Mmamosadi Monareng, Thamsanqa Makhathini and Colin van Tooren are category winners in the annual Aggrey Klaaste Mathematics, Science and Technology Educator of the Year Awards. Their hard work and dedication has won them each 20 computers for the schools they serve.
Monareng won the General Education and Training category; Makha-thini the Further Education and Training category; and Van Tooren, the Retired category. The awards function was held in Midrand, Gauteng, recently and was attended by, among others, Education Minister Naledi Pandor.
Eight years ago, the Telkom Foundation and the Aggrey Klaaste Nation Building Foundation decided to put together an award that would recognise and reward deserving teachers in the maths, science and technology arenas. The objectives are to increase an awareness around maths and science, create prestige for otherwise neglected fields and reward excellence by acknowledging hard-working individuals who are making a difference.
The Aggrey Klaaste Mathematics, Science and Technology Educator of the Year Awards then evolved.
The awards are open to public school teachers at the General Education and Training level and the Further Education and Training level, and to teachers who have retired from the profession. The finalists for these awards are chosen through a provincial awards system and must meet strict criteria. They must demonstrate a love for maths, science or technology and show a willingness to explore new ideas to improve teaching. They must encourage learners to become independent and instil in them a love for maths, science or technology; and they should have a proven track record in producing good results.
Such educators must also lead by example and be respected members of their community; encourage learners to discover and explore maths, science or technology projects using relevant methods; and must also participate in professional associations and display content knowledge for teaching.
Monareng, who teaches technology to grade seven and eight learners and maths to grade seven learners at Kayalethu Secondary School, near Sun City in the North West, says the award came ”due to my dedication and knowledge of the subject content of technology”.
She does not rush home at 2pm when school ends but is available to learners for assistance. She is also involved in maths remedial classes for grade 12 learners who need assistance.
Her technology learners do not use computers at this impoverished school, but Monareng gives them resource and capability tasks – learners are encouraged to collect unwanted items from their homes, which are used in class. ”We have projects where we use recycled goods like cardboard boxes and plastics,” she says. Furthermore, she tries to make lessons interesting through the use of exciting visuals.
Monareng, who has been teaching at Kayalethu since 2004, will be setting up a computer science laboratory where she will be introducing com-puter literacy to learners.
Van Tooren, who won the retired category, said winning the award was ”about the most exciting thing in a long teaching career”. Based in Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal, Van Tooren started teaching in 1961 and after retiring as headmaster of Eshowe High School in 1991, he spent nine years as a senior lecturer at the Eshowe College of Education. It was here that he realised the severe lack of personnel and apparatus in the teaching of the sciences. ”I didnt know how to help. However, a friend in Grahamstown had a mobile biology lab. I adapted the idea to suit the science circuit.”
Van Tooren sent his project plan for a mobile science laboratory to the Shuttleworth Foundation and three years later received sponsorship. In August 2006, Van Tooren set off in his bakkie (known as the Eshowe Mobile Science Lab) equipped with apparatus and instruments and visited matric learners in 16 rural schools. ”I drive to a [scheduled] school with two technicians and demonstrate practicals”. The team covers 19 examinable practicals in the grade 11 and 12 science syllabus. They set up experiments, strip them, divide the class into three or four groups and get the learners to do the experiments themselves. ”Some of these learners have never seen a test tube before and they are very receptive to the demonstrations,” said Van Tooren.
Van Tooren’s intervention last year saw an improvement in the performance of learners who attended the practicals. This year his mobile lab will visit 33 schools and he is expecting support from the KwaZulu-Natal education department.
His 20 computers will be housed in the Eshowe Environmental Centre and will be accessible to the 33 schools he is reaching out to.