THE EMERGENCE OF TEACHER IDENTITIES: DEFINING A PROJECT
5.3 BECOMING A FOUNDATION PHASE TEACHER
Beauty and Veliswa, after completing their secondary schooling, were dependent on obtaining financial support in order to study further. In the 1970s and 1980s, when Nokhaya and Veliswa were ready to consider career options, there were few funded study possibilities for women, particularly black woman. Career choices in South Africa were both raced and gendered. Pillay (as cited in Kotecha, 1994) wrote “the narrow range o f jobs they (women) hold often resembles the female domestic role: nurses (caring for people), teachers (dealing with children), and domestic workers (actual housework)” (p. 22). The most common, and viewed as ‘high status’
professions for black women, were teaching and nursing (Kotecha, 1994). Veliswa, Beauty and Nomsa all wanted to be nurses when they left school, while Nokhaya had not given her future career choice much thought when she was at school. However, it was clear that none of these participants had the intention initially, to become teachers.
Veliswa (LHI1) opted for teaching because she was firstly unable to obtain a visa to Namibia to study nursing; and secondly, she was denied a bursary to study at university.
I didn’t want to be a teacher firstly. I wanted to be a nurse, but circumstances made me to become a teacher. I applied to be a nurse in Namibia, but I didn’t go, so I changed to being a teacher. ... I think I was going to like to be a nurse and treating people, helping them while they are ill. I don’t know what changed me or I didn’t get a visa to go to Namibia. (tt.22-24)
Veliswa did not disclose why she wanted to study nursing in Namibia. Having not been successful in getting a visa to go to Namibia to study nursing, Veliswa decided to go to university in South Africa, to study a general Bachelor o f Arts degree. Given that she was single-parented by a mother who was a domestic worker, she required a bursary to support her further studies. She explained that the bursary was offered conditionally.
W hen I was doing Form 5 (Grade 12), I went to Zone 6 to try and get a bursary. But when I got there, there was this fat man sitting on a chair who said okay you can give me your ID book (laughs). And then I gave it to him. And then he said, you will get the bursary provided you have a relationship with me. . And I went home and decided not to go back there. That’s why I didn’t go to university because I wanted to apply at Fort Hare. And now I had no funds because my mother was only working for R20 or R40 a month so I lost . and I even left my ID there. I got it after some time; they posted it to me. (Veliswa, LHI1, tt.232-236)
With nursing and studying for a general degree no longer an option, teaching became the third choice for Veliswa to pursue. Having made that choice, she decided to do a Senior Primary Teachers’ Diploma (SPTD), but after seeing that there were few students who wanted to do the
Junior Primary Teachers’ Diploma (JPTD) she changed her mind and registered for the JPTD.
“At first I wanted to be an SPTD teacher” (Veliswa, LHI1, t.10) but “when I went to college, there were not many people who wanted to be FP teachers, so I opted to become a FP teacher”
(Veliswa, LHI1, t. 4). The qualification that she chose was based on her perception o f where there would be more job opportunities.
Beauty’s experiences are similar to those o f Veliswa. She too wanted to study nursing.
I didn’t like teaching. My aim was to become a nurse ... because I like people and my heart is too soft. And when I see somebody who is sick I feel so sorry for them, so sorry, so I liked a nurse. But due to finance maybe I did not go for that. By the time I finished matric, I was old. I applied to Port Elizabeth. I was 25 years and they say ‘No, I’m old, they can’t take m e.’ So, I resorted to teaching. (Beauty, LHI1, tt.2-4)
For both Veliswa and Beauty, teaching thus became the ‘only’ option for further studies.
Beauty’s comment “ So, I resorted to teaching” (Beauty, LHI1, t.4) is telling, as is the fact that teaching was Veliswa’s third choice. Both teachers were reliant on funding for their studies. In South Africa at the time, there were only two options o f guaranteed funding for further studies - teaching and nursing. Since they could not get bursaries for nursing, teaching became the viable option.
For Nomsa, it was slightly different. Nomsa also wanted to go into nursing when she was young, but unlike Veliswa and Beauty who were constrained because o f age and/or money, N om sa’s interest was short-lived. She attributed her initial interest in nursing to the aspirations o f most young children at the time when she was at school.
W hen I was growing up, I was . I wanted to be a nurse, like every child in that time ... I really don’t know but then everyone wanted to be a nurse or teacher. And to become a teacher was such a big thing because if people saw you dressing smart they would think that you are a teacher. Maybe that’s what . but the only thing now that makes me to become a teacher was because o f money. My parents did not have money for me to go to better institutions. (Nomsa, LHI1, t. 190)
Even though Nomsa wanted to become a nurse initially, she had an interest in teaching from an early age. She was inspired by one o f her primary school teachers. “I think it was fine [referring to her primary schooling] because that, I think, is what inspired me to become a teacher because that teacher was a very good teacher. Even our older sisters and aunts were taught by her. ... It was Mrs P” (Nomsa, LHI1, t. 38). However, escaping poverty, becoming
a professional and earning a salary were also important in making the decision to go into teaching, as her parents did not have the financial resources to send her to a higher education institution. It was with the financial assistance o f her boyfriend at the time, that Nomsa enrolled at a Teachers’ Training College in 1997.
Nokhaya’s experience differed from the other teachers. She was told by her father that she needed to study towards a profession and that teaching would be suitable for her.
Now when I became a teacher in 1979, in the so-called Transkei that was not my idea.
That was my parents’ idea. We were four at home, in the boarding school, and my father was not at home. It was only ... my father that was working. So when I passed JC (Junior Certificate)40, it was JC at that t i m e . Form 3 (Grade 10). My father decided to send me to a training school because he said I must finish up so that I may help him to pay school fees for the others. So I went to training school. And it was easy that time to find a job because we did applications when we were still at school and when you come out, you already have a placement. (Nokhaya, LHI1, t.10)
In addition to assisting in supporting the family, N okhaya’s father thought teaching would be good for his daughter because she was reserved when she was young. She explained:
W hen I was young I didn’t want to talk. Sometimes I only started talking during the day. In the mornings I did not want to talk. And my father said ‘If you become a teacher, I will talk’. Because the children will wait for me to talk. So he said I must go to teaching. (Nokhaya, LHI1, t.10)
As a result, Nokhaya, unlike the other three teachers in my research, did not complete her secondary schooling. She was taken out o f school so that she could become a primary school teacher. It appeared that Nokhaya had accepted her familial responsibilities and did not entertain the idea o f alternative career options. When I asked her what career she would have chosen if it had been her choice, she responded, “any career with better salary” (Nokhaya, LHI1, t.178).
Although Nokhaya, Beauty and Veliswa had opted to go to a Teachers’ Training College, they initially had no intention o f teaching in the FP. Evident in the narratives o f these three teachers, is a double non-intention. By that, I mean that their initial intention was not teaching, and once having decided to become teachers, their intention was not to become FP teachers.
40 A Junior Certificate was achieved at the end of Grade 10.
Beauty considered becoming a high school Afrikaans and Geography teacher because those were her favourite subjects at school. She applied to Griffiths Mxenge Training College but did not have the finances to go there.
As I said it was not my trend - teaching. I did get [accepted] at school in Mxenge [Griffiths Mxenge Teachers’ Training College] for secondary teacher, but I didn’t have money that time. When I finished Standard 1041, I was [accepted] ... in Zwelitsha at Sebe [Teachers’ Training] College but I didn’t have money at that time ... It was a secondary teachers’ college that time . I was going to major in Afrikaans and Geography. (Beauty, LHI1, tt.208-212)
Beauty ended up going to Cape College in Fort Beaufort once she had saved up sufficient funds to register. At Cape College she registered for JPTD.
As I said it was my last resort; I go anywhere where I get a space ... I go there and I found the school in March. They were short o f learners there. Then my friend phones me: ’Come, there is space in Junior Primary’. So I had to go there, to do FP. (Beauty, LHI1, t.216)
Once qualified with her Primary Teachers’ Certificate (PTC), which enabled Nokhaya to teach from Substandard A (Grade 1) to Standard 6 (Grade 8) 42, she took up a position in a primary school in Tsolo as a Grade 5 teacher. She remained a Grade 5 teacher throughout her teaching career (1979 to 2009) and only changed to the Foundation Phase in 2011. This she explained was not her choice either.
That was not my choice . we usually . maybe for three years if you are teaching Grade 1, you can be transferred to Grade 5 ... Or if there is a vacancy somewhere, the SMT [School Managing Team] will decide who to move to that class. I was teaching Grade 5 and then the teacher from this grade, Grade 3 left, retired. And then the SMT gathered together to decide who must come to teach Grade 3 and they chose me. . They called me to the meeting and said that they want me to come to this class, but they wanted to find if I’m ready to come. So I said there’s no problem, I can come. (Nokhaya, LHI1, t.4)
From the narratives above, the decision to become FP teachers was, in many respects, influenced by the extent to which these four participants could access funding for their further studies. N ot one o f them suggested that teaching was their first choice. Three o f them initially would have preferred to become nurses. For Veliswa, teaching was her “third choice” and for Beauty, her “last resort” . Nokhaya explained that both teaching and teaching in the FP were 41 Standard 10 is the equivalent of Grade 12, and in South Africa, is also referred to as ‘matric’.
42 I will refer to the Grade level from now on rather than the use of Standards as this is what we currently use in South Africa.
“not her choice” and for Nomsa it was only “through the help o f my boyfriend” that she studied to become a teacher.