I wrote the following synopsis of my own and others research for a friend who asked for some insight on the topic of mother-tongue based education. The topic has recently flared up (again!) in the South African media and, frankly, I'm a little fed up of people treating these insights like they are new. Educationists have known this for years. Policy makers just don't want to listen because the research is inconvenient and requires a political will and long term resource planning that the government is unwilling, or unable, to commit.
So here it is. The old stuff. That every one seems to have forgotten.
Thoughts on mother-tongue based education
There are strong feelings on both sides of the argument, pro-mother
tongue and pro-English only. Very rarely are the contextual factors
influencing the practicality of either option discussed in a nuanced,
pragmatic way. The argument tends to be fueled a lot by ideology.
The first critical mistake people make is to talk about all our schools
as if they are in the same situation, when they are clearly not. Setati
and Adler very importantly pointed out the difference between schools in
rural areas, which have relatively homogenous language settings, and
urban schools with their diverse and very fluid langscapes (langscape--the word used by linguists to refer to the linguistic make up of a particular community, environment or place and purpose of language practice).
In the former, you'll find all the students and teachers share a mother
tongue. Often non-academic texts are unavailable due to resource
shortages and a lack of literacy practice in the home. Parents' own
literacy levels are poor and a culture of reading is absent. Spoken
language is almost exclusively the mother tongue, including the choice
of radio, TV and music. The school is the only environment in which the
child is exposed to the second language, and although the school's
official policy might be 'English' as the LoLT (language of learning and
teaching), this is not what happens on the ground. It does not make
sense for a teacher, who themselves are not confident in English, to
talk to students with whom they share a first language in a second
language. In such environments, Setati and Adler quite rightly term
English a FOREIGN language, as opposed to a second language. It is
almost as foreign as French or Portuguese to most South Africans, and
the opportunities to use English for any purposeful activity is very
rare.
In the latter, you may find a class of 50 students in a township school
who have 12 different mother tongues between them, especially in
Gauteng. That's a VERY different situation to a rural school, and a
lingua franca is required. That said, these children are still second
language learners and the pedagogy in the classroom needs to be
structured as such. Teachers in these environments have VERY different
challenges to those in rural schools.
The mother-tongue as the bridge to second language acquisition
One phenomenon that is well understood is that of the primary language
being the platform off which other languages are learned. This is almost
always the case where a child has not been brought up bilingual from
the cradle.
Cummins' research is seminal in this regard. Extensive vocabulary and
knowledge of complex grammatical structures in the first language almost
always predict better second language acquisition. In the context of
rural South African schools, where children are not brought up truly
bilingual from the cradle, this idea is very important, because it
affects the decision on when students can or should transition from
their mother tongue as the way they learn at school to a second
language.
Many South African children reach school with limited academic language
proficiency. This is due to many factors: lack of reading in the home,
the limited vocabulary they are exposed to due to the lack of available
adult attention (parents and caregivers often work very long hours and
are unable to spend the dedicated time to stories, songs and reading
that middle class parents can) and the educational level of the
caregiver themselves. Reading is only first introduced at school in
Grade 1, by which point our children are 7 years old. The correlation
between English and class here becomes clear: English speakers are often
also middle class income earners, with the literacy and language
practices of middle class families (Shirley Brice Heath did some great
research on what class means for acquiring the language practices that
work well in schools--middle class families: how they talk to their
children, how they play with their children and how they read to their
children, apprentice their children into the language practices that are
replicated in the schooling system). It is not surprising then, that
children coming to school and only meeting text for the first time then
are way behind their counterparts who have had far richer language
experiences at home.
If this is the situation, then the school has to be the location where
deep language practices are acquired. This has to happen in the mother
tongue first, both verbally and written. The 3 years currently given to
our children to learn both their home language formally and their second
language is insufficient to prepare them for the demands of a
curriculum at school when they transition to second language instruction
in grade 4. Margie Probyn did some good research on how children only
have a vocabulary of 800 or so words in grade 4 in English, and yet the
textbook in grade 4 required a vocabulary of 3000 words upwards. The gap
is huge and the children aren't ready. In this situation, further
mother tongue-based education makes more sense, with excellent
second-language instruction.
The written/verbal dichotomy
Language acquisition has two components: verbal and written. Often
proficiency in the first is acquired where transactional conversations
have been necessary to reach certain goals (getting what you want/need).
The second (written) is acquired when what you want/need is only
available in a text form. The two do not develop naturally together.
People are often fluent conversationally and yet unable to write a
language (most African languages in South Africa fall into this
category). There are also languages which are almost exclusively written
and yet people cannot speak them (e.g. Latin).
This distinction is extremely important in the South African educational
context. Often students are not adequately taught literacy in their
mother tongue. Texts are scarce in their home language. This makes
mother-tongue based education extremely difficult: a point for
English-only instruction as this is the language in which resources are
available.
However, developing literacy in a second language does not mean a good
grasp of the language per se. Students are often able to read texts
without 100% understanding. Many South African students can read an
English text out loud exceptionally well and not have a clue what they
just read. Reading for meaning means an ability to attach written words
to the real world. This occurs far more easily in the mother tongue.
Some institutions are working hard to translate educational resources
into mother tongue (e.g. Xolisa Guzula at NMMI in East London is working
on the DBE's workbooks in mathematics, translating them into isiXhosa).
Literacy in the mother-tongue is critical. Written word is often
context independent so more words have to be used to describe a setting,
a situation or emotion. The ratio of new vocabulary in writing is 3
times that which is used in spoken conversation. Exposure to more
complex lexicons and grammar is through reading, not speaking. These
complex language structures are often the difference between those who
succeed in the schooling environment and those who don't. Another point
for mother-tongue based literacy. PRAESA and other institutions have
been working hard at encouraging mother-tongue based literacy practice
in the home.
Other schooling models around the world
People often invoke other schooling models around the world as examples
where students can become proficient in a second language by using it as
their medium of learning. The most common one is that of French
Canadian schools.
This is, however, not a good comparison for the South African situation.
Firstly, most of the students attending such schools come from homes
with good socio-economic backgrounds, where vocabulary and literacy
practice in the mother-tongue has had a strong foundation from the home.
Secondly, these schools are staffed with truly bilingual teachers who
are well trained in the practice of second language acquisition, even if
they are content teachers (e.g. mathematics, science etc.). Thirdly,
these schools are true immersion programmes. Students are not allowed to
use their language AT ALL: only French is allowed. The school day is
extended with a rich variety of practices, both curricular and
extra-curricular, which are supported via well planned language
development resources.
A student can also be schooled in their mother tongue for their entire
school career and still be proficient in a second language, provided the
political will and resources are committed to that model. A good
example of this is the acquisition of English by Afrikaans speakers and
Afrikaans by English speakers pre 1994. Despite being taught exclusively
in English, many South Africans are adequately equipped in Afrikaans
and, when exposed post school to a study or work environment that
requires Afrikaans, improve rapidly in their proficiency to the point of
being perfectly functional. Their content knowledge, given to them in
their home language, is already present. They need only attach new words
to this pre-existing knowledge. This is another point for mother-tongue
based schooling, with good second language teaching.
Other African countries succeed in using their colonial language as a lingua franca in their schools in a space where South Africa fails. In this instance, apartheid does have to take the blame. Parental mastery of the language of instruction in other African countries is relatively high. Even though the language of home might be Lingala or Kikuyu, the parents have full mastery of French and are able to bring their children up bilingual from birth. South African parents are often not in a position to do so, most especially those in the former homeland areas. Unsurprisingly, Pam Christie's latest research shows clearly that the geographical location of a school in a former homeland is the best predictor for educational failure.
In short: the only language acquisition model that works for developing a
second language without using the first language is complete immersion.
We DO NOT have the resources for this in South African schools. Only
8-9% of our population are first language English speakers. Many of
these are NOT interested in becoming teachers as the vocation is one of
the toughest jobs in the country (believe me) and other, more appealing
and lucrative options are often available since English mother tongue
correlates with class, income and educational level. We cannot create
schooling environments in which our students are completely immersed in
English with the resources we have. So mother tongue has to be the
bridge to English acquisition. Which means the mother tongue must be
properly and deeply developed first.
Parental resistance
It is completely understandable that many South African parents for whom
English is not a first language want their children to acquire the best
proficiency in English possible. Firstly, mother-tongue based education
lives under the dark shadow of Bantu education. Parents still remember
the use of their languages to educate them as a means of denying them
access to the formal economy. Secondly, parents quite rightly identify
proficiency in English as the means of access to formal tertiary
education and jobs--this is not a figment of their imaginations. What is
not well understood is the need for the development of the mother
tongue as an important stepping stone to excellent English acquisition.
People are often of the opinion that language acquisition is
subtractive: this has been well debunked by linguistic scholars around
the world. One does not have to sacrifice the development of one
language in favour of the development of another. Education of parents
in this regard is critical to schools adopting alternative models of
language development and practice.
English and content subjects with specific discourses and registers
Subjects such as mathematics and science are not only English heavy
(i.e. most of the resources available are only available in English),
but they also use very specific language unique to their subject areas.
So students are learning the language of mathematics through the
language of English through the language of home. A bit of a mess. Even
academics around the world find themselves having to write about these
subjects in English as the words they need to describe mathematical and
scientific phenomena have not been developed in their home language.
Such development is a matter of political will. Afrikaans is again an
excellent example where vocabulary can be explicitly and purposefully
developed if the desire is there that the language should be used in
scientific spaces. Pam Maseko at Rhodes and others have done a lot of
work on developing mathematical lexica in isiXhosa. Such programmes are
incredibly resource intensive again, and it is understandable when
people argue for students to simply learn English and acquire these
words that already exist instead of creating new ones, as mathematical
jargon in isiXhosa will have limited scope for use beyond school.
Teacher resourcing
All the theory about language acquisition must be read in the context of teacher resourcing. The following facts are salient:
1. Many South African teachers are not mother tongue English speakers
and struggle with English themselves. This is not an indictment on them,
but rather a simple fact of training and teacher education.
2. Many teachers are often the only exposure to English that students have.
3. Most textbooks are only available in English. Teachers depend heavily
on textbooks in the South African context, particularly in content
subjects, due to their lack of confidence in their subjects.
The reality on the ground...
But most importantly, certainly from my own experience, our teachers are
in such tight spots at school due to staffing shortages that language
is hardly on the top of their agendas. My own training was in the use of
scaffolding and code-switching techniques to teach mathematics. I have a
degree in pure mathematics and was taught isiXhosa by an EXCELLENT
teacher at UCT. My research at the Masters level was about the interaction of language and mathematics instruction in deep rural isiXhosa speaking secondary schools and I started my job this year with the sole intention of putting
the theory of scaffolding language in the mathematics classroom into
practice.
The few opportunities I have had to do so have been very fruitful.
Explaining to students in isiXhosa has made a huge difference. My own
isiXhosa skills are still developing in the space of pedagogy, but it
has already been quite clear how powerful this scaffolding tool can be.
Not only have I been able to manage my classroom behaviour better
(mother tongue is always best for this), but relationships with my
students have been critical in my ability to be a teacher and my formal
training in isiXhosa has enabled me to be a language teacher too (my
students' isiXhosa is often very mixed and incomplete... they speak a
strange township dialect which, while perfectly functional in their
current context, holds no weight in an academic space at all!).
My
deepest regret is how under-staffing and the trauma that schools are
perpetually faced with constantly pushes language development to the
back burner. Whether it is gang violence, student abuse or lack of basic
resources such as the availability of enough textbooks, a reliable
electricity connection, adequate security or acceptable levels of
communication from the department about what is expected of us,
language--while critically important--is not urgent compared to these
other day-to-day demands. We are constantly in fire fighting mode.
What I really need to teach mathematics well and to use my language
skills and training to do this, is 5 less lessons a week and a teaching assistant in
my classroom: even a trainee teacher who is apprenticing me and able to
spend extra time with those students who have obvious learning
difficulties (Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, dyslexia, autism, etc. There are
many! Up to 30% of my students have special education needs which I am
physically unable to attend to). Most of my students live in high trauma
environments and are either exposed to primary or secondary abuse.
Their higher cognitive functions shut down until they feel safe, heard
and wanted. Again, my ability to speak isiXhosa has been invaluable in
creating relationships that have enabled me to bond with and support my
students through their difficult lives. But the time I need to develop
curriculum resources and lesson plans that speak specifically to
language acquisition is simply not available. A 60 hour week is a good week.
We cannot talk about the lack of language acquisition or educational
attainment without talking about these other issues: they all interact
deeply. Most schools where students don't speak English are schools in
poor areas. These schools are also wracked by gang violence, drug abuse
problems, lack of teachers, lack of infrastructural resources,
departmental apathy, poorly educated parent bodies and students who are
regularly exposed to abuse and do not feel safe. Changing to
mother-tongue or English-only education is not going to make a feather's
difference to our schooling outcomes until those committed and skilled
teachers who want to be in the system do not feel compelled to leave for
their own or their families sakes due to the extreme pressure and
workload. Two committed teachers in my school are either leaving or have
been booked off by medical advisors for stress and Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder. Teachers need more support to do their jobs, in the form of
protected non contact time and/or teaching assistants and reasonable
class sizes (under 40). Until these happen, any policy put in place
regarding the language of teaching and learning will be nothing but
another piece of paper.
Sunday, 27 October 2013
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Only birds born in cages...
One of the most important things I think this job is teaching me (nay, ramming down my throat!) is that I bloody accept that I can't do everything. End of. Including regular blog posts...
So much has happened since the last post. We have elected a governing body, that motley crew of teachers, parents, staff and students who reign supreme by South African law over schools. A good School Governing Body is a fundamental part of a functional, well-run school. I'm pleased to say that I think the parents we have found to serve on our SGB will play an important role in reaching the dream we have for our school. Already this week they have sat through disciplinary hearings for students who are repeatedly disruptive, and their proactive approach and pertinent questioning during the hearings was very encouraging. It is all too often that schools that serve middle-class families have a much easier time of the Governing Body. The parents come with all sorts of skills to offer and, usually, far more resources to put into the school. Our parents are struggling to string it all together generally, but kudos to them, they are not taking it lightly. It is heart-warming to see them take the school seriously too.
The elections were held on Monday night. This was a tentative event because of what happened at school during the day on Monday. As my colleague and I herded the students up to assembly, we found a poster stuck to the pillar, hand-drawn on a page torn out of a student's notebook. The poster was a direct threat by one faction of boys against another, claiming that 'tears of blood will flow'. Not acceptable, by any means, but there's been so much hot air out of the boys that is preposterous that one doesn't know how much is real and how much is bravado anymore.
We're used to the factions the boys have drawn up amongst themselves; the Xaba Boys, the Bad Boys Club (BBC) and the Young Money Hunters (Y.M.H.). Unfortunately our desks and chairs are littered with inscriptions already, as are the kids themselves. Some fake their tattoos. Others don't need to.
So having found this poster, we took it off the wall (my colleague knew who had drawn it), and we cornered the boy in assembly with the head master and frog-marched him down to the office. This was at 13h30.
At about 13h35, a group of 6 gang members scaled the fence (we have a HUGE unpatrollable perimeter) armed with foot-long kitchen knives and an axe. The teacher on duty was unaware until these kids ran through the playground, looking for specific students, right on top of us.
Someone had tipped off the police because at the moment when we had just realised what the hell was happening, the men in blue were hot on their heels, chasing them up the hill.
They were obviously looking for a particular student/group of students. The teacher on duty found herself between one intruder and one of our boys armed with a rock. The policeman dashed past her, gun in hand, safety off, and the intruder fled. The students had followed the gang fight a la gladiators. Their bloodlust is quite disturbing. The teachers flocked up the hill to find out what the commotion was and herd students down to the classrooms and to safety. Break got terminated early (we have mentor period after second break) and I spent 10min frantically searching for my students and coralling them like a mother goose into my classroom.
Once I'd gotten them all in and locked the door, it was clear that some of them knew what was going on. Turns out that one of the girls in my class went to a birthday party on the weekend and 'kissed the wrong boy'. She's supposed to be 'with a BBC' and snogged a Xaba. BBC gatecrashed the Xaba party and there was a stabbing: a BBC stabbed a Xaba over the girl. The remainder of the weekend was spent invading each others turf and beating each other up.
Monday was full on retaliation. Obviously a BBC had heard that the Xabas were going to the school to hunt BBC boys (of which we have many) and called the police which is why they appeared so quickly.
At about 14h15, a bunch of older BBC boys from outside the school had heard about the attack and jumped over the wall behind the classrooms to retaliate. These guys had pangas. The BBC boys in my classroom were scratching at the turf to get out and 'sort it out'. I locked the door and told them that they were not going anywhere.
I have a soft spot for one of them: a bright boy who is actually kind, although tough as nails, and quite respectful. He wants to be an engineer. Perhaps I flatter myself but I'd like to think we have a good relationship. He would never admit the depth of his involvement but he is in deep: it breaks my heart.
Again, the parents response was encouraging: several came down to the school to find out what was happening. Last night there was a community meeting involving the local authorities, parents, church leaders, politicians and general community headmen, and these boys involved in these junior-gangs (I call them junior because at this point its violent turf assertion amongst laaities on booze and weed, not organised crime. Yet.) Apparently the response was one of 'no way, not in our area' with patrols set up between parents and police to terminate the boundaries of the various factions. We'll see what comes of it.
But to say it was scary is an understatement. One of the boys in my class asked me "Are you scared Miss?". I responded "well of course! There are crazy people running around outside with axes and knives. Who wouldn't be?" He thought it was very funny. I said it was natural. But it does go a long way to indicating how normalised this sort of exposure to violence is for our kids. Some expressed shock at it spilling into school, but outside school it was something they were used to.
At least it was only blades I suppose. Our container walls would not stop bullets.
Prior to said incident, it has felt a bit like the wheels are coming off this term. Something amongst the staff feels like the standards are slipping: getting to class on time, follow up on homework, expectations of behaviour. Mostly the promptness I think. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to be one of the few teachers who is insisting students arrive on time to class when others don't... you really are trying to hold back the tide. This takes a lot of energy which really could be used for other things. Like behaviour management.
The kids are also responding to the slackening... they smell it and respond immediately with pushing boundaries harder. Holding the line in the face of a larger wave takes more energy. I'm pretty sure my own steadfastness is waning rapidly. Being quite seriously sick twice this term has not helped. The cough is still persisting 3 weeks later. It may be time for a chest x-ray.
On other fronts: having been elected (reluctantly) to the SGB and serving on the SMT as well as trying to orchestrate (with mixed success) a maths intervention programme, I'm realising that I need to work on my leadership and management skills. For one, I still get too pissed off when it seems to me that people are not pulling their share--this will always be the case and there must be ways of changing the situation or working on it rather than just sitting and stewing. Not good for mental or physical health (speaking of which, I haven't been for a run in almost two months! This somehow needs to move up the priority list. Once the cough goes).
In summary: while we still have our ambitions and high standards, there have been some pretty cold reality checks that we are what we are: a township school. Complete with gangs and violence, persistent bad behaviour, vandalism, worn-out teachers and massive learning deficits. To forget that is folly. What happens in other schools is a complex product of teachers being slowly ground down by what are, in all honesty, completely unfair and ridiculous requirements of them, coupled with an uneven distribution of belief in the vision for the school, and effort applied to fulfill that goal. I am starting to understand far better what has created the dysfunctional schools in South Africa (not that we are one, yet). They are the natural outcome of a long process of unbelievably severe conditions which are not quite believable or understandable until you've seen it yourself.
To end off positively: relationships with individual students are starting to really blossom. On Saturday we spent 2 hours 'playing' with our maths, whereafter I got takeaways and the kids designed a mural on my classroom wall. Then we spent 3 hours painting together, listening to music off one student's phone [who knew that windows could be used as natural amplifiers? He wedged his cheap Nokia between the pane and the burglar bars and VOILA! The entire side of the classroom turned into a giant amplifier. Pretty neat). We sang and laughed (and made a mess) and overall had a good time. These are the moments that matter to me most. Not only do they make my job easier with the kids, but they also keep me sane and provide a different outlet while still getting work done. Otherwise I'd be home marking.
Painted on the wall of my classroom:
"Only birds born in cages think that flying is an illness."
So much has happened since the last post. We have elected a governing body, that motley crew of teachers, parents, staff and students who reign supreme by South African law over schools. A good School Governing Body is a fundamental part of a functional, well-run school. I'm pleased to say that I think the parents we have found to serve on our SGB will play an important role in reaching the dream we have for our school. Already this week they have sat through disciplinary hearings for students who are repeatedly disruptive, and their proactive approach and pertinent questioning during the hearings was very encouraging. It is all too often that schools that serve middle-class families have a much easier time of the Governing Body. The parents come with all sorts of skills to offer and, usually, far more resources to put into the school. Our parents are struggling to string it all together generally, but kudos to them, they are not taking it lightly. It is heart-warming to see them take the school seriously too.
The elections were held on Monday night. This was a tentative event because of what happened at school during the day on Monday. As my colleague and I herded the students up to assembly, we found a poster stuck to the pillar, hand-drawn on a page torn out of a student's notebook. The poster was a direct threat by one faction of boys against another, claiming that 'tears of blood will flow'. Not acceptable, by any means, but there's been so much hot air out of the boys that is preposterous that one doesn't know how much is real and how much is bravado anymore.
We're used to the factions the boys have drawn up amongst themselves; the Xaba Boys, the Bad Boys Club (BBC) and the Young Money Hunters (Y.M.H.). Unfortunately our desks and chairs are littered with inscriptions already, as are the kids themselves. Some fake their tattoos. Others don't need to.
So having found this poster, we took it off the wall (my colleague knew who had drawn it), and we cornered the boy in assembly with the head master and frog-marched him down to the office. This was at 13h30.
At about 13h35, a group of 6 gang members scaled the fence (we have a HUGE unpatrollable perimeter) armed with foot-long kitchen knives and an axe. The teacher on duty was unaware until these kids ran through the playground, looking for specific students, right on top of us.
Someone had tipped off the police because at the moment when we had just realised what the hell was happening, the men in blue were hot on their heels, chasing them up the hill.
They were obviously looking for a particular student/group of students. The teacher on duty found herself between one intruder and one of our boys armed with a rock. The policeman dashed past her, gun in hand, safety off, and the intruder fled. The students had followed the gang fight a la gladiators. Their bloodlust is quite disturbing. The teachers flocked up the hill to find out what the commotion was and herd students down to the classrooms and to safety. Break got terminated early (we have mentor period after second break) and I spent 10min frantically searching for my students and coralling them like a mother goose into my classroom.
Once I'd gotten them all in and locked the door, it was clear that some of them knew what was going on. Turns out that one of the girls in my class went to a birthday party on the weekend and 'kissed the wrong boy'. She's supposed to be 'with a BBC' and snogged a Xaba. BBC gatecrashed the Xaba party and there was a stabbing: a BBC stabbed a Xaba over the girl. The remainder of the weekend was spent invading each others turf and beating each other up.
Monday was full on retaliation. Obviously a BBC had heard that the Xabas were going to the school to hunt BBC boys (of which we have many) and called the police which is why they appeared so quickly.
At about 14h15, a bunch of older BBC boys from outside the school had heard about the attack and jumped over the wall behind the classrooms to retaliate. These guys had pangas. The BBC boys in my classroom were scratching at the turf to get out and 'sort it out'. I locked the door and told them that they were not going anywhere.
I have a soft spot for one of them: a bright boy who is actually kind, although tough as nails, and quite respectful. He wants to be an engineer. Perhaps I flatter myself but I'd like to think we have a good relationship. He would never admit the depth of his involvement but he is in deep: it breaks my heart.
Again, the parents response was encouraging: several came down to the school to find out what was happening. Last night there was a community meeting involving the local authorities, parents, church leaders, politicians and general community headmen, and these boys involved in these junior-gangs (I call them junior because at this point its violent turf assertion amongst laaities on booze and weed, not organised crime. Yet.) Apparently the response was one of 'no way, not in our area' with patrols set up between parents and police to terminate the boundaries of the various factions. We'll see what comes of it.
But to say it was scary is an understatement. One of the boys in my class asked me "Are you scared Miss?". I responded "well of course! There are crazy people running around outside with axes and knives. Who wouldn't be?" He thought it was very funny. I said it was natural. But it does go a long way to indicating how normalised this sort of exposure to violence is for our kids. Some expressed shock at it spilling into school, but outside school it was something they were used to.
At least it was only blades I suppose. Our container walls would not stop bullets.
Prior to said incident, it has felt a bit like the wheels are coming off this term. Something amongst the staff feels like the standards are slipping: getting to class on time, follow up on homework, expectations of behaviour. Mostly the promptness I think. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to be one of the few teachers who is insisting students arrive on time to class when others don't... you really are trying to hold back the tide. This takes a lot of energy which really could be used for other things. Like behaviour management.
The kids are also responding to the slackening... they smell it and respond immediately with pushing boundaries harder. Holding the line in the face of a larger wave takes more energy. I'm pretty sure my own steadfastness is waning rapidly. Being quite seriously sick twice this term has not helped. The cough is still persisting 3 weeks later. It may be time for a chest x-ray.
On other fronts: having been elected (reluctantly) to the SGB and serving on the SMT as well as trying to orchestrate (with mixed success) a maths intervention programme, I'm realising that I need to work on my leadership and management skills. For one, I still get too pissed off when it seems to me that people are not pulling their share--this will always be the case and there must be ways of changing the situation or working on it rather than just sitting and stewing. Not good for mental or physical health (speaking of which, I haven't been for a run in almost two months! This somehow needs to move up the priority list. Once the cough goes).
In summary: while we still have our ambitions and high standards, there have been some pretty cold reality checks that we are what we are: a township school. Complete with gangs and violence, persistent bad behaviour, vandalism, worn-out teachers and massive learning deficits. To forget that is folly. What happens in other schools is a complex product of teachers being slowly ground down by what are, in all honesty, completely unfair and ridiculous requirements of them, coupled with an uneven distribution of belief in the vision for the school, and effort applied to fulfill that goal. I am starting to understand far better what has created the dysfunctional schools in South Africa (not that we are one, yet). They are the natural outcome of a long process of unbelievably severe conditions which are not quite believable or understandable until you've seen it yourself.
To end off positively: relationships with individual students are starting to really blossom. On Saturday we spent 2 hours 'playing' with our maths, whereafter I got takeaways and the kids designed a mural on my classroom wall. Then we spent 3 hours painting together, listening to music off one student's phone [who knew that windows could be used as natural amplifiers? He wedged his cheap Nokia between the pane and the burglar bars and VOILA! The entire side of the classroom turned into a giant amplifier. Pretty neat). We sang and laughed (and made a mess) and overall had a good time. These are the moments that matter to me most. Not only do they make my job easier with the kids, but they also keep me sane and provide a different outlet while still getting work done. Otherwise I'd be home marking.
Painted on the wall of my classroom:
"Only birds born in cages think that flying is an illness."
Monday, 29 April 2013
The Power of Positive
Sorry for the long hiatus folks. As you probably correctly guessed, the quiet coincided with the return to school. Good to know I'm working instead of blogging huh? ;)
Term 2 has gone, from my perspective, a lot more smoothly than Term 1 (surprise surprise). I think I was more prepared from a planning side and the obvious bonus was having a much better idea of what lay in store!
Aside: there is NO SUCH THING AS OVERPLANNING in teaching. I don't care what anyone says. No such thing.
Only one challenge has arisen which has really knocked me sideways. I got sick.
It was inevitable I guess: all those hours and lack of sleep and inability to eat properly + the change in the season and the high-risk environment of a school. Understandable that the flu eventually arrived. What I did not anticipate was how much feeling rotten would diminish my capacity for patience and positivity with my students. And you never know quite what you've got until its gone.
My fuse got short. My words got snappy. My grumpiness grew and my frustrations were palpable. As I've mentioned before, our students do not respond well to the grumps. At all! Loads and loads of infusing of firm positivity is the way to do it with this lot, so naturally my shorter fuse resulted in more antagonism, conflict and further grumps. Since I fell sick (and missed a couple of days) I've felt an eerie and disturbing sense of "whatever" and I know my students can smell it.
As if by divine intervention, this same period coincided with our introduction of a merit system at the school. We tried the intrinsic-motivation-appeal-to-your-better-sense-of-self stuff. It does NOT work on 14 year olds. So we went blatant: merit awards for doing stuff that is above-and-beyond or remarkable (teachers discretion). We decided NOT to introduce 'demerits' straight away: we wanted to see if we could build a positive system that was around incentivising the right behaviour rather than punishing all the time. So far so good! Man, what a merit can't do to promote a change in behaviour! Students gather up books and help in hopes of a merit. The naughtiest of students will try and behave in case they get a merit. A system I introduced today got more work out of my kids in an hour than normal: something along the lines of 'difficulty level' for questions in maths class to hurry them up through the simple stuff and get them chewing on the tougher material.
Level 1: Rookie. Everyone should do this. Everyone CAN do this. Get off your lazy bum and work.
Level 2: Pro. All of you should try. Getting up to this level should get you to pass maths. Just.
Level 3: Boss. A merit to anyone who can get all but one Boss-level question right. [I love writing on their merit slip "Reason: Doing algebra like a Boss"].
Level 4: Legend. Peeps who get level "Legend" right are a-away for a 70% if they work.
Level 5: Master. Only for those who should be able to get 80-90 for maths.
So the idea is that kids can actually say 'Miss, today i'm doing Maths like a Pro!" and feel good about it. It also sets a clear and obtainable "minimum expectation". The kids loved it! They came up with "Legend" and "Master". And all of a sudden, maths class became a game. Let's see how long it lasts...
What all of this did remind me (sickness, merits, level-ups) is the power of positivity. Really, there is no other explanation for it: something about our kids is wired into shutting out the negative and craving the positive in ways that is almost pathological. The challenge to us as staff, then, remains in keeping up our energy to stay positive.
The kids have asked for extra classes on Saturdays. I'm thrilled (and devastated)... it's wonderful they want them but man, really? More? That said, I canned last weekend because the little blighters hadn't done their homework and were unapologetic about it. So I told them I wasn't bending backwards if they couldn't be asked. Deep down I know really I won't stop, even when they are being lazy buggers... experience tells me that they come around eventually.
Meanwhile, I'll just keep trucking like a Boss. No Legend. Wait... Master. Yes :)
Term 2 has gone, from my perspective, a lot more smoothly than Term 1 (surprise surprise). I think I was more prepared from a planning side and the obvious bonus was having a much better idea of what lay in store!
Aside: there is NO SUCH THING AS OVERPLANNING in teaching. I don't care what anyone says. No such thing.
Only one challenge has arisen which has really knocked me sideways. I got sick.
It was inevitable I guess: all those hours and lack of sleep and inability to eat properly + the change in the season and the high-risk environment of a school. Understandable that the flu eventually arrived. What I did not anticipate was how much feeling rotten would diminish my capacity for patience and positivity with my students. And you never know quite what you've got until its gone.
My fuse got short. My words got snappy. My grumpiness grew and my frustrations were palpable. As I've mentioned before, our students do not respond well to the grumps. At all! Loads and loads of infusing of firm positivity is the way to do it with this lot, so naturally my shorter fuse resulted in more antagonism, conflict and further grumps. Since I fell sick (and missed a couple of days) I've felt an eerie and disturbing sense of "whatever" and I know my students can smell it.
As if by divine intervention, this same period coincided with our introduction of a merit system at the school. We tried the intrinsic-motivation-appeal-to-your-better-sense-of-self stuff. It does NOT work on 14 year olds. So we went blatant: merit awards for doing stuff that is above-and-beyond or remarkable (teachers discretion). We decided NOT to introduce 'demerits' straight away: we wanted to see if we could build a positive system that was around incentivising the right behaviour rather than punishing all the time. So far so good! Man, what a merit can't do to promote a change in behaviour! Students gather up books and help in hopes of a merit. The naughtiest of students will try and behave in case they get a merit. A system I introduced today got more work out of my kids in an hour than normal: something along the lines of 'difficulty level' for questions in maths class to hurry them up through the simple stuff and get them chewing on the tougher material.
Level 1: Rookie. Everyone should do this. Everyone CAN do this. Get off your lazy bum and work.
Level 2: Pro. All of you should try. Getting up to this level should get you to pass maths. Just.
Level 3: Boss. A merit to anyone who can get all but one Boss-level question right. [I love writing on their merit slip "Reason: Doing algebra like a Boss"].
Level 4: Legend. Peeps who get level "Legend" right are a-away for a 70% if they work.
Level 5: Master. Only for those who should be able to get 80-90 for maths.
So the idea is that kids can actually say 'Miss, today i'm doing Maths like a Pro!" and feel good about it. It also sets a clear and obtainable "minimum expectation". The kids loved it! They came up with "Legend" and "Master". And all of a sudden, maths class became a game. Let's see how long it lasts...
What all of this did remind me (sickness, merits, level-ups) is the power of positivity. Really, there is no other explanation for it: something about our kids is wired into shutting out the negative and craving the positive in ways that is almost pathological. The challenge to us as staff, then, remains in keeping up our energy to stay positive.
The kids have asked for extra classes on Saturdays. I'm thrilled (and devastated)... it's wonderful they want them but man, really? More? That said, I canned last weekend because the little blighters hadn't done their homework and were unapologetic about it. So I told them I wasn't bending backwards if they couldn't be asked. Deep down I know really I won't stop, even when they are being lazy buggers... experience tells me that they come around eventually.
Meanwhile, I'll just keep trucking like a Boss. No Legend. Wait... Master. Yes :)
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
Play the game
This post is predicated by a fascinating discussion in the conference today about game playing.
The research presented was some really useful work being done in remote areas of Australia where staff turnover is high, student attendance is very low and every teacher who rocks up changes stuff in order to 'make a difference' (cue: note to self on this one...)
Those schools that are functioning relatively well in this environment have begun adopting a discourse of 'the game' whereby they make the most simple actions and behaviours of going to school explicit to their students and communities as the rules of the game "Going to School" and then are consistent about those rules. For further information, read the paper here. It's really good.
This notion of game playing really resonates with me, but not in the way intended in the paper. Here are 3 examples of games I've encountered that are worth sharing.
Game 1
My own offering to today's conversation involved the most strange and alarming phenomenon that I first encountered at the school regarding my students' books.
For my students, the main function and attribute of their book was form: it must be neat, it must be beautiful, it must not have scratchings or incorrect answers or messy work or mistakes in it.
Rough work was done on ANY other available surface: torn out papers from homework diaries, toilet paper, the wall, the desk, you name it. Anywhere else except in the book.
So when I insisted that they show me their working inline they were--initially--horrified. "But Miss, that will mess up my book!" Or, even worse (lord forbid) I came around to check how they are doing and wanted to do an example with them together in their books so that they could watch good mathematics being modelled and retain the example for future reference...
"NO MISS NOT IN MY BOOK! NOT WITH RED PEN!" <thrusts a pencil into my hand>
The only red allowed in the book is a tick. A nice red tick. And if I don't provide it as timeously as the students want, they put it in themselves, irrespective of whether the work is right or not.
*tick*
I was boggled. Bemused. And disturbed at the same time. Because there is only one place that my students could've learnt this particular ritual, and that was in their previous classroom.
What on earth could possibly conduce the teachers to only ever tick, or the students to never show their working and scratch around thus for any surface (including, might I add, themselves) on which to perform their calculations?
To economists my answer will seem obvious: incentives. The Rules of the Game manifest in different ways. There are the 'official' rules of the game. And then there are the real rules, the ones that the rewards, penalties and pressures incentivize. The Rules of the Game might 'officially' state that teachers need to check all their students books regularly. But if a teacher is being told that books will be randomly inspected by the visiting authorities and each sum must be marked, well the incentive is to do as few questions as possible to alleviate the assessment burden (any sane mathematics teacher will tell you it is nigh on impossible to assess every question that every student ever does. That's where self-assessment comes in).
Also to alleviate the burden of marking, we go old-school: ticks and crosses against the final answer only. Working, misconceptions, the process of calculation count for nothing. Only the answer. *tick*.
The result is a charade: a dance of shadows where teachers act out something they call 'teaching' and students act out something they call 'learning'. Learner copies off the board and then waits. Teacher comes along and goes 'tick'. Inspector comes along and goes 'very good! Beautiful books'. Teacher smiles. Student smiles.
Nothing approximating the igniting of mathematical understanding has happened at all.
Game 2
Another interesting example of the Game. Who would've thought that a potential explanation for principals admitting students into their already over-full schools could be linked to salary scales?
Size of school -> Principal's payscale.
So here we have a payscale system that is trying to acknowledge those principals who are running schools of 1200 kids and that what they do is harder than running a school of, say, 300 kids. And that's fair enough. But the distorted behaviour that manifests is profound.
Game 3
The final interesting example comes down to advisor visits. I was really not very happy about my advisor visits (euphemism of the millenium). I was particularly not happy about being made to sign their report to acknowledge they had 'advised' me. They came on a day when I had no free time to chat with them, at a time when I was teaching all day, with no room for negotiation. They arrived late and then were frustrated when they had to leave late.
[It should be added that this rather rushed engagement was the result of a slightly tense interaction in which many emails over a period of about 5 weeks requesting an amicable visit went unanswered. I think they got upset when we contacted the powers-that-be and asked why we were not getting any responses to our requests for help.]
No effort was made to engage with what I have tried to do for remedial interventions with the students. The interventions were just 'me going off curriculum'. They poured over my files while I was in class and then I kind of got it with both barrels about 'not sticking to the pace-setter'. My protests of the students' weakness and knowledge gaps were met with the response "That doesn't matter. You must stick to the pace setter. These kids will keep you behind if you give them half a chance".
Give them half the chance? Perhaps them not getting half a chance might explain why they are in such a pickle in the first place? I'm not joking here: on the notes they gave to me they have literally written "do not let "don't understand" get in the way". I've been officially instructed to not worry if my students don't get it.
At this point in the hurried meeting I really was restraining my desperate urge to either pack up laughing hysterically or punch someone in the face.
But off we set on this game. They talked at me, s-l-o-w-l-y, showing me in monosyllabic terms the most unpedagogically sound mechanisms for teaching fractions I have ever seen, assuming that I didn't know how to teach this level of mathematics. I nodded, steam coming out of my ears, wishing they would go away or make an effort to get to know what I've done, what I can do and what I'm trying to do and actually advise me. No such luck. We just played the game. The Box-Ticking Game. Educator X has been 'corrected' and has been made to sign a document stating as much. School Y has been visited and can be ticked on the list. We've done our jobs here. This school is now 'right'.
I think it was John Maynard Keynes who said something about creating employment by paying people to dig holes and paying other people to fill them in again. This really sums up to me what our education system currently is. One very large, elaborate, expensive charade, a game to keep a few hundred thousand people employed. Which it does very well. But in the immortal words of Blackadder, there's only one teeny tiny problem....
It was bollocks.
The research presented was some really useful work being done in remote areas of Australia where staff turnover is high, student attendance is very low and every teacher who rocks up changes stuff in order to 'make a difference' (cue: note to self on this one...)
Those schools that are functioning relatively well in this environment have begun adopting a discourse of 'the game' whereby they make the most simple actions and behaviours of going to school explicit to their students and communities as the rules of the game "Going to School" and then are consistent about those rules. For further information, read the paper here. It's really good.
This notion of game playing really resonates with me, but not in the way intended in the paper. Here are 3 examples of games I've encountered that are worth sharing.
Game 1
My own offering to today's conversation involved the most strange and alarming phenomenon that I first encountered at the school regarding my students' books.
For my students, the main function and attribute of their book was form: it must be neat, it must be beautiful, it must not have scratchings or incorrect answers or messy work or mistakes in it.
Rough work was done on ANY other available surface: torn out papers from homework diaries, toilet paper, the wall, the desk, you name it. Anywhere else except in the book.
So when I insisted that they show me their working inline they were--initially--horrified. "But Miss, that will mess up my book!" Or, even worse (lord forbid) I came around to check how they are doing and wanted to do an example with them together in their books so that they could watch good mathematics being modelled and retain the example for future reference...
"NO MISS NOT IN MY BOOK! NOT WITH RED PEN!" <thrusts a pencil into my hand>
The only red allowed in the book is a tick. A nice red tick. And if I don't provide it as timeously as the students want, they put it in themselves, irrespective of whether the work is right or not.
*tick*
I was boggled. Bemused. And disturbed at the same time. Because there is only one place that my students could've learnt this particular ritual, and that was in their previous classroom.
What on earth could possibly conduce the teachers to only ever tick, or the students to never show their working and scratch around thus for any surface (including, might I add, themselves) on which to perform their calculations?
To economists my answer will seem obvious: incentives. The Rules of the Game manifest in different ways. There are the 'official' rules of the game. And then there are the real rules, the ones that the rewards, penalties and pressures incentivize. The Rules of the Game might 'officially' state that teachers need to check all their students books regularly. But if a teacher is being told that books will be randomly inspected by the visiting authorities and each sum must be marked, well the incentive is to do as few questions as possible to alleviate the assessment burden (any sane mathematics teacher will tell you it is nigh on impossible to assess every question that every student ever does. That's where self-assessment comes in).
Also to alleviate the burden of marking, we go old-school: ticks and crosses against the final answer only. Working, misconceptions, the process of calculation count for nothing. Only the answer. *tick*.
The result is a charade: a dance of shadows where teachers act out something they call 'teaching' and students act out something they call 'learning'. Learner copies off the board and then waits. Teacher comes along and goes 'tick'. Inspector comes along and goes 'very good! Beautiful books'. Teacher smiles. Student smiles.
Nothing approximating the igniting of mathematical understanding has happened at all.
Game 2
Another interesting example of the Game. Who would've thought that a potential explanation for principals admitting students into their already over-full schools could be linked to salary scales?
Size of school -> Principal's payscale.
So here we have a payscale system that is trying to acknowledge those principals who are running schools of 1200 kids and that what they do is harder than running a school of, say, 300 kids. And that's fair enough. But the distorted behaviour that manifests is profound.
Game 3
The final interesting example comes down to advisor visits. I was really not very happy about my advisor visits (euphemism of the millenium). I was particularly not happy about being made to sign their report to acknowledge they had 'advised' me. They came on a day when I had no free time to chat with them, at a time when I was teaching all day, with no room for negotiation. They arrived late and then were frustrated when they had to leave late.
[It should be added that this rather rushed engagement was the result of a slightly tense interaction in which many emails over a period of about 5 weeks requesting an amicable visit went unanswered. I think they got upset when we contacted the powers-that-be and asked why we were not getting any responses to our requests for help.]
No effort was made to engage with what I have tried to do for remedial interventions with the students. The interventions were just 'me going off curriculum'. They poured over my files while I was in class and then I kind of got it with both barrels about 'not sticking to the pace-setter'. My protests of the students' weakness and knowledge gaps were met with the response "That doesn't matter. You must stick to the pace setter. These kids will keep you behind if you give them half a chance".
Give them half the chance? Perhaps them not getting half a chance might explain why they are in such a pickle in the first place? I'm not joking here: on the notes they gave to me they have literally written "do not let "don't understand" get in the way". I've been officially instructed to not worry if my students don't get it.
At this point in the hurried meeting I really was restraining my desperate urge to either pack up laughing hysterically or punch someone in the face.
But off we set on this game. They talked at me, s-l-o-w-l-y, showing me in monosyllabic terms the most unpedagogically sound mechanisms for teaching fractions I have ever seen, assuming that I didn't know how to teach this level of mathematics. I nodded, steam coming out of my ears, wishing they would go away or make an effort to get to know what I've done, what I can do and what I'm trying to do and actually advise me. No such luck. We just played the game. The Box-Ticking Game. Educator X has been 'corrected' and has been made to sign a document stating as much. School Y has been visited and can be ticked on the list. We've done our jobs here. This school is now 'right'.
I think it was John Maynard Keynes who said something about creating employment by paying people to dig holes and paying other people to fill them in again. This really sums up to me what our education system currently is. One very large, elaborate, expensive charade, a game to keep a few hundred thousand people employed. Which it does very well. But in the immortal words of Blackadder, there's only one teeny tiny problem....
It was bollocks.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
The difference between theory and practice is...
...that in theory there is no difference and in practice there is!
In about an hour I'm heading off to Seapoint to register for the 7th Mathematics Education in Society conference where I'll be presenting my Masters work and getting the opportunity to gather opinions and insights from people whose work I've been following for 5 years now. I'm rather excited!
More importantly, I've just reread the (very short! damn word count limits!) summary of my work I submitted ages ago as my conference application. I can't say I'm happy with it, but it was a furious click-send-at-23:59 submission so I shouldn't be surprised.
For those unaware, my Masters thesis is about teachers beliefs about mathematics teaching and language and how these things interact in the classroom. I'll do a follow up post about why very few South African children learn in their mother tongue and what implications research is showing from this (I'll delve into some of Neville Alexander's writing on language and political and educational emancipation to illustrate the point in said forth-coming blog. The topic deserves tomes of its own). Suffice to say for now, there is a very strong correlation between mathematics attainment and language of teaching and learning in SA. Of course, language of teaching and learning also proxies for many other variables that are known to have an effect on students' mathematical attainment, such as socio-economic circumstances, access to physical resources such as solid schools, textbooks and ICT equipment, access to human resources such as well-trained teachers etc. and this all comes saddled with the moribund gamut that is South African political and social history. But there's definitely something to the language variable on its own: across the world, students who learn in their home language learn better. It seems an obvious thing to say, but you'd be surprised at how controversial it is.
So I spent a month in a very rural school up in the Eastern Cape observing teachers and chatting to them about their thoughts about the role of language in their classrooms. Unsurprisingly, they didn't think it mattered much, and this is not an uncommon response. People think mathematics is symbols and numbers... the least language-dependent of the subjects. Not at all. Firstly mathematics is often described as a language itself. Choose a random textbook off the shelf and turn to the introduction. 10:1 says the first paragraph mentions something like "Mathematics is a language that... " or "Mathematics is the language which...". And like all languages, you learn what the NEW word/symbol/signifier means IN YOUR OWN LANGUAGE so that you can translate: attach meaning to the new squiggle on the page in terms you already know. What does "<" mean? What does "!" mean? How do we use the word "any" in mathematics and how is it different to the way we use it in the super market? Never mind overloaded terms such as "element" or "power". And then there's the discourse: how we talk mathematics. The way we rationalize our responses, structure logical arguments. A lovely example is Goldbach's conjecture (I had to look that one up because I always get it confused with Riemann's hypothesis. Oh well...). Goldbach's conjecture is still unsolved and is very easily stated. Something like this:
Every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes.
Simple huh? But every word is used in a mathematical way. The word "every". The word "expressed". The word "prime". Mastering such overloaded lexica AS WELL AS the style/register of mathematics is difficult enough in your own language, never mind a second language, and certainly not in a language that is--for all intensive purposes--foreign.
So when our children are learning mathematics in English but they speak isiXhosa 90% of the time, well, making real meaning is very difficult. This combines with rote learning, teachers who are unconfident of their subject content knowledge and little linguistic resources to use to acquire English in order to acquire mathematics. The textbooks are in English. The exams are in English. And a kid who gets a question like "b) Hence, determine the roots of the new equation if p=0" ... well, you can guess what happens.
But I'm not happy with my conference submission for a couple of reasons:
In particular, the crappy word count doesn't give space to unpack and explore problematic terms such as "rural" or "poorly trained" teachers. When I describe the village as "homogenously isiXhosa speaking", well, it doesn't feel quite right: such a whopping big generalization is not au fait in academia. Grr... now I'll have to waste 5 of my 10 minutes of presentation time sounding defensive while I qualify what I meant when I wrote that near-midnight-rushed-submission. I promise the quality of the work is better than the submission! Promise!
Meantime, here's hoping I'll get to really chew the fat over some of the things troubling me about the research. Like validity issues around measuring and studying beliefs (ouch!).
One positive thing though. My work in my new school over the last 3 months has confirmed the major trajectory of the research. What teachers believe about their work is one of the core fundamental variables in determining what they are willing to try and how they are willing to change their practice. And effecting change in teacher practice is probably the single biggest thing we can do to improve our rather defunct education system. Connecting theory with practice! Here's hoping that comes through in the conference...
In about an hour I'm heading off to Seapoint to register for the 7th Mathematics Education in Society conference where I'll be presenting my Masters work and getting the opportunity to gather opinions and insights from people whose work I've been following for 5 years now. I'm rather excited!
More importantly, I've just reread the (very short! damn word count limits!) summary of my work I submitted ages ago as my conference application. I can't say I'm happy with it, but it was a furious click-send-at-23:59 submission so I shouldn't be surprised.
For those unaware, my Masters thesis is about teachers beliefs about mathematics teaching and language and how these things interact in the classroom. I'll do a follow up post about why very few South African children learn in their mother tongue and what implications research is showing from this (I'll delve into some of Neville Alexander's writing on language and political and educational emancipation to illustrate the point in said forth-coming blog. The topic deserves tomes of its own). Suffice to say for now, there is a very strong correlation between mathematics attainment and language of teaching and learning in SA. Of course, language of teaching and learning also proxies for many other variables that are known to have an effect on students' mathematical attainment, such as socio-economic circumstances, access to physical resources such as solid schools, textbooks and ICT equipment, access to human resources such as well-trained teachers etc. and this all comes saddled with the moribund gamut that is South African political and social history. But there's definitely something to the language variable on its own: across the world, students who learn in their home language learn better. It seems an obvious thing to say, but you'd be surprised at how controversial it is.
So I spent a month in a very rural school up in the Eastern Cape observing teachers and chatting to them about their thoughts about the role of language in their classrooms. Unsurprisingly, they didn't think it mattered much, and this is not an uncommon response. People think mathematics is symbols and numbers... the least language-dependent of the subjects. Not at all. Firstly mathematics is often described as a language itself. Choose a random textbook off the shelf and turn to the introduction. 10:1 says the first paragraph mentions something like "Mathematics is a language that... " or "Mathematics is the language which...". And like all languages, you learn what the NEW word/symbol/signifier means IN YOUR OWN LANGUAGE so that you can translate: attach meaning to the new squiggle on the page in terms you already know. What does "<" mean? What does "!" mean? How do we use the word "any" in mathematics and how is it different to the way we use it in the super market? Never mind overloaded terms such as "element" or "power". And then there's the discourse: how we talk mathematics. The way we rationalize our responses, structure logical arguments. A lovely example is Goldbach's conjecture (I had to look that one up because I always get it confused with Riemann's hypothesis. Oh well...). Goldbach's conjecture is still unsolved and is very easily stated. Something like this:
Every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes.
Simple huh? But every word is used in a mathematical way. The word "every". The word "expressed". The word "prime". Mastering such overloaded lexica AS WELL AS the style/register of mathematics is difficult enough in your own language, never mind a second language, and certainly not in a language that is--for all intensive purposes--foreign.
So when our children are learning mathematics in English but they speak isiXhosa 90% of the time, well, making real meaning is very difficult. This combines with rote learning, teachers who are unconfident of their subject content knowledge and little linguistic resources to use to acquire English in order to acquire mathematics. The textbooks are in English. The exams are in English. And a kid who gets a question like "b) Hence, determine the roots of the new equation if p=0" ... well, you can guess what happens.
But I'm not happy with my conference submission for a couple of reasons:
In particular, the crappy word count doesn't give space to unpack and explore problematic terms such as "rural" or "poorly trained" teachers. When I describe the village as "homogenously isiXhosa speaking", well, it doesn't feel quite right: such a whopping big generalization is not au fait in academia. Grr... now I'll have to waste 5 of my 10 minutes of presentation time sounding defensive while I qualify what I meant when I wrote that near-midnight-rushed-submission. I promise the quality of the work is better than the submission! Promise!
Meantime, here's hoping I'll get to really chew the fat over some of the things troubling me about the research. Like validity issues around measuring and studying beliefs (ouch!).
One positive thing though. My work in my new school over the last 3 months has confirmed the major trajectory of the research. What teachers believe about their work is one of the core fundamental variables in determining what they are willing to try and how they are willing to change their practice. And effecting change in teacher practice is probably the single biggest thing we can do to improve our rather defunct education system. Connecting theory with practice! Here's hoping that comes through in the conference...
Friday, 29 March 2013
Revelations in layers of humanity
Over end-of-term drinks, our principal quite rightly related an anecdote all teachers can relate to. It's the response one gets from people when you answer their "so what do you do?" question. They always say:
"oh, that must be SO rewarding!"
We can tell you now, categorically, that many, many, many days it is not. When you are constantly fighting with rude obnoxious teenagers who don't care how much they ignore or upset you... "rewarding" is not the word that comes to mind. This ain't gardening you know, despite what all those cheesy motivational posters might say.
There are many reasons to dislike my job. I would, however, like to describe one big reason why I LOVE my job.
I ADORE my job because of the extra layers of humanity it has revealed to me in people so very different to me. Whether these revelations are indicative of an unhealthy mindset I have/had or what not, I have yet to figure out. But this much I know: I don't see car guards or wire-flower sellers any more. I don't see domestic workers or taxi drivers. I don't see security guards or Checkers bag packers or trolley pushers or garbage men.
I now can't help but see the fathers and mothers of my children. These are the parents of my students: the ones who I call to help me when their teen is being a brat. The ones who come to talk with me about their child and we smile and greet and share tea. The ones like Bongi who, on seeing a class being rude to me, stormed in as the angry matriarch she is and put the students in their place pronto quick. Like Clive, who always asks how I am before we start talking about how to make sure his son comes to school. Like Angel, who always supports my corrective measures towards either of her sons and calls me 'her child' and invites me into her home.
Thank you, my heart-breaking-exhausting-soul-dessicating job for these friends and these insights. My life is richer for the connection and the personhood I can now see and feel in these strangers I encounter every day.
"oh, that must be SO rewarding!"
We can tell you now, categorically, that many, many, many days it is not. When you are constantly fighting with rude obnoxious teenagers who don't care how much they ignore or upset you... "rewarding" is not the word that comes to mind. This ain't gardening you know, despite what all those cheesy motivational posters might say.
There are many reasons to dislike my job. I would, however, like to describe one big reason why I LOVE my job.
I ADORE my job because of the extra layers of humanity it has revealed to me in people so very different to me. Whether these revelations are indicative of an unhealthy mindset I have/had or what not, I have yet to figure out. But this much I know: I don't see car guards or wire-flower sellers any more. I don't see domestic workers or taxi drivers. I don't see security guards or Checkers bag packers or trolley pushers or garbage men.
I now can't help but see the fathers and mothers of my children. These are the parents of my students: the ones who I call to help me when their teen is being a brat. The ones who come to talk with me about their child and we smile and greet and share tea. The ones like Bongi who, on seeing a class being rude to me, stormed in as the angry matriarch she is and put the students in their place pronto quick. Like Clive, who always asks how I am before we start talking about how to make sure his son comes to school. Like Angel, who always supports my corrective measures towards either of her sons and calls me 'her child' and invites me into her home.
Thank you, my heart-breaking-exhausting-soul-dessicating job for these friends and these insights. My life is richer for the connection and the personhood I can now see and feel in these strangers I encounter every day.
Thursday, 28 March 2013
The trick is to keep breathing
Today was our last day at school for the first term. I have here a list of things to blog about which has been growing and growing for the last 3 weeks and never managed to get around to writing about any of it. It's a pity really: they are all good topics and, I think, quite interesting. Some included issues such as our contact and working with social workers and support NGOs to support our students with their issues at home, my first meeting with curriculum advisors, an incident with a student which got a bit physical, the interview process of finding new teachers to fill the vacancies left by those who have left us (and along with this, the loss of our second teacher), my first discussion about religion with my students, amongst others. I'll do my best to briefly touch on these and others in a summative blog post, otherwise I'll run the risk of putting you to sleep with a blog post longer than my arm.
But first, the end of term. The sense of profound relief is indescribable. I've lost count of the number of times this term I've thought I just can't go on. Honestly, I'm not sure how we all have. I'd be lying if I sort of nodded, smiled and said 'yeah, but that's how I roll: I'm tough like that'. Bulls@£t. I have wanted to run to my mummy and cry like a baby... and I have (except it was my husband). I have lost my cool with the kids, more than once (and paid the price for it). I have sworn and cursed and driven too fast and drunk too much in response to the stress. So no heroes here. I'm pleased to say I have not lashed out at my students--this is just not something I think I have in me. But boy oh boy, there are a few who I would secretly smile at if they tripped and fell. And I don't like this in myself. It doesn't last too long, I'm pleased to say: for the most part, I'm really starting to like my kids, even the naughty ones. But in the heat of the moment...
How have we done? On reflection, kind of ok I think. We have done some fun activities in the last few days to keep the kids engaged and in school: our attendance hasn't been great towards the end of term (maybe 70-75%?) but I suspect this is better than average at this time of year. We had the fight of maintaining the learning after the end-of-term assessments, an event that was another window into what our students considered 'normal'--the idea that we would teach after these assessments was met with much anger and confusion. Our students are truly used to their teachers marking in lessons while the students run amok. Some responded to the rational argument about lost lessons accumulating, others just had to be told straight. And of course, the other side of this struggle has been as teachers to not succumb to the temptation to utilize this expectation from the students to make our lives easier. Sure, we could've marked during lessons. I'd probably have gotten more than 6 hours of sleep a night if I had. Tempting? of course it is. Some of us held out better than others, but we were all tempted to do this. In this week we have had a day of 'sporty stuff', including obstacle courses, sack races, soccer, netball, tug-of-war (we broke a 2 inch thick rope! I truly wish I'd seen all the grade 8s fall to the floor simultaneously >:) ) and a treasure hunt. The kids loved it. They went bos!! (SA slang for crazy). Loud, fast, furious, and crazy! Their sense of being able to lose is non-existent: the rule of the day was if you won, it wasn't cheating, but if the other team won, it was. If you didn't help your class cheat, you were 'fixing it'. We all shook our heads in disbelief at the approach to competition that the children took. If you asked the teachers, we'd say the day was nuts. But if you asked the kids, they would say it was awesome. At the end of the day, they didn't want to leave. 'nuff said.
There's never a dull moment you know. If we're not liaising with social services about situations of potential abuse, we're reeling from the loss of another teacher, or watching our kids start a car wash business in the car park, or wondering what to do about our students who eat the eugenia berries around the playground and sit in class farting intolerably as a result. Only just today, at our end-of-term awards ceremony, this small girl in my grade 8 class, a combination of shy and slightly chatty/cheeky, dressed up in her uxhentso traditional wear and transformed before our eyes into the most unbelievable 4 foot high umbongi (praise singer)!! She let forth in a huge voice--other-worldly in nature--a torrent of praise in isiXhosa to our headteacher, with her fly-switch of grass and her painted face, singing his praises for believing in them, for seeing a future for them, for coming to the community and building a school and how grateful the children were. The response from the staff and students alike was explosive: I have never jabbed my fist in the air as I did then. She was truly something else.
In the process she clapped him on the forehead with her fly switch. He only noticed as the trickle of blood dripped down his nose!! :D
Just when I think I know a student, I realise I don't. Just when I think I've got a class where I want them, they show me who is boss. Just when I think I'm getting enough sleep, something else crops up that needs doing: interviews, timetable, preparing for the curriculum advisors (this requires a separate blog entirely!) report entries and inter-colleague tensions that arise from this process. I won't lie: my alcohol intake has increased, in capacity and speed (as was evidenced by my boss's surprise at the rate I downed a 500ml cider at our post-school drink after school. Daily I'm horrified at a good student's capacity for lying and rudeness, at a troubled student's inability to empathize with his fellow students, only in the next hour to be over-awed at how happy 5 children are who got their reward of a KFC bucket and a coke each to share for lunch because they didn't miss a single day of their cleaning crew all term. In one day my class can raise me up from wanting to quit, and then another student puts me in an arm lock. Most of my students' marks are still terrible, and yet there are enough of them who have said in all honesty that they never knew they could like mathematics.
The next week brings loads of planning, a new school timetable as we welcome two new staff and a 5 day conference (MES7: www.mes7.uct.ac.za) where I will get to present my Master's research to an audience who represent an international body of experts on school's like mine. I'm really looking forward to taking what I have seen in the last 3 months and getting some alternative views on it. I could do with some ideas and inspiration for some of these issues. More posts about curriculum advisors and pedagogical stuff for those interested will follow shortly. In the mean time...
*ahhhh*
P.S. Props to any one who can post a comment naming the artist who sang the title song.
But first, the end of term. The sense of profound relief is indescribable. I've lost count of the number of times this term I've thought I just can't go on. Honestly, I'm not sure how we all have. I'd be lying if I sort of nodded, smiled and said 'yeah, but that's how I roll: I'm tough like that'. Bulls@£t. I have wanted to run to my mummy and cry like a baby... and I have (except it was my husband). I have lost my cool with the kids, more than once (and paid the price for it). I have sworn and cursed and driven too fast and drunk too much in response to the stress. So no heroes here. I'm pleased to say I have not lashed out at my students--this is just not something I think I have in me. But boy oh boy, there are a few who I would secretly smile at if they tripped and fell. And I don't like this in myself. It doesn't last too long, I'm pleased to say: for the most part, I'm really starting to like my kids, even the naughty ones. But in the heat of the moment...
How have we done? On reflection, kind of ok I think. We have done some fun activities in the last few days to keep the kids engaged and in school: our attendance hasn't been great towards the end of term (maybe 70-75%?) but I suspect this is better than average at this time of year. We had the fight of maintaining the learning after the end-of-term assessments, an event that was another window into what our students considered 'normal'--the idea that we would teach after these assessments was met with much anger and confusion. Our students are truly used to their teachers marking in lessons while the students run amok. Some responded to the rational argument about lost lessons accumulating, others just had to be told straight. And of course, the other side of this struggle has been as teachers to not succumb to the temptation to utilize this expectation from the students to make our lives easier. Sure, we could've marked during lessons. I'd probably have gotten more than 6 hours of sleep a night if I had. Tempting? of course it is. Some of us held out better than others, but we were all tempted to do this. In this week we have had a day of 'sporty stuff', including obstacle courses, sack races, soccer, netball, tug-of-war (we broke a 2 inch thick rope! I truly wish I'd seen all the grade 8s fall to the floor simultaneously >:) ) and a treasure hunt. The kids loved it. They went bos!! (SA slang for crazy). Loud, fast, furious, and crazy! Their sense of being able to lose is non-existent: the rule of the day was if you won, it wasn't cheating, but if the other team won, it was. If you didn't help your class cheat, you were 'fixing it'. We all shook our heads in disbelief at the approach to competition that the children took. If you asked the teachers, we'd say the day was nuts. But if you asked the kids, they would say it was awesome. At the end of the day, they didn't want to leave. 'nuff said.
There's never a dull moment you know. If we're not liaising with social services about situations of potential abuse, we're reeling from the loss of another teacher, or watching our kids start a car wash business in the car park, or wondering what to do about our students who eat the eugenia berries around the playground and sit in class farting intolerably as a result. Only just today, at our end-of-term awards ceremony, this small girl in my grade 8 class, a combination of shy and slightly chatty/cheeky, dressed up in her uxhentso traditional wear and transformed before our eyes into the most unbelievable 4 foot high umbongi (praise singer)!! She let forth in a huge voice--other-worldly in nature--a torrent of praise in isiXhosa to our headteacher, with her fly-switch of grass and her painted face, singing his praises for believing in them, for seeing a future for them, for coming to the community and building a school and how grateful the children were. The response from the staff and students alike was explosive: I have never jabbed my fist in the air as I did then. She was truly something else.
In the process she clapped him on the forehead with her fly switch. He only noticed as the trickle of blood dripped down his nose!! :D
Just when I think I know a student, I realise I don't. Just when I think I've got a class where I want them, they show me who is boss. Just when I think I'm getting enough sleep, something else crops up that needs doing: interviews, timetable, preparing for the curriculum advisors (this requires a separate blog entirely!) report entries and inter-colleague tensions that arise from this process. I won't lie: my alcohol intake has increased, in capacity and speed (as was evidenced by my boss's surprise at the rate I downed a 500ml cider at our post-school drink after school. Daily I'm horrified at a good student's capacity for lying and rudeness, at a troubled student's inability to empathize with his fellow students, only in the next hour to be over-awed at how happy 5 children are who got their reward of a KFC bucket and a coke each to share for lunch because they didn't miss a single day of their cleaning crew all term. In one day my class can raise me up from wanting to quit, and then another student puts me in an arm lock. Most of my students' marks are still terrible, and yet there are enough of them who have said in all honesty that they never knew they could like mathematics.
The next week brings loads of planning, a new school timetable as we welcome two new staff and a 5 day conference (MES7: www.mes7.uct.ac.za) where I will get to present my Master's research to an audience who represent an international body of experts on school's like mine. I'm really looking forward to taking what I have seen in the last 3 months and getting some alternative views on it. I could do with some ideas and inspiration for some of these issues. More posts about curriculum advisors and pedagogical stuff for those interested will follow shortly. In the mean time...
*ahhhh*
P.S. Props to any one who can post a comment naming the artist who sang the title song.
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