In this brief article, Professor Morrow states strongly that teachers are
central to the transformation of education and the reconstruction of
society in South Africa. But in order to carry out this role, teachers
themselves must rediscover their special professional responsibilities, and
come to see themselves as agents, not as victims.
All professions are required to be accountable in various ways for the
quality of the service they render – to their clients, to the public and to
their fellow professionals. In the article from which this excerpt is taken,
the writer analyses five forms of accountability that may operate in various
institutions in a democratic society. Only two of these forms are applicable
to teaching on a regular, day-to-day basis. A third form – legal
accountability – comes into effect from time to time when a teacher,
school, or education department is held to account in a court of law as a
result of legal action, perhaps on the part of parents.
Possibly the most significant professional choice that teachers make
(consciously or unconsciously) relates to how they see their responsibilities
as people in authority. In this note, originally written for a University of
the Western Cape study guide, Professor Morrow tries to help teachers
understand this authority role.
In order to do so, he introduces a number of significant distinctions. Some
of the most important of these distinctions are those between power and
authority (that is, legitimate, democratic authority); between political
authority and educational authority; and between control and
discipline.
Teachers often confuse authority with power, to use the distinction made
at the beginning of Reading 11. Probably the most common means of
wielding power (for teachers) has been the use of corporal punishment.
The following extract was taken from a two-part article in The Educator’s
Voice, published by SADTU. Vally briefly analyses some of the reasons for
the popularity of corporal punishment among teachers in South Africa.
Corporal punishment is of course now illegal in South Africa (as it is in
many countries). However, it still has many supporters among teachers
and parents.
Vally goes on to summarize a number of different research findings that
indicate that corporal punishment has few, if any, educational advantages.
Even if you feel inclined to question the research, the question remains:
should professional teachers advocate a practice upon which so much
doubt has been cast?
In this edited extract, Andy Hargreaves explains how the momentous
changes in the world in the last few decades have also changed the way
we think. The author talks about a ‘modern’ world and a ‘post-modern’
world. What does he mean by these terms?
With all the talk of teaching towards the achievement of competency and
skills in the wake of outcomes-based education in South Africa, it is easy
to forget that these should not be taught in a vacuum, or to the exclusion
of other forms of knowledge. In addition to knowing ‘how to’ do
something, we also need to ‘know that’ (content knowledge) and know
how to form a judgement about issues (values and dispositions).
In this article, Mark Mason, one of the authors of this module, argues that
it is vital to integrate all three forms of knowledge – propositional
knowledge (‘knowing that’), procedural knowledge (‘knowing how’), and
dispositional knowledge (knowing what our purpose is and whether it is
good).
