8.1 Study synthesis 157
8.1.5 Case study at facilitator’s level 162
This study at this stage explored the opportunities and challenges of teachers trained and referred to as school-based facilitators. As facilitators, they narrated their personal experiences mixed with desires and ambitions of making their schools better. In their narratives it surfaced that there were more challenges emanating from schools either through lack of management support, or low teacher morale and the ever-changing school structures.
The study also provided an in-depth analysis of the methodological challenges of using trained facilitators as part of the case study, when there were no clear policy guidelines on the issues of Continuing Professional Development for teachers. Post South Africa was producing a number of curriculum policies addressing the ills of apartheid. Teachers, with their different levels of training development, were to implement sophisticated curriculum policies like OBE with minimum training. This research, through the usage of teachers trained via an ongoing peer-driven model in a form of a case study, was challenging the existing models of teacher development that generally were not providing transformative opportunities and approaches for teachers to become the agents of change much needed for a young South African democracy.
Christopher (1999) and Hargreaves (1995) provided the theoretical perspective on Continuing Professional Development of teachers This study does present a form of critique for the feasibility of using models that will give teachers the space to participate in an environment that gives them confidence as creators and not merely consumers of knowledge as is generally the case in South African teacher-development programmes. Toner (1999) confirms thus…Teachers learn best when they are active in directing their own learning and when their opportunities to learn are focussed on concrete tasks and dilemmas.
Such theoretical framework allowed me to note the need to have a method that would enable teachers to participate as learners, researchers, mediators of learning, facilitator’s managers and leaders, thereby meeting the requirements of the Norms and Standards document of (2000). The methodological perspectives of this study also allowed me to challenge the Continuing Professional Development models that are generally used in South Africa, which view teachers as technicians, based on the deficit mode l(Christie, Harley and Penny 2004) (Maistry 2006).
The methodological perspective of this study goes on to challenge the current two- to five-day short courses currently used in South Africa, ignoring the professional and pedagogical needs of teachers with lack of in-depth content knowledge given the poor quality of training they were exposed to prior to the democratic South Africa. Day (1999: 48) concurs:
Many short-burst training opportunities do not fulfil the longer. Term motivational and intellectual needs of teachers themselves. They fail to connect with the essential moral purposes that are at the heart of their professionalism or to address directly the needs of teachers seeking to improve the quality of pupils’ learning in changing circumstances.
This study claims for a method that is interactive, participatory and transformative, allowing teachers, through their continual involvement at Ikhwezi, to embrace the knowledge practically before they are to deliver workshops. It is an approach that allows professional development engagements on an ongoing basis with teachers coming back for more than once to perfect their various modes of delivery.
One other feature of the methodology of the study is the presentation of an opportunity for teachers to develop together in a social constructivist manner, breaking down the rigid social and racial barriers entrenched by the apartheid government. For the first time teachers were to work in teams regardless of race, gender and/or religious barriers. This afforded teachers an opportunity to enrich their deprived racial, cultural as well as pedagogic barriers as they had to work in teams.
The significance of the structure of formulating teams within the historical context of South African education was crucial for effective Continuing Professional Development programmes.
Given South African history prior to the 1994 elections, when teachers taught in separate and unequal educational institutions, teachers needed to be coaxed to work together.
This study also illuminated facilitators’ practice as they learnt to facilitate in response to the call of the newly introduced Outcomes-Based Education system. South African teachers had, generally, never been taught as facilitators, but as teachers who own and deliver knowledge from a pedestal. This study reveals that the model used when teachers were introduced to OBE through short courses was ineffective as compared to the peer-driven alternative which allowed them room to internalise implementation strategies. Classroom activities and practise for the trained facilitators was bound to change. Cliff Malcolm (1999) presented a critical analysis of the model of OBE in operation in South Africa, and compared it to the models adopted by Australia and the USA. He argues that it is not enough to talk about creative teachers in creatively managed schools doing creative things in spite of the system (Malcolm, 1999). He states that government policy, theoretical models and management and support systems must help all teachers to become creative. However, Malcolm does not discuss how the issue of under-resourced schools should be addressed. What he does mention is evident in that teachers have a low knowledge base (in relation to what is required) and the system is woefully under-resourced. The peer-driven model in the study provided facilitators with an opportunity to explore opportunities of enhancing content knowledge and becoming creative within the under-resourced environment of their schools. Working together in teams and mixing with colleagues from better-resourced and advantaged schools, gave some teachers coming from under-resourced schools an opportunity to learn from their colleagues.
This study’s methodology also claims the teachers’ identities get addressed as they were being taught to become facilitators. Maistry (2006) noted the change in teachers’ identities within the learning community for EMS. Teachers in this study now identified themselves as facilitators.
The initial group of facilitators went to the extent of naming themselves “pioneers” or
“consultants”, based on their facilitator-training exposure. Going back to their schools, teachers now saw themselves as special and empowered individuals. Their newly acquired skills also encouraged them to act as agents of change in their schools.