3.! Para la Situación: Representando el Movimiento

Theme 1 of research sub-question 2: Teachers provided real-life scenarios and used prompt and open-ended questions to elicit learners’ pre-instructional knowledge arising from their socio-cultural practices, experiences and beliefs.

The teachers ascertained learners’ pre-instructional knowledge arising from their sociocultural practices, experience and beliefs as the basis for teaching new content. They used prompt and open-ended questions in teaching infertility and the menstrual cycle in the female reproductive system. Ascertaining learners’ pre-instructional knowledge prevented

distortion of new concepts in cases where prior knowledge from their socio-cultural practices, experiences and beliefs conflicted with new content (Manokore et al., 2014), as learners tend to transform meaning based on previous knowledge (Campbell & Campbell, 2009). Teachers provided meaningful science teaching to the learners through the use of real-life scenarios that connect science with learners’ lives. In a way, the teachers identified conceptual difficulties that were likely to be experienced by their learners at specific points and addressed them to allow smooth acquisition of new concepts under study. The theme is discussed below.

4.3.2.1 Lesson on the female reproductive system and infertility in humans

In one of the lessons observed, one of the teachers, Thuli, provided a case scenario of a woman who could not conceive. Such concepts had not been dealt with before in class, so it required learners to bring knowledge built up from years of experience in their communities. The teacher inquired: ‘What could be the problem?’ The question stimulated discussion, with some learners placing blame on the husband and others on the woman. Some suggested that the woman was bewitched or cursed by ancestral spirits. The teacher withheld certain information to allow learners to explore possible reasons for infertility and channel learners’ thinking towards certain concepts to be covered. The teacher intermittently provided information, for example that the medical doctor confirmed that the woman could produce eggs (ova) and that the husband was fertile. The teacher then asked: ‘What then could possibly be affecting the couple?’

This provoked learners to explore other possible causes of infertility and even to question their earlier reasons. This illustrates a typical process of research in science which emphasises the importance of ascertaining variables before coming up with conclusions. In a way, the teacher used some elements of guided discovery approach by giving learners incomplete information. In providing more information to the learners later, the teacher provoked learners to think for other causes of infertility. The reasons why a woman could not conceive are many and varied, but the teacher gave the learners guidance through questions so that they could reason along the desired path. For instance, after considering varied causes of infertility that involve the male, the learners’ focus turned back to the

Class and group discussions of the above real-life scenario enabled learners to express ideas which if ignored could have created barriers to the understanding of new concepts. Some learners’ ideas were scientifically wrong, for instance, that HIV/AIDS could have caused infertility in the woman. The teacher made reference to a local orphanage home in the community that caters for orphans born of HIV-positive women and asked: ‘What do you have to say about those orphans?’ This made the learners abandon the idea and focused on STIs as possible causes of infertility.

Thuli failed to pursue the issue of witchcraft and also failed to comment on the issue of ancestors where some learners suggested the importance of spiritual guidance for effective infertility therapy. Such information brought up by learners demonstrates how learners’ worldviews are influenced by their socio-cultural beliefs and practices. During interviews done after the lessons the teacher indicated that she was not aware of how to address such issues as they tend to conflict with science knowledge. This shows that learners may bring socio-cultural beliefs that are contentious and might prove to be counterproductive. For instance in an observation of a lesson on that same section, Peter said: ‘To be honest with you when it comes to things involving witchcraft, I cannot help the children much because I also don’t understand whether it really happens or not.’

On options for the woman to have a child, adoption came first from different classes. The teachers revealed that learners were quick to suggest adoption since quite a number of them were adopted. Others lived close to the orphanage where adopted children led a comfortable life style under the care of people other than their parents. Adoption was a reality and a meaningful solution to infertility. This was a typical incident when the learners easily applied their everyday knowledge and experiences during the science learning process. To the learners, adoption was a meaningful and reasonable solution to the woman’s ordeal of infertility.

One learner pointed out that the woman was supposed to let her husband marry her young sister who could bear children for the family. This was received with applause from the boys and the whole class erupted into laughter probably because the learners identified with such practices in their families or communities. During a post-lesson interview, the teachers

pointed out that in the African traditional culture learners may have witnessed a man marrying many wives possibly for the reason in the scenario above. The teacher inquired from the learners whether or not the child born of the younger woman would belong to the elder sister and most of the learners agreed. The younger sister would be bearing children on behalf of the elder sister. The teacher closed the discussion by asking learners, ‘How else can an infertile woman have children other than through the ways we have already discussed?’ This was in preparation for the upcoming lessons on surrogacy in section 4.3.4.1.

During class discussion, the teachers did not readily provide learners with information that could have made it easier for them to answer the questions on why the woman in scenario was failing to fall pregnant. Connections between a real-life scenario and scientific concepts enabled the teachers to elicit learners’ pre-instructional knowledge. Use of prompt and open-ended questions helped teachers elicit learners’ alternative conceptions that could have remained unarticulated if the teacher had not provided the scenario.

In a post-lesson interview Thuli insisted that she was never keen to provide her learners with all the information because she wanted them to learn to gather information on their own and also think for themselves. This is a good gesture on the part of the teacher as learners became active and the teacher could elicit misconceptions, which could have remained unarticulated. In any case, teachers should not assume that the learners come to the science classroom without any concepts or ideas related to the topic to be learnt, particularly in this day of global village. As a result, learners stated valuable ways of solving the problem of infertility which included the traditional ways, which might not have been discussed if the teacher had not asked them to research. An important point to note is how the teacher made use of the scenario of an infertile female which learners could have witnessed or heard about even in their family structures, to discussing the female reproductive system and then discussed other pertinent scientific concepts such as HIV (initiated by learners) which is rampant in society though not related to infertility.

As a result, the teacher made connections in the lesson between a real-life scenario and scientific concepts which helped the teacher to elicit learners’ pre-instructional knowledge.

In turn, learners were reflective of their learning when they compared the traditional views on infertility mentioned at the beginning of the lesson to the scientific explanations later learnt as they answered questions during the lesson.

4.3.2.2 Lesson on the menstrual cycle

In interviews done after the lessons, teachers pointed out that traditionally parents are not comfortable discussing issues of sexuality with their children. Instead, such roles of sexual education and orientation are assigned to the aunts and uncles. Because most learners are no longer in touch with their extended families due to urban migration, teachers adopted new roles as they incorporated learners’ socio-cultural practices, experiences and beliefs, which Irvine (2003) refers to as parental/surrogate roles. In certain instances, the teachers did not bring in scenarios for discussion, but learners raised sexuality issues of concern to get solutions or explanations to some experiences they encounter in their lives. Learners made attempts to validate what they already knew about sexuality against the scientific concepts they had learnt or tried to relate the scientific concepts to their own life experiences. As a result, the teachers pointed out that in certain instances it was disturbing to note the level of ignorance and misconceptions that learners display in terms of their reproductive systems.

An example is of a lesson observed where one learner asked: ‘What causes period pains?’ Two interesting responses from two learners are given below.

Learner 1: There is too much dirt in your body so menstruation is a way of removing the filthy stuff from the body, the body is cleaning itself, my grandmother told me so.

Learner 2: This cleans evil spirit from your body.

The teacher in this case, Nhlamulo, asked the learners to explain the source of the dirt when he said: ‘How does the dirt end up in the body?’ One learner retorted: ‘It’s coming from some of the junk food we eat.’

The response shows that the learner could not distinguish the reproductive system from the digestive system. The teacher went out of his way to display a chart on the digestive system

and another on the reproductive system to assist the learners to discern the difference between the two processes. It would have been more helpful to the learners had the teacher exhibited similar charts on the circulatory system and nervous systems so that the learners could have understood the connectivity of the systems. During this lesson, girls were unusually more attentive and keen to grasp the concept than the boys, probably because the lesson concerned their bodies and experiences. In this particular case, it is not clear why the grandmother decided to misinform the learner. Most probably she could not find the best approach to explain the concept to the learner or it could be that as a traditional African parent she was not keen to discuss matters of sexuality with the child as has already been asserted.

Another learner inquired, ‘what is the length of pregnancy in humans?’ which some of the learners thought was obvious. The learner pursued her issue when she queried whether it does not depend on the individual since her cousin was pregnant for a year. Another learner concurred as she pointed out that her neighbour always has pregnancies whose period stretched way beyond nine months. The teacher allowed learners to discuss it among themselves, which gave the teacher time to recollect and identify the most plausible explanation to give to the learners. At the end, the learners were asked to identify the gestation periods of different animals. In those discussions the learners realised that the information on the gestation periods of other animals was a result of observations and experiments in the same way the gestation period of humans was determined. In the end, learners concluded that the periods were approximate and not exact, and that they could be influenced by different circumstances.

From the results above, teachers’ use of prompt and open-ended questions helped them to elicit learners’ pre-instructional knowledge as the learners tried to answer each other’s questions. Science teaching was linked to everyday real-life situations to which those scientific concepts were related. In this way, teachers managed to identify gaps which learners’ social-cultural beliefs and practices could create between what they teach and what is learnt. At the same time such teaching approaches enabled the teachers to tackle challenges posed by the belief systems learners hold which may interfere in the learners’

distinguish scientific knowledge from their worldviews and to be able to deduce any connections. The following section presents other pedagogical approaches used by the teachers to improve science classroom discourse.