Monday, August 30, 2010

When our pupils return to school...

The third week of the Public Servants strike has struck - our children - the cannon fodder in a "big-people's" battle.

Little hopeful eyes peered around the door, while the teachers sat engaged in a staff meeting this morning; discussing whether we could, or should try, to guarantee the safety of other mothers' children.

"Can we come to school, Ma'am?" These little brave-hearts were dressed in the full school uniform of our school which they are longing to attend. Their teachers drew close to them and tried to answer their questions. Their teachers tried to find out what they would do today and if there was someone at home to care for them.

Once again, the education system and the government, which promised "equal learning opportunities for all" has failed our children. "Sorry, no school today."

Today, again, we must postpone the inevitable question : When our children return to school how are we going to make up for the time they have missed?

Apart from tuition time missed, we will also have to ask ourselves some very uncomfortable questions about our conduct over this strike period. How are we going to regain the respect of these learners who look to us for guidance; who look to us as role models; who look to us as caregivers during the eight hour school day?

In times of civil upheaval, teachers need to be in their classrooms offering reassurance to the children of the land. That we are prevented from doing so, tells us something about how we, as South Africans, view and treat our children.

And so this morning I re-read the McKinsey & Company report which is entitled `How the world's best-performing school systems come out on top." Not surprisingly, the report refers to the fact that it is not about the money we invest in an education system that determines the success of that system.

Inspired by McKinsey's report, I visited nationmaster.com/stats to gather a few statistics of my own. I compared the percentage of total government expenditure on education in the top ten educational systems (as quoted in the Preface of the McKinsey Report) to that of education expenditure in South Africa. Other than Hong Kong, South Africa's government spends more of the total government budget on education, than the other nine top school systems in the world (as bench-marked by "The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)" and quoted in the McKinsey report.)

So, while our teachers are on strike, we must remember that education never was and never will be just about money. As we strive towards the "professionalisation" of the education system in South Africa; maybe we need to question whether we are not, in fact, wasting money on education when the quality of a system rests on the quality of its teachers.

Maybe we need to ask particularly home-grown questions and face some good old home-truths at this time. How is that some teachers , in previously and currently disadvantaged schools still manage to assist their learners to excel academically ?

Maybe, learner performance is not about resources, class sizes, access to technology, or even basic services ? Maybe it has something to do with our teachers' attitude towards schooling, children, education, and teaching ?

As professional teachers, it is high time we took responsibility for our learners' results.So when our children return to school, we need to answer their questions honestly. We need to be gentle and set up programs that will not "punish" our learners for time lost.

When our children return to school we must try to pick up where we left off. We must revise the work we were busy with and slowly add new skills and layers of knowledge. We need to timetable carefully and keep our assessments to a level that is within the capabilities of the learners.

Before the strike struck, we all should have covered enough work and completed enough assessment tasks, to ensure that the learners' academic reports this term are a true reflection of their abilities.

While we have been `learner-less' teachers over the last two weeks we have all had time to create notes and workbooks and graded catch-up programs. If children come back to school to meet teachers who have not prepared properly for the weeks which remain of the academic year; can we expect them to view us as professionals ?

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Teachers Teach; Learners Learn. Some ideas on how to keep your teachers busy during the strike.

In our school, I have a personal dictum which I share constantly with my teaching staff. My dictum is simple: "If you see a child; teach it."

South African teachers have, I am sure, all read the chilling reports written by researchers such as Linda Chisholm on achieving versus underachieving schools in South Africa.

The so-called functional schools, share some common characteristics. In the functioning schools in our country, teachers do what they are paid to do: teach. These professional teachers use whatever resources they have to do the best possible job that they can. Teachers in performing schools take pride in their work and accept responsibility for the results their learners attain.

In under-performing schools, teacher absenteeism rates are high. When teachers are not present in their classrooms, teaching does not happen. When teaching does not happen, learners do not learn. When learners do not learn, they join thousands of young people who have no National Senior Certificate and very little chance of continuing their education, or even finding employment.

The National Teachers' Strike is dragging into its second and even third week, for some schools. If there are no learners in your classrooms for your teachers to teach, how can you keep your teachers occupied ?

Fortunately, professional teachers are always willing to learn and improve themselves. This time of non-teaching provides an ideal opportunity for teacher self- improvement. Start with what the teachers know best - their subjects and their learners' abilities.

Teachers can draft a strike recovery plan of their own. This needs to take the form of clear, simple and self-explanatory notes of the sections of work missed. Each note needs to be followed by exercises and assessment tasks, which will be a good measure of just how useful their notes have been.

Teachers need to keep these notes original and fresh. Teachers can take this opportunity to allow their creative juices to flow. Why not encourage your teachers to draw original pictures, or create cartoons, to capture and sustain the learners' interest ?

I believe that teachers are perfectly placed to make real money from education. I am obviously not referring to their paltry salaries. The syllabus is set to change again. When there are curriculum changes, there is a need for new textbooks and textbook content. Why not encourage your staff to start on the rough draft of their own textbooks, or at least workbooks, now ?


Teachers can start by doing a critical analysis of the textbooks currently available for their subjects and learning areas. Teachers are the best people to assess where gaps exist, and where improvements could be made to the textbooks in use.

Make sure that all staff are fully informed about copyright laws and set a challenge - a worksheet, a module or chapter a day.

If your staff are dubious about ever seeing their name in print, whet their appetites, it is simple! Make the Internet available to your staff and ask each person to start by writing a "how to" article in their area of expertise for Wikihow.

Once your teachers have seen their name on a screen, which millions of people visit each day, encourage them to start looking for other Internet writing opportunities. There are many ways to sell content on the Internet. Teachers can share their most successful lessons, notes, and even worksheets; and get paid for the work that many learners take for granted. Notes are often filed or pasted into a book and thrown away at the end of the year. Why not encourage your teachers to share their expertise with millions of people, not just a few classes of learners ?

Encourage your teachers to start copyrighting their own content, to lay claim to the intellectual rights that exist in their work. If your staff are being paid for their notes and worksheets, the quality of these will obviously improve and, in the end, your learners will benefit.

Schools of Substance and the Public Service Strike


If one looks at the most effective school systems in the world, one will notice a common thread. Teachers in effective schooling systems are treated as professionals, in the every sense of the word.

Teachers in Sweden, for example, earn more than members of the medical profession. Governments who wish to elevate the profession of teaching put their money where their mouth is. It is true that average citizens see earnings as a means of judging the value of a particular profession.

Higher salaries create a situation where a higher public status is afforded to the profession. I am obviously then, in favour of higher salaries for South African educators.

Professionalism is not, however, only about a salary. Professionals are expected to earn their salary and do the job they were appointed to do. When a nation's teachers go on strike and flaunt the very ethics on which their profession is based, public sympathy and respect diminish.

Professional teachers are, by definition, guided in all they do by the needs of the clients they serve: the learners, their parents and the broader school community.  By drawing alongside non-essential staff in a Public Sector Strike, we lose sight of the fact that, like nurses and doctors; we are essential services staff. We can teach if our refuse is not collected, if the buildings are not cleaned for us but by us; but we cannot teach if we are not where we belong - in our classrooms, in front of our classes.

In our little town, the streets are full of bereft looking children, looking for something to do. Hopeful faces appear at my office door at 6.30 a.m. every morning to ask, "Ma'am, can we come back to school today?" Little legions of children arrived from nowhere to assist as we fought a small veld fire behind our hostel a few days ago.

Matric scholars sneak onto the premises in casual clothes, like criminals. Their crime: a desire to receive tuition and guidance before their Preliminary examinations. Teachers' stress levels are at an all time high as they are faced with school safety issues that equal the pressures of teaching during a civil war. Can we guarantee the safety of our learners? Can we accept responsibility for injuries sustained while we practise the `in loco parentis' role afforded to us by the very laws which underpin our profession?

Daily, dedicated teachers arrive at school despite threats from fellow teachers in the community. Daily, we continue preparing lessons and drawing up assessments for children who should be in the classrooms. We are excited about new resources found in bookrooms and libraries and on the Internet and we are dying to share these with our absent learners. Daily we plan for 2011 in the hope that next year can proceed without disruptions and a very unprofessional loss of teaching time.

What of the examinations scheduled for two days time? Does a professional miss a deadline? Do professionals put their needs before the needs of their clients? Does a professional colleague run to their teachers' union to report that a clandestine activity - the writing of scheduled examinations - is going ahead at the very institution at which they are employed?

Professional teachers need to evaluate their tactics during this time. Professionals do not take to the streets or prevent others from doing their jobs. Our government needs to sit down with teachers' unions and negotiate professional quality management systems that will ensure that our nation's truly professional teachers attain the increases they deserve (and have earned) as any other professional the world over could expect.

During times of strike action, the dignity of our profession is colored, not only in the eyes of society at large but in the eyes of the children we undertook to teach when we joined the profession.