Question 3: What is the value of fostering holistic education in a Science classroom?
5.3 Personal-professional learning
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I also found myself unpacking my own identity. I realised that I needed to let my passion for teaching science become more visible, as I reflected on my memory-writing on my favourite teacher. I aspired to have the same energy and approach my science teacher had with me. I needed to take the time to cater lessons, get to know my students and build relationships: all this took time but yielded fruitful outcomes. My students were more confident, more open with me, more expressive in my class and seemed to acquire a renewed attitude to the subject.
The environment I created was one that not only initiated non-conventional methods of learning, but also provided students with opportunities to refresh, take a break in the ‘brain corner’, feel safe, open up and be themselves.
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like Abbey (2004), Forbes (1996), and Schiller (2006), together with the outcomes of my own self-study. Studying myself, digging into my past, and shovelling through my present context as a Science teacher has helped paint this reality of holistic education for me. Before becoming fully submerged in my self-study, I thought holistic education meant changing the way I taught so my lessons were fun and meaningful, so that students became interested. This meant that if I received more applicants for FET Science, my holistic education techniques were working.
However, I have learnt during my research process that initiating holistic education meant discovering who I was a student first, then as a teacher. It meant learning the interconnecting webs in my scholarly years and finding out why I enjoyed and stuck with a subject like Science;
what was it that made me stay. Fostering holistic education was about finding all facets of teaching and incorporating the best recipe in making teaching worthwhile for me as a teacher, and my students. Holistic education is a field that has evoked great self-discovery, beginning at the very break down of my own past lived experiences. The practices I wished to incorporate in my class to foster holistic education is unique to my own lived experiences. I have discovered that my past has had implications in my journey as a teacher, and in changing my current educational outlook, and that I must understand and come to terms with my past educational experiences.
My current educational practices have changed by reflecting on what I have experienced and how that has impacted my teacher identity when I am in a class with students. My practices have sought to include more arts-based techniques to otherwise STEM subjects. I have found that when this was done, my students seem more excited, more interested and more receptive (to the method) in my class. Students came up to me and mentioned how different (in a good way) the holistic education adapted lessons were. I have had numerous comments like Why don’t we have all our lessons like this?
I have learnt a great deal about myself as well, particularly my history. I have learnt that my current teacher persona is a result of how I was taught (whether it was in the classroom or at home), what values I held unbroken, and the hierarchal levels of importance passed down in my family. These were the backbone into my history, my present and my future. I was a very formal, rigid, by-the-book type of person, and this was due to my own learning – social, cultural, traditional, at school, home and church. My fibre as a teacher was stitched and threaded as a student myself. Each yarn of wool used to display the tapestry that was who I was, had been moulded by teachers, both formal and informal.
126 5.4 Methodological learning
My self-study research methodology aimed at looking at the beginning, the beginning of who I was, the person from my past and how I grew into the individual before my students’ eyes (Lassonde, Galman & Kosnik, 2009). Self-study instigates a pattern of behaviour of recalling memory and past lived experiences, with the added task of reflection. It is also imperative that teachers (in keeping with self-study methodology) get into the habit of always questioning our practices, as this allows us to develop a habit of constant reflection, which is key in isolating certain key techniques that may be good or bad in our pedagogy (Lassonde, Galman & Kosnik, 2009).
Samaras and Roberts (2011) introduced self-study as a way teacher-researchers would draw on their lived experiences and as a stepping stone to unravelling the dimensions of their teacher development. Self-study has helped me take a hold of my current practices, motivating me by helping me to make changes and improving my teaching methods. Self-study aims to mitigate self-awareness in areas for improvement in teachers’ practices through examining past lived experiences and reflecting on them (Samaras & Roberts, 2011). An acceptance of change needed is crucial for teachers to initiate a turning point, and will be more likely to improve their practice. I established and came to grips with the change I wanted in myself, thus embarking on this path of self-awareness, self-study and self-programming. In selecting self-study, I was both the researcher and a participant, seeking collaboration between my past and present teaching context.
Using memory work has shown me how my past lived experiences influenced me as a teacher, now, during formal lessons and in my relationships with my students. Allender and Manke (2004) agree that the use of artefacts helps in re-igniting memories of the past through collective reflection. Even the unpleasant past lived experiences have offered valuable insight to me, where I learnt to deal with the memory of it and make peace with it. Pithouse (2011) mentioned how drawings (a form of memory work) helped teacher-researchers remember details, emotions and feelings that would have been forgotten, but add substance to the self- study, even those memories that teachers/researchers would prefer to hide. Reflection helped me take note of what I did not want to do anymore in my classroom, or what I did that needed to be changed. Reflection based on memory work, helped me construct the teacher I wanted to be. My self-study research allowed me to recall and revisit my memory work (art-work, letters,
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etc.), as this form of arts-based approaches in holistic education was what helped me to become a more multi-faceted teacher.
The use of artefacts became very significant in my self-study, as it served to revitalise and rejuvenate past lived experiences. Artefacts have taken my mind back to a point where I have been able to find significant information that was relevant to my teaching and learning, and thus my growth as a science teacher (Allender & Manke, 2004). My artefacts included old school report cards, old school photographs, paintings I had done as a student, and letters from students to me during my teaching practical in 2012, as well as one I wrote to my little sister.
The old school report displayed my dexterity in academics which became my primary identity.
My school painting revealed my creative side, which I had otherwise ignored, as I thought my academics was more important. My artefacts helped me to relive the experiences each one brought and evoked forgotten emotions and underlying realisations with it, as well as take the reader through the same journey.
My methodological learning also equipped me with the standard in which data collection was to take place, regarding ethics, fairness, validity, anonymity. Part of the methodology was collecting data from my participants. This proved challenging with the constant question being asked: if the work was for marks. This helped me realise how formal class time was to my students; my participants would do the work if they knew they would be graded on it. I was constantly begging for work, which became a struggle to collect adequate data. I have learnt that persistence pays off, and after several attempts of persuading my students, giving them extra time to complete and calling them in during break to do some piece for me, they finally conceded. It was an immense help to have a few students that I could count on as they helped in motivating the other students to assist with hand-ins.
I have learnt that this self-study was an on-going methodology process. I was constantly learning about and from myself. Making sense of my past lived experiences and reflecting on them was a process that not only offered valuable insight but a truth that was often hard to hear.
128 5.5 Conceptual and theoretical learning
Several aspects contributed to my learning and practice as a teacher and researcher. These key concepts aided in shaping the teacher I became, as well as provided insight into the researcher I was seeking to become. My self-study research was rooted in these reflective practices, as it provided aspects of change and areas that emulated where I could foster holistic education.
These key concepts were instrumental in manoeuvring my self-study research at unfolding my identity, and the dimensions of my teaching and learning Science. These key concepts are discussed further below.