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Furthermore, I learnt that if learners are applauded and praised for their hard work and dedication in schools, it can lead to them walking the extra mile in achieving more accolades (see, among others, Rytivaara & Frelin, 2017; Van Praag et al., 2017). For example, this is evident in my case where I was gifted with a dinner set by my Grade 2 teacher for obtaining position 1 in the whole class. This achievement motivated me to excel even more in my schoolwork, and many other achievements subsequently followed. It also encouraged and inspired many other learners in our class. Therefore, they worked hard on themselves and their schoolwork, and they later improved in their results. Consequently, I argue that praising and applauding learners for their quality achievements and attempts can make them eager to participate and engage in school activities. Subsequently, their academic outcomes can improve.
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and upbringing have always acted as one of the motivating factors for me to work hard to change my life and those of my family and significant others. Furthermore, it has and continues to be a motivating factor and a stepping stone for me to achieve my future goals and dreams.
Moreover, I have learnt that the values and attitudes we gain from our respective homes and communities, which we bring to school as learners, can play a significant role in influencing what we do and what we aim for.
The new insights I have gained about supportive teacher-learner relationships are that they can happen in any place and outside the ‘official’ learning spaces, as long as teachers and learners have a mutual understanding of working together towards making them a reality. Furthermore, I have discovered that a supportive teacher-learner relationship involves parents or guardians and other relevant stakeholders as partners in education instead of being objects waiting to be instructed and directed. Moreover, I have discovered that all relevant stakeholders in education need to develop practical ideas and thoughts that are negotiable in building and maintaining supportive teacher-learner relationships in spaces of learning. This means that the initiatives will apply to and be workable for all relevant stakeholders in education, with mutual understanding and engagement underpinning those initiatives and relationships.
What I am still struggling to understand about supportive teacher-learner relationships is how they will be built in schools that may not want to involve the parents and communities in which they are situated to be part of what happens in schools. These are schools where parents and other relevant stakeholders are not given a chance to voice their thoughts and ideas on the development of schools and their involvement with them (see, among others, National School Climate Council, 2015). I am also still struggling to understand what schools can do to encourage parents and guardians in communities where many parents and guardians still isolate themselves from the schools and do not appear to want to be part of their children’s education process.
This memory-work writing assisted me in understanding that learners in schools bring different lived home and community experiences that have shaped their learning in different ways. This subsequently tells me that they bring different socio-economic backgrounds and physical and intellectual abilities, among other things, which requires me as a teacher to engage and come up with different strategies in supporting them to reach their full potential and goals.
Furthermore, this memory-work will allow me to discover what I can learn in working with others, so that I can explore different options for helping my learners at school and, where
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applicable, refer them to others to get all the help they need may require. In that way, I think supportive teacher-learner relationships can be established and maintained to achieve success and well-being for all learners in spaces of learning.
This memory writing has assisted me in understanding that social and cultural influences play a significant role in shaping learners’ practices in schools. I have come to a deeper understanding of how social and cultural influences hold such rich knowledge in influencing who we are and who we are becoming in the present and in the future. The practices that learners bring with them in the school setting are derived from their social and cultural upbringings and engagements. Therefore, as teachers in schools, we need to understand how we can acknowledge and integrate them with the formal learning from school to create meaningful education for all learners, moving from the ‘known’ to the ‘unknown’. In that way supportive teacher-learner relationships can be established and kept alive in the learning environment.
Learning from this memory-work writing can inform my future learning and practice as a teacher. I aim to create an enabling environment for all learners, irrespective of the differences they bring with them, in both the classroom and school setting. This will allow them to realise their potential and reach their goals. In that way, when my learners think about me in the future, I want them to think about a teacher who showed them love, care, support and empathy, and who was approachable in manner and always made their voices feel heard.
Lastly, I have put a sociocultural theoretical understanding into use in this memory-work. This helped me look back at the broader social, cultural and historical contexts in examining my own personal experiences, concerning supportive teacher-learner relationships across my educational journey. I did not see individuals as isolated beings and empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge but instead focused on the relationships between the self and significant others. I was able to look back, in detail, at how these relationships contributed to my development and how they continue doing so in the present time and subsequently shall do so in the future (see, among others, Allman, 2020; Vygotsky, 1978; Mitchell & Weber, 1999;
Steyn, 2011). Miller (2011) argues that a sociocultural perspective portrays the dynamic of a child acquiring knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes from the society in which the child lives. In turn, the child shapes the environment. Putting this perspective to use shaped my learning from recalling my memories.
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