The Norms and Standards for teachers stipulate that teachers have to be theoretically knowledgeable. That may seem obvious for mathematics teachers who have to be conversant with the mathematics content to be able to teach it to students. However, the multiple changes in the mathematics curriculum have had an adverse effect on content knowledge that teachers have. When C2005, using the underlying principles of OBE, was introduced even the name, mathematics, that teachers were familiar with, changed. The name changed to Mathematical Literacy, Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences (MLMMS) and this curriculum was extended from grade 4 to grade 9 as a compulsory subject (Reddy, 2006). Although this study looks at the Further Education and Training Phase (FET) from grades 10 to 12, it should be noted that students from the lower grades feed into grades 10 to 12. OBE came with an under- specification of content (Reddy, 2006) and even the name MLMMS would have caused confusion for the teachers as to what to teach and what the subject area required (Vithal &
Volmink, 2005). Reddy (2006) consequently maintains that South African policy makers created a curriculum that placed emphasis on real-life situation at the expense of understanding of mathematical concepts and principles. The South African high school curriculum, grades 10 to 12, remained unchanged at this stage and could be regarded as being academic and suited to a small minority of students. Even with a transformational policy such as C2005, teachers were still driven by a content-based curriculum to prepare students for the matriculation examinations. Even though the mathematics curriculum in the FET phase remained unchanged until the RNCS was introduced, teachers still had to battle to guide students from an OBE
22 background in the earlier grades to one that still incorporated NATED 550 principles of a content driven curriculum in the FET phase.
With the introduction of RNCS the changes in the mathematics curriculum created uncertainty and confusion for mathematics teachers as to what was required of them. It became compulsory for all students to do mathematics and if students could not cope with the mathematics curriculum they were required to take mathematical literacy (Vithal & Volmink, 2005).
Teachers once again were faced with the challenge of becoming theoretically knowledgeable in mathematical literacy and learn the concepts therein, without understanding the subject requirements. Vithal and Volmink (2005) refer to mathematical literacy as a watered down version of the abstract mathematics curriculum. The division between mathematics and mathematical literacy seems to separate students even further because those that can cope with the abstract mathematics curriculum will be in line for the high status careers (Vithal &
Volmink, 2005). Furthermore, "All students will be required to take mathematics or mathematical literacy which are nationally examined and used for the determining right of access to jobs and further education" (Vithal & Volmink, 2005, p. 17). Additionally, the section of geometry was removed from the RNCS syllabus (Department of Education, 2003).
Reddy (2006) established through her research, that South African students had the lowest ranking in Geometry in the TIMSS assessments. Then, with the introduction of Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), yet another curriculum change, geometry was reintroduced together with content areas such as probability and transformational geometry (Department of Education, 2011), hence, it stands to reason that few teachers will have knowledge of the new content added on. It can be noted that with each curriculum change there have been changes in the content area which has had an effect on teachers’ theoretical knowledge.
The question to ask is, how would teachers acquire the necessary content knowledge that they are required to have in the new curriculum policies? Reddy (2006) discovered that South African mathematics and science teachers were the least qualified as compared to other teachers that participated in the TIMSS assessment. Teachers used three curriculum documents, C2005 and RNCS, together with textbooks, to understand what and how to teach in the classroom (Reddy, 2006). With many teachers being under-qualified or unqualified to teach
23 mathematics, having to manoeuvre a new curriculum can be an impossible task. In addition, teachers who are struggling with having theoretical knowledge to teach mathematics are now faced with new curricula and unfamiliar teaching materials (Reddy, 2006). Teachers’
confidence to carry out curriculum change is affected by their knowledge of the content area (Brodie, 2010). In the new curriculum teachers are required to find out how students think and to find their misconceptions and errors (Brodie, 2010) but they will not be able to do so if they are lacking in content knowledge. This could be a major contributor to the low performance of students in mathematics. Policies are ideally placed for transformation without considering other factors such as teachers themselves and whether they are able to implement the requirement of policies. Teachers are also faced with other challenges such as time (Leong &
Chick, 2011); context (Brodie, 2010) and resources (Reddy, 2006; Vithal & Volmink, 2005).
All of these impact on teachers’ work and policy implementation. Taylor and Vinjevold (1999) contend that South African teachers’ difficulties in the new curriculum are due to their not having enough conceptual mathematics. The new curriculum refers to the curriculum that had been just introduced at that time. The reason given for this, according to Chisholm, Volmink, Ndhlovu, Potenza, Mahomed and Muller (2000) as well as Taylor and Vinjevold (1999) is that teacher development around the new curriculum has been inadequate with insufficient resources to make adequate curriculum change and conceptual change. Moreover, curriculum innovations require teachers to co-ordinate contextual and knowledge structures which take a long time to develop (Slonimsky & Brodie, 2006). The relevance for the South African context is that most teachers have to work in under-resourced contexts to develop content knowledge for students. This is taking a long time because most teachers are inadequately qualified to teach the new content knowledge. Teachers have to work very hard to understand the content knowledge so as to implement it to students even though they may have misconceptions due to their inadequate theoretical knowledge, to carry out this task,
Teachers’ conceptual and content knowledge of mathematics is acknowledged as a worldwide problem (Ball, Lubenski & Mewborn, 2001). Here in South Africa it is more of a problem;
Brodie (2010) argues that teachers in South Africa were disadvantaged by the apartheid curriculum and therefore have a weak conception of mathematical knowledge and how to teach it. She further stresses that there is a limited number of students who graduate with strong mathematical knowledge and many of those who do choose to work in industries with better salaries and job conditions (Brodie, 2010). Teaching is therefore a poor alternative. Schools
24 are short of qualified mathematics teachers (Chetty, 2014; Reddy, 2006). This is a strong indication that teachers should continually strive to improve their education in keeping with current research in mathematics education (Sriraman & Tὅrner, 2014; Department of Education, 2011) and this will have implications for the improvement of policy implementation and to improve the learning process and student achievement in mathematics (Shabanifar, 2014; Sriraman & Tὅrner, 2014). Teachers’ theoretical knowledge should allow teachers to detect student errors in order to shape pedagogical content knowledge (Shabanifar, 2014;
Brodie, 2010). Conversely, if teachers are over-worked by making sense of and implementing new curricular content knowledge, many would not have the time or the inclination to pursue studies that will develop their content knowledge. Furthermore, if the content keeps changing in each curriculum policy, it may be difficult to keep up.
Teachers’ curricular and theoretical knowledge may improve if there is an investment in the education of teachers who are within the school system. The state should, therefore, provide opportunities to develop teachers’ curricular knowledge and expertise (Clarke, Clarke &
Sullivan, 2012) and having day long workshops is insufficient to do so. Findings show that teachers’ content knowledge is inactive in the class unless the content knowledge is directly related to curriculum instruction and student learning (Baumert, Kunter, Blum, Brunner, Voss, Jordan & Tsai, 2010). Teachers are consequently orientated to unpacking the curriculum in the classroom (Davis & Renert, 2013). Davis and Renert (2013), hence, argue that teachers’ shared practices will have implications for their content knowledge. Therefore, if the Department of Education arrange courses that develop teachers’ understanding of content changes in the new curriculum policies, teachers can collaborate with each other to share their expertise and challenges which will have a positive impact on their work conditions in the classroom. Even experienced teachers who are confronted with constant curriculum changes and new content areas will find it a challenge to deliver lessons in these new areas. They will then resort to familiar content knowledge which reverts to what they were taught (Abramovich & Connell, 2014). Closely linked to improving content knowledge is the participation of teachers in professional development activities which will serve to develop teachers’ content knowledge.
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