REFLECTIONS OF SOUTH AFRICAN TEACHERS TEACHING UNDER ADVERSARIAL CONDITIONS

Abstract

Teachers often teach under difficult conditions of which they do not have oversight. In order for teacher development programmes to be responsive to teachers’ needs, it is necessary to understand the teaching contexts of their participant teachers. Accordingly the purpose of the research was to identify the problems of practice reported by 41 Mathematical Literacy teachers who teach under impoverished conditions in South Africa. The participants identified their problems of practice and focused on one problem which they tried to address during a two-week teaching intervention. They were required to generate a reflective research report based on their teaching intervention, which formed the primary data source. The findings indicate that of the 305 citations of problems, 174 were attributed to socio-economic factors, 111 to pedagogic factors and 51 to school management factors. With most of these problems being out of their locus of control, these teachers are forced to spend time dealing with the consequences of these problems, instead of focusing their energy to find ways to improve their pedagogic practice. Teacher development agencies need to consider how such teachers could be more appropriately supported. Key words: classroom practice, non-prototype classes, problems of practice, teacher learning.