Chapter 5: INDUCTIVE ANALYSIS OF DATA
5.4 KEY THEMES FROM AN INDUCTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE DATA
5.4.3 Theme 3: Different understandings of the purpose of the Life Sciences cluster
148 The above respondents are outlining how they view their CL as someone who is there to help them and they all are in agreement that for one to acquire a new
identity one has to perform. The performance is through their learners’ achievements during the year and at the end of the year. The main focus is at the end of the year:
The first thing it will have to be my CI, I believe that if I communicate with him I will grow as a teacher. (Nxonxo, is a male teacher, who is a cluster leader with four years’
teaching experience) Nxonxo also suggests that for his professional growth he has to work closely with the
Subject Advisor, implying that the Subject Advisor is more knowledgeable than his peers.
The teachers see the work of the Cluster Leader as initiating activities in the workshop and playing a co-ordinating role of sharing resources:
If it’s a cluster meeting? The cluster leader would initiate the activities and we would discuss it according to our pace settings (Ok). If it’s an intervention workshop, like if we were called by the CI, the CI initiates the activities. (Slhoqo is a Life Sciences teacher with 7 years’ teaching experience)
So, the cluster leader is always sending emails to us based on whatever materials we need for the teaching and learning. (Banonge)
Banonge has two degrees. She majored in Biology and has 17 years’ teaching experience. She has just been appointed as an HoD in her school and is currently teaching Life Sciences in Grade 12.
5.4.3 Theme 3: Different understandings of the purpose of the Life Sciences
149 The main purpose is for them to improve the results. They will be capacitated, they will be taught here for certain days so that they can improve the results in their clusters and they are also responsible for their clusters in the sense that after a quarterly test or June exams they are expected to analyse their results of their cluster: if under her there are 8 schools she will have to have the results from all eight schools and compare them so if she is asked how the cluster performed. (Punky, Subject head)
She also states that the clusters play an administrative role for the cascading of information to all teachers.
The Subject advisor provides a different perspective to the SH, as he focuses more on the support and development of teachers, rather than on results:
Supporting each other, sharing expertise, skills, knowledge and for example (Life Sciences is mainly a practical subject) and there is practical exam (Grades 10-12).
Some of the teachers are new in the system and some don’t have enough knowledge in that area and therefore will be helped by the others. (Mbinzi is a curriculum advisor with 42 years’ experience in the field of Life Sciences).
The teachers describe a range of different purposes of the clusters. A key purpose is seen as the focus on developing teachers’ content knowledge and teaching
strategies:
Purpose of cluster meetings is all about content enrichment. (Nxonxo, Cluster Leader) The cluster meeting is mainly for discussion, the challenging the topics, we are helping each other actually, ok that is the purpose so that each one can grow, each one can improve and produce better results as a cluster (Ok) so that we can discuss and about the challenging coping especially the content topic in Grade 10 – 12 while we are getting youngsters now maybe they are fresh from the university it’s also really going to help them in the discussion, open discussion as a cluster, it’s really going to help those teachers also because they have not much experience. (Yes) But while we are
discussing as a cluster we are also getting more knowledge and in deep knowledge we are getting it ja deep knowledge and also which is helping to take the teachers will know how to take that class lessons and everything. (Banonge is a female teacher with 18 years’ teaching experience)
It is to share ideas, to update members of the expectations of the Department of Education (Uh hum) with regard to Life Sciences (Uh hum) and also to allow members who are struggling in certain content areas so that if they put them across then as we exchange these ideas you find that you will be helped in one way or the other in how to deal with the problem areas or challenging areas in the subject. (Bume is an unqualified novice teacher, who has been teaching Life Sciences for three years. He is teaching English and Life Sciences in Grade 12)
150 To develop one another as teachers, we need to be helped by others, as I am saying, I sometimes think of what different strategy I can use. You learn more from other
teachers”. (Makutu is a female teacher with 20 years teaching experience, Biology and Life Sciences)
There were two teachers who described the purposes in ways that were linked to the departmental expectations in other initiatives that would contribute to the
improvement of the matric results and covering the syllabus. This is the managerial way of coordinating teacher learning by the Department of Education. As indicated in Chapter 2, the MDoE clusters are a managerial tool that the department uses to enhance learners’ performances through taking teachers on regular workshops for content and pedagogy:
Eh… I think the cluster meetings are there to make us see where we are with our syllabi, to notice whether you are on the right track or you are behind. (Duke)
To help each other concerning as I have said, to discuss the papers, for example after we have written a paper we needs to discuss to see the difficulty of the paper and to discuss the memo if it’s wrong or then if the paper was difficult then we want to see the challenges then if there are difficult topics, we can discuss there, so that we can help each other, so that teaching will be fruitful. (Slhoqo is a Life Sciences teacher with 7 years’ teaching experience).
Duke and Slhoqo are of the same view and they even share the strategies that they use to achieve the intended objective of improved Grade 12 results: revising the past exams, ensuring that the syllabus is covered and discussing exam papers, so that they move from the same premise when they teach. On the other hand, Makutu and Banonge, from a democratic discourse point of view, their understanding is that the purpose is for teachers to learn from each other, empower each other so that they become better teachers through being helped by other teachers. They understand the purpose as per what the MDoE programmes them to do when they are together.
The agenda is drawn by the MDoE, it is also coordinated by the MDoE and the objectives are set out by the MDoE. So it is an extension of the head office and the district office. Because they may not be able to reach all the schools with the limited resources that they have, servicing their cluster makes it possible for them to regulate and manage the activities that are supposed to take place in the schools to ensure that the syllabus is completed and learner performance is improved. The clusters are an extension of the department’s administration and a way of promoting efficiency in management and coordination of policies and programmes.
151 The MDoE established the clusters with the aim of managing the flow of information to the lowest levels of the teachers and to use it as a platform for the teachers’ PD.
The workshops I have attended have revealed that the structure is mainly established to coordinate the departmental activities to the lowest level.
They are more of a monitoring and evaluation tool for policy implementation, than an alternative professional development model. When the teachers attend the content enrichment workshops, they are taken through the Annual Teaching Plan so that they can account if there are areas that are not covered. One big expectation of the Department of Education is to ensure that they improve the results at the end of the year.