CHAPTER FIVE: ANALYSIS OF LIFE HISTORY DATA
SECTION 2: FIRST LEVEL ANALYSIS - THE RESEARCH STORIES
5.2 Introduction
5.2.4 PATSY'S STORY
(Standard 6 and 7 history teacher) regarded learner's minds as emp ty buckets that neededto be filled with information. Hemade history boring in the classroom. He was obsessed with "comp leting the syllabus". In the history class this involved learning historical facts with each lesson devoted to learnin g about names and dates. Mr Nene used to readhistory stories to us in class, butthere was no deep analysis ofthose stories.
We wereaskedsimplequestions;who did what? Whatwere the characters names ! What happened to them...?Anyonecould answerthose questions.
My standard nine history teacher Mrs Mbatha who was also our school guidance counse llor, was one who stands out vividly in my mind when 1recall my expe riences at secondary school. What I learn ed fro m her was to "go the extra mile". Having her at school kept me on track. It made medetermi ned to do better all the time, knowing that there was always someone watching overme.
During one Guidancelesson, shegaveusan essay to write on outcaree r choice and the reasonsfor such a choice.I wroteaboutwanting to become a historyteacher likeher. In the essay I also wroteabout how strange1f elt that we teachpeople abouttheir right s yet as teachers we infringe those rights, and aslearners there is very littlethey can do about
it..Being a teacher, I wrote, would givemea chance to understandthe learners as total
beings. The aim
of
history is to educateindividuals of their rights. Mrs Mbatha was not pleased with rote teaching becauseshe felt that it merely tested your memory and recall of'facts without any understanding oJ these facts. She believed that education shou ld be meaningful and relevant to her learn ers. Now that I am an expe rienced teach er 1do not want to repeat the poor teaching stylesadopted by my own teachersin thepast.Deciding on what to study after matriculating wasquitea debate. By the1970 sthe grips
of
apartheid had begun to tighten under the leadership ofHF Verwoe rd", Hence the whole of the seventies seemed as if everything was normal, everything was just suppressed. The government was going on as it wished. Being African meant that 1was24 H.F.Verwoerd: PrimeMinisterof SouthAfrica in J958and wasthe architect of the apartheid policy.
not elig iblefor a loan to studyfurther. / wantedto do physiotherapy, but there were a limited number of Blacks being accepted into the department. J wanted to do law but mon ey was an issue,so / just didn'tfollow it up. / phoned1I1r Van de Wait, the rector at the coll ege of education, and he agr eed to accept me. J spent four years at college registered for a Teacher's Higher Diploma'? in Education majoring in History and Engli sh. / did not really enjoy being at college but Ijust saw itas a means to gelling the diploma.lfound it boring and tedi ous.
The type of teacher training and the history content mall er taught at college was absolutely superfic ial. The knowl edge and information gained at college was not adequateenough for teaching in a school situat ion. The exc iting history knowledge that J have acquired was obtainedthrough institu tional influences ofthe schoo l as a context and not through what / learnt at college. In the entirefouryears atcollege / think there was only three times that we did a secti on on African History , and when I got to school situation, / was shocked that there was an entire exam paper, and although Jcame OUl
with history major,I had to virtually learn from scratch. It is the experience of teaching it over and over the years that I believe that Jhave becom e the better person, but not through the backgroundknowledgeof college.Ifeel it was too superficial.
There wasan overemphasis on history asa content drivensubject atcollege, as opposed to the pedagogical approaches to history teaching and learning. There was a discontinuity betwe en school and college education where each institutionfocused on different aspects of the history curriculum as well as its pedagogical approaches. It should be pointed out, however, that the college academic curr iculum is not geared towardsschoo l education.
It must be emphasized that the teacher tra ining course and the reality of school classroom teaching and learning is very different.As a student teacher one have eno ugh time to 'put on a good show' in order to imp ressyour teachingpractice supe rvisor, but in
25 Teache rs' Higher Diploma in Education: three year professional teacher's training diploma off eredalex Teachers'TrainingCollegeinSouth Africa.
the school situation it is comp letely differ ent because ofthe many teaching constraints such as lack of resourc es, overloaded classes, increased lesson periods and lack of availabletime.
I taught in different schools during my twenty- eight years of teaching expe rience. Initially I started teaching at a primary school. The schoo l was very meagerly. Jt was a shack ofcorrugated iron but quite strong corrugated iron. All the houses around there were also shacks. The windows would be creaking andbanging in the wind. Thepartition inside was made of a kind of thin board. The two classrooms wasjust one big room divided into two. We had that ply board, when that noise got out,this side could hear the other side. Sometimes there were music activities taking place so the teach er would decide,okay we're going to our music outside!
In 1976the Soweto uprising' "occurr ed (Appendix K). Myparticipati on in support ofthe Soweto uprising led me branded as a political activist and j was threatened by the Education Department of being dismissed as a teacher. At the primary school, the children could not understand what was going on. As soon as things started getting worse, I started gelling mad with the student activists becaus e they wereso militant that they wouldsend groups of them to all differen t schoo ls andIhese kids were very scared.
That was really bad for us in the primary school - wejust couldn't bear that kind of sight.
There was an emphasis on strict record keeping and entire school structure was very rigid. Teachers displayed a lot of respect for upp ermanagement members at school. The schooling system was very autocratic and teachers were not allowed to contribute to the decision-making process of the school. There was enormo us emp hasis on bookwork and all school records had to be meticulously kep t. I used to go to school every Sunday 10
check all the children's books to see
if
I mark ed them correctly because when the inspectorscame they did cometo seeif
you grewprof ession ally,but they came 10find out26 Soweto uprising: In 1976 black pupilsin Soweto schools refused to attend classes wherelessons . were taught in Afrikaans.This led toamajorwave of pupil's resistance anddeaths.
how many errors you made. At this school 1 has little exposure to history teaching becausea primary school teach er was requiredtoteach all subjects. As a noviceleacher at a primary school1 was still 'finding myfeet'in terms ofmy teach ing expe rience.
In 1980 s during the time of the student boy cotts, 1was teachin g at a combined school.
It was terrible seeing children fighting with each other. Among the children therewould be that groups who would like to go to school and learn and there would be that group would like 10 gofor the political aspect of it. That's were the clashes came in - on the schoolgrounds and in the classrooms whileyou were teachin g.
The nature of the supervision was not one of guidance and support but one of intimidation and humiliation. Itseeme das though the job ofsup ervisors was to eng ag e in a faultfinding and not-pickingmission. This kind of supervision often resulted infeelings of insecurity and poor self-esteem on thepart ofmany educ ators. As 1was gaining more experience in my teaching practice, 1 witnessed the gradual collapse of this rigid structure in the education system. Teachers were dissatisfied with the previous history curriculum and wanted to now be part of the decision-making process of the changing education process. In the past, teachers play ed a subordinate role in the developm ent of history teachingand learning.
All decisions about the curriculum were taken at departmental level and teachers were merely required to faithfully follow such decisions without contradiction (Appe ndix L).
This new curriculum structure allows teachers more flex ibility and freedom ofcho ice in the implementation of the school curriculum and thus very little "supervision" takes place in schools. While this idea is welcom ed, it results in some leachers adopt ing an apathetic attitude towards their profession. Theref ore, the present state of our schoo ls, which lacks a culture ofteaching and learning,could bedueto this lack of accountability and non-commitment from teachers today. At present1 am experiencing a radical change in the education system. There is a tremendous decline in "the morals ofchildren in the present school situation'', This condition may be attributed to the poor socio-economic conditions that people were experiencing
In thepast, my pedagogic style was based mainly on the imparting of/actual knowledge and recall of information. Previ ously it was imp ortant to learn facts in order 10 recall inform at ion for testing and assessm ent purposes, since the focus ofschooling was on the learning of content material in order to pass an examination. All tests andexami nat ions werepurely objective in nature with velY little allowance for questioning betwee n teacher and learn er. 1am not comfo rtab le with the old questioning methods because it did not allow for understanding thepurposeof the information thatwas taught.
Resources are very important for Hist ory teaching and learni ng at schools. Some ofthe teaching resources used in the classroom vary from world maps to models. At times, theseresources are inadequate atschooldue to a lack cf'funds to purchase teaching aids.
The lack ofresources impacts on learn er's performance in school. A teacher who is hardworking and committed, but to inst ituti onal proble m and rapid transform ations takingplace in education, 1am notprepared togo the extramile.
Presently all schoo ls in South Africa are potentially open to learners of all races, cultures, religious convictions and value systems. Manyteachers arepresentlyfacedwith teachin g multicultural and multiracial learners at school and in their classroo ms. The extend to which multicultural educatio n will be successful in the classroom situation mainly depends on the knowledge, attitude, views and conduct of the teacher as facilitator and managerof the educationaland learning practice.
Learners at my schoo l are diverse in terms of gender, race, ability and socio-eco nom ic status. 1 am disappoint ed and disillusioned with the poor attitude and lack ofinterest shown by most ofthe learnersin the class. Teachers needto equip themselvesadequately for the changing and diverse experiences ofmulticultural classroom contexts. This new experi ence should entail some kind of interventionfor teachers in the form ofpre-ser vice and in-ser vice training programmes so that teachers are thoroughly prepared for teaching in a multicult ural classro om. Teaching in large classes createspro blemfor the teaching and learning process. Learn ers in large classes are not given individual attention and theteacher theref orehad toresort to teaching in thelectur emethod.
The lack of classroom space results in learners being left without desks and testing becomes a real problem because half the class has to sit inside the room and the other half outside the room in order to avoid copy ing. This is directly impacting on the way 1 now deliv er my lessons and sometimes1 don 't have enough mapsto go around the class, so 1 don't use them. As a result of the large numbers we are carrying, discipline also becomes a problem. I am no longerprepared10 makehugesacrifi ces in order to keep up with the current educational changes, and often I pref er to do without the resources because they are insufficient.
The focus 0.( the history curriculum in the past was on content matter and factual information whereby learners were required to name, list or write short notes on particular sections ofthe syllabus. However,overthepastyears therehavebeen changes made to theexisting theory curriculum (Appendix M). The content matter has changed to a certain extent whilst cosmetic changes were made to the syllabus in terms of reducing content matter. While policy and teaching strategi es are changing all the time, 10 some extent content matter has basically remain ed the same. I supp ort this argument by providing an example of this change when the sectionon the Cold War in Latin America was removed from the syllabus because it had no relevanc e to the South African situation. However, curriculum changes are taking place according to the current political changes in South Africa. This new curriculum structure allows leach ers more flexibility and freedom of choice. Jbelieve that changes are takingplace at a fast pace
and that thecurriculum needsto bereviewedandrevisedon a regular basis.
Contrary 10 the system used in the past, assessment now takes place on a continuous basis and by making use of a variety of methods and strategies. The leacher is now known as thefacilitator 0.[ the learning process and he has to constantly monitor the learners'progress at scheduled times and in established ways . Continuous assessment is a good method of evaluation because it allows learners to develop their potential in different areas oftheir schoolwork. I believe that learnersbenefit more from the informal assessment, which include oral work and project work, rather than theformal assessment of tests and examinations because the learners are more comf ortable and at ease with
theseaspects ofassessment since it involvedgrea ter cho ices andfre edom of exp ression. J am not comfortable with the old questioning meth ods becau se it did not allow for understanding thepurposeofthe informationthat was taught.
It is important to understandthepast and present in order to makepredi ctions about the future. Many history educators are skeptical and pessimistic about thefuture ofhistory teaching due to the current status of the subject as a Human and Social Science27 learning area in Grades 8and 9histo ry has experienced aparadigm shif!in the way we think about teaching and learning, from its early beginnings when it was taught as a theoreti cal discipline then a Humanistic disc ipline andfinally asan applieddiscipline. J believe that there is afe ar amongst educatorsthat the identity of history ,asa subjectwill be lost because itis now integr ated with other subjec ts likegeography.
Although thesubject might be groupedtogether andcalled SocialStudies like historyand geograp hy together, the emp hasis of history as such would be lost andI believe that is not auguring well for the future. I believe that it's one of the few subj ects in the school curriculum that is so relevant to life itself Iam concerned about the status ofthesubject (history) in the future and the result ant consequ ences of the subject status for all stakeholders, including teachers. However, if thesubject lost its identity it will impact on a number of history teachers who will be required to teach the subject, since the integration of the subjec t will result in fewer classes and less teachers needed to teach the subject. In conclusion, Isuggest that the Department of Education andCulture must work together with teachers in order to address and find solutions to the current problemsaf fecting schoo ls before embarking amajor curriculumchanges.
Patsynarrated her life history with much excitement. She spontaneously responded to the probes in the intervie w schedules. Itwas apleasure conductingthe interview with Patsy.
The following story was narrated by Beauty entitled 'The World isYour Oyster ':
27 IIuman andSocialScience: one oftheeight learning areasillCurriculum 2005.