CHAPTER 6: CARVING THE THIRD LAYER OF MY MASTERPIECE ON
6.2 TEACHERS’ EVERYDAY LIVES IN THE CONTEXT OF THEIR
6.2.1 Teachers’ positive responses to their professional role as teachers
6.2.1.1 The confidant father-teacher: I am their father at school. I know how to keep their secrets
According to Seepamore (2016), distance parenting has implications. One of the common causes of distance parenting in South Africa is the level of poverty and unemployment found in rural areas, which forces the primary breadwinners in families — usually fathers
— to become economic migrants (Russell, 2008). As a consequence, many households are headed by mothers (Bhana et al., 2008), and the absence of fathers from their children’s lives can have serious implications for children (Nduna & Jewkes, 2011).
In this study, Solomon realised that absent fathers are unable to offer guidance and become emotionally involved in the lives of their children (Contreras & Griffith, 2012).
Solomon also understood that parental separation can have detrimental consequences for
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learners, such as increased behaviour problems (Millman, 2013), absenteeism from school, teenage pregnancy, and involvement in criminal activities in the absence of parents as authority figures (Pantea, 2011). As a compassionate, concerned teacher, Solomon desired to be a good role model to his learners. This attitude was developed as a consequence of the care and support that he received within his own family. Solomon appreciated that his in loco parentis role required him to create a warm, loving, supportive environment at school (Bojuwoye, Moletsane, Stofile, Moolla & Sylvester, 2014) to compensate for the absence of the father figure within the home environment of many of his learners:
Most learners’ parents work in the city and only come home at month-end. So as a teacher, the idea of family is encouraged as we have learners, and we need to be mothers and fathers to the learners. As a father, I am different from the way my father was towards his children. My father loved us, but he also kept us at arm’s length. Learners can come to me. I know how to keep their secrets. I am their father at school.
Teachers, in general, have as their primary task the education of the child, which focuses chiefly on curriculum delivery and not on being surrogate parents (Billing, 2016).
However, in his position as a teacher, Solomon was able to act as a trusting and caring father-figure to his learners and offer them support. For Solomon, the identity of substitute father played a pivotal role in his life and called for a re-negotiation of his role as a teacher (Rodgers & Scott, 2008). According to Dermott (2008) and Morman and Floyd (2006), fathering entails engaging in caregiving and nurturing activities, providing warmth, and encouraging cognitive activities, amongst others. While stereotypical images from the media and government of male primary school teachers would suggest that men should distance themselves from the nurturing and caring side of teaching (Billing, 2016, p. 10), Solomon refused to be pigeonholed into this narrative. He involved himself with the nurturing and caring aspects of teaching, and did not only function as a deliverer of the curriculum (Ehrich et al., 2011). In his caring, connected approach to his learners, Solomon transgressed those barriers that represented his relationship with his father to create new meanings of what an approachable, involved father should be like. Solomon became a different kind of “teacher-father” to his learners, and in the process created his narrative of care.
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6.2.1.2 The inspirational teacher: I am an example of what can be achieved
According to the Collins English Dictionary (2014), if a person is described as being an inspiration, it means that the person can make other people want to do or achieve something. Happy can be described as an inspirational teacher who strives to motivate the learners at her school:
Now that I work in this rural school, I am able to inspire the learners to look beyond their conditions and circumstances, by showing an interest in them and motivating them. I encourage them to see education as a means for a better life. I encourage them to do their schoolwork and assist them even during my break because I know once they go home they have other household duties to perform.
Happy understood that the home context can shape the learning experiences of the learners. She took measures to provide an environment for her learners that were conducive to learning. Happy’s practice and response as a teacher was shaped by the context within which she teaches (Bredeson, Klar & Johansson, 2011). She understood that rural learners are considered to be one of the most marginalised groups of learners (Mgqwashu, 2016) and are also classified as disadvantaged (Czerniewicz & Brown, 2014). She therefore felt compelled to provide help to her learners because she had lived through some of the challenges they faced (Smit & Scherman, 2016). However, despite the difficulties she experienced, she managed to write a new narrative for herself. She stated: “Now I am an example of what can be achieved if you work hard”. Happy has a positive self-concept. She proved her resilience as a learner, and was now doing the same as a teacher, and she positioned herself as a role model to be emulated. She desired to inspire that same determination to succeed in her learners (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009;
Rodgers & Scott, 2008).
However, while Happy aimed to inspire her learners, she also endeavoured to be a compassionate teacher. The importance of compassion has been highlighted by Alrubail (2015) and Conklin and Hughes (2016). Happy also chose to undertake her role as a teacher with compassion and care (Ehrich et al., 2011):
I am friendly and approachable. As a teacher, I am a life coach. I give moral support. We work with children with different problems. I also listen to their concerns. My aim is to bring change in the lives of the children through education.
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I am passionate about this job. I am also a caring person. I worked as a nurse.
My training as a nurse has helped me a lot to diagnose some problems that the learners may be facing. I then refer them to the clinic or hospital for treatment. I also used to invite the nurses from Prince Mshiyeni hospital to school to do check- ups because the children cannot afford the cost of transport to travel to the clinic or hospital. The clinics are not near, they are far. I do all this with love because I know what it is to face hardships in life. I shared my story with them. I told them about my life and how poor my family was.
The multiple positions of role model, caregiver, nurse and coach that Happy took up in her role as a teacher have their roots in her upbringing. Happy drew from the well of her past experiences as a learner, a mother and a daughter in a rural area to enact her role of teacher at the school. Her compassionate spirit compelled her to reach out to her learners and embrace them, not just in her role as teacher but as a person who has walked the road that they presently journey on. Happy opened up her life to her learners as an example of how hardships and difficulties are part of the complexities of everyday situations. Still, a compassionate, loving hand can help to make the problems bearable. This approach is supported by Dryden-Peterson and Sieborger’s (2006, p. 401) finding that a person’s narrative has particular power in reaching an audience on a “human level” in South Africa. Happy drew on her habitus and biography (Bourdieu, 1986) to position herself as someone who had triumphed over the difficulties that life had thrown at her. Her caring spirit, which was fostered through socialisation (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), was called into play as a compassionate teacher at school. Happy had the opportunity to foreground her nurse identity within the educational space. In doing so, Happy created a space for being a different kind of teacher to her learners. She showed her learners that she was concerned not only about their educational attainment, but also about their health and emotional welfare (Ehrich et al., 2011).
6.2.1.3 The compassionate teacher: I know they feel bad wearing torn stuff
Compassion is defined as a feeling of empathy and respect for those one considers less fortunate. It also involves understanding the suffering that others are experiencing and experiencing a deep desire to do something to alleviate their plight (Wolpow et al.,
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2011). Bernell can be described as a teacher who cares for her learners’ welfare and who is willing to offer love and assistance to her learners beyond her call of duty (Mart, 2013). Bernell is a teacher at a Q3 school located in a semi-rural context where poverty is prevalent. She states that “many parents are unemployed, poverty is rampant and life is difficult”. This difficulty is acknowledged by Statistics South Africa (2014), who report that 58.6% of poor people live in rural areas in South Africa. This statistic indicates that rurality and poverty generally intersect in the South African context, and the consequence for education is that rural schools still continue to suffer (Maringe, Masinire, & Nkambule, 2015). These schools are not only marginalised but are also capital-poor (Paxton, 2015).
As a result, Bernell showed herself to be willing to engage with the school community because she believed that her professional responsibility was not confined to the four walls of the classroom but extended beyond them (Crosswell & Elliott, 2004). As a teacher at a rural school, Bernell realised that while rural societies may lack economic capital, learners at schools still require their social and emotional needs to be met (Ehrich et al., 2011; Toch & Headden, 2014). Bernell, who was once a learner herself, also knew that learners need inspiration, hope, optimism and care (Jensen, 2009). She also knew that teachers are also called upon to develop learners’ self-esteem (Bruno & Joyce, 2014).
Bernell attempted to be such a teacher:
The learners are impoverished. Some have torn uniforms or no school uniform.
Some come with school shoes that are ripped open. I know they feel bad wearing torn stuff. I have made it my duty to collect the jackets, jerseys and shoes of the children in my family at the end of the year. These are still in good condition. I have also asked family members to sponsor a school child their uniform. I now distribute these to needy children at the school. Although our school has a large learner population, and I know I cannot help everyone, the least I can do is assist the learners in my form class.
Being an empathetic teacher, Bernell realised that poor self-esteem can have an impact on a child’s sense of worth (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Rodgers & Scott, 2008).
However, having good self-esteem means you do not feel inferior, but feel that you are as good as everyone else (Bauman, 2012). Bernell learned the importance of care and compassion for others from her family, and as a young person she displayed the same
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empathetic and nurturing qualities as a teacher. This emotional awareness was essential for her identity formation, since emotional awareness is vital to serving and having a life of meaningful purpose (Deutschendorf, 2009). Bernell, by observing the despondency of her learners, was listening to the needs they communicated non-verbally (Noddings, 2006). Therefore, for Bernell, her actions were not just about torn uniforms, but went deeper to address how the children felt emotionally. Her actions demonstrate how, according to Miller and Moran (2012), a teacher is instrumental in influencing a child’s self-esteem, which can affect the child’s behaviour and achievement. In this act of providing clothes, Bernell showed her love and concern for the learners in a tangible way.
As a teacher at a deprived school, she understood that she had a moral responsibility to contribute to the children’s welfare (Weissbourd, 2003).