Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Discussions
4.2 Teachers’ Experiences
The teaching of Physical Education faces challenges in most countries (Wanyama & Quay, 2014). Teachers have raised a lot of concerns about their experiences in the teaching of life skills (physical education) in the foundation phase. A number of the issues or problems that hinder the successful implementation of physical education around the globe are still experienced by the teachers today. These issues includes the lack of the content knowledge, lack of resources, lack of support from the management, and lack of funds (see Roux, Burnett & Holander, 2008;
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Jacobs, 2011; Amusa et al., 2012). This suggests that for physical education to be successfully implemented in schools the government should ensure that the findings of different studies conducted by academics on physical education be taken into serious consideration. In addition, the teachers need to study more in relation to physical education. According to Morgan and Burke (2008, p. 3), the “experiences or personal backgrounds of teachers are important components affecting the teaching and learning process”. This suggests that if teachers have good experiences in teaching physical education then they will have the passion for teaching their subject and that would positively impact their teaching. One of the most important issues that can motivate teachers to successfully teach physical education is the knowledge of the subject and the availability of resources to support the teachers and learners.
In their responses, when teachers were asked about their experiences of teaching physical education, one key dare that was common to the participants was the dearth of understanding of physical education content. The participants clearly stated that for them to do the right thing they need someone who understands physical education; someone who specialises in physical education to come and teach them so that they are able to do the right thing. Participant 1 agreed that there is a need for a physical education specialist ‘so that before learners can go to the playground they must have something in mind’. This statement indicates that teacher teaches because of societal reasons, where one always expects instructions from someone in order to teach. In social/societal reasons, teachers implement policies by following instructions from others’ opinions without interpretation or enactment of the policy documents because they do not read studies around what they are doing. So if the instructions or opinions are misleading then teachers will do poor job because their point of reference is misleading.
The opposite of teaching for societal reasons is Professional/Content reasons of teaching where teachers read studies on what they are doing in order to critique their policy document before they use it. So they enact it using studies as their point of reference (they do not implement it with errors). Teachers are aware that they are not doing justice to the curriculum when they teach physical education which concerns them because they understand that what they are doing in the field does not in any way help develop learners in the way it is meant to. Thus, it is now clear that teachers need to study more on their subjects in order to apply professional reasons of
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teaching because they have seen that relying on someone (society) does not help them in any way. Stake (1995, pp. 91-92), in describing the teacher as the researcher, argues that “the intention of research is to inform, to sophisticate, to assist the increase of competence and maturity, to socialise, and to liberate”. He further opine that the above are also the teachers’
responsibility but, one can argue that teachers can ensure that these responsibilities are completed if teachers become the researchers.
One can argue that it is dangerous to allow teachers to teach something they do not have knowledge of because they may not be successful in what they are doing (Brownell et al., 2004).
All that is needed from the teachers, especially within CAPS, is content knowledge because CAPS places more emphasis on content (as it is a performance or vertical curriculum) (Bernstein, 1999). Brownell et al. (2004), contend that teachers must have content knowledge in order to teach their subjects with much concern for teaching skill. Moreover, they argue that
“from this perspective, teachers with subject matter knowledge are best positioned to help students achieve” (Brownell et al., 2004, p. 56). The teacher asserts that ‘you are only given and told that do this, and you do not see what to do and where to start and finish, whether you are doing the right thing or not I do not know’ (Participant 3). Teachers experience some challenges in their teaching because they do not understand what they are supposed to teach, however, they are expected at the end of the day to produce learners who are competent. To ensure that teachers do not embarrass themselves they do not completely teach physical education. One can contend that to bring back the value or dignity of physical education, teachers need first to transform their believe system of doing the activities. Brownell et al. (2004), caution that the state and districts can recruit or ensure that the available teachers become the special physical education teachers with the subject proficiency. Teachers should be ready to use research-based practices, or they should have knowledge in both. Maybe doing an action research with them whereby they will be taught that they need to improvise and reflect on their actions instead of relying on the society may change their believe system. After they have participated in action research then, they can go for training on how to teach physical education.
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There is no one who is looking after physical education teachers. This life skills contains irrelevant things and the government officials will be talking behind the windows. I personally do not like this life skills, I will not lie to you. The officials do not asks us teachers about what do we encounter or experience on their workbooks. They should ask us teachers, which books to use and how to work with the foundation phase learner (Participant 3).
With the issue of not taking physical education serious, I do not know how to deal with it because even if you can go out to scout for more information about physical education, you will get these things [books on physical education activities] and you must use them but you will be told that you are wasting the learners time (Participant 1).
Teachers argue that the workbooks they are using to teach physical education in that the activities stated in those books are not relevant and are not fully detailed on how to practice physical education. These accounts answer to the research’s main question about what the teachers are experiencing while teaching physical education in the foundation phase. More so, it indicates that the teachers are only teaching to impress the Department of Education which is a societal reason for teaching. So far, one can argue that teachers are experiencing challenges in implementing the curriculum because they are not teaching because of their profession or the content but their focus is much on the society and it seems as if they are not aware of that. More answers will be found below whereby the ten aspects relating to the curricular spiders web are used to drive questions on how teachers experience the implementation of CAPS life skills (physical education) in the foundation phase.
The following ten themes were developed by Thijs and Van den Akker (2009) and were further used by Berkvens et al. (2014), to address the quality of education in their efforts to better clarify to the government, curriculum developers and teachers how the curriculum can successfully be implemented in different countries. These questions were used to generate the data from the teachers in order to find the answers to the research main questions. The themes are:
Rationale/vision (Why are they teaching?); Goals (Towards which goals are they teaching?);
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Content (What are they teaching?); Teaching activities (How are they teaching?); Teacher role (How do they facilitate their teaching?); Accessibility and resources (With whom and with what are they teaching?); Location and time (Where and when are they teaching?); and Assessment (How are they assessing teaching?) (Thijs & Van den Akker, 2009). This study applies these themes in an exploration of teachers’ experiences of teaching CAPS life skills (physical education) in the foundation phase in in a school in the Nkomazi East circuit of the Ehlanzeni district in Mpumalanga province.
Themes Questions Categories
Rationale (reasons
or vision) Why are they teaching? Personal reason (pedagogical) Content/professional reason (studies) Societal reason (beneficial)
Goals Towards which goals are they
teaching? Aims
Objectives Outcomes Accessibility and
Resources With whom and with what are they
teaching? Physical (Hard-ware resources)
Financial (Soft-ware resources) Cultural (Ideological-ware resources) Assessment How do they assess their teaching? Assessment for learning
Assessment of learning Assessment as learning
Content What are they teaching? Physical education
Sports Games Teachers’ role How do they facilitate their teaching? Instructor
Facilitator Assessor
Time When are they teaching? Hours
Days Teaching
environment Where are you teaching? Face to face Teaching activities How are they teaching? Teacher-centred
Content-centred Learner-centred Table 4.1: The 10 curricular spiders’ web themes and their propositions
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