected in studies of teacher identities, life histories of teachers and teacher narratives related to professionalism. However, the focus and methodological approach adopted in this study limits the impact of this limitation as the study takes an illuminative and contextually sensitive stance, rather than a generative and extrapolatory stance. A further limitation is that this study examines the phenomenon under study from the perspectives of teachers; learners’ perspectives and experiences may be quite different. However, because the core focus of this study is teachers’ management of learners’
problems, teachers are the most appropriate respondents. A further study, which is not within the scope of this enquiry, could pursue learners’ perspectives and experiences.