INVENTARIO DE DEPRESIÓN DE BECK

Among the constraints which the teachers face in teaching environmental education are factors which contribute to the teachers’ ability to teach environmental education effectively. The issues which the teachers were concerned with are related to teacher competence in environmental education. Competence here refers to the teachers’ ability to teach environmental education in terms of content and methodology to make the pupils understand it well. Another issue was support from colleagues and the school administration. In analyzing the responses of the teachers it was noted that the critical aspects in this category are lack of expertise and lack of collegial and administrative support.

C-T1. Lack of expertise

The teachers talked about the notion of expertise in terms of having mastery over environmental education knowledge. They argued that in order for teachers to be able to teach environmental education they have to know the content and also be confident that they can teach it. As stated earlier, most of the teachers claimed that they have not been trained to teach environmental education while training as teachers in teacher training college nor have they received any in-service training in environmental education. As a result of this they feel that it is a

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challenge to teach environmental education. Examples of these feelings are shown below:

“The challenge which I face in the teaching of environmental education is that I do not have the expertise to teach it. I lack environmental knowledge and skills [...].” (Fremo, F)

“Inadequate environmental education knowledge and skills on the part of teachers is a big challenge to the teaching of environmental education. It is true that not all the teachers who are now teaching in the schools have been trained in environmental education when training as teachers in teacher training college. So there are teachers who are in schools who have no idea of environmental education. As a result, we feel challenged when we are told that we should teach environmental education in our subjects.” (Muso, M).

“[....] another challenge is lack of adequate knowledge and skills to teach environmental education. To teach any subject you need to have knowledge about that subject. So in order for me to be able to teach environmental education, I need to have the knowledge. Since I did not study that subject in school or in teacher training college, I find it very difficult to include it in my subjects.” (Mark, M)

According to what the teachers said, they face constraints in the teaching of environmental education because they claim that they did not get enough training on how to teach it while they were being trained as teachers. So there are teachers in schools who have no idea of how to teach environmental education. The situation could have been improved through collegial support, as discussed in the next sub-category.

C-T2. Lack of collegial and administration support

Some teachers pointed out that one of the challenges of teaching environmental education is lack of support from their fellow teachers and sometimes from the school administration. This lack of support prevents them teaching environmental education effectively and even carrying out environmental management activities in the school with the pupils:

“As teachers we need to support each other. One of the challenges I have in teaching environmental education is lack of support from other teachers. For example, if I want to teach something that I do not have enough knowledge about, and I go to ask other teachers for help, sometimes they say they do not have time or they tell me that they also do not know.”(Mangowi, F)

“[....] In addition to lack of collegial support, another challenge is lack of support from the school administration. Sometimes as a teacher I may plan to do something like starting a tree nursery in the school so that we can get seedlings to plant in our school ground. When I go to ask support from the head teacher, instead of the head teacher supporting me he/she discourages me by telling me that you cannot have a tree nursery in the town or there are no funds for the activity.” (Muso, M)

Teachers expect to learn from each other and also they expect the school administration to support them in what they plan to do and teach. But from the teachers’ utterances, there is lack of collegial and administration support among the teachers in the primary schools as far as the teaching of environmental education is concerned.

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The constraints perceived by the teachers above reveal that the implementation of environmental education in the primary schools is not done effectively. The fact that teachers realize the presence of these constraints indicates that they are concerned with finding ways in which to overcome them so that they can teach environmental education effectively.

4.6 Teachers' suggestions for improving environmental education in

primary schools

In the teachers’ suggestions on how the teaching of environmental education can be improved in primary schools, I could identify two categories, namely training

needs and teaching and learning materials needs. In the first category the focus

is developing the teachers’ environmental education knowledge base through training. The teachers’ suggestions could be grouped into two sub-categories, which were pre-service training and further training. The availability of teaching and learning materials was expressed in the second category. In this category the teachers’ suggestions were grouped into two sub-categories, namely the availability of teaching guidelines and availability of textbooks. An overview of the categories and their sub-categories is shown in Figure 17.

Figure 17. An overview of teachers’ suggestions for improving the teaching of environmental