The previous section looked at the teachers through the viewpoint of their classroom practice and access to ICT. This section portrays their personal experiences and the school setting.
Below is a summary Table of their qualifications and school type, followed by a more detailed description of each individual, using the information offered by them in the free writing activity. It details the teaching experience, the qualifications that the teachers possessed and the type of school in which they taught. In Malta, the main categories of schools are Roman Catholic, private and government schools.
Table 4.2: Teachers and description of the schools
Greta David Rose Marceline Martha
Teaching Background 6 years’ teaching experience 6 years’ teaching experience. 15 years’ teaching experience 8 years’ teaching experience 11 years’ teaching experience Teaching qualificatio ns BA (Geography) then a PGCE
B.Ed (Art) Learnt how to teach from a fellow teacher. Then took a pedagogy course at University Facilitator course at University B.Ed School Type Boys’ Church School Mixed Government School Mixed Government School Mixed Private School Boys’ Church School
What follows are the results of the free writing exercise, where the teacher gave a little outline on what influenced him/her to become a teacher. These are of differing length as the teachers wrote these without further prompting. The following is an overview of what they wrote.
Greta
Greta feels that her life has been divided into phases. The first phase of her life was that of a young girl playing with her brother and sisters, then the years of schooling and sixth form came along. She got married young and started a family. After a few years she took up nursing as a profession, simultaneously helping her mum give
private lessons at home, as her mother is also a teacher. She then went back to university and graduated as a teacher in 1998. She has been working at a boys’ Church school since then.
David
David teaches at a government school. He has been teaching year 5 students (10- year-olds) for the past six years. He graduated from the University of Malta, specialising in Art, and uses this background as pivotal support for his teaching at primary level.
In his opinion, a teacher is a person who opens the doors:
‘presents opportunities and stimulates his learner to develop in a multitude of spheres: socially, linguistically, artistically, emotionally, etc. He is not there to impose himself but to trigger off something. A good teacher helps his students to unlock their potentialities and develop their talents. Education is really the basis on which our future society has to be built.’ (David free writing exercise)
Yet he is also a realist and believes that as teachers what we ought to do is to try and achieve the best results in the present circumstances.
Rose
Rose started her professional career working with the Civil Service. Due to family needs she decided to take up a career as a teacher. She received no formal training and was helped initially by former teachers. After a while she enrolled on a pedagogy course at the University of Malta. She has been teaching at a government school for the past ten years.
She believes that education is not just teaching children how to read and write. Everything teachers do is for the well-being of the child and must therefore be focused on developing the whole personality including the ability to work. ‘The
teacher should foster in his pupils fine qualities like honesty, integrity and consideration for others.’ In her classroom she tries to treat her pupils as individuals, so she tries to cater for all their needs and talents. ‘Also, teaching in my opinion is loving and giving; and you want to believe in your children’. This seems to be the basis of her philosophy towards education in general.
Marceline
Marceline works in a private school where the focus is on the transfer examination, which allows the students entrance into an academically orientated church school. She obtained a university diploma in pedagogy; coincidentally Rose (see above) studied with her in 1996. She believes that education means challenging children, providing new stimulating material for them and involving them in the educational process.
Martha
Martha taught while undertaking her undergraduate course in teaching. She graduated as a teacher in 1991. Since then she has worked in Church schools. She stated that she prefers to teach 6- to 10-year-old children as she can assign tasks and work with them more easily than with younger children who need more of her attention.
In her opinion, education is the process where she imparts knowledge to her students and they grasp this and make it their own. She also believes that listening to the students’ experiences is of value in the classroom. ‘On the other hand, I myself can learn from their experiences and students themselves learn from each other.’
She has encountered a variety of situations in class as her students have different learning abilities and she does not have access to a classroom assistant. She believes that education is helping children in their understanding and learning of new
subjects, and in the sharing of ideas and information; it also guides them in their behaviour in continuity with their education at home. She quoted B. F. Skinner in her writing to reflect her views: ‘Education is what survives when what had been learnt has been forgotten.’
With regard to ICT, she believes that in an ideal teaching situation the children in class would be surrounded with the necessary tools for ‘hands on experience’:
‘Computers in class are one good source for children to use although it is not advisable to be used at all times or for all subjects as vital human contact would become non-existent.’ (Martha free writing exercise)
4.3 The background culture
Learning within the process described within this research is the result of dynamic interaction between the individuals (the participating teachers), the setting, the pupils and me (the researcher). A factor which often plays a key role within such research, besides the background of the individuals, is their motive to take part in the research. Recent research on teacher learning has shifted the focus from teachers as isolated individuals to groups or communities in which they participate (Stein and Brown, 1997). Teachers’ thinking, in this view is social in nature and distributed across the individuals (Putnam and Borko, 2000).
The situation of all these teachers was similar in that they were trying to integrate the Romany software within their classrooms and they were practising teachers. The data from the interviews, which were held at the end of the research, established that they had taken part in the research for slightly different reasons:
(a) To collaborate. The initial research plan did not make specific arrangements for the teachers to meet and exchange ideas and practice. However, after consultation with the teachers, it was their suggestion that we should meet more often as they felt they needed the support found within the group.
(b) For professional development. They primarily wanted to find out more about the opportunities offered for professional development within the project and to learn more about the Minerva project. They joined the project because they were all keen to learn about new teaching resources and to reflect upon and change their practice.
(c) To socialise. Two of the teachers used to know each other years before the project had started and had not met since. The project allowed them to socialise as a group and they also met up outside the group.
Learning within this group was to be located in the cognitive structures and mental representations of individual teachers, and was to become situated in the ‘fields of interaction’ among individuals (Hanks, 1991). In fact, Vygotsky (1978) maintains that learning for individuals always takes place in a social context where learners seek support from more able peers or teachers and/or technical tools or artefacts in their ‘zone of proximal development’. Through guided participation in this shared activity, individuals were to appropriate the knowledge, skills and information needed to function within their particular group (Putnam and Borko, 2000). Just as children acquire knowledge and behaviours specific to the familial and community contexts, the participant teachers will acquire knowledge and behaviour that were part of the context of their group.