A new generation of teachers is aiming to rebrand the profession.
Most news about education and teachers in South Africa tends to be demoralising and grim. Whether international benchmarking placing South African education last in the world, or close to it, or reports on the high rate of teacher absenteeism and poor content knowledge, hope seems hard to come by.
When stories about the country’s teachers make their way to the newspapers or posters on light poles, they are often disturbing and discouraging headlines of misconduct or negligence, and rightfully so as education and the teaching profession remain in dire dysfunction.
But a new generation of teachers is beginning to emerge, aiming to redefine and rebrand the profession.
They are coalescing around principles of student-centred learning, decolonisation, personal development and a professionalism based on integrity, peer accountability and the needs of children.
These aspiring teachers reflect critically on each other’s work and themselves to develop effective teaching methods and the necessary personal capacity to thrive in the reality of today’s classrooms.
Their values are clear, and they are expressed often: develop oneself, collaborate and share, put the child at the centre, reflect constantly and use the classroom to build a better world.
What distinguishes this emerging set of teacher standards from others is the emphasis on personal accountability as opposed to the compliance culture that has overwhelmed the profession.
One young teacher recently wrote on Facebook: “My thinking and my doings have not been collaborating. I got to realise that when your actions do not meet your own standards, what are you doing exactly?”
The idea that teachers are bound by their own inner code more than a managerial or contractual obligation to deliver is the 21st-century professionalism policymakers fantasise about.
Where are these teachers coming from? Much of the momentum for this fledgling movement has
originated from aspiring teachers in internships that place them in schools for the duration of their studies. They serve as assistant teachers and integrate theory and practice. This early and in-depth exposure to school life, coupled with mentorship from experienced teachers, has helped to instil a commitment to children and the capacity to deliver quality instruction. Training in context has helped to engender a deep commitment to teaching and the practical understanding of how to activate change.
Recently, 250 aspiring teachers converged on the University of the Witwatersrand during the school holidays to hone their skills and face difficult questions about themselves and what their role will be in reinventing the profession. They showed up even when schools were closed.
We don’t need to wait for years to witness the capacity of this cohort; they planned and organised the Aspiring Teachers Convention, which was part of the Axis Education Summit, a five-day convergence of educational stakeholders and thought leaders.
These young teachers led school leaders, teachers and government officials through workshops and began to unveil new possibilities, building the event around the theme of “realising a new story for education”.
They have little patience for endless complaining and are dedicated to moving past the diagnosis of current educational woes to actualising a new future and realising innovations, solutions and progress.
To ensure they were understood, 20 aspiring teachers took to the stage during a plenary session at the Axis Forum and asked qualified teachers to stand up. They asked for guidance, mentorship and support. They asked to be encouraged as the future of the sector and not to be seen as a threat to current comforts. They asked to be nurtured and for their decision to become teachers to be celebrated and not criticised by their seniors.
One young teacher explained how demoralising it was to show up enthusiastically for her first teaching practical only to find the staffroom filled with suggestions that she study something more worthwhile.
Beyond their requests was an unequivocal statement that, whether or not older teachers and school leaders were ready for the new brigade, they were here and were committed to carrying the profession and the schoolchildren into a new reality of success, opportunity and hope.
At an age that can feel bewildering, these aspiring teachers have claimed a mantle that forces all of us to ask ourselves whether we are part of the new or the old story of education: the old story being teacher-centred, individually oriented, competitive and compliant and the new being learner-focused, community- and socially minded, collaborative and challenging.
In a social media post after the summit one young teacher summarised the event perfectly: “We came, we saw, we learnt, we shared, we dove into educational issues, came up with solutions … and now, we work to reinvent education, to tell our side of the story, a new story.”
Just imagine what the headlines might be in this new story.
Nigel Richard is the general manager of the Global Teachers Institute