4.2 Discussion of themes emerging from the data
4.2.1 Participants’ conceptualisation of subject advisors as instructional leaders
4.2.1.3 Subject advisors as mentors
63 attention of cluster managers, ward managers, principals of secondary schools and grade 10, 11 and 12 teachers. Here is an extract from the Circular:
GRADE 10, 11 & 12 ORIENTATION & CAPS WORKSHOPS FOR 2014 The above-mentioned workshops will take place according to the details in the attached schedule. Teachers will be updated on matters from the examiners’
reports, the scope of work for the common testing programme (where applicable), the SBA requirements and revision strategies, amongst other issues. Teachers will also have the opportunity of indicating their needs so that subject advisors could arrange on-going support.
Orientation/content workshops are schedule to start at 08h00, unless otherwise stated.
At least one teacher teaching the relevant subject and grade during 2014 must attend.
Consult the relevant subject advisor for any further information.
(Umlazi District Circular No.1 of 2014).
From the above, it can be concluded that the participants’ conceptualisation of the role of subject advisors as coaches is in line with some of the tasks that are carried out by some subject advisors. As the review of documents suggest, some subject advisors provided varied forms of coaching which took various forms such as subject workshops, demonstration lessons, observing teachers in practice, motivating and coaching learners on study techniques.
The participants’ conceptualisation of the role of subject advisors as coaches is affirmed by Zepeda (1999) who offers that processes such as observing teachers in practice, training, addressing and creating an environment that accepts change are part of coaching.
64 They (subject advisors) must mentor the new educators, the new ones who
have just come into the system and as a matter of fact, they must give ongoing assistance to those educators who are already in the system, that is, the old educators because our curriculum is ever-changing. The subject content changes and so should be the teaching approaches and therefore subject advisors must always be there (Mr Moon, Principal of Cosmic High School).
Sharing Mr Moon’s sentiment was Mrs Mercury. Remarkably, these two participants who were from different schools, occupied vastly unequal positions, with the former being a principal and the latter being a level one teacher. It was however evident that their view of the role of subject advisors as mentors was similar. Like Mr Moon, Mrs Mercury’s assumption was that subject advisors have a wealth of subject knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. She thus perceived subject advisors as being in a unique position to offer advice whenever teachers encounter instructional challenges. She expressed her thought in this way:
I think the role of subject advisors is to advise teachers in areas of concerns in their respective subjects because they are supposed to have deep understanding and more knowledge about all the topics in the subject. I also expect them to know how to advise teachers to impart knowledge and skills so that learners understand the matter better. If there is a problem area, the subject advisor must give clarity so that everyone is clear (Mrs Mercury, Economics teacher at Cosmic High School).
The data generated from the log book of Planet High School suggested that one subject advisor had made a log entry wherein he/she stated that he/she had been to the school to offer what was interpreted as mentoring. What was particularly interesting about this particular entry was that the subject advisor indicated that he/she would return for another visit the following day. Subject advisors are known to be constantly hassled for time. So, it was remarkable that the subject advisor had committed to revisit the same teacher for two days in succession. The following excerpt reveals the purpose of the visit on the first day:
27/08/2013 (Y), SES-Mathematical Literacy visited the school to monitor content coverage and to give support and guidance to Mathematical Literacy educators. Will be coming back the following day (Log book entry by subject advisor at Cosmic High School).
65 True to his/her word, the log book entry made on the following suggested that the subject advisor made good on the promise to return for another visit the next day. The following excerpt reveals the purpose of the visit on the second day:
28/08/13 (Y), SES-Mathematical Literacy visited the school to give clarity on some topics and provided the work schedule and some material for revision (Log book entry by subject advisor at Cosmic High School).
On face value, the above quotations reveal the activities which the subject advisor undertook on the first and second day of the visits. However, when viewed in conjunction, the two log book entries seem to imply that there is more to the second visit than meets the eye. Firstly, surmising from the log book entry made on the second day of the visit, the researcher is of the opinion that the subject advisor’s visit of the following day was necessitated by the discovery that the teacher visited had been without a work schedule for the better part of the year. Hence the subject advisor had to make a return trip to the school to bring the work schedule for the teacher.
To get a better understanding of how it came about that a teacher did not have a work schedule till latter days of August, the researcher requested the principal to explain the circumstances surrounding the two log book entries. The principal explained that the results for June 2013 examinations of the particular subject were poor. He then used the examination results to inform his decision to do an internal swop of teachers. In August, when the newly swopped teacher was to assume with her new duty load, she then discovered that the old teacher did not have a work schedule. It was at that point that the subject advisor was called by the principal.
This was found to be paradoxical, considering that a work schedule is one of the most fundamental tools in the process of teaching and learning. To all intents and purposes, a work schedule serves to inform and guide the teacher on the subject content to be taught, the order in which the content should be taught and the time that should be allocated for teaching each topic. It was therefore incomprehensible that a teacher was without a work schedule at such an advanced stage of year. This also called into serious question this subject advisor’s familiarity with what was happening in the subject at the school he/she was in charge of. In fact, this suggested that the subject advisor was falling short, in certain ways, as a mentor.
In education sector, a mentor is expected to fulfil to the mentee such roles as providing policies, helping the mentee identify weaknesses in their practice and suggesting possible
66 solutions, counselling, sponsoring intervention and being a channel for information (Ganser, 1996 & Zey, 1984 as cited in Zepeda, 1999).
When viewed in conjunction, these two log book suggest that the subject advisor’s first visit was inclined on “monitoring and giving support and guidance”. On the log book entry made on the second day, the subject advisor stated that he/she came for “giving clarity on certain topics and providing work schedule”. The conclusion drawn from this was that for this subject advisor, monitoring seemed to take precedence over mentoring. It is evident that supportive intervention was only made when it was realised that there were serious underlying problems.
For this sub-theme, the participants appeared to view mentoring as one of the roles which they believed should be fulfilled by their subject advisors. While, there was evidence that suggested that subject advisors fulfilled a mentoring role in supporting development of the participants, there were some inconsistencies between the strict sense of the word and the practices that were enacted by subject advisors in the name of mentoring. Among some of the mentoring role expectations that the subject advisors practiced was identifying weaknesses in the practices of the teachers. However, evidence suggested subject advisors did not follow through by suggesting possible remedies for the identified weaknesses. Their role was then misconstrued as being fault-finders.