32 allowed cultural imperialism and domination to result in inequalities in socio-economic situations and parental involvement (Maile, 2011). Visser, Juan and Feza (2015) and Maile (2011) argue that parents of students from poorer socio-economic backgrounds have inadequate knowledge and skills to assert their children’s rights and their values are being ignored.
Cultural values do have a place in mathematics education. Maxwell and Chahine (2013, p.62) argue that “cultural immersion not only builds a well-rounded individual but also provides teachers with the necessary tools to maintain relevance in the diverse and constantly evolving landscape that is the classroom”. The individual need of the student are now prevalent as the teacher must keep in mind the unique and personal ways of solving mathematical problems (Maxwell & Chahine, 2013). This would mean that teachers need to make mathematics relevant to everyday lives by using students’ cultural knowledge and values. Using everyday knowledge and values is one of the requirements of mathematics education (Department of Education, 2003). The use of community based values as a learning tool which reflects the knowledge of a particular community can be used by the teacher to work with diverse students (Foote &
Bartell, 2011). This does however, put extra burden on the teachers to find out about different cultural values and use them to make the teaching of mathematics relevant to the student. With so many duties that the teacher has to carry out there are still more challenges that the teacher faces in the classroom.
33 Russell (1997) liken the way secondary schools function to that of a production line, in which students move on conveyor belts from one subject specialist classroom to another with the timetable as the alarm, shuffling students to their desks, regularly, throughout the day. Subject departments are divided in this way and provide teachers with a strong identity of belonging to a certain departmental team, thus perpetuating further divisions owing to the status of their subject (Downey, Byrne & Souza, 2013; Hargreaves & Macmillan, 1992). So, teachers teaching a subject such as mathematics, which is considered a high status subject (Apple, 1995;
Apple, 1988), will see themselves as superior to other teachers and may not form a collegial relationships with other teachers in the school. This very strength of the division and rigidity of specialist departments may inhibit curriculum change because a more flexible structure is required to facilitate change (Downey et al., 2013). Furthermore, Head of Departments (HODs) lead such organisational structures and contribute to the strong identity of teachers belonging to specific subject teams. If they do not relinquish leadership roles to teachers in their teams then these teachers would not have the opportunities to participate in leadership roles (Downey et al., 2013; Ball, Maguire, Braun & Hoskins, 2011). Therefore, teachers may not always have an opportunity to participate in such leadership roles or, if such roles are bequeathed to them, such as organising a parents meeting, they may find, according to Strong and Yoshida (2014) that it is increased work pressure rather than an opportunity for empowerment.
Teacher leadership can be discussed as teacher autonomy within and out of the classroom.
Strong and Yoshida (2014); Saad (2012) as well as Pearson and Moomau (2005) deliberate over teacher autonomy, arguing that giving teachers autonomy in implementing and interpreting as well as being part of reform policy initiatives in the classroom will solve the issues in schools. So, if a teacher is given autonomy to use the curriculum in ways that will be meaningful to students, this will create teacher leaders in the classroom who can manage their own curriculum and planning. However, autonomy can seem to be far-fetched because the roles of teachers have become diversified and intensified and this poses a challenge to their autonomy (Hargreaves & Fullan, 1998). With the centralization of government policies where curriculum change is emphasised in terms of quality, teachers are measured by student performance through performance management systems, national teaching standards and external examinations (Gȕr, 2014; Gu & Day, 2013). Here, in South Africa, such management systems are the IQMS (Integrated Management systems) and the external exams are those that are given to each grade in the secondary school until the matriculation examinations. Hence,
34 Ball et al. (2011) posit that there is compliance to policy initiatives rather than autonomy to decide the best ways and valuable topics that need to be studied in the mathematics classroom.
Thus, the diversity and number of curriculum policies are related to demands on the teacher to comply with policies within limited time frames (Ball et al., 2011). Ball et al. (2011, p. 616) emphasise what policies do to teachers, “teachers do not do policies, policies do them”.
The teacher has to manage the classroom in which he or she implements the curriculum. That means managing the implementation of the curriculum as well as managing resources and students in the classroom. Classrooms form the organization structure of each specific school, so managing classrooms are context relevant; yet Ado (2013) points out that policies are decontextualized and topics and issues are often limited to a single workshop to bring about curriculum interpretation. Teachers therefore, find it difficult to manage the curriculum in the context they work in. In managing their classrooms teachers face challenges such as student centred reforms, changes in teaching methodologies, their increased social responsibility towards the diverse students in their classrooms, the workload involved in implementing new policies, and extra-curricular duties that they have to prepare and organise while monitoring of their performance creates extra workload as well (Gȕr, 2014).
Downey et al. (2013) stress that, considering the specialist subject divisions, teachers who head the subject specific teams are required to give pastoral care to students outside their subject divisions and this puts added pressures on them. There are diverse students in a classroom, from different socio-economic backgrounds, cultures and diverse ability groups. The teacher has to manage implementing reform initiatives in such a classroom. Depending on the context that students come from, there will be the added burden of the social responsibility towards the students (Darling-Hammond, 1999). One of the challenges that teachers find in their classroom management was found by Gu and Day (2013) to be student behaviour in the classroom. Of teachers interviewed in a study incorporating 1000 teachers in England, 40% considered leaving the teaching profession because of disruptive behaviour in the classroom, so it can be argued that the teacher in the classroom needs to develop a mode of survival rather than prioritise the giving of quality education (Gu & Day, 2013). With the diversity of students being taught, Roth and Maheux (2015), contend that curriculum specifications and planned lessons that do not take into account the diversity of students in the classroom can account for
35 students’ attitudes. Students will exhibit such behaviours if their needs are not met in the classroom and they do not understand the mathematics content being taught. Govender and Sookrajh (2014) therefore argue that policy makers need to take into account the influence of classroom discipline in the context of changing curriculum policies as it has increased the workload of teachers and caused discipline problems in the classroom. It can thus be concluded that, with changing policies, managing the classroom in such an environment is indeed a burden for most teachers.
Administration tasks that teachers take on with the increasing changes in policies are numerous.
According to Hongying (2007) administration burdens in the changing school climate are the reason that most secondary school teachers are disgruntled with their work. With each change in policy there are administration tasks that accompany such a reform. Moreover, Gȕr (2014) reports that because of curriculum prescription, teachers have less control and as a result of bureaucratic monitoring to ensure quality education they have increased administration tasks and they face busier schedules. This removal of autonomy or deskilling of teachers intensifies teachers’ work, making them do more tasks in less time than before; with their involvement in administration tasks there is less attention to the needs of students (Apple, 1988). This is one factor that may explain discipline problems that arise in the classroom. Teachers’ work in implementing new curriculum policies is indeed overwhelming, confusing, intensified and complex.