CHAPTER 5 5.1 Data Analysis
6.2 Summary and discussions of the main findings
CHAPTER 6
There are no specific qualifications in Teacher Education that develop teachers to teach across the curriculum. Qualifications, at most, develop competence in teaching across three school subjects, but the
practice of teaching across the curriculum often requires teachers to teach more than three school subjects to a grade. Hence, two things emerge: The first relates to the lack of further teacher development, to develop skills to organise, plan, teach and develop subject competence, to support these teachers in teaching across the curriculum. The second relates to the teachers‟
competence and professionalism in teaching many subjects in a grade, which gives the impression that professional training is not a necessity for teaching primary school grades across the curriculum. This impression is reinforced by the fact that teachers have been re-deployed from the secondary school to primary school, without the necessary subject specializations required for the deployment to such a school context.
Employment of teachers into teaching post was previously done through placement by the employer (in this case the Department of Education). With changes to the employment policy of teachers and in school governance, individuals had to make applications against published vacancies. This meant that teachers had to compete in an open market for posts in schools.
Newly-qualified teachers are just accepting any post because of the fear of not being employed after many years of studying. Teachers should, as far as possible, be posted to schools where their services are needed in their subjects. Although policy states that primary school teachers are expected to teach all the subjects, there is no formal training for all these specialist teachers to adjust to teaching across the curriculum. For this reason, the classroom became their laboratory.
They developed through trial and error. The Department had placed the burden on the teachers to retrain in the classroom.
Although teachers feel that they have no option because change is not easy to accept, especially with many years of experience, they try to empower themselves in whatever way they can, to cope with the challenges of classroom practice. This shows their dedication to their vocation, amidst all their adversities. I feel that further training and development is a necessity for almost all teachers teaching within the new framework for school education, and this is irrespective of their training background. Professional development should be an on-going necessity.
Professional development was well intended by the stakeholders; however, it is fragmented, and disconnected from the classroom practice. Professional development that teachers are exposed to in order to support their teaching across the curriculum was quite inadequate. There was no one to ensure that teachers developed new understandings of subjects that they taught. This made it difficult for teachers. Departmental support was limited. Teachers took it upon themselves to join professional organizations to empower themselves in the classroom. There was a lot of collegial support at times from the experienced as well as the novice teacher, in terms of computer skills and Maths and Science.
Too much is expected of teachers in terms of planning and preparation for all the learning areas.
This mean that teachers who teach across the curriculum were burdened with more administrative and accountability regimes than other specialist teachers because of the larger number of school subjects that they were responsible for. This administrative overburden is coupled with the greater teaching demands and, therefore, makes it very difficult for these teachers to cope with the workload. Two things could result from this work overload. The first is that this increased workload could result in teachers performing superficial work and just going through the motions of coping through the day, week and year. The second could manifest itself in teacher burnout.
Further, teachers were really challenged and anxious most of the times. They have to contend with large classes, different age groups as well as second language learners. It is taxing on the teachers to teach continuously, subject after subject, in one class for the whole day. Having experience is one thing but to work under these conditions is a learning curve especially for the more experienced teachers. Being challenged and anxious could also contribute to teacher burnout.
The pace and speed was overwhelming for the teachers who teach across the curriculum. They did not find the time to meet, plan and share during the school day. Therefore, they had to try and sometimes plan individually and sometimes superficially for the nine learning areas.
Marking takes up most of the time, because books from the nine learning areas have to be
marked. The heavy workload was having an effect on their health which, in turn, was impacting on their classroom practice. The overwhelming demands could lead to teachers taking a superficial approach to their responsibilities. It was heartening that the teachers in my study chose to rise above the impediments they faced.