Pedagogy as Social Practice and Teachers’ Pedagogic Choices in Tanzanian Primary Schools
A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY
Kristeen Chachage
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOHPY
Frances Vavrus, Advisor
January, 2020
© Kristeen Chachage 2020
Acknowledgements
This research and dissertation could not have been possible without the support of many people. First, and foremost, I’d like to thank my family, especially Tuli and
Bukaza, for moving, encouraging me and supporting me throughout the process, as well as all my siblings who supported us along the way. I am greatly indebted to the UMN professors who provided stimulating and challenging courses and comments throughout the program. I would especially like to mention my advisor, Professor Frances Vavrus, as well as Professors Joan DeJaeghere, Timothy Lensmire and Peter Demerath. Equally important were my colleagues in the Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development graduate program, CIDE cohort members—from my year group and our ‘elders’—as well as colleagues from Curriculum & Instruction, including all the MCF and TERI fellows. Finally, I thank my parents for providing me with the inspiration to seek a PhD since the time I was a child.
This dissertation was also made possible by the generous support of a University of Minnesota Graduate School Thesis Research and Travel Grant, as well as the
Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development John & Grace
Coogan Graduate Research Fellowship and the College of Education & Human
Development Women’s Philanthropic Leadership Circle.
i Abstract Amidst the current push for improving the quality of education in Sub-Saharan Africa, a technicist approach to pedagogy, which focuses on inputs and technical teacher training, has come to predominate international aid to education and much of the related literature. In this dissertation, I argue that considering the intertwinement and simultaneity of multiple sociocultural aspects of classroom encounters can lead to deeper understanding of why teachers choose particular pedagogical practices. Sociocultural aspects include how classrooms and interactions are organized, teachers’ conceptions of knowledge, and moral aspects, such as what is considered good and proper behavior. I set out to understand from teachers’ perspectives, why they preferred certain pedagogical practices. I specifically analyzed how the availability and organization of resources, the competing discourses found in the curriculum and examinations, and moral norms and ideals influenced teachers’ practices, using the conceptual framework of pedagogy as a nexus of practice. I drew on ethnographic data gathered through intensive participant observation, informal discussions, semi-structured interviews, demographic surveys and review of curricular, policy and teaching materials in two Tanzanian public primary schools to understand teachers’ perspectives and identify key influences on their pedagogic choices. I found that the concepts of competence-based curriculum and learner-centered practices driving school quality reforms are largely tangential to teachers’ frames of reference. The teachers’ decisions are based on ensuring that students pass terminal exams and that they learn to live with/in the community’s norms for obedience, respect and cooperation. Their choices are further constrained by the material conditions in which they work, and by the degree to which teachers felt empowered to flexibly use available resources to meet student needs. These findings have implications for the feasibility of and approaches toward changing teachers’ pedagogic practices and systemic approaches to educational change.
ii Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I
ABSTRACT II
LIST OF TABLES VII
LIST OF FIGURES VIII
ABBREVIATIONS X
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1
Mainstream “Best Practices” Discourse in International Development Education 3
Research Questions 7
Inter/national Education Policy Context 9
Conceptions of Pedagogy 12 Technicist Conception 13 Sociocultural Conception 17 The “Thinness” of Anglophone Conceptions of Pedagogy 19 My Definition of Pedagogy 21
Conceptual Framework: Pedagogy as a nexus of practice 22
Situating my study in its fields 28
Outline of the Dissertation 30
CHAPTER 2: HISTORICAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT OF THE TANZANIAN PRIMARY EDUCATION SYSTEM 32
Context as a “Matter of Concern” 32
Historical Phases of Tanzania’s Primary Education System 35 Precolonial Education 35 Missionary and Colonial Schooling 36 Independence and Education for Self-Reliance 38 Neoliberal and Human Capital Development 40
Current Organization of the Education System 45 Recent Policy Developments 45 National Curriculum Review 47 iii National Standardized Assessments 51
Conclusion 52
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 53
Methodology 53 Ethnography as Methodology 53
Data Collection Methods 55 Overview 55 Informed Consent 59 Participant observation 60 Interviews and Surveys 62 Key participants. 63 Document analysis 67
Data analysis and Trustworthiness 67
(De)Limitations of the study 71
The Study Location 72
The School Sites 74 Selection of school sites 75 Overview of School Facilities 78 School Staff 80 Student demographics 84
Researcher positionality: Belongingness and Difference 86
Conclusion 88
CHAPTER 4: THE INTERACTION ORDER 89
Organization of Classroom Space 92
Class Size and Management 101 Class Size and Discipline 104
Teaching and Learning Materials and Pedagogical Content Knowledge 108 Forms of Teaching and Learning Materials. 108 Use of Materials and Pedagogical Content Knowledge 113
The Effect of Time on Teaching Practices 122 Calendar 122 Schedules 123
Classroom-Level Impact of Larger Policies and Practices 125 iv Conclusion 128
CHAPTER 5: DISCOURSE IN PLACE - CURRICULUM, EXAMS AND EPISTEMOLOGIES 132
How Do We Know? Major Discourses of Epistemology in Tanzanian/African Education 133
From Binaries and Teacher Deficits to Selective Appropriation 139
Jifunze and Somesha Teachers’ Practice and Beliefs Regarding Knowledge and Learning 141 Just What is “Participatory?” Revisiting Question and Answer 142 “Mtoto ana Kitu” – The Child has Something 147 A Constructivist “Provocateur” 149 Instances of Hands-On Learning 153 Recall, Coverage and Correct Answers 155 Propositional and Given Knowledge 159
Exams as a Driver of Propositional, Given Knowledge 162
Curricular-Exam Disjuncture and Teachers’ Interpretation of the New Curriculum 168
Conclusion 172
CHAPTER 6: DISCOURSES IN PLACE - MORALS, BEHAVIOR AND PERSONHOOD 174
Elimu Inamchonga Mtu “Education Carves [Shapes] a Person” 175
Moral Equivocations, Ideal Behaviors and Personhood/Utu 178 Moral Equivocations – Maadili and Translation 178 Teachers’ Ideals for Good Morals and Behavior 184
Morals as a Part of the Discourses and Philosophy of Utu/Personhood 187 Greetings as Enactment of Morals and Utu in Everyday Life 193
Moral Norms and Personhood in Pedagogical Practices 196 Explicit Teaching of Morals 196 Implicit Teaching of Morals 200
Contestation of Social Norms and Moral Ideals 205
Conclusion 215
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS 217
Dissertation Summary 218
Discussion: Convergence and Disjuncture in the Nexus 221 v Implications for Policy 226
Implications for IDE 229
Directions for Future Research 230
Conclusion 232
REFERENCES 235
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS 263
APPENDIX B: SURVEY PROTOCOLS 274
vi List of Tables
Table 1.1 Subject Areas in the Primary Curriculum ...... 48
Table 3.1 Data Collection Timeline ...... 57
Table 3.2 Background of Teachers I Observed and Interviewed ...... 64
Table 3.3 Jifunze and Somesha PSLE Rankings, 2015-2018 ...... 77
Table 3.4 Jifunze and Somesha SFNA Ranking, 2015-2018 ...... 77
Table 3.5 Parents’ Occupations, according to Standard IV Student Survey ...... 85
Table 5.1 Extract from the Standard IV Civics and Moral Education Curriculum . . . 170
Table 6.1 Definitions of Maadili and Morals ...... 182
vii List of Figures
Figure 1.1. The three elements of social action (Scollon & Scollon, 2004, Fig. 2.1…. 25
Figure. 1.2 Conceptual Framework …………………………………………………… 27
Figure 1.3 This study at the intersection of four fields ………………………………. 30
Figure 2. 1. Extract from Standard IV Civics and Moral Education Curriculum, (TIE
2016b, p. 22). …………………………………………………………………………. 50
Figure 3. 1. Map of Iringa within Tanzania …………………………………………… 73
Figure 3. 2. The Entrance to Somesha Primary School. ……………………………… 75
Figure 3. 3. The entrance to Jifunze Primary School. ……………………………… 79
Figure 3. 4. Teachers’ Qualifications ………………………………………………….. 82
Figure 3. 5. Teachers' ethnicity ………………………………………………………... 83
Figure 3. 6. Comparison of Students’ age and sex…………………………………….. 84
Figure 4. 1.Teachers with piles of notebooks to be marked. Somesha school staffroom 89
Figure 4. 2. Jifunze Standard IV Classroom layout …………………………………… 94
Figure 4. 3. Somesha Standard IV classroom layout – sunny ………………………… 95
Figure 4. 4. Somesha Standard IV classroom layout – cloudy ………………………... 95
Figure 4. 5. View from standing in the back row - Jifunze Std. IV English class…..… 97
Figure 4. 6 Mr. Josephat demonstrates the use of three key materials …………… 108
Figure 5. 1. Mock Exam Extract – Personality & Sports Subject …………………… 163
Figure 5. 2. Mock Exam Extract - English Subject. …………………………………. 164
viii Figure 5. 3. Mock Exam Extract, Personality & Sports ……………………….…… 165
Figure 6. 1. Good habits/behavior for children …………………………………..….. 184
Figure 6. 2. Menkiti’s diagram of conceptions of society……………………………. 191
Figure 6. 3. Personality & Sports class notes to be copied off the blackboard ……… 197
Figure 6. 4. Somesha Primary School Rules ………………………………………… 200
Figure 6. 5. The Structure of School Leadership ……………………………………. 205
Figure 7. 1. Nexus of practice for teachers at Jifunze and Somesha primary schools .. 222
ix Abbreviations
CIE Comparative and International Education DFID Department for International Development ( United Kingdom) EQUIP-T Education Quality Improvement Program - Tanzania ESR Education for Self-Reliance GDP Gross Domestic Product IDE International Development Education INGO International Non-Governmental Organization LCP Learner-Centered Practice LGA Local Government Authoirty MOEST Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2015 – present) MOEVT Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (Pre-2015) NBS National Bureau of Statistics NGO Non-Governmental Organization PCK Pedagogical Content Knowledge NECTA National Examinations Council of Tanzania PO-RALG President’s Office – Regional and Local Governance PSLE Primary School Leaving Examination RBF Results-Based Financing SFNA Standard Four National Assessment TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages TIE Tanzania Institute of Education UPE Universal Primary Education USAID United States Agency for International Development
x
Chapter 1: Introduction
The students in Standard IV1stream into the classroom following morning assembly, tossing the watering jugs they bring from home for the school flower garden behind the door as they jostle through to their seats. Stacks of notebooks lined up by subject under the blackboard are passed back by the class monitors2 as some students climb over and under desks or their peers as they work their way toward the back rows. With 94 students sharing 31 benches, the four columns of desks stretch all the way to the back wall. One boy hits another with a small broom stick, stifling laughter (there’s no reprisal), then he puts it in his desk in the back row. The kids around me are sitting quietly, but up front and around the notebooks, children are quite noisy, talking/shouting and joking with each other. School bags are slid into desks, pens are pulled out, there is some talking, and some absent-minded staring out the window as the children await the start of the first lesson. From the back of the class their uniforms appear as a sea of bright green sweaters over the waves of blue shorts/skirts. A few minutes pass in increasingly quiet murmuring until the teacher, Ms. Daima,3 steps in to the front of the class. The students, as one, jump to their feet, standing at attention with their thumbs to their head and fingers outstretched in the school’s formal manner; in unison, the polite greeting for elders rings out: “Shikamoo. Mwalimu!” [Greetings, teacher!] The teacher answers “Marahaba. Hamjambo Watoto?” [how are you, children?] Nearly a hundred voices chorus the response: “Hatujambo. Pole na kazi” [We are fine.] “Asanteni. Poleni wote. Kaeni.” [Thank you – sit down]. Only at this point do the students relax and sit as Ms. Daima writes the subject (Civics) and topic of today’s lesson (Foundations of Democracy – Multipartism in Tanzania) on the board. A cold August breeze wafts in from the windows without glass panes; the sunlight streaming in from the clear, blue sky doing little to reduce the wind’s chill. The teacher turns to the class and starts with questions and answers to review the previous lesson – “When did Multipartism start?” (1995) “Who can name different political parties in Tanzania?” Many hands are raised – the teacher calls on various boys and girls individually, usually by
1 In Tanzania, primary school comprises 7 grades, named Standard I – Standard VII. Tanzania’s Basic Education system includes 1 year of pre-primary education starting at age four or five; followed by seven years of Primary School and then four years of “ordinary level” secondary. Primary school has been compulsory for many years; Pre-primary became compulsory in 2014. 2 In Tanzanian Primary Schools, every class has 4 “monitors” (two boys/two girls) elected by peers or appointed by teachers. Monitors’ responsibilities, among others, include to keep the class in order when no teacher is present, and to collect and hand back notebooks. See Chapter 6 and Figure 6.5 for more details about school hierarchy. 3 All names (for individuals and schools) are pseudonyms. 1 name. When moving on to this day’s topic – reasons for switching to multi-partism – Ms. Daima alternates between giving explanation and writing notes on the board for students to copy. She repeatedly asks students to close their notebooks whenever she’s talking, then gives them more time to write when she tells them to open their notebooks. As they write, she moves around the room monitoring the students and pausing once to slap a child on the head for not writing. At the end of the lesson she gives a quick assessment exercise to be written in the back of students’ exercise books – name five parties and two reasons for multi-partism. Before leaving, she instructs a monitor to collect the books for marking.4
This vignette describes the typical start of the school day and a Standard IV
Civics lesson at Jifunze Primary School, in Iringa, Tanzania. Despite the specific subject and school, the lesson will feel familiar to teachers and students in many, if not most, primary schools in Tanzania (See, for example, Barrett, 2005; Roberts, 2015). The classroom, though crowded, is filled with generally well-behaved, obedient, and respectful students. The teacher mainly uses question-and-answer and copying of notes, with some oral explanation, to convey a set body of factual knowledge to her students.
Students do not speak unless called upon and demonstrate an impressive ability to sit still for the entire 50-minute lesson. The teacher monitors completion (rather than content) of the exercises, and the assessment at the end of the lesson checks recall of the basic facts given during the lesson. Ms. Daima is a well-liked teacher among the students, parents, and fellow staff members. She has a friendly and engaging manner in class, and her students normally perform very well on the national examinations. Indeed, Jifunze is known as one of the top-performing government (public) primary schools in the region.
Yet, according to the written policies and curricula of Tanzania (see for example, TIE
4 Marking is the term used for checking and grading students’ work. 2 2016; ESDP, 2016/17-2020/21) and the international research on effective teaching and learning, Ms. Daima is not teaching as she should be.
Mainstream “Best Practices” Discourse in International Development Education
According to the policies, strategies and research on education in Tanzania and
Africa, teachers should be focused on developing student competences through learner- centered, active and participatory pedagogy. As noted by Mtika and Gates (2009), teachers in African countries have been “urged to move away from ‘chalk and talk’ didactic and teacher-centred methods to a more discovery-based learning where greater emphasis is placed on outcomes that are broader than basic recall of facts and information” (p. 236). Since at least the 1980s, “global educational trends toward the adoption of [what is often called] Learner Centered Practice have been noted and adopted by many African policymakers and planners” (Vavrus, Thomas & Bartlett, 2011, p. 36).
This reform has been embraced by Tanzania’s Ministry of Education and policies since
1995 (MOEVT, 1995). More recently, the government also made a shift to a
“competence-based curriculum.” According to the institute responsible for producing the national curriculum, a competence-based curriculum “emphasizes the building of skills, expertise and direction” (umahiri, stadi, na mwelekeo) rather than “subject content”
(maudhui ya masomo), (Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE), 2016, p. 4, author’s translation).
The lesson in the vignette, by most education experts’ evaluation, would not be considered learner-centered nor particularly active, participatory or competence-based.
The only teaching aids used (aside from the teacher’s engaging personality) were chalk
3 and the blackboard. Student competences5 (as in individuals’ performance of various skills) were not exercised nor assessed – aside from general listening and recall skills— and students only participated by listening to the teacher, taking notes, and a few of them answering oral questions. Yet the vast majority of the lessons I observed over nine months in two primary schools in Iringa followed the same basic pattern, with slight variation on these same strategies, tools and class interactions – a warm up (normally question and answer or occasionally a song), verbal explanation, writing of notes, and a short practice/recall exercise. My observations, interviews and conversation with teachers over almost an entire school year in the two primary schools show that the teachers select these strategies consciously. It is not that they are unfamiliar with other teaching strategies or theories of learning; in fact, they pay meticulous attention to their own preparation of notes and of the students’ copying them down. Moreover, their strategies have led to respected success on national examinations, the generally-accepted and respected measure of academic performance by the government and by the local community. Yet, the government, development partners6 and most organizations working in the education sector are determined to change these practices. The promotion of more learner-centered, active and competence-based teaching and learning has become a dominant “big D” Discourse7 that posits one model as the only effective form of
5 The curricula do not explicitly define “competencies” though sometimes in each syllabus the term is used alternatively with “skills” and “abilities” (see, for example TIE 2015, 2016b). 6 “Development partners” is the emic term (the term by which they call themselves and currently prefer to be named) used by bilateral and multilateral donors who work with the Tanzanian government. 7 I use a capital letter to denote what Gee (2014) refers to as “big D Discourse.” Gee differentiates “little d” discourse - any instance of language (conversation, lecture, text, etc.) used in an interaction – from “big D” discourses, which “combin[e] and integrat[e] language, actions, interactions, ways of thinking, believing, 4 teaching. Bartlett and Vavrus (2017, p. 4) have articulated how this one particular
(though variegated) model, captured under the umbrella term “Learner Centered
Practice” (LCP) came to dominate:
LCP, a specific approach to teaching and learning popularized in the temporal and cultural context of the United States and the UK in the 1970s (Cuban, 1993; Ravitch, 1983), has been taken up, simplified, and spread globally. In that process, learner-centered pedagogy diffused very particular understandings of teaching and learning that rely upon culturally-specific notions of individualism, competition, cooperation, and authority and presume certain material conditions in schools and classrooms...
This Discourse has been espoused in the Tanzanian education policy arena, as in the wider field of International Development Education (IDE).8 Numerous Non-
Governmental Organizations9 (NGOs, or “INGO” for International NGOs) also support this Discourse. As Burde (2004) noted, “…most INGOs and bilateral development organizations share model program interventions and best practices. … even among the local staff of INGOs, there is a convergence of professionals, their training, and certainly their rhetoric” (p. 181). This Discourse has been promoted through what development partners refer to as “evidence-based best practices,” which are gathered in sponsored studies, such as the World Bank’s Facing Forward: Schooling for Learning in Africa
valuing and using various symbols, tools and objects to enact a particular sort of socially recognizable identity” (p. 46). 8 I will continue to use the acronym IDE to refer to the education sphere within the larger International Development context. IDE could be seen as the “applied” side of Comparative and International Development Education, as it is based in donor and aid organizations. I will use CIE – Comparative and International Education - to refer to the “academic” side which is based in universities and academia. There is much overlap between IDE and CIE, in terms of actors and ideas, as evidenced in the annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society; however, IDE tends to be driven by development partners and to promote the dominant or mainstream Discourses whereas CIE has both mainstream and critical strands. 9 The Tanzania Education Network/Mtadnao wa Elimu Tanzania, one umbrella organization for NGOs in education has nearly 200 member organizations. 5 (Bashir, et.al. 2018) and numerous ‘rigorous literature reviews” commissioned by United
Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) (“Collection” April 16,
2014).
However, despite the dominance of this Discourse in IDE, research over the past
25–30 years has shown that there has been little change from the use of teacher-directed, recall-focused, whole-class teaching such as that illustrated in the Civics lesson vignette.
Teachers’ “failure” (Bold et. al. 2017; Jansen, 2005), “resistance” (Guthrie, 2015;
Tabulawa, 2013) or partial take up (Brodie, Lelliot & Davis, 2002; Vavrus, 2009) of constructivist, learner centered teaching has been well documented. Guthrie (2017), who terms this overall Discourse the “progressive paradigm,” summed up the situation in
Africa:
On the one hand, the progressive paradigm dominates the comparative education literature about schooling in developing countries, has become a travelling policy among international, multilateral and bilateral aid organisations, and is often endorsed by national governments and local innovators. On the other hand, considerable evidence suggests that progressivism has not made the shift to sustained classroom practice and that formalistic practices continue to prevail. (p.63)
As an “Education Rigorous Literature Review” for the DFID more sanguinely stated:
“…even when well-planned, [pedagogical reform] implementation has not always been as successful as hoped, and evidence suggests that a wide gap exists between the expected goals of curriculum reforms and actual progress achieved in classrooms…”
(Bold, et. al. 2013, p. 6).
The question that comes to mind, and one that I have pondered with many teachers in the different school contexts where I have worked as a teacher, administrator
6 and researcher, is why are these teachers teaching in the way do? Why have they not fully embraced learner-centered pedagogy as prescribed in policy and the curriculum?
What influences their pedagogical practices, and what leads them to use the strategies and interactions I have observed? To explore these issues, I carried out a year-long ethnographic study in two primary schools in Iringa, Tanzania, and found that multiple aspects of the material, epistemological and cultural context influenced these teachers’ pedagogical choices.
Research Questions
In this dissertation, I argue that considering the intertwinement and simultaneity of multiple sociocultural aspects of the pedagogic encounter can lead to deeper understanding of why teachers use particular pedagogical practices. Sociocultural aspects include how classrooms are organized, teachers’ conceptions of knowledge, and moral aspects, such as what is considered good and proper behavior for teachers and for students. These moral judgements in turn relate to authority relations and to personhood.
Personhood is an analytical term used by anthropologists in examining “who is considered to be a person, [and] what being a person entails” (Shir-Vertesh, 2017, para.
1). In Chapter 6 I will explore in more depth how notions of personhood entail particular expectations for behavior in the context of the schools in my study; suffice it to say here that personhood is an important sociocultural aspect of teacher-student relations.
This sociocultural approach to pedagogy lends depth to the notion of classroom context and opens up space for multiple and alternative judgments of what is “best practice.” For those who want to change teachers’ pedagogy from one form to another,
7 understanding the material, organizational, epistemological and moral aspects gives a clearer picture of where the teacher (as learner) is starting from, and what beliefs, habits, conceptualizations or material conditions need to be addressed for sustained, intrinsic change to come about.
Ultimately, aspects of teaching such as organization and material conditions, epistemology, and moral values intertwine and dialectically influence each other; and influence why teachers might use the pedagogical practices they do, despite policy and research insistence that their practices should change. For the sake of analysis, I have separated my findings into three chapters, addressing the following research questions:
• How does the availability and organization (spatial, temporal, and interpersonal) of
resources influence teachers’ pedagogical practices? (Chapter 4)
• How do the competing Discourses of competence-based curriculum and terminal,
standardized examinations shape teachers’ pedagogical practices? How do these
Discourses and teachers’ epistemologies reflect aspects of ‘transmission’ and
‘constructivist’ conceptions of knowledge and learning? (Chapter 5)
• How do moral norms and related notions and Discourses of personhood affect
teachers’ pedagogical practices? (Chapter 6)
In the remainder of this chapter, I will situate the study within the policy context, conceptual context and academic fields upon which I draw. I will start by explaining the
“inter/national” (Vavrus, 2005) situation of the Tanzanian education policy context. I will then review differing conceptualizations of pedagogy, and situate my study within a sociocultural approach. I will present the conceptual framework for the dissertation and
8 explain how my study draws on intersections of four academic fields: Anthropology,
Teacher Education, Comparative and International Education, and Mediated Discourse
Analysis.
Inter/national Education Policy Context
The schools in my study are in a “postcolonial condition” (Stafford, 2016), which means their context is shaped by the historical, sedimented effects of European colonization and continuing, unequal, global economic relations. In this setting, various international players interact with the national education sector to formulate policy and promulgate Discourses of what constitutes “best practices.” A part of the legacy of colonialism is the relationship of aid between lower-income former colonies, such as
Tanzania, and high-income countries which provide monetary and technical aid. I use the capitalized terms “Development” and “International Development” interchangeably to refer to this realm of international aid which involves international agencies ranging from the United Nations institutions, to bilateral organizations such as the United States
Agency for International Development, to multilateral financial institutions such as the
World Bank. International non-governmental organizations small and large also play a role in aid and in promoting particular Discourses around education. As previously noted
(see Footnote 8), IDE denotes the education sector within the realm of International
Development.
While education systems in every country are enmeshed in politics and internal local, regional and national dynamics, for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including
Tanzania, there is an added layer of IDE dynamics. Dependence on external funding that
9 comes with strong advice and technical assistance from (usually expatriate) experts, adherence to international agreements such as Education for All and the Sustainable
Development Goals, as well as a general reliance on educational theory that was developed elsewhere (usually in the West,10 and for Tanzania at least, the Anglophone
West) creates a situation in which local education systems are inescapably
“inter/national.” Vavrus (2005) coined this term “to signal the blurred distinction between policies formulated by international financial institutions, such as the World
Bank and IMF, and the national policies of heavily indebted poor countries like
Tanzania” (pp. 177–178).
Though the current president, Dr. John Magufuli, has placed emphasis on increasing national revenue generation, Tanzania still relies heavily on donors. For instance, Tanzania received over $2.5 billion USD in net official development assistance and aid in 2017 (World Bank, 2019). In education alone, Tanzania depended on donors for 382 billion Tanzanian Shillings, (approximately $164 Million USD), or nearly 10% of its Education Sector funding in 2017/18. This still left a funding gap of TZS 50 Billion
10 A note on terms: Rather than using the terms ‘developing/developed’ or “The West/Western,” African etc., many scholars have, for various political reasons, shifted language, referring to the Global South and Global North (see, for example, Escobar, 2016) or 2/3 majority countries (Mohanty, 2002); or else low- income vs. high-income countries. “Low-income/high-income” attempts to be non-judgmental, simply stating an economic fact, whereas ‘developed’ vs. ‘developing’ has an implied valuation of the countries so labeled. Global North and South is also based more on the globalized economy – it includes Japan (non- Western) and is perhaps more geographically accurate a demarcation than the ‘West and the rest’. 2/3 majority is a discursive move to remind everyone that the less powerful/non-hegemonic people of the world are mainly non-whites. While I recognize this and value the discursive claiming of space, particularly of ‘2/3 majority’, I have chosen to continue using the term “Western” or “the West” in this dissertation for two reasons: 1) it is still the most common, immediately understood and widely used term in Tanzanian intellectual and non-academic circles and 2) the onto-epistemic and social assumptions I will contrast are those of my participants and those of the classic “West” – Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment onto- epistemic precepts underlying the ‘best practices’ promoted by the development world 10 (~$21.5 million USD) for the sector; and this funding gap was projected to get larger in each subsequent year, due to debt servicing, inflation and increasing enrollment
(MOEST, 2018a).
In addition to financial dependence, research from mainly Western countries serves as the foundation of many of Tanzania’s teacher education programs. For example, in the recently published national curriculum for teacher education courses, (TIE, 2019a,
2019b, 2019c) according to the reading lists and authors listed by sub-topic, 78% of the sources are American or European texts based in American or European school systems
(that is, they were not writing about or from within the Tanzanian school system). This includes the syllabi for courses in Education Research, Communication Skills and
“Education Subject” (which in includes Educational Psychology, Guidance and
Counseling, Foundations of Education, Educational management and school administration and Curriculum and Teaching).
Thus, Tanzanian teachers, like Ms. Daima, are expected to change to pedagogical practices that not only may differ from the school environment to which they are accustomed, but they may also differ in terms of the assumed relationship structures in the classroom and society. Moreover, teachers are usually expected to change their ways of teaching after simply being told to do so through policy papers and written curriculum and, occasionally, by way of short in-service workshops.
In the past five years, there have been a number of programs in the primary education sector that are attempting to provide more support to teachers so as to change their methods of teaching. For instance, development partners in Tanzania recently
11 coordinated their programs to provide new curriculum, textbooks, leadership training for administrators, and training in the “3Rs” (literacy and numeracy) for Standard I and II teachers in primary schools across different regions.11 While programs such as these do important work in strengthening teachers’ content knowledge, and their familiarity with different teaching strategies, as well as improving the provision of textbooks, they rarely acknowledge the sociocultural aspects of pedagogy and schooling which also influence teachers’ practices. A primary distinction in pedagogy may be cast as that between a technicist notion that dominates mainstream IDE Discourse and sees pedagogy as simply strategies for imparting content knowledge and skills, and a sociocultural notion. I will examine and contrast these notions in the next section.
Conceptions of Pedagogy
"Pedagogical knowledge pertains to a teacher’s mastery of a particular subject as well as the most effective ways to teach it” -Bashir et.al. 2018, Facing forward: Schooling for learning in Africa. p. 280.
“Pedagogy is not a mere matter of teaching technique. It is a purposive cultural intervention in individual human development which is deeply saturated with the values and history of the society and community in which it is located.” -Alexander, 2008, Essays on Pedagogy, p.92
11 DFID sponsored a program called Education Quality Improvement Program – Tanzania (EQUIP-T) which covered nine regions https://www.equip-t.org/about/ , the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sponsored a similar program called Tusome Pamoja (Let’s Read Together) in four regions https://www.usaid.gov/tanzania/education and UNICEF sponsored a similar though shorter program on “Talking Classrooms” in an additional four regions (E. Wright, personal communication, August 30, 2019), while a Global Partnership for Education grant funded the new primary curriculum and corresponding textbooks for each grade level https://www.globalpartnership.org/sites/default/files/b1_- _tanzania_mainland_-_programme_document.pdf 12 Within International Development and Comparative Education, two broad conceptualizations of pedagogy circulate. On the one hand is the technical perspective, reflected in the first quote above from the World Bank study, Facing Forward: Schooling for Learning in Africa (Bashir, et. al., 2018), which views pedagogy as subject-matter knowledge and strategies that lead to measurable outcomes in learners’ knowledge. I will call this the technicist12 notion of pedagogy. On the other hand, there is the much broader understanding of pedagogy portrayed in the Alexander (2008) quote, which I will refer to as sociocultural.
Technicist Conception
In the technicist view, pedagogy is a technical matter, involving neutral subject knowledge and strategies for imparting it to students – as noted above - “mastery of subject matter” and “effective ways to teach it.” Teachers’ role, in this conceptualization of pedagogy, is merely “delivering and assessing knowledge” (Kuzich, 2011, p. 4), or that of “specialized technicians … who manage and implement curricula programs” (Giroux, 1985, p. 36). A focus on technicism privileges efficiency and economy in what is perceived to be the value-free and objective function of schooling (Welch, 2003). Halliday (1998, p. 597) emphasizes that this conception removes questions of the purpose of education from view, as the goal is simply to achieve curricular goals which can be achieved through “mechanistic” practices:
Technicism may be defined as the notion that good teaching is equivalent to efficient performance which achieves ends that are prescribed for teachers … For technicists, general theories can be set out to guide
12 This notion of teaching is also sometimes referred to as “instrumentalist” (Vavrus & Bartlett, 2012), “techno-rational (Komba, 2016), or merely “technical” (Biesta, 2007).
13 particular practices. Practical development is amoral and describable in a mechanistic way …
Because pedagogy is seen as value-free and mechanistic, those with a technicist conception tend to see “good” teaching practices as universally applicable. Bermeo, et.al.
(2013), have observed this in Tanzania. They assert, “[there is a] tendency in some education policy and teacher education discourses to understand teaching knowledge as technical, scientific, and universal, and as a set of skills that can be delivered and managed…” (p. 41). The proliferation of “what works” and “best practices” that are transported from one country to another attests to the assumed universality of teaching strategies (World Bank, 2017; Vavrus, 2016). An example of this assumption can be found in a “rigorous literature review” on “Pedagogy, Curriculum and Teaching Practices in Developing Countries” prepared for DFID (Westbrook, et.al., 2013). Though the importance of “context and conditions” is acknowledged as part of the research question, the conclusions still recommend a single “pedagogical practice” (communicative or interactive pedagogy), which is to be supported by three “teaching strategies” and six
“effective teaching practices.” (pp. 2–3). These “strategies” and “practices” are taken to be so universal that they apply to all developing countries. A similar sentiment seems to drive the USAID literacy programs in Africa, as the same intervention (Tusome Pamoja-
Let’s Read Together) has been replicated in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Malawi, sometimes with the same name and program components, as in Tusome Pamoja Kenya.
In addition to being seen as value-free and universal, much of the technical assistance provided in IDE projects are “behaviorist” interventions aimed to alter what are viewed as deficient practices (Tao, 2013a). For example, in the 3Rs programs
14 mentioned earlier, one focus area has been training teachers to introduce single letter sounds (as opposed to the traditional, syllabic way of teaching Swahili) and to regularly use decodable class readers in instruction. While Tusome Pamoja and Education Qquality
Improvement Programme-Tanzania (EQUIP-T) programs are not focused on single variables (for example, they include diverse strategies to increase parent involvement in reading and school attendance, school leadership training, sometimes school feeding or economic-generation projects), their instructional component for teachers takes a technical and content-based approach to increasing teachers’ knowledge and use of materials, which is believed to correct deficits in the ways teachers had been teaching. As
Alexander (2008) notes, this narrowed, technical approach makes pedagogy “a controllable input rather than … a process whose dynamic reflects the unique circumstances of each classroom and which is therefore variable and unpredictable” (pp
7–8). Viewing pedagogy as a series technical steps that lead to set learning outcomes is a tidy process, assuming fairly linear causality between the teachers’ actions and the learning outcomes. This “controllable” type of input is much more attractive than
“variable and unpredictable” processes for development partners who emphasize “value for money” in their investments in education programs (Atkinson, et.al., 2019).
This technicist, universal and controlled-input view of pedagogy is influenced by movements in education in many of the development partner’s home countries. Mason, et.al. (2019) highlight this in their recent reflection on “conceptual and ethical issues” in the modalities of international development and research. They particularly highlight the
15 neoliberal underpinnings of this movement, and the related urge for universal generalizations:
Policy-makers and planners, and many of the most influential international development agencies, may acknowledge … postmodern scepticism and the postcolonial critique, but in practice the overall trajectory of ongoing policy and action continues to draw more directly on the neo-liberal perspectives, values and principles that have shaped international development modalities since the latter decades of the twentieth century (Brock-Utne, 2007; King and Mcgrath, 2004; Jones, 2007; Peters, 2011). … [The calls in the USA and UK] for educational research to be more cumulative, authoritative and accessible (Hargreaves, 1996, Kennedy, 1997) … has, in turn, influenced international development agencies…and reinforced their commitment to research that can ‘deliver’ ‘evidenced-based’ policy that is ‘statistically robust’ and generalizable across contexts (DFID, 2010). (p.2)
This commitment to generalizable, statistical evidence narrows the indicators used to measure the quality or effectiveness of teaching. An example can be found in the Service
Delivery Indicators developed by the World Bank to measure progress in education in
African countries. “Teacher effort” is measured by spot-checking teachers’ presence or absence in school and an English and Math test is used to rate “teachers academic and pedagogical skills” (World Bank, 2016). The notions that teaching effort is reflected in being physically present and written tests measure teaching ability reflect a highly mechanistic view of pedagogy. The problem with technicist conceptions of pedagogy is not only that they lean toward simplification of the teaching and learning process, but they also ignore the social-embeddedness of schooling, and of pedagogy in particular.
The curtailed and narrow technicist conception of pedagogy has serious implications for education. As Schweisfurth (2013) asserts, “to isolate teaching techniques and classroom practices from relationships, motivations and constructions of knowledge is reductionist” (p. 12). Tabulawa (1997) points out that not only does this
16 view deny the historical and social context of teaching, but it also treats “pedagogical styles as value-neutral” (p.192). As a result, students and even teachers themselves, as well as other members of society, do not question or take part in determining what are desired and useful knowledge or desired and useful ways of being. Instead, they accept and adapt themselves (to use Freire’s 1970/2000 terms) to the ways of being (and teaching/learning) that are inherited or passed down from the small cadre of experts
(local and international) writing educational policy, which may or may not ultimately serve their own wellbeing. An alternative to the technicist view lies in sociocultural conceptions of pedagogy.
Sociocultural Conception
The basis of a sociocultural approach in examining any aspect of education is to recognize the “essential relationship between [the processes under study] and their cultural, historical and institutional settings” (Wertsch, 1991, p. 6 as quoted in
O’Loughlin, 1992). In considering pedagogy, a sociocultural conception requires investigation of the material, institutional, discursive, and axiological norms and negotiations that both shape and are shaped by pedagogical encounters. As noted by
Osaki and Agu (2002) “The community, the district and the nation surround the classroom and limit, as well as influence, what takes place within it … yet [these influences] can be translated into reality only through the actions and choices of children and teachers.”(p. 104). Therefore, pedagogy and teaching knowledge are “culturally and socially shaped by shared meanings derived from social interaction and practice. … tacit as well as explicit knowledge, including values, attitudes and feelings” (Bermeo, et.al.,
17 2013, p. 41). Not only do the parameters of knowledge (in the form of the official curriculum) and the social and moral norms of the community shape pedagogy, but so too, do the material (including physical and financial) conditions (Vavrus & Bartlett,
2012; Vavrus & Salema, 2013). Thus, pedagogy in schools is “not only a sustained process of instruction whereby people acquire particular knowledges, skills and values, but also [as] a ‘cultural relay: a uniquely human device for both the reproduction and the production of culture’” (Watkins, et.al., 2015, p.4 drawing on Bernstein, 2003). A sociocultural approach to pedagogy, therefore, encompasses not only the technical, but also the non-technical influences on classroom interactions and practices. Drawing upon both anthropology and sociology of education, I will emphasize the dialectical nature
(O’Loughlin, 1992; Willis, 1981) of the interaction between pedagogical setting and actions. The setting influences teachers’ pedagogical choices while at the same time, teachers’ pedagogical actions influence the setting and participants.
Within the field of Comparative and International Education (CIE) Alexander has championed the need for a nuanced understanding and comparative study of pedagogy. In the voluminous study of teaching in five cultures he undertook with a team of comparative researchers, Alexander (2000) noted that the exploration of every element, even those seemingly [or often perceived-to-be] objective or cognitive aspects of teaching, such as analysis of task and activity, “raised questions of value, priority and purpose.” Thus, “pedagogy connects the apparently self-contained act of teaching with culture, structure and mechanisms of social control” (p. 540). Further, Alexander articulated that, “pedagogy encompasses the performance of teaching together with the
18 theories, beliefs, policies and controversies that inform and shape it.” (p. 540). He later synthesized these many aspects of culture, structure, values, policies, beliefs, and control in the more succinct and oft quoted definition: “Pedagogy is the act of teaching together with its attendant discourse.” (Alexander, 2004, p. 11). Crucially for my discussion of technicist and sociocultural conceptions of pedagogy, Alexander (2000) further differentiates pedagogy from teaching, the latter of which he defines as: “the act of using method x to enable pupils to learn y” (p. 535). In these terms, the technicist approach focuses on teaching only rather than pedagogy.
The “Thinness” of Anglophone Conceptions of Pedagogy
Alexander (2000) and Hamilton (1999) argue that curriculum, rather than pedagogy, has formed the organizational basis of education studies and theorization in
Anglophone countries (particularly the United Kingdom and United States). They further posit that this has led to under-theorization of pedagogy. This stands in contrast to a long tradition of wider conceptualizations of pedagogy in continental European studies of education. Over the past two decades, several comparative education scholars have noted the “thinness” of the theorization of pedagogy in Anglophone academic traditions, compared to the European traditions of “didactics” and Pädagogik (Biesta, 2011; Elliott,
2014; Hamilton, 1999; Payne, 2019). Biesta (2011) notes that while in the United States and United Kingdom, the education field uses other disciplines and their perspectives “on education,” in Central and Eastern Europe, education has always been taken as an academic field in its own right, with attendant theoretical development in the areas of
19 didactics, pädagogik and the concepts of Bildung and Erziehung.13 The latter is particularly akin to the sociocultural understanding of pedagogy I employ in this dissertation. The notion of Erziehung encompasses much more than cognitive learning:
“the term implies teacher’s intentional guidance of a child in his or her moral, aesthetical, personal, social, physical, [and] spiritual advancement” (Ermenc, 2015, p. 42). Yet the
English language lacks even terms equivalent to Erziehung and Bildung, and theorization of teaching and learning correspondingly focuses on cognitive/behavioral (more technicist) aspects or on socioeconomic influences on teaching and learning processes.
Another (initially non-Anglophone) source of theorization on pedagogy comes from Freirean critical pedagogy (Freire 1970/2000; 2004). Critical pedagogy contributes to understandings of power in the relations between teacher and students and between the knower and the known, that is, the dialectical relations between subject and knowledge, whose knowledge is valued and what structural purposes knowledge serves. While critical pedagogy has helped to fuel a movement of social justice education in the US, and has been taken up by some non-governmental organization promoting small programs in low-income countries (for example, Karibu Tanzania Organization, or
Questscope in Jordan), it has not been seriously taken up by development partners or government officials in Tanzania. Freire’s (1970/2000) critique of what he called the
“banking” conception of education has been used by those who promote more
13 Erziehung is the German term, most often used in comparative education literature, but a similar concept is expressed in other European languages, for example, “in Russian vospitanie, and similarly in other Slavonic languages: vaspitanje in Serbian, odgoj in Croatian, vzgoja in Slovenian,” (Ermenc, 2017).
20 constructivist, learner-centered approaches to teaching (see, for example, Hamilton,
1999;), but the IDE Discourse of ‘evidence-based’ practice in general tends to reinforce the hidden power relations between knowledge, education and political/economic oppression which Freire sought to challenge. In contrast, the political aspects of Freire’s concept of pedagogy and the moral aspects of Erziehung are an important part of my own definition of pedagogy, which I situate in a sociocultural perspective.
My Definition of Pedagogy
Drawing on the sociocultural conception of pedagogy, I use the term to indicate more than strategies for teaching reading, writing, math, etc. I acknowledge that the cognitive development of academic skills and knowledge is an important component of pedagogy – the instructional component– but pedagogy is about much more. It is also the enactment of a set of beliefs about the world – about the nature of knowledge and information, and about different actors’ places and relationships in the world. Who can create or be an authority on knowledge, who is a receiver; whose knowledge counts and how it is best learned are beliefs put into motion through pedagogical practices, thereby embodying values as much as cognitive intellect. Epistemological beliefs are embedded in both the form of the curriculum and in conceptions of learning: the larger social, epistemological and axiological dimensions of pedagogy. How these beliefs are enacted, embodied, and institutionalized through pedagogy inscribes certain roles and relationships for all those involved, including certain valuing(s) and silencing(s), which often continue to shape how students place themselves/are placed in relation to other individuals and power structures, far beyond the period of their actual schooling. Thus, as
21 I use the term, pedagogy extends beyond activities, teaching techniques or behaviors to deeper philosophical and moral issues. It is an (often unconscious) inscription of ways of knowing and being.
Conceptual Framework: Pedagogy as a nexus of practice
In order to understand—let alone to make meaningful interventions in— pedagogy, several sociocultural aspects of the practice must be considered. These aspects include the participants as embodied actors, material conditions (e.g. facilities, organization, resources and materials available), the school system’s parameters (ranging from the official curriculum, to the assessment system, to school schedules and organizational structures), the epistemologies (conceptions of knowledge, learning and knowing) of teachers themselves and that assumed in the curriculum, and assessment system, as well as participants’ moral notions of what is good and proper behavior. Any one of these aspects in and of itself could (and often do) form the subject of dissertations.
However, in the day-to-day experience of students’ and teachers’ lives, these aspects operate simultaneously. All of these aspects both shape and are being (re)shaped by the interactions that occur in classrooms and on school grounds.
De la Cadena (Taguchi, n.d.) notes that thinking conceptually means “thinking with the empirical” (p.18). At the beginning of this study, I set out to examine specifically the moral values underpinning teachers’ practices. However, in my experiences in the field and in my data, I found that along with moral values, the epistemological and material conditions had such an influence on teachers’ pedagogical choices they could not be ignored. Therefore, a conceptual framework that acknowledges
22 these multiple aspects and their inter-relationship is required. For this reason, I have adapted Nexus Analysis, and specifically, Scollon and Scollon’s (2004) framework of a
“nexus of practice” to conceptually frame my analysis and presentation of my ethnographic data.
Nexus Analysis is now commonly considered a method of Mediated Discourse
Analysis (MDA), with MDA itself being an outgrowth of Critical Discourse Analysis and related work in the sociology and anthropology of linguistics (Jones & Norris, 2017).
However, as a conceptual tool, Nexus Analysis is increasingly being adapted to social situations such as teaching and learning (see for example Cassidy & Jackson, 2005;
Dooly & Sadler, 2013; Wohlwend, 2008). Nexus Analysis is particularly useful for capturing the many aspects that come together to form pedagogy. Dooly and Sadler
(2013) note that this approach “offers a means of exploring how multiple aspects of complex social action interrelate rather than attempting to analyze one component in isolation” (p. 15).
According to Scollon and Scollon (2004), a Nexus Analysis is the:
mapping of semiotic cycles of people, discourses, places, and mediational means involved in the social action we are studying. We . . . use the term ‘nexus of practice’ to focus on the point at which historical trajectories of people, places, discourses, ideas and objects come together to enable some action which in itself alters those historical trajectories in some way as those trajectories emanate from this moment of social action. (p. viii)
To use this framework to examine pedagogy means considering a pedagogical moment in a classroom as the coming together of people, Discourses, ideas, and objects, each of which has its own history, and each of which interacts to produce
23 this particular moment. Nexus Analysis also assumes that this moment in turn shapes in some way the future trajectory of these people, objects, ideas, and
Discourses in a dialectical process.
A “nexus” at its most basic level in this theory refers to a “site… in which some type of social action is facilitated by a set of social processes” (Dooly &
Sadler, 2013, p. 15). A social action, or practice, as it is more commonly called in
CDA, is “a socially recognized and institutionally or culturally supported endeavor that usually involves sequencing or combining actions in certain specified ways.”
(Gee, 2014, p. 32). In my study, the social practice under study is classroom pedagogy— more specifically, the practice of teaching in Standard IV as performed by my teacher colleagues at Jifunze and Somesha Primary Schools in
Iringa, Tanzania. Considering pedagogy as a social action converges with
Alexander’s (2005) definition of pedagogy as “the act of teaching together with the ideas, values and collective histories which inform, shape and explain that act” (p.
3). It should be noted that the reference to pedagogy as an “action” or practice within the nexus of practice frame does not reduce pedagogy to teaching in the terms expounded by Alexander (2000). In fact, in using the conceptual frame of a nexus of practice to examine pedagogy in these two Tanzanian primary schools, I will especially emphasize the Discourses, beliefs, and policies that intertwined with individual teacher preferences, skills, and reasoning to result in particular patterns of teaching.
24 A Nexus Analysis entails attention to three elements (see Figure 1.1). The first
element (a) is the interaction order, that is,
the arrangements in which participants come
to interact, including the presence and use of
media and material objects. The second
element (b) is “historical bodies,” or the sum
of each participant’s embodied experiences Figure 1. 1. The three elements of social action (Scollon & Scollon, 2004, Fig. 2.1). and perspectives, and the third element, (c) is Discourses in place, the discourse cycles
that circulate and inform the interaction (Scollon & Scollon, 2004). I refer to “big D”
Discourses here (see footnote 7), that is, integrated actions, language, ways of believing,
thinking and values that form a recognizable identity or “system of belief and
representation” (Britzman, et.al. 1993; Gee, 2014). Scollon (2005) defines a discourse
cycle as resemiotization. “… the transformation of a meaning from one semiotic form
into another. … These ‘discourses’ circulate, such that they may be present as talk, text,
image, material objects, and the thoughts and actions of the participants in the action” (p.
474). This attention to “the discourses … which circulate through a moment of action” is
why Nexus Analysis is so useful for studying pedagogy which is not only technical
instruction (Scollon, 2005, p. 474). I note variation in individual teachers’ pedagogical
practices when they stand out in the data, and differences in epistemological beliefs.
However, due to the heavy convergence of many beliefs and practices, the larger
25 Discourse and interaction order will receive more attention than historical bodies in my analysis.
The potential Discourses that could influence teachers’ pedagogical practices are many and vary from context to context. It would be impossible to address all them in one dissertation. Therefore, I have focused on the aspects of the interaction order and discourse cycles that appeared to have the most thematic power, that is, the largest influence on teachers’ practices. These include the availability and organization of resources, space, talk, and time in the interaction order, competing Discourses of the curriculum and the examination system, epistemologies or conceptions of knowledge, and moral Discourses on what is good and desirable behavior, as well as the possible ontological underpinnings of utu (human-ness or personhood) informing this moral order
(see Figure 1.2).
Scollon and Scollon and many others who have taken up this framework (see, for example, Dooley & Sadler, 2013; Kallkvist, 2013; Wohlwend, 2008) have done so in the tradition of socio-linguistics, focusing on a very short and specific interaction, such as a single classroom interaction or an encounter in a grocery store. From this interaction, they link the actors (historical bodies) with larger Discourses governing the interaction order and circulating in the event. I am using the notion of a nexus of practice slightly differently. Rather than examining a single instance of classroom pedagogy, I am suggesting that the conceptual frame of a nexus of practice is useful when applied to pedagogy as a whole – as a concept. Considering pedagogy itself as a nexus of practice forces us to consider the mediated (material) aspects, the organization of pedagogical
26 interactions, the historical bodies involved and the Discourses circulating in the practice of pedagogy. I do so in order to provide an “ecological validity” to the concept of
Historical bodies: teacher(s), students
Social Action: Pedagogic practices
Figure 1. 2. Conceptual Framework.
pedagogy. According to Bartlett and Vavrus (2017), ecological validity “has come to suggest the importance of maintaining the integrity of real-world situations rather than studying a phenomenon in laboratory contexts. The concept offers an implicit critique of 27 the effort to generalize by stripping away the particular” (p. 11). The conceptual framework of pedagogy as a nexus of practice honors the complex and simultaneous presence of multiple elements that intertwine and interact in the moment of teaching and learning. To enable a rich analysis of pedagogy through this conceptual frame, I will draw on the fields of anthropology, teacher education, CIE, and Mediated Discourse
Analysis.
Situating my study in its fields
At its heart, my study is an anthropological one, which means I am primarily interested in pedagogy as a sociocultural phenomenon. As Demerath and Mattheis (2012) put it, “Analyzing … from a sociocultural perspective involves incorporating an anthropological lens in order to understand cultural assumptions … and to identify how problems are defined and addressed.” (p. 13). My aim is to gain an ‘emic’ perspective, that is, to understand from the teachers’ perspectives, how it makes sense to say, do, and act as they do in the classroom. A common anthropological heuristic that I also apply in this dissertation is comparison between what I heard or observed and my own cultural beliefs, assumptions and practices (I come from a white, middle class, American background with many years of work experience in International Baccalaureate international schools).
In addition to a generally anthropological approach to studying social practices, there are powerful anthropological concepts related to understanding difference, particularly at the onto-epistemic level, which make a great contribution to comparative and international education. One particular such concept which I will draw upon in
28 interpreting my findings is that of “equivocations” as developed by Viveiros de Castro
(2004a, 2004b) and de la Cadena (2015). As de la Cadena explains, “equivocations are a type of communicative disjuncture in which, while using the same words, interlocutors are not talking about the same thing and do not know this” (p. 27). Viveiros de Castro
(2004b) asserts the necessity of attention to equivocation:
to translate is to presume that an equivocation always exists; it is to communicate by differences, instead of silencing the Other by presuming a univocality—the essential similarity—between what the Other and We are saying.” (p. 10)
In other words, attention to equivocations can help to avoid the imposition of our own perspective onto others. While Viveiros de Castro is demanding this of anthropologists, I would argue it is equally important in intercultural encounters in IDE. In my study, this concept becomes particularly important in the exploration of teachers’ understandings of terms such as “participatory” compared to how the term is used in IDE Discourse (see
Chapter 5), and in my examination of moral and normative aspects of pedagogy (see
Chapter 6).
At the same time that my study could be located in the anthropology of education, it is also actively engaged in and informed by debates in the field of CIE as reflected in the discussion of conceptions of pedagogy above. Indeed, I believe CIE and IDE would both benefit by being informed by anthropological perspectives.
Because I am examining the practice of pedagogy, and particularly of teachers’ pedagogical choices, teacher education necessarily informs my work. This field is the parent of teaching and learning theories and of teacher professional perspectives. CIE and
29 Teacher Education themselves enjoy multiple connections in theory and practice, and
CIE is sometimes considered a sub-field of Teacher Education (Planel, 2008).
Finally, as explained with my conceptual framework, the notion of social practices that are mediated by and shape the material and discursive conditions in which they take place provides the basis for my analysis in this study. This comes from the field of Mediated Discourse Analysis. Thus, my study resides at the intersection of these four academic fields (see Figure 1.3).
Anthropology of Education Teacher Education
Pedagogy as a nexus of practice
Comparative & International Mediated Discourse Analysis Development Education
Figure 1.3. This study at the intersection of four fields.
Outline of the Dissertation
In this chapter I have introduced the puzzle I intend to explore: why teachers use the pedagogical practices they do, despite policy and research insistence that their practices should change. I have presented the conception of pedagogy that I employ in the study and contrasted it with other conceptualizations which circulate in IDE. I have presented my research questions and explained the conceptual framework of pedagogy as 30 a nexus of practice. In addition to situating my study conceptually and at the intersection of four fields, I also introduced the inter/national nature of the context in which my study took place.
In the next chapter I will briefly provide the particular historical context of the education sector in Tanzania as well as pertinent, recent developments in the education system that have a bearing on the context and actions of teachers in my study. In Chapter
3, I will present the specific study sites and the methodology I used. The following three chapters present the findings of my study, as follows: The interaction order, entailing several elements including the organization of time and space as well as the material objects that are available and how they are put to use by participants, will be explored in
Chapter 4, along with a key aspect of teachers’ historical bodies– their pedagogical content knowledge. In Chapter 5, I move to Discourses in place. Specifically, I will examine teachers’ conception of knowledge and their appropriations of aspects of
“transmission” and “constructivist” epistemologies in conjunction with Discourses surrounding the current curriculum and exams in Tanzania. In Chapter 6, I will explore morals, desirable behavior, and utu, the concept of personhood underlying the moral order connected with teachers’ pedagogical practices. Conclusions, synthesizing the findings from each preceding chapter, and implications of the study will be presented in
Chapter 7.
31 Chapter 2: Historical and Organizational Context of the Tanzanian Primary
Education System
The premise of my conceptual framework is, (to paraphrase Scollon & Scollon,
2004), that a nexus of practice is the moment when historical trajectories of Discourses, ideas, people, places, and objects come together to enable particular pedagogical practices. My exploration of teachers’ pedagogical processes is itself an extended analysis of the mediated sociocultural context of pedagogy in these schools. However, to fully appreciate my findings, it is necessary to have some background knowledge on the historical development and features of the Tanzanian education system in which the teachers in my study worked. Therefore, in this chapter, after a brief discussion of the evolving understanding of “context” in IDE and sociocultural research, I will present an overview of the trajectories that led to the current configuration of primary education in
Tanzania. I will focus on the driving philosophy and goals of education and schooling as they have changed and sedimented over several historical periods. Finally, I will present recent developments in organization, curriculum, and policy which both directly and indirectly shaped life in the schools that were part of my study.
Context as a “Matter of Concern”
Mainstream IDE Discourse often treats context as a stable, background variable
(Sobe & Kowalczyk, 2014; Vulliamy, 2004). In multilateral development partner programs, economic, demographic, and political factors are the most commonly considered contextual variables. For example, program application documents for the
Global Partnership for Education and the World Bank generally present the country’s
32 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and poverty levels, population size, school-age population and demographic growth, as well as the legal frameworks, conventions, and policies that govern an education sector. Similar variables were highlighted in the
“encyclopedic” review (Mundy, 2019, p. 283) of data from quantitative, random-control trial research and World Bank data in the compendium Facing Forward: Schooling for
Learning in Africa (Bashir et. al. 2018). Bashir and colleagues synthesized a categorization of countries based on seven key “contextual” variables: GDP, poverty levels and income equality, population and population growth, language groups, and incidences of conflict.
Such an approach to context requires a priori identification of contextual factors.
Cultural contextual factors are either ignored or relegated to quantifiable categories
(Guthrie, 2015; Vulliamy, 2004), as in the “number of language groups” in a community/country, noted above. It could be said that context in this in idiom is treated as a matter of fact.
Sobe and Kowalczyk (2014), drawing on Latour, make a useful distinction between considering context as a “matter of fact” or a “matter of concern.” Treating context as a catalog of pre-determined factors or categories consigns it a background role, as a “matter of fact,” that is, a “risk-free” object with “clear boundaries and predictive value” (Sobe and Kowalczyk, 2014, p. 10). In contrast, treating context as a matter of concern requires attention throughout the research process and mindful awareness of the emergence and construction of particular configurations of “practices and objects coming together and never permanently stabilizing” (Sobe and Kowalczyk, 2014, p. 10). In this
33 way, the notion of context has moved away from the idea of a static, bounded object.
Context should be considered as constantly “remade” rather than determined in advane
(Bartlett & Vavrus, 2019).
The evolution of the concept of context is similar to the way the notion of culture has changed over time. Bartlett and Vavrus (2017) note that, “Today, anthropologically- informed scholarship generally treats culture as an ever-changing, active, productive process of sense-making in concert with others” (p. 10). In a similar vein, the notion of context has moved away from the idea of a static, geographically-bound, “local” object toward a changing, inter/national, multifaceted, and even contested configuration of things, people and ideas. According to Sobe and Kowalczyk (2014), “rather than something ‘out there, waiting to be observed and described via stable categories,” context is now considered as “an assemblage of multiple, at times paradoxical, things and practices that come together in particular places at particular times” (p.10). The coming together of practices, things, and ideas is often a contested process, influenced by actions taken beyond the local space (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017). No place is autonomous or ahistorical; moreover, treating a group (whether a community, a school, a nationalit) as a
“bounded group” assumes a degree of internal consistency and external difference which may be deceiving (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2019). Thus, culture, place, and context have come to be seen as dynamic and contested.
This dynamic and negotiated concept of context is apt for educational sites in postcolonial situations, which have become hybrid inter/national physical and theoretical spaces through the flow of policy and ideas, educational theory and publishing that mesh
34 with and are taken up in numerous ways by various actors in the education system
(Anderson-Levitt, 2012; Vavrus, 2005). It is helpful to think of an education system’s context itself as a continual becoming, rather than a static object. Policies, research, and their implementation on the ground continue to evolve and change; the slice I’m presenting in this dissertation is merely a snapshot that momentarily freezes the dynamic process that is context.
Historical Phases of Tanzania’s Primary Education System
Precolonial Education
Historians of education often note that pre-colonial education in Tanzania was based in daily-life activities and apprenticeship (Mushi, 2009; Siwale & Sefu, 1977).
Training was generally specialized, that is, only those who needed a particular skill would receive training in it; and teaching tended to be didactic, using tales, riddles, proverbs, songs, stories, and legends, as well as practical imitation and enacting, with learners “watching, participating, executing” (Mushi, 2009, p. 37). In examining accounts of initiation rites among an ethnic group in Northern Tanzania (the Chagga) from the early 20th century, Stambach (2000) notes that a particular rhetorical style, involving shock, goading, and riddling was often employed to develop the intellect. Initiation rites when children reached puberty were common among most ethnic groups, not only the
Chagga. Separated by gender, initiations not only provided sexual education, but also passed on social and moral norms and advice on maintaining marital relations and conflict resolution (B. Chachage, personal communication, 1999). While accounts of indigenous education sometimes romanticize the precolonial period, they do emphasize
35 the important point that precolonial education emphasized morality and was directly tied to everyday life (see for example, Mosha, 2009).
Missionary and Colonial Schooling
In many parts of Tanzania, Koranic schools and Christian missions offered formal schooling before the colonial government established its own institutions. While Koranic schools focused on the memorization and, if a student progressed far enough, analysis of
Hadith (Rugh 1992), Christian mission schools usually offered a combination of
Christian teachings, basic literacy and numeracy, hygiene, and sometimes vocational skills which aimed to convert followers as much as to provide basic education (Siwale &
Sefu,1977; Wright, 1971).
A few government schools were started under the German colonial administration in the early 20th century and the British empire, which took over governance of the
Protectorate of Tanganyika14 after World War I, expanded slightly the number of schools.
The German colonial government’s goal to “prepare junior administrators and … to promote German culture” was not unlike the desire in English colonial education for graduates who would “think like Englishmen” (Pike, 1986, p. 221; Willinsky, 1997, p.
91). Colonial government schools were racially segregated and schools for Africans were characterized by academic and theoretical (or abstract) content, with a strong emphasis on hygiene and vocational skills, particularly agriculture (Mushi, 2009). Mbilinyi (1982)
14 The colony, and the country when it first gained independence in 1961, was named Tanganyika. It became the United Republic of Tanzania when it formed a union with Zanzibar in 1964. 36 notes that “character training” was as important as the academic subjects in colonial schools:
The socialization which took place through school rituals, and authority relationships - flag-raising, caning, standing at attention when the teacher entered the classroom - was given as much attention by colonial educators as the subject matter, and was called ‘character training’. The education system functioned to produce submissiveness, a sense of inferiority, and orientation towards extrinsic rewards and punishments, and an ideological acceptance of capitalist work demands. Even for the majority who never had formal schooling, the education system functioned to reproduce ideological acceptance of the superiority of those who were educated and their ‘right’ to a superior position in the colonial economy. (p. 79)
The students were reportedly mainly interested in learning which could contribute to earning a living (Brown & Hutt, 1935). There was far more interest in attending school than places available, and though the British government felt their quality was low, missionary schools continued to play a large role in formal education during this period
(Vavrus, 2002, 2003; Wright, 1971).
The conventional narrative of the development of formal schooling in Tanzania, found in historical accounts of education in Tanganyika (e.g. Iliffe, 1979; Mbilinyi, 1982;
Mushi, 2009), suggests that regions which did (and still do) rank highly in school attendance and performance do so because of their longer exposure to Western-style schooling through the missionaries. Schooling in Iringa, however, did not follow this pattern. While “western-style education” was introduced by missionaries in northern
Tanzania in the 1860s and 70s (Mushi, 2009, p. 56), missionaries did not establish mission stations or schools in Iringa until, after extensive warfare, the German army removed the Hehe Chief Mkwawa from his capital at Kalenga in 1894. Significantly, the first mission station established in Iringa region was located within meters of the site at
37 which the Germans set up their canons. The mission’s name, Tosamaganga, means
“throwing stones” in KiHehe, an ever-present reminder of the site’s history. The Roman
Catholic Benedictines set up this mission between 1894 and 1896 “while the Hehe were scattered” and soon after established several village schools (Brown, 1944; Brown &
Hutt, 1935). Despite the slightly delayed start to formal schools and its direct association with their vanquished chief, the Hehe showed keen interest in this form of education.
After independence, in 1961, in Nyerere’s African socialist (Ujamaa) era, formal education quickly expanded in the region and Iringa took its place among the top- performing regions.
Independence and Education for Self-Reliance
With independence in the 1960s, Tanzania inherited an economy dependent on the colonial metropole and an education system which was not only racially segregated, but also characterized by an extremely narrow pyramid of access, with fewer students ascending to each higher level of education (Galabawa, 1990). In 1967, with the Arusha
Declaration, Tanzania’s first president, Julius Nyerere, affirmed the country’s new direction was to be Ujamaa, or African socialism, and unveiled his corresponding vision for education: Education for Self Reliance (ESR) (Nyerere, 1967). Nyerere’s approach linked social, political, and economic development, with ESR as an important part of this strategy (DeJaeghere, 2017). Komba (1996) noted that Nyerere expressed in ESR “a deep concern for fashioning a different education that would be appropriate, relevant, and functional for independent Tanzanian society” (p. 3). In the manifesto for ESR, Nyerere
(1967) faulted the inherited colonial school system for transmitting individualistic, non-
38 communal values and giving worth to material possessions Through Ujamaa socialist governance and ESR he sought to re-instill what he considered to be traditional African values of living and working together for the common good, placing the community over individualism (DeJaeghere, 2017). ESR also emphasized the need for learning that was relevant and realistic to the community (Nyerere, 1967).
The Tanzanian government made a major overhaul of curriculum to align with
Ujamaa and Education for Self Reliance. The aim was to include Tanzanian and African history, perspectives, and culture—as well as to fight the “three enemies” of African socialism: ignorance, poverty, and disease (TIE, 2013, pp. 8–9). Galabawa (1990) summarized the aims of ESR into these four points: the need to 1) develop curriculum appropriate to mainly rural, primary-terminal education, 2) integrate education with life and with the community, 3) integrate theoretical knowledge with work and production and 4) “instill self-confidence, creativity, problem solving, and scientific outlook” (p. 21).
While Nyerere (1967) championed critical-mindedness in his vision for education, the
ESR-era curriculum has been criticized for strongly emphasizing loyalty and conformity, and deterring critical thinking (Komba, 1999). Although the curriculum was Africanized, traditional subject areas (Math, Science, Geography) and practical vocational subjects
(such as carpentry, tailoring, agriculture) were still used. There was also an aim to change the entire school system from English-medium to Swahili-medium, but in practice, only primary education was changed. To date, secondary and tertiary education are still
English-medium.
39 In addition to his attempt to change educational philosophy and curriculum,
Nyerere’s government made a commitment to provide Universal Primary Education
(UPE), in the Musoma Declaration of 1974. From the mid-1970s, there were huge drives to train more teachers and enroll children, though the teachers were often recruited among students who had failed secondary school. UPE is said to have been achieved by the late 1970s, with a Gross Enrollment Rate of 98% in 1980, earlier than the original target of 1989 (Galabawa, 2001). Despite the increased access to formal education, reviews of this period reflect mixed opinions. Galabawa (2001) summarizes that UPE and
ESR are seen as failure on two fronts—by some, implementation is faulted as causing the quality of education to plummet, while by others it is criticized for allowing (or not removing) capitalist tendencies in the youth population. Galabawa also notes that although universal primary education was achieved, most parents and students did not accept the idea that primary education should be terminal, and students who did not continue on to secondary school continued to see themselves and be seen by others as failures.
Neoliberal and Human Capital Development
The next major shift in Tanzania’s education landscape was the subtle and somewhat slower slide into a neoliberal and human capital approach, which started in the late 1980s and continues today. Tanzania’s second president, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, elected in 1985, began the process of liberalizing Tanzania’s politics and economy. DeJaeghere
(2017) observes that in this era, “policy documents increasingly aligned with the global and hegemonic discourses of development agencies, but local practices, daily life, and
40 some technologies of governing still drew on Nyerere’s Ujamaa ideals” (p. 82). ESR was still cited as the foundation for education policy in 1995, and even the 2014 Education and Training Policy states: “Education for self-reliance shall continue to be a key philosophy in education and training while taking note of the social, political, economic, scientific and technological changes” (MOEVT, 2014, p. 15). However, during this period the officially stated goal of the education system has shifted from community development to preparing “human resources” to enable Tanzania to compete in the global economy and attain “middle-income country” status (see, for example, Education &
Training Policy, 2014; Education Sector Development Plan 2016/17–2020/21). Even the language in the 2014 Education and Training Policy reflects neoliberal subjectivity, in promoting lifelong “self-education” (kujieleimisha) rather than language suggesting citizens have a right to be provided or given an education (kuelimishwa or kupata elimu)
(see also Chachage, 2014).
During this period in the 1980s, the political and economic liberalization of
Tanzania’s economy through Structural Adjustment Programs15 promoted by the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank affected many aspects of life in Tanzania, including the education system (Vavrus, 2005). Tanzania’s government introduced multipartism in the political sphere and began to devolve administration, including
15 Structural Adjustment Programs were a set of reforms “such as state privatization of national resources, floating national currencies, removing state subsidies for agricultural and food goods, removing trade barriers, and shrinking the state … based on the neoliberal notion … that the market was always more efficient than the state (Carnoy, 1995; Arnove et al., 1996; Torres, 2002)” (Kendall, 2009, p. 426).
41 educational administration, to regional and district levels, through what are called Local
Government Authorities. This decentralization of governance created a situation in which two ministries oversee Basic Education. The Ministry of Education, Science and
Technology (MOEST) is responsible for all education policy, higher education, science technology and innovation, while the education branch of another ministry, the
President’s Office for Regional and Local Administration and Governance (PO-RALG) handles the administration of primary and secondary schools. Reduction of the state’s involvement in provision of services, a hallmark of neoliberal fiscal policy (Chachage,
2014; Harvey, 2005) led to “cost-sharing” in the form of school fees for public schools.
Cost-sharing eroded children’s access to education, and Unicef estimated that by 2015,
23% of primary-school aged children in Tanzania, or nearly two million children, were not in school (MOEST, Unesco & Unicef, 2018). The widening gap between economic
“haves” and “have nots” (in popular terms - walala hai and walala hoi - or those who sleep well/healthy, and those who sleep rough/unwell) was further exacerbated educationally by the rise of private schools. Private primary schools have proliferated since the mid-1990s, leading to what some call a dual or parallel primary education system in Tanzania:
Privatization and liberalisation have therefore led to the creation of a dualistic education system, one for the rich, and one for the poor, with a middle education system of ‘best’ public schools for the middle classes…The marker of difference is no longer race as in the colonial days, but class. (Mbilinyi, 2003, p. 6):
Private schools are generally better resourced in terms of books, libraries, and non-print teaching materials than the public schools. They are also English medium, in
42 contrast to public primary schools which are almost all Swahili medium. Private schools overwhelmingly command the top spots on ranking according to PSLE results.16 Thus, while the post-independence and ESR phase was characterized by increasing access, relevance, and Africanization of the education system in line with the wider project of seeking community development and modernization through African socialism, the neoliberal phase is characterized by widening economic gaps in society, contributed to by educational policy and fiscal practices. The focus shifted from an anti-colonial, humanist stance toward development, to producing human resources to serve the global economy and make Tanzania competitive enough to increase its GDP to middle-income country status, a far more narrow and capitalist agenda.
Following the move to multi-partism in 1992, a new Education and Training
Policy was published in 1995, which led to a new primary school curriculum in 1997
(TIE, 2013). The subject “politics” now became “civics,” though it was similarly criticized for being apolitical and in practice, stressing conformity (Komba, 1999). The structure of subjects and time allocated to various subjects in primary school also changed with this curriculum, reducing the number of subjects from 13 to seven, with
Swahili, Math, and English receiving 65% of the scheduled school day (TIE, 2013).
Between 2003 and 2005, following the publication of Tanzania’s (neoliberal)
“Development Vision 2025,” the curriculum was again re-written, this time aiming to emphasize competences and skills. Additional subjects of Information and
16 While this is informally attributed to better resources and more dedicated, disciplined teachers, it would be interesting to do a rigorous comparison of the English- and Swahili-medium PSLE papers. 43 Communication Technology (ICT), Personality & Sports, and optional subjects such as
French, were added to the primary curriculum (TIE, 2013). In most schools (as is still the case today), Information and Communication Technology and Vocational Skills were taught theoretically, that is, through note taking/lecture, without any practical experience or use of technology.
During this same period, there was also a movement to “upgrade” teachers’ qualifications. Licensed teachers in Tanzania may have completed a certificate, diploma, or degree program. Originally, there were Certificate levels “B” and “C” for teachers who only completed two years of ordinary-level secondary, or Standard VII (primary school) and Certificate level “A” for those who had completed Form IV, or ordinary-level secondary. In 1999, the government announced it would no longer recognize Certificate levels B or C, and all teachers had to “upgrade” to (at minimum) Certificate Level A
(Tao, 2013b). Admittance to diploma and degree programs requires satisfactory completion of advanced-level secondary, which means teachers must first pass secondary schoole exams before they can apply for diploma or degree in education. Diploma courses are two or three year in length and offered by Teacher Colleges, while degrees are four-year programs offered by universities. Moving from a certificate to diploma, or diploma to degree is still encouraged, and having higher qualifications moves teachers up to higher steps on the teacher payscale. However, as Tao (2013b) notes, the process and content of this “vertical” form of upgrading is generally removed from the teachers’ classrooms, and the onus is on teachers to seek and pay for the courses they need in order to upgrade their qualifications. Nevertheless, the process of upgrading has led to an
44 increased number of degree-holders teaching at primary school level (MOEST/MOEVT
Basic Education Statistics Tanzania, 2013, 2017).
Current Organization of the Education System
Several aspects of Tanzania’s education system have remained centralized throughout the different historical periods. This includes the national curriculum, national examination system, and national systems for deployment of teachers. The latter means that when teachers apply to work for the public school system, they do not apply to specific schools, nor do head teachers select the teachers assigned to their school.
Teachers are assigned to a school anywhere in the country based on the needs of each region and the teacher’s qualifications.17 While national deployment was part of the wider civil service policies of Nyerere, as a means to break down barriers between ethnic groups and promote a national identity in the years immediately following independence
(Malipula, 2016), now it is being emphasized as a measure to ensure equity in the availability of teachers across and within regions, as explained in the Primary Teacher
Deployment Strategy (MOEST & PORALG, 2017).
Recent Policy Developments
One of the first actions of the President Magufuli, who was elected in 2015, was to instate the Fee Free Basic Education Policy in January 2016. This move may in part have been made for populist politics, but it also dovetails with the global Sustainable
Development Goals movement. Thus, Tanzania is now undergoing its second period of universal primary education since independence. By 2017, the Gross Enrollment Ratio
17 The one exception being that teachers who are married can request to be posted in the same area as their spouse. 45 for primary school was back up to 97% (BEST 2017). The surge in enrollment led to larger class sizes at each grade level, and especially in the lower primary. The rapid increase in students without a correspondingly rapid increase in teachers or classrooms has had a huge effect on class sizes (See Chapter 4 for a discussion of class sizes and pedagogical practices).
With the implementation of Fee-Free Basic Education, school budgets became entirely dependent on capitation grants (funds allocated per student) from the central government. While capitation grants were originally disbursed through Local
Government Authorities (LGAs) to schools and often not fully disbursed, recent pressure from local NGOs and development partner incentives brought about a change in the system. HakiElimu, an education advocacy NGO documented in annual budget monitoring reports that the government was not disbursing all of the budgeted capitation grants for LGAs, and that a portion of the funds which did reach LGAs did not reach schools (HakiElimu, 2015). At the same time, development partners pooled funds into a results-based financing18 (RBF) program for education. As part of the systemic change required in order to access the RBF, the central government now disburses capitation grants directly to individual schools. This has increased the percent of funds actually reaching schools (Todd & Attfield, 2017). Unfortunately, the budget for capitation grants has not increased since 2001, and stands at Tsh. 10,000 [approximately USD $4.30] per
18 RBF has become a trend replacing direct budget support and donor-run projects in recipient countries. To access these funds, the government of Tanzania must reach agreed upon targets and indicators in various areas, including, among others, enrollment and survival rates, girls’ transition rates to secondary, and Early Grades Reading and Math scores on internationally-standardized tests. Once targets are met and funds are released, the government can use them toward any aspect within the education sector. 46 child per year. It is difficult for schools to provide adequate services on this income
(HakiElimu, 2015). (Also see Chapter 4 for discussion of how fiscal policies have affected classroom practices).
National Curriculum Review
Despite the periodic updates to the curriculum in each preceding era, many voices continued to criticize the Tanzanian curriculum for its theoretical nature, and for the fact that graduates of Tanzanian schools often lack employable skills or understanding (Kalufya & Mwakajinga, 2016; Mwita, 2018). Popular opinion as reflected in newspaper columns and editorials also express dissatisfaction with the curriculum and the theoretical nature of students’ learning (see, for example, “EA Graduates,” 2015).
With funding and support from the Global Partnership for Education, a multilateral organization established to strengthen education systems in developing countries, the government took steps to remedy this situation in primary education by preparing and disseminating a new primary school curriculum in 2014 (for Standards I and II) and 2016 (for Standards III – VI). Two key features of the new curriculum, much touted in policy documents, are the focus on the “3Rs” and the fact that the new curriculum is “competence based” as opposed to the previous “content-based” curriculum. As stated in the introduction to the Standard III-VI curriculum: “This curriculum is based on the movement from a curriculum that emphasizes the contents of subjects toward a curriculum which emphasizes the development of competencies, which combine knowledge, skills and attitudes.” (TIE, 2016a, p. 4; author’s translation).
47 This new, competence-based curriculum coincided with a shift in which subjects are taught at each level, and how many grade levels are compulsory.19 Table 1 below compares the subjects for each grade level under the previous and the new curriculum:
Table 1.1
Subject Areas in the Primary Curriculum
Standard Subjects in the 2005 Curriculum Subjects in the 2015 curriculum Standard I Kiswahili Reading Mathematics Writing and English Mathematics Science Healthcare & the Environment Standard II Vocational Skills Sports & Arts Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Personality Games & Sports
Standard III Kiswahili Kiswahili Mathematics Mathematics Standard IV English English Science Science & Technology Standard V History Social Studies Geography Vocational Skills Standard VI Civics Civics and Moral Education Vocational Skills ICT*1 ICT*1 Sports & Arts* Personality & Sports Religion* Religion* Standard VII Not included in the 2015 curriculum as according to the 2015 Education & Training Policy, standard 7 was to be abolished in the newly compulsory 11-year basic education cycle from pre-primary through Form IV.
19 The 2014 Education and Training Policy stated that one-year pre-primary is compulsory, that Standard VII would be phased out and Lower secondary – Forms I – IV – would become mandatory in 2021. 48 * subject that is not tested on the national exams
*1 subject that is only tested in schools with computer equipment
The new curriculum is organized under competences by subject and is designed with both continuous and summative assessment in mind (TIE, 2016a, pp. 36–37). While the previous curriculum was organized around topics, such as “Cooperation” in the
Personality and Sports subject, “Democracy” in Civics, or “Occupations” in English, the new curriculum is organized around competences. Thus, in English one now finds the objective for students to “Develop and use vocabulary through listening and speaking”
(TIE, 2016a, p. 12). Civics and Personality were combined into one new subject –
“Civics and Moral Education” which includes six “main competences” (TIE, 2016a, p.
17-18):
Children should learn to: 1. Respect the community (self, school and country) 2. Appreciate the community 3. Be responsible 4. Be resilient 5. Be a person of integrity 6. Promote peace and harmony
The new curriculum is also written in a new format, using rubrics. (see Figure 2.1).
49
Figure 2. 2. Extract from Standard IV Civics and Moral Education Curriculum, (TIE 2016b, p. 22).
A close look at the activities and assessment criteria in Figure 2.1 reveals a degree of sedimentation from the previous content-based curriculum. For example, although
“loving oneself and others” is a competence (a lifelong goal, even), the activities and assessment criteria a) and c) both require identification of actions, which could be presented and assessed in the form of a list. The new curriculum is littered with such content-based residua, though actual competences and their assessment also come through, as can be seen in Figure 2.1, 1(b), which requires students to actually do (and advise others to do) actions demonstrating obedience.
50 This new curriculum was published in 2015 and 2016. Its implementation began with the Standard I class in 2015, and in each successive year, this cohort used the new curriculum for each Standard. This means the new curriculum reached Standard IV in
2018. This was serendipitous for my research, as it meant that I observed the old curriculum at Jifunze School in 2017 and the teacher’s first encounter with the new
Standard IV curriculum in 2018 at Somesha Primary School (See Chapter 4 for in-depth discussion of teachers’ understanding and interpretation of the new curriculum).
National Standardized Assessments
Although calls for a move away from standardized written examinations were made as early as 1967 in the ESR manifesto (Nyerere, 1967), the national examination system continues until today. There are two annual national standardized assessments used in Tanzania’s primary education and one sample-based national assessment which is carried out every two years. The Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE), administered at the end of Standard VII and the Standard Four National Assessment (SFNA) given near the end of Standard IV are both multiple-choice (scantron) tests based on curriculum content, by subject. The “National 3Rs Assessment,” which was adapted from the international Early Grades Reading Assessment (EGRA), is administered to a sample of
Standard II students every two years, as a monitoring tool for the central government.
The PSLE was traditionally a high-stakes terminal exam which determined whether children would continue with their education or not. It was designed purposefully as a gatekeeper since there were not enough spaces at secondary for all primary school leavers (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2013). Because Basic Education has been
51 extended to include mandatory lower secondary, the PSLE will no longer have the same function of excluding students from secondary. It still, however, determines whether students are selected into the highest-performing, free, government secondary schools.
The PSLE results are also used as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for the sector as a whole (MOEST, 2017a), and schools are publicly ranked by PSLE performance by the
National Examinations Council of Tanzania (NECTA). The SFNA mainly functions to check the performance of schools midway through the primary cycle. However, if a student fails the SFNA they are held back to repeat Standard IV. These exams form the model for most classroom-based assessment used by teachers, as will be explained in
Chapter 5.
Conclusion
Tanzania’s education system is the product of multiple social, political and economic influences and shows both continuity and change across the decades since independence. The current orientation of the sector at policy and governance levels can be characterized as human capital development. Nevertheless, some of the ideals, values and practices from each era still circulate and can influence teachers’ and administrators’ outlook and practices. I will draw on these and the recent curricular, policy and fiduciary reforms in analysis of my findings. Having now provided the conceptual overview of my study in Chapter 1 and the historical development of the education sector in this chapter, in the next chapter I will present a description of the specific study site for my school ethnography and explain the methodology I used in this study.
52 Chapter 3: Methodology
In this study, I argue that pedagogy should be conceived as a social practice, simultaneously influenced by multiple social cultural and material elements. I use the framework of a nexus of practice to make sense of the particular pedagogical practices of primary school teachers in Tanzania, specifically at two schools which I will introduce in more depth in this chapter. In Chapter 2 I established the importance of recognizing that education systems, as a context, are fluid and constantly changing. Having provided an overview of salient historical and political-economic aspects of the Tanzanian education system as a whole, I will now present my methodology and introduce the specific sites of my study. This chapter also includes details of my data collection methods and analysis,
(de)limitations of the study and my positionality as a researcher.
Methodology
Ethnography as Methodology
While many qualitative studies employ ethnographic methods, in this study, ethnography is my methodology because ethnography is the theoretical perspective from which I seek to understand and explain a phenomenon (teachers’ pedagogical practices), and for which I selected particular methods (Crotty, 1998). As an ethnographer, I aimed
“to collect data that describe the meanings, organization, and interpretations of” the particular social and cultural practice of pedagogy (Streubert & Carpenter, 1999). As
Frankham and MacRae (2011) note, within the methodology of ethnography, participant observation as a way of knowing “remains at the centre of the endeavor” (p. 34). Yet numerous data collection methods can also be employed, and everything encountered by
53 the researcher can be considered data. In my study, this meant not only analyzing the data from observations, interviews, documents I gathered in these schools, but I also attended to interviews I happened to hear on the radio, newspaper articles, and conversations or events that happened outside of the school compounds that helped me to make sense of and interpret my data. This theoretical perspective posits that: “if we wish to understand
[someone/a community] and how they behave, we need to suspend our taken-for-granted understandings and watch and wait for the meanings in what we see to become clear”
(Frankham & MacRae, 2011, p.34). In this study, as I explored pedagogy as a social practice in a specific context—two Tanzanian public primary schools in Iringa town—I aimed to provide nuance and complexity to conceptions of pedagogy by connecting teachers’ practices to organizational structures and relations, histories, epistemologies and moral norms, both within and beyond the school.
Ethnography not only adds a qualitative dimension to empirical classroom data, but it also offers the possibility for emic perspectives and the experiences of teachers and students to enter the research/policy sphere. Spradley (1980) argues, “Ethnography alone seeks to document the existence of alternative realities and to describe these realities in their own terms” (p. 14). Through seeking emic perspectives, ethnography also offers the potential to question universals, such as seemingly universal best teaching practices. This makes ethnography amenable to interpretivist and critical research paradigms.
My study falls broadly within an interpretivist paradigm in that I presume there exist “pluralistic, … open-ended and contextualized (e.g., sensitive to place and situation) perspectives toward reality” (Cresswell & Miller, 2000, p. 125–126). I am using
54 ethnography to develop a rich description of the context of pedagogical practices, and also to make sense of participants’ perspectives. In Escobar’s (2015) Zapatistic terms, I see the world as a “pluriverse, a world where many worlds fit” (p. 12). I argue that the teachers in my study do not only prefer particular practices because of their material situations and epistemological frames, but also because of the moral order upon which they draw, which is based on a different ontology from Western individualism (See
Chapter 6). Yet my work was also informed by a critical view, which asserts that not all perspectives or “worlds” share equal power and recognition, and some groups or perspectives are privileged over others (Vavrus, 2015). In Chapter 1, I argued that a technicist conception of pedagogy has become the dominant Discourse in IDE. This
Discourse asserts particular practices are “best” for teaching and learning and that any who do not follow them are somehow deficient (See Chapter 4). Therefore, while my first intention with this study is to make sense of teachers’ perspectives on pedagogy, my second intention is to question the universality claims of the technicist IDE Discourse.
Data Collection Methods
Overview
Ethnographic methodology involves the researcher herself as the primary instrument of data collection (Aldiabat & Le Navenec, 2011). Spending sufficient time to understand a context and to establish rapport and a trusting relationship with participants is foundational in ethnographic research. As a previous teacher and administrator in international schools in Tanzania, and having lived in Tanzania almost 20 years and partnering with local schools in extra-curricular and cross-cultural activities (not to
55 mention sharing the school stories and experiences of my extended family through marriage), I had a general familiarity with Tanzanian primary schools before starting this study. After a preliminary visit of two weeks in 2016, I spent nine months doing participant observation at the two schools, from August 2017 through April 2018, with follow up interviews in June – September 2018. Thus, the project followed a typical ethnographic method in which “field work involved extended observation, and recording of naturally occurring events, supplemented by interviews and the gathering of other forms of data” (Frankham & MacRae, 2011, p. 34).
I spent five months, August – December 2017, at the first school (Jifunze
Primary) and four months, January – April 2018, at the second (Somesha Primary), inclusive of school holidays in December–January and April. (See Table 3.1). This meant
I observed the two schools in different school years, as primary schools in Tanzania follow the calendar year. I attended school all morning (from before 8 am to 12 or 12:30 pm) for four days a week, observed assemblies and lessons, and also participated in routine activities such as staff meetings. Whenever possible, I also took part in special occasions such as a Women’s Day march in 2018, the neighborhood school-age-child census in September 2017, where I joined a team of two other teachers to go door-to-door inquiring after the number and ages of children in each household, and social occasions such as funerals and send-offs20 that school staff attended. As noted, my observations focused almost exclusively on Standard IV, to allow for more thick description of one (at
Jifunze) or two (at Somesha) classrooms. The focus on one grade level allowed me to
20 A “send off” is a special party/reception at which the bride’s family formally bids farewell to their daughter before a marriage. 56 repeatedly observe the same teachers’ routines, habits, and behaviors and to study the curriculum more closely. Given the high number of students in each class (over 50 in each stream at Somesha and 94 in the one Standard IV class at Jifunze), I could not get to know all the students well, but I became familiar with different friendship groups within each class, and, after the first couple weeks of observation, I sat in the same part of the class each day and came to know the classroom habits and personalities of the 10–12 students immediately surrounding me fairly well. However, I also occasionally visited or observed lower and higher classes, and I interacted with most staff members at both schools daily, in the staffroom. Table 3.1 gives further details on the activities I engaged in at stage of data collection.
Table 3.1
Data Collection Timeline.
Stage/Form Details Timeline of Data Collection Gaining Identified schools and requested letters of support June–July 2016 Research from head teachers, municipal, and regional Permission authorities August– UMN – IRB November 2016
Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology November 2016 (COTECH) –March 2017
Tanzania Immigration21 March–August 2017
21 The delay in receiving COSTECH and immigration permits impacted my research design in that I did not include a third school in my study, and I only had nine months for the daily participant observations in Somesha and Jifunze schools. 57 Stage/Form Details Timeline of Data Collection Jifunze Primary School Demographic Participants: Survey 16 out of 18 teachers 83 out of 94 Standard IV students
Interviews Head teacher (two interviews) Std. IV Science/Math teacher Std. IV History teacher Std. IV English teacher Std. IV Geography/Swahili teacher Std. IV Civics/ Personality & Sports teacher
Participant • Mondays–Thursdays (~7:45–12:00) Role • Daily Observation (2–4 hours per day) in Standard IV; August– • Occasional visits to Standard II or III; December 2017 • Co-taught two science lessons and one math lesson; • Substitute taught one math class and one English class; • Took part in staff activities such as tea break, staff meetings, marking mock exams, conducting a neighborhood census of school- age children, attending funerals, witnessed multiple parent-teacher meetings, • Attended school prayer meetings before national exams/assessments • Daily informal conversations with teachers, students, a few parents, Ward Education Officer, municipal education officers Somesha Primary School Demographic Participants: Survey 19 out of 20 teachers 94 out of 109 students Interviews Head teacher January – April Std. IV Science teacher 2018 Std. IV Math teacher Std. IV Civics & Moral Education teacher Std. 6 English teacher 3rd interview with head teacher from Jifunze
58 Stage/Form Details Timeline of Data Collection Participant • Monday – Thursdays ~8:00 – 12:30 role • Almost daily observations of up to two hours per day in Std. IV • Teaching Std. VI English (1–2 periods daily plus marking); • Teaching Std. IV Science ~once a week • Taught One ‘model’ lesson in Std. 5 English (requested by the teacher) • Took part in staff activities such as tea break, staff meetings, attending weddings and funerals; visiting injured teacher in hospital • Daily informal conversations with teachers, students, a few parents, Ward Education Officer, a teacher educator from local Teachers College • Visited and lengthy discussions with nearby start-up private school owner and head teacher Additional interviews Local Teacher educator/supervisor of block teaching practice Teachers at Somesha Primary College August– Tanzania Curriculum writer – Civics & Moral Education September 2018 Institute of Education
Data Occasional social visits to both schools and individual September Analysis teachers 2018–April 2019 Somesha and Member checking: focus group discussion of my Jifunze analyses and major findings with three teachers and Primary head teacher at each school March 2019 Schools (separately)
Informed Consent
Common ethical principles in research include confidentiality and informed consent of participants (Piper & Simons, 2011). For my study, I obtained consent from
59 regional and school authorities as well as clearance from the University of Minnesota
IRB and the corresponding Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) in
Tanzania prior to data collection. In the Tanzanian school environment, a head teacher gives consent on behalf of the students and teachers in the school; that is once the head teacher has provided a letter of consent, s/he has given permission for the researcher to involve any of the students or staff members in the study. Nevertheless, at the start of data collection, I requested each head teacher to read and explain an information sheet to the classes which I would observe. I also provided a copy of an information sheet and requested individual verbal consent from each of the teachers I interviewed and regularly observed. Written consent was also obtained from any individuals whose photographs are used in this dissertation. As noted earlier, students and teachers also had the option not to participate in my surveys, a right which some of them exercised.
Participant observation
At the first school, Jifunze, my role was almost exclusively observer, whether in the classroom, staff room or in various daily activities around the school. There were only three instances in which I co-taught lessons with the regular subject teacher in Standard
IV (in science and math), and two instances in which I substitute-taught (one in math and one in English). Once the Standard III teachers asked me to teach a Swahili lesson and an
English lesson for their class, which they observed. At times, when I was observing the
Standard IV class, no teacher was present (either during a break between lessons or because a teacher missed a lesson), but I resisted the urge to take over the class and teach a lesson so that I could instead observe how the students used their unsupervised time.
60 They became so accustomed to my presence that they would drop the formal, quiet behavior they adopted when their teachers were present, until teachers from other classes would come by to chastise them. Other times, students, as individuals or pairs, would come to me and request me to help them—e.g. to check their spelling of English words, to help with math problems or to read an English book (the last only happened twice, when students had brought either a story book or magazine from home).
I made myself useful whenever I could. The math teacher often asked me to help her grade student exercises, and I helped other teachers grade the stacks of end-of-year exams for different classes. Because I often came by car, I would provide transport for teachers to get forms or supplies from the district office and give them a lift home if we left at the same time. But by and large, at Jifunze my role was to watch, listen, and ask questions.
At Somesha, I continued watching, listening, and asking questions, but I was assigned an additional role of sharing the teaching of English in Standard VI and, to a lesser extent, Science in Standard IV. In both cases, for three or four lessons, the regular teacher and I co-taught, in that we would both be in the room, with one of us taking the lead and the other supporting students to engage in the lesson. More often, however, we would confer on the planning of lessons and then one or the other of us would go to teach. Usually whoever taught the lesson would also mark the exercises afterward. For the English classes, their teacher, Ms. Valilwa, was concerned that students’ level needed to improve, and she was interested in seeing new teaching strategies. I shared with her and tried in class several pedagogical ideas and strategies which were different from the
61 way students were accustomed to be taught (for example, using readers theater, encouraging English-Swahili vocabulary lists, and having students draft and revise their own sentences). However, in Standard IV Science, the regular teacher, Ms. Faustina utilized me more as a substitute teacher following her lesson plans and notes.
Throughout the period of participant observation, I wrote up field notes daily and reviewed them at the end of each week. A few people emerged as what I might call “key informants” with whom I could regularly ask follow up questions, seek clarifications or share ideas from the ideas emerging from my field notes. These included Ms. Valilwa, with whom I co-taught English, a Standard V and VI teacher at Somesha whom I did not observe or teach with, but who sought my ideas and enjoyed discussing issues and observations with me, as well as two of the Standard IV teachers I frequently observed at
Jifunze – Ms. Daima and Ms. Lyungai. However, it was Mr. Joesphat, the head teacher at
Jifunze, with whom I discussed at most length, and who offered powerful insights, new perspectives and questioning of my assumptions as I shared emerging theories and questions (see Key Participants for further details).
Interviews and Surveys
In addition to informal conversations, including frequent discussions with key informants from each school, I also conducted semi-structured interviews with nine
Standard IV teachers and the head teachers at each school (see Table 3.2 for participants and Appendix A for interview protocols). I formally interviewed a teacher educator who supervised student teachers (called Block Teaching Practice) at Somesha during the time
I was there, to gain her perspective on teachers’ pedagogical practices, and I interviewed
62 a curriculum writer for Civics and Moral Education. As moral Discourses and behavior expectations emerged as one of the salient discourse cycles in my data, I wanted to learn more about the shift from the subject Personality and Sports to Civics and Moral
Education. All interviews, surveys and conversations were conducted in Swahili, aside from one interview in which the interviewee preferred English. I audio recorded interviews and transcribed them myself.
To gather demographic information such as teachers’ education level, years of teaching, age, ethnicity, religion, etc., I carried out demographic surveys of the teaching staff. Because it is difficult to obtain up-to-date demographic information at ward level, I also had a demographic survey for students, which included their age, ethnicity, with whom they lived and the occupations of their caregivers. These were quick, oral surveys, taking five minutes or less, which I completed one-on-one with staff members and students after I had been in each school for at least one month to establish relationships. I conducted the survey with teachers during their free periods, and with students during lesson periods when no teacher was present to teach. Survey participation was voluntary; students and teachers had the option not to participate. At Somesha 86% and at Jifunze
88% of the Standard IV students responded to the survey, while 90% of teachers at
Jifunze and 95% at Somesha participated. (See Appendix B for Survey Protocols).
Key participants.
Teachers whom I observed in Standard IV on a regular basis are included in Table
3.2. An asterisk (*) indicates that this teacher also participated in a semi-structured interview. Note, I have included all of the subjects and grade levels the teachers were
63 assigned, but I only observed these teachers in their Standard IV classes, aside from Ms.
Valilwa, whom I sometimes observed in Std. VI and more often shared in co-planning and reflecting on the Std. VI English lessons.
Table 3.2.
Background of teachers I observed and interviewed.
Jifunze Primary School
Education Years of Name Age Subjects teaching level experience Ms. Lyungai* 43 Std. IV English; Std. V English; Std. VII BA 17 Social St. Education Ms. Daima* 42 Std. IV Personality & Sports, Civics; Std. BA 18 VII English, Swahili Education Ms. Zawadi* 51 Std. IV History, Std. V English, History, BA, 30 Std. VII History Education Ms. Pona* 29 Std. IV Math, Science and Vocational Certificate 7 Skills; Std. III Math, Ms. Henry*22 32 Std. IV Geography, Kiswahili, Std. III Certificate 9 Social Studies Somesha Primary School
Education Years of Name Age Subjects teaching level experience Mr. Ngwila* 50 Std. IV Math, Std. VI Geog., Std. VII Diploma 17 Science Ms. Mtima 59 Std. IV English, Std. III Civics & Moral Certificate 33 Ed., Std. VI Personality & Sports Ms. Valilwa* 48 Std. VI English, Std. VII History, Std. V BA 28 Vocational Skills Education Ms. Faustina* 44 Std. IV Science, Std. VII Swahili Diploma 21
Ms. Jina* 43 Std. IV Civics & Moral Education, Std. V Diploma 15 Math Ms. Maua 37 Std. IV Swahili, Std. V Geog., Std. VII Diploma 15 Civics
22 I had fewer opportunities to observe Ms. Henry (only five lessons) because she frequently taught the final afternoon periods (between 12:30 and 2:00), and I was in school until noon. 64
In addition, I interviewed the head teachers at each school, and Mr. Josephat became a key informant with whom I frequently shared developing theories and asked questions. Because the head teachers played a significant role in shaping school culture and practices, I include biosketches of the two head teachers here:
Mr. Josephat, Jifunze Head Teacher
Mr. Josephat, who has been a head teacher for 30 years, is experienced and confident in his views and decisions. He has a cheerful disposition and even jovial relationship with staff and students – he frequently smiles and makes jokes to put others at ease. A consummate networker, he has developed a close network of support from parents and community members who frequently make donations to the school (for example, a new classroom door or sugar and tea for the staffroom). Mr. Josephat received typical teacher training in the early 1980s (a diploma course). He often spoke fondly of the Nyerere period in education and felt the education system had deteriorated significantly since then. As a young science teacher, he created science lab equipment out of local materials which caught the attention of the local teachers’ college and a donor program. For a time, he worked with both the college and a special program to demonstrate the making of such equipment to other teachers at the college’s “teaching lab” school. The government wanted to recruit him to become a teacher educator at a college in another region, but he preferred to continue working at school level and in his home region. He became a head teacher and continued in that role until now; as he nears retirement age. Mr. Josephat is the kind of head teacher who sits outside of his office much of the day, not only to help monitor that lessons are going on and students are not dallying in the corridors, but also so that he is easily accessible to students, parents, or teachers. Students are respectful but not fearful to approach him.
In our first meeting (which took place when I was in the process of identifying potential schools for the study), he explained to me that he sees love as the basis of the teaching profession, and that he sees each student as his own child. My observations of his relationship with teachers, students and parents throughout my interactions with the school bear out his commitment, and how his leadership shapes the school culture at Jifunze (see Chachage, et.al., 2019). For example, I observed Mr. Josephat and other teachers providing care and first aid in the case of student injury, and also volunteering on
65 weekends and holidays to give extra lessons for free. At Jifunze, teachers were aware of and helping children with financial problems (e.g. making sure they were given notebooks, pens or snacks if they hadn’t eaten). Jifunze staff often counseled students and parents/guardians, the latter of whom made frequent visits to the school staff room. In contrast, parents were rarely seen and coolly received at Somesha, and teachers there were reluctant to provide first aid when an injury occurred.
As head teacher, Mr. Josephas has also cultivated a collaborative environment amongst the teachers. The teachers worked in teams to invigilate and mark exams, and two pairs of teachers co-taught in Standard I and in Standard II. When teachers were new to the school or to teaching a particular subject, Mr. Josephat paired them with more experienced peers for mentoring. Teachers frequently consulted each other regarding marking schemes in the staff room. In contrast, I rarely observed such consultation and collaboration at Somesha, where the teachers tended to work in isolation, despite sharing the staff room and a degree of rowdy, close camaraderie. Mr. Josephat led by example, by providing timely support, and by setting clear expectations for his teachers.
Mr. Salehe, Somesha head teacher
Mr. Salehe had been at Somesha for six or seven months when I started my observations there in January 2019, and this was his first appointment as head teacher. Previously, he had been the deputy head teacher at another school in the same district. He was much younger than Mr. Josephat, and was currently mid-career. As a teacher, his main subject areas were English and geography, and he taught some Standard VII classes at Somesha to ensure they would be ready for their exams. When we first met, Mr. Salehe explained to me that he actually had always dreamed to be an architect, but never had the chance to study architecture. He still enjoyed drawing and offered his drawing services to teachers to help them with visual aids (mainly in Standards I and II, e.g. pictures to go with the letters of the alphabet, numbers, colors, etc.). Mr. Salehe explained to me in an interview that as he was new to the school, this first year he was getting to know the teachers and a bit later, he wanted to work on instructional support with them. He planned that teachers would observe each other and give feedback to improve each others’ lessons, but he had not yet taken steps to build a collaborative learning relationship among teachers. For example, I did not observe a culture of sharing resources and cooperating in teaching, counseling or marking, such as existed at Jifunze. During the time of my observations, Mr. Salehe was concerned with establishing procedures. There were logbooks to record lessons taught, which
66 class monitors would remind teachers to sign every day. Mr. Salehe would periodically collect and check teachers’ lesson plan books or random samples of student notebooks to ensure that they were regularly graded by teachers. He was not often visible in corridors or classrooms; but he did hold regular staff meetings in which he would share his expectations for teachers to execute their duties and have open conversations regarding how best to use the school’s resources. He also exerted quite a bit of effort to address truant students, visiting their homes and following up via telephone with parents to improve student attendance.
Document analysis
I also conducted document analysis, before, during and after the participant observation. Documents I reviewed include national level documents, such as the 2014
Education and Training Policy, the 2016/17–2020/21 Education Sector Development Plan and the new and old curricula for Standard IV. Within the latter, I focused deeper analysis on the curricula as well as the textbooks for Personality and Sports and Civics and Moral
Education. I also analyzed documents used in the classroom, such as the school rules, exercises and notes given in class, supplementary textbooks used by teachers and practice papers and mock exams for the SFNA and PSLE. Over the course of the year I also observed a sample of teachers’ schemes of work and lesson plans, and government circulars23 the school received during the course of observation.
Data analysis and Trustworthiness
Data analysis in ethnographic inquiry is a reiterative and reflexive process
(Frankham and MacRae, 2011). I typed up all interview transcriptions and most field notes electronically so that I could review them thematically and iteratively with the aid
23 A “circular” is an official letter from the Ministry or affiliated government institution (such as the exams council – NECTA) clarifying or legally mandating an update to an existing policy. 67 of Atlas.ti software. I inductively generated codes based on themes emerging from the field notes and transcriptions. I used codes mainly to easily (electronically) identify particular types of events, themes or situations in my data, rather than to form categories out of the data. I also used Excel to enter, generate charts and compare the survey data across the two schools. I used Excel to enumerate and compare teacher interview responses as well, regarding, for example, what they considered to be “good habits/behavior” or “bad habits/behavior.”
Throughout this process, my aim was, as Maxwell (2013) puts it: to “look for relationships that connect[ed] statements and events within a context into a coherent whole” (p. 113). I found I had to frequently review and refine emerging theories to make sense of the data. Paying attention to moments, actions or comments I found puzzling often led to insights in terms of what to explore in related literature (such as African philosophy/ontology that I will discuss in Chapter 6) as well as to new questions and follow up observations for my field work.
Because ethnographic research is an interpretive exercise, trustworthiness of the findings is an important consideration. Trustworthiness is more relevant than validity and reliability for qualitative research (Rossman and Rallis 2010; Toma, 2011). Researchers can develop trustworthiness of their findings through different means, including researcher reflexivity, thick description, triangulation, and member checking (Cresswell
& Miller, 2000). Throughout my data collection and analysis, I attempted to not only reflexively consider my own positionality vis a vis those who participated with me in the study. I also “tacked” between theory and experience to evaluate the explanatory power
68 of my emerging theories (Frankham & MacRae, 2013). I used triangulation of data in several senses. My prolonged engagement in the field provided a large amount of data which I could use to compare across what different participants said, as well as comparing what they said with what they did. That is, I looked for patterns or convergence across participants and between what was professed in interviews and seen in observation, and whether there was enough saturation of evidence to support a theory.
I also looked for instances of disconfirming evidence, for example, teachers whose practices did not conform to a particular pattern.
After spending some time away from the study sites, during which time I further analyzed and refined the findings that stood out as most salient, I felt it was important to gain participants’ perspectives on my conclusions through member checking. I returned to each school to share my findings with a focus group of teachers and the head teachers in March 2019. At both schools, I allowed the head teacher to determine who would attend the meeting, according to teachers’ schedules and availability. Serendipitously, at each school, the group included two teachers whom I had interviewed and observed, and two teachers who were more removed from the study (that is, they were teachers who were familiar with me and my study, but did not teach in Standard IV, therefore I had not directly observed or interviewed them). At Somesha, the head teacher, Mr. Salehe, participated in the focus group with the teachers, while at Jifunze, Mr. Josephat left myself and the teacher group alone, and I had a separate, lengthy feedback session with him individually. In both focus groups and separately with Mr. Josephat, I presented a summary of my findings orally, with support of one diagram on a printed handout. I
69 asked for participants’ views and reactions, pausing frequently in my presentation for comments and questions. This process was very useful, highlighting several areas where participants concurred with my conclusions, but also allowing me to note where there was pushback or additional observations added by those giving me feedback.
The feedback and reflections are incorporated into my findings. For example, both focus groups and Mr. Josephat agreed that my synthesis of good, or moral, behavior accurately reflected their views, and it was in discussing these that participants made a connection between their current views and traditional/pre-colonial education. This prompted me to re-examine literature on the rhetorical style and epistemology of indigenous initiation rites (as one instance of indigenous pedagogy) and to consider how this is another Discourse influencing teachers’ practices (See chapters 5 and 6 for discussion of continuities from pre-colonial education). Through the member checking process, I realized that in my mind, and in my presentation of the IDE Discourse of best practices as technicist and as purporting to be universal, I had a tendency to vilify development partners and their programs in Tanzania. I was focusing only on the hegemonic imposition they asserted and the inherent arrogance in assuming the practices they promoted were unquestionably better than Tanzanian teachers’ practices (the language I used in this sentence reflects the tone of critical indignation I had slipped into). However, I was taken aback when Mr. Josephat emphatically defended the value and the importance of development partner programs, for his school directly and for the country. He rightfully pointed out that the government had not consistently provided professional development for in-service teachers for years, and it was the 3Rs programs
70 (see Chapter 1) that had funded and returned the government’s attention to the importance of professional development for teachers. Mr. Josephat’s pushback helped to remind me that while the technical-assistance approach of the 3Rs and similar programs does negatively contribute to a technicist conception and to unequal power relations between local teachers and international programs, there are still important, positive aspects of these programs. Overall, the process of member checking forced me to summarize and articulate key points emerging from the data, allowed me to observe how my own articulation developed over the course of the three sessions, and enabled me to refine my findings.
(De)Limitations of the study
The (de) limitations of my study were shaped by where I focused my ethnographic gaze. In this study, I focus on sociocultural aspects of pedagogy, including the social organization of space, time and interactions, epistemologies and moral norms and philosophies. I did not gather specific data on student achievement, aside from anecdotal observation of students’ performance in class and publicly-available examination results.
While I examined teachers’ use of resources and aspects of their pedagogical content knowledge, I did not seek to measure teachers’ subject content mastery per se. I intentionally delimited the study to focus on the social and cultural elements of Nexus
Analysis which were most salient in my data. During data collection, I had little direct interaction with parents, aside from observations of parent-teacher interactions that happened in school. Based on my review of literature on parents’ perspectives on primary education and my own interpersonal experience with parents of primary-school age
71 children over many years of living in Tanzania, I do not believe interviews with parents would have significantly changed my findings.
I focused more on teacher practices and instruction than on student actions in order to build up a narrative of the influences on teachers’ practices, particularly in analysis and writing up my findings (as compared to my observations and field notes). A more detailed study of the historical bodies of both teachers and students and their interactions in Tanzanian classrooms is a promising area for further research but would require a narrower focus and more specific data collection methods than that of my study
(such as video and audio recording in the classroom).
Having presented the details of my study design, data collection and analysis, in the remainder of this chapter I will present a description of the site. I will include data from my demographic surveys in the description of the staff and student bodies. Finally, I will close the chapter with a discussion of my positionality as the researcher.
The Study Location
The schools in my study are situated on the edge of Iringa town, which is the capital of a region of the same name in the Southern Highlands of mainland Tanzania, a fertile agricultural zone with a temperate climate (Figure 3.1). The current borders of the region match fairly closely the lands of the Hehe ethnic group at the end of the 19th century (when European colonists arrived), with some Bena, Kinga, Pawaga and Sangu communities interspersed and around the edges of the region. Due to Nyerere’s post- independence nation-building policies, general urbanization, and the presence of several universities in Iringa town, the Iringa municipal area is now quite a heterogenous mixture
72 of ethnic groups from many parts of Tanzania, as well as Arab, Indian, European and
East Asian citizens and ex-patriates, though the Hehe are still the preponderant ethnic group. Swahili is the common language of the urban community, and in many households, the language of the home. According to official population projections, the region’s total population was just over one million in 2018 (National Bureau of Statistics
[NBS], 2018, p. 17). Iringa Town has a population of about 151,000, of which 52% are female and 16% are of primary school age (7–13 years old) (NBS, 2016). Agriculture is the mainstay of Iringa’s economy. According to the Iringa Region GDP Report 2008
(NBS & Iringa Regional Council [IRC], 2011), 89.4% of Iringa region’s GDP comes from agriculture, with major crops being maize, tea, tobacco, sunflowers, and other food crops. Iringa Urban District (comprising Iringa town and the surrounding villages) has the lowest overall GDP in the region, while the tea plantation district of Mufindi has the highest.
Map sources: Tanzania map: http://www.ezilon.com/maps/africa/ tanzania-physical-maps.html Iringa Region Inset: NBS & RC Iringa, 2011, p. i
Figure 3. 7. Map of Iringa within Tanzania
73 I chose Iringa as the site for my study for two reasons. Firstly, relatively few studies of education have been done in Iringa region, particularly when compared to northern regions of the country where there is a longer history of formal schooling and perhaps easier access for researchers due to its being a hub for international travel, business and many international organizations.24 The second reason was my familiarity with the region. I am particularly familiar with Iringa Municipality, where I first lived as a teacher for two years in the mid-1990s and which has been my family home since 2007.
I am fluent in Swahili and all of my research was conducted in Swahili.
The School Sites
The two schools in my study, Jifunze and Somesha Primary Schools, are next door to each other. When children from one school rush outdoors to play with whoops and shouts, they are heard in the other school. The toilet blocks (both set a bit apart from the main school buildings) are mere feet apart. Due to the expansion of population in the area as Iringa town grew at the turn of this century, the school population became too large for the “parent” school Somesha (“shule mama,” as it is called by teachers in the area) (Figure 3.2). Therefore, Somesha “gave birth” to fraternal twins: two new schools, one of which, Jifunze Primary, was built right next door to the original parent school, while the other is just under a half mile away. Originally, all three schools were to be a part of my study, but due to a logistical difficulty, namely, an eight-month delay in the
24 NB: This observation pertains to internationally-accessible research. It is possible that research in local universities is more balanced across the country, but locally published research findings are difficult to access. At the time of this research, only dissertations from Open University of Tanzania were easily available online. For University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) theses, one must physically go to the UDSM library, request access and read dissertations on the premises. Several universities have established journals, but these are also usually not available online, and often few issues are available in hard copy. 74 issuance of my research and immigration permits, only Somesha and Jifunze were included.
Figure 3. 8. The entrance to Somesha Primary School.
(The cars in the photo belong to myself and teachers; at both schools, two or three teachers would drive to school in their own cars, while the majority of teachers and students walked or used public transportation.)
Selection of school sites
I selected these two schools because, while they are typical primary schools and similar to each other in many ways, they have starkly different academic performances.
Jifunze and Somesha are typical schools in terms of their size, demographics and the resources available for teaching and learning. Both schools draw on the same pool of teachers and their student bodies comprise mainly children from the same neighborhoods surrounding the two schools. However, the performance of Somesha on national examinations is average or only slightly above average (depending on the year analyzed). 75 From 2013 to 2018, Somesha consistently ranked in the middle band of district schools on the PSLE. On both the PSLE and SFNA, the majority of Somesha students achieved grades B, C, or D across subjects (See Tables 3.3 and 3.4).
In contrast, Jifunze primary is one the most successful public schools in the district and nation. There are private schools that outrank Jifunze, but in the past 10 years, only one public school in the district has ever exceeded Jifunze in its ranking on the
PSLE, and that happened only once. (It is perhaps not a coincidence that the leader of that school has been mentored by the Jifunze Primary head teacher, though investigating school leadership per se was beyond the scope of this study). Jifunze is always one of the top ten (usually one of the top five) schools overall (including public and private schools) in the district on the PSLE and SFNA, and the majority of students’ grades across subjects are As and Bs. Jifunze has received national awards and recognition from the
Parliament of Tanzania for its academic achievement. I sought to investigate whether the distinguishing feature of Jifunze’s performance might be related to pedagogy in its broadest sense, and this is one reason why I chose this school and its neighbor as the two sites for my study. I also had to consider the willingness of the head teachers to allow their staff and students to participate in a research study. Given their separate administration and day-to-day functioning, as well as some differences in school culture and academic performance, I have differentiated them as two school sites.
76 Table 3.3. Jifunze and Somesha Primary School Leaving Exam Rankings, 2015–2018
PSLE Rankings 2015 2016 2017 201825 (private and public schools) District ranking out of 43 schools (avg.)26 4 3 3 6 Jifunze Regional ranking out of 353 schools (avg.) 4 3 3 11 National ranking out of 11,980 schools (avg.) 247 152 208 797
District ranking out of 43 schools (avg.) 18 21 11 24 Somesha Regional ranking out of 353 schools (avg.) 66 54 43 97 National ranking out of 11,980 schools (avg.) 3608 1715 1698 3472
Table 3.4. Jifunze and Somesha Standard Four National Assessment Rankings, 2015-2018
SFNA ranking 2015 2016 2017 2018 (private and public schools) District ranking out of 43 (avg.) 8 4 7 6 Jifunze Regional ranking out of 380 (avg.) 23 7 14 11 National ranking out of 1467 819 1733 1680 13,226 (avg.)
District ranking out of 43 (avg.) 24 15 20 12 Somesha Regional ranking out of 380 (avg.) 97 78 111 33 National ranking out of 13,226 (avg.) 3836 2905 4766 2794
25 All figures were obtained from publicly available examination results data, available at https://results.necta.go.tz 26 The total number of schools at district, regional and national level fluctuates slightly from year to year. On Table3.3 and Table 3.4 I have shown the average number of schools over the four years, 2015–2018. 77
Within each school I focused my observations mainly on Standard IV. I confined my observations to one grade level to allow myself to get to know the teachers, students and curriculum well, compared to the depth of knowledge I would have gained from moving between grade levels. (In Standards III through VII, the class or stream stays together in their classroom and subject teachers rotate through classrooms; therefore, there are multiple teachers for one grade level). I purposely selected a middle grade
(between Standard III and VI) because I wanted to avoid Standard VII, which graduates in September, and to avoid possibly disrupting their exam preparation. I also avoided
Standards I and II because they are the subject of large-scale interventions in the 3Rs, and
I did not want my study to become an evaluation of the implementation of those programs. Furthermore, as a teacher, I have had the most experience with teaching grades
3–5. Once I had narrowed down to the middle grades, I asked the head teacher at the first school I observed (Jifunze) to suggest which class would be most appropriate. He suggested Standard IV because at the time, this was the smallest class at Jifunze, with 94 students.
Overview of School Facilities
Somesha Primary School, which was built by the Catholic Church for the government,27 has plenty of classrooms – two streams per standard (grade level), plus three offices (two for the administration and one is the staff room), and additional
27 The Catholic Church built the school for the government in exchange for keeping school buildings within a nearby Catholic mission compound at the time of the nationalization of schools in the early 1970s. 78 storerooms. In contrast, Jifunze has only seven classrooms plus one office and one storeroom (Figure 3.3). At Jifunze, one classroom is, therefore, used as the staffroom and
Standards I and II share one classroom on a double shift for nine months of the year. For the last three months of school, after the Standard VII students graduate, Standard. II shifts into the Standard VII’s classroom. With only one stream per grade level at Jifunze, teachers must teach over 90 or 100 students at one time in far more crowded classrooms.
In both schools, the staff room is a focal point for teachers, particularly those in
Standards III – VII who rotate through different classrooms to teach their subjects. Each teacher has an assigned seat in the staffroom. In both schools, the staffroom was arranged with tables in a square so that everyone faced each other. The staff room was the space in which teachers planned lessons, graded student work, and socialized.
Figure 3. 9. The entrance to Jifunze Primary School. Students would line up in this driveway for morning assembly each day.
Neither school had a library, and there was electricity only in the offices and staffrooms. Jifunze had a set of laptops from a research project they were part of in 2010– 79 11 (Apiola, et.al., 2011); however, the computers were never to be seen during my observation period. When I asked about them, I was told that since the end of the project, the school had no means to pay for the electricity and internet, so the computers were kept in storage. As can be seen in the photos (see figures 3.2 and 3.3), both schools have flowers and trees around the school yard, which students water each school day with water brought from their homes in a plastic watering jug. Both schools shared one soccer field and the open space around the field for play areas.
School Staff
At Jifunze and Somesha, like most Tanzanian primary schools, the only staff members are the head teacher and teachers; there is no support staff, such as janitors, secretaries or guards. Students are assigned cleaning chores by class, and teachers support the head teacher with clerical tasks. Both schools have an adequate number of teachers because of their urban location, compared to rural schools which tend to have more teacher shortages. According to government statistics for 2017, the average teacher-pupil ratio for the country was 1:41, and for Iringa region the average was 1:55 (PO-RALG,
2017). At the time of my study, both of these schools had over 20 teachers and 680 - 750 students, making their teacher-pupil ratio better than average, at 1:32. However, a good teacher-pupil ratio overall for a school does not necessarily translate into a manageable number of students in each classroom. The pupil to classroom ratio is often more pertinent to pedagogical practices.
The data in the remainder of this section come from my teacher demographic survey. Both schools had male head teachers, but a majority female staff. Across both
80 schools, 13% of teachers (including the head teachers) were male. The average age of teachers at both schools was slightly higher than the national average. While the largest percent of teachers nationally are in the 26–30 age group (MOEST, 2017b), the largest group of teachers at both Somesha and Jifunze was aged 41–45. This again, may be related to the school’s urban location. Many teachers in my study reported that they had first been assigned to rural schools, and later they managed to transfer to Iringa town, which all of those surveyed preferred.
The older age of teachers may also explain the commitment of these teachers to the teaching profession. Many studies of teachers in Tanzania report that teachers joined the profession as a last resort and were hoping to change professions in the future (see for example, Vavrus & Bartlett, 2013). In contrast, the teachers that I interviewed in my study all said they would not want to stop teaching. Some teachers said they had always wanted to be teachers because either their parents were teachers, they’d had a teacher who inspired them, or they liked children. One teacher quite candidly explained that she liked to be a teacher because she could do the job and still have time for her own side businesses –this teacher was an entrepreneur, with a successful poultry project and opening her own shop. Some of the teachers, had indeed, come into teaching because they didn’t qualify for other educational paths, but claimed they had since come to appreciate teaching as a vocation. For instance, Ms. Valilwa remarked: “I hadn’t thought about becoming a teacher when I was young, but once I was chosen for teachers’ college, once I started the course, I liked teaching… I’m satisfied with this career” (Interview,
2018.3.15). As I asked teachers about these issues during the interviews, there may have
81 been an element of them creating a certain image of themselves for me, as the researcher, but it is also possible that younger teachers who don’t like the profession have moved on before they reach the age bracket of the teachers I interviewed.
The teachers at the two schools differed slightly in their qualifications (see Figure
3.4). As I explained in Chapter 2, the lowest level qualification the government accepts is a certificate, and many teachers start with either a certificate or diploma and then pursue the next higher certification while they are employed in schools. The current government continues to encourage all teachers to upgrade their certification.
Somesha Teachers' Education Level Jifunze Teachers' Education Level (n=18) (n=20) missing, 2 degree, 4 missing, 1 degree, 2 certificate , 3
diploma diploma, 4 , 14 certificate, 8
Figure 3. 10. Teachers’ Qualifications
From the pie charts,28 it can be seen that Jifunze, the school with better exam results, had a higher number of certificate (lower qualification) holders (Figure 3.4). This points to the fact that teacher training and formal qualifications, while important, do not necessarily translate into better job performance.
28 NB: The n at each school reflects the number of teachers working full time at the time of my observations; a few teachers were on study leave or sick leave and are not included in the n. The “missing’ teachers included in this n were teachers who were working at the time but did not respond to the survey. 82 The teachers’ ethnicity reflect a mix of Tanzanian ethnic groups (see Figure 3.5).
This is common among public servants in all Tanzanian urban centers and regional capitals, due to purposeful policies of the government since the post-independence
Nyerere era, designed to promote national identity and lessen tribal rivalry. I initially included ethnicity on my teacher survey out of curiosity whether it would influence or correlate in any way with pedagogical practices or morals and values. However, while teachers did show friendship for those from the same ethnic group, I did not find evidence that it influenced their teaching. In fact, teachers across schools and backgrounds were surprisingly consistent in their values and expectations for student behavior, as I will discuss in Chapter 6. Only 3% of the teachers were Muslim, the remainder identified as Christian.
Teachers' Ethnic Groups N=38 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Bena Hehe Kinga Chagga Pare Ngoni Other missing
Figure 3. 11. Teachers' ethnicity NB: 'Other' refers to various ethnic groups that had only one representative.
83 Student demographics
The students’ age in Standard IV, according to their self-reporting on my survey, shows that the majority of students registered at what was the official age (7) at the time they started primary school (See Figure 3.6). It is notable that the older students (who mainly started school late, though a few had been withheld a grade) were mainly boys, and girls were more likely to start school early. This may be due to parents’ perception that girls mature faster and are ready for school earlier, or to boys being delayed to help with agricultural tasks at home. The percentage of boys and girls was nearly equal; 53% of the Standard IV pupils were boys and 47% were girls. This is consistent with Iringa region’s young population (age 0–14) in which males slightly outnumber females (NBS,
2016).
Standard IV Students' Age, by Sex n=177 40 30 20 10 0 age 8 age 9 age 10 age 11 age 12 age 13
m f
Figure 3. 12. Comparison of students’ age and sex.
At both schools, most students’ families fell into what could be called lower- or middle-class socio-economic status (See Table 3.5). This is estimated by parents’
84 occupation reported on the survey, my observations during the neighborhood census, and teachers’ reports. The higher percentage of professional parents at Jifunze reflects the attraction of this free school’s performance for the middle class, who may otherwise have sent their children to private schools.
Table 3.5. Parents’ occupations, according to Standard IV student survey.
Parents' occupations % at Somesha % at Jifunze
Farming (includes gardening, herding) 22 22 Small business (includes selling sunflower oil, second hand clothes, or sugarcane) 28 26
Shopkeeper or running a café 6 11 Trade or semi-skilled vocations (e.g. carpenter, builder, driver, tailor, security guard) 42 39 Professional (e.g. doctor, nurse, teacher, civil servant, pastor, police, bankteller) 11 29
NB: The total is more than 100% because some children reported both parents working and when the parents had different professions, both were included separately
Of the Standard IV students who participated in my survey, just over half (53% and 54%, respectively) at each school lived with both parents. An additional 16–22% lived with one parent (almost always the mother), while the remaining 20 to 30 percent lived with other relatives, either grandparents, grandmother, an aunt or uncle. This is consistent with the head teachers’ estimation that nearly one-third of their students are orphans, usually due to HIV-AIDS, according to the head teachers.
85 Researcher positionality: Belongingness and Difference
It is important to consider positionality, as it affects how the researcher sees and interprets data, as well as how study participants see and relate to the researcher. This is particularly true with ethnographic research, in which the researcher is the research tool.
As an expatriate researcher married to someone who is from the community of which the participating schools are a part, I at once shared feelings of belongingness but also of difference. On the one hand, I was an experienced teacher and administrator, and a member of a Tanzanian Bena family. On the other hand, my teaching experience was not under the same conditions and regulations as these government schools, and I still have many American beliefs, values and habits entangled with the values, beliefs and habits
I’ve espoused from my adopted country. Often, I was struck by how teachers worked to exert belongingness with me/for me, while at other times it was teacher comments or my own feelings that marked difference. For example, members of my husband’s ethnic group would use affine references to denote our relationship (wifi/shemeji – sister or brother-in-law); age was also a reference – when two Jifunze teachers learned we were all born in the same year, they proclaimed us “triplets.” When a teacher who had been on study leave returned and persisted in calling me “mzungu” (white person), his colleagues rebuked him, telling him I’m his sister-in-law (he was ethnically Bena, as is my husband)
– and from the next day, he never called me mzungu again (at least to my face). Mr.
Josephat was the most vociferous proponent of my identity as an insider – telling the students I was their parent or grandmother. When he or others would make comments
(various stereotypes) about wazungu he would look to me and add – “but not you.” I was
86 given a Hehe name (SeKalinga – daughter of Kalinga) which followed me from the first school to the second.
Despite this sense of belonging and the equality/solidarity it implied, I was also struck and, frankly, dismayed, at the evidence of what I perceived as colonial hangovers that were evidenced by my relationship with participants. This was particularly evident when teachers and I exchanged formal farewells on my last day at each school. At both schools, the teachers designated to speak remarked on how I was humble (kujishusha), that I lived with them (kuishi nao) and did not look down on them as, according to the speakers, other wazungu (white people) do, and even other (Tanzanian or foreign) researchers do. While I appreciated the intended compliment, it is a sad reflection of current reality that so many visitors to schools (who usually come with donations, international projects/programs or research) are perceived to exude condescension.
During the time of my field work, I also participated in short-term consultancy work, providing technical assistance on gender and equity for one of the large 3Rs interventions, and conducting an evaluation of a Global Partnership for Education program, which among other things, had sponsored the new curriculum and textbooks in primary schools. The latter role gave me access to policy-making forums and decision- makers. My privileges in being able to travel and being involved in consultancies with development partners, donor projects and the Ministries of Education and Local
Government also differentiated me from my fellow staff members at the schools.
My discussion of positionality centers mainly on my relationship with teachers, because students at both schools maintained the same respectful distance between
87 themselves and myself that they accorded to other adults and teachers (aside from, at first, constantly trying to sneak up and feel my hair, or ignoring me while I observed them hanging out between lessons). They were enthusiastic and friendly– some of those who knew me from class would run up and hug me at Jifunze, or run up and offer to carry my bag/books at Somesha every day (as they would do with other teachers) – and they did not fear me as they did the teachers who used corporal punishment. Yet my relationship with students did not extend beyond school confines as my relationship with teachers did, with many of the teachers I am still in contact for social and professional matters.
Conclusion
By studying the practices of teachers in (primarily) one grade level in two primary schools ethnographically, I sought to illuminate social dynamics and differing, sometimes conflicting, influences on pedagogical practices. I spent sufficient time in the field to establish meaningful relationships with teacher colleagues at both schools, and to gain insights into what shaped their pedagogy. It is my hope that this work can in a small way, disrupt “business as usual” in the technicist paradigm of IDE and speak to policy makers, educators, researchers and teachers in considering ways forward for improving education in ways that honor local perspectives and aspirations for growth and development. In the next three chapters I present my findings, organized into different elements of the nexus of practice, starting with the interaction order.
88
Chapter 4: The Interaction Order
Figure 4. 6. Teachers with piles of notebooks to be marked. Somesha school staff room (2018.03.20)
Piles of notebooks, on the floor under the blackboard, in classrooms. On the floor along the wall or on top of teachers’ tables in the staff room. Painstakingly stacked up by subject, all facing the same direction (that is, facing up and right-side round, sometimes open to the page of the current exercise) due to teachers’ vigilance and insistence to students as the books are collected. While pictures, posters, books, and scientific or mathematical equipment are scarce commodities in Jifunze and Somesha schools, notebooks, along with red pens, boxes of white chalk, and blackboards are ever present and form the backbone of pedagogical processes and interactions in the classroom.
89 The interaction order, one of the three key elements of a nexus of practice
(Scollon & Scollon, 2004), refers to the social arrangement, or the organization of interactions, in the practice under analysis. It encompasses organization of talk and time as well as the layout of space. In other words, the interaction order refers to the ways we are “together with others” in the world (Scollon,& Scollon, 2004; Scollon 2005a, 2005b).
Another aspect of the interaction order is how discourses are mediated by artefacts.
Watkins, et.al. (2015) point out that artifacts play an important role in pedagogy:
“pedagogic relations entail an ensemble of ‘actors’, human and non-human, material and semiotic,” (p. 13). Any objects, media or technology within the space, and how these are taken up by participants, is examined as part of the interaction order in a nexus of practice (Scollon, 2005b). Considering the material aspects and the availability and role of materials in the shaping of teachers’ pedagogical choices is a significant contribution of this conceptual framework to the study of pedagogy. As Vavrus and Bartlett (2012) have argued, working conditions, which include class sizes, teaching and grading load, and the availability of teaching materials, should be seen as "more than mere variables but rather as essential aspects of teachers’ understandings of how knowledge can be produced and disseminated in the classroom” (p. 653). Taking pedagogy as a nexus of practice in a school setting, relevant considerations of the interaction order range from class sizes, to how classes are physically organized, how the school day is organized, what material objects are present and how they are used, as well as how interpersonal interactions are organized and managed.
90 In this chapter, I will focus on elements of the interaction order that influenced teachers’ pedagogical choices at Jifunze and Somesha schools. I argue that the interaction order highlights important dialectical relations between materials, space, and time on the one hand and confidence, authority relations, moral values, and beliefs about knowledge on the other hand. Particularly salient aspects include the size, layout and furnishing of classes, use of teaching and learning materials, scheduling, and school financing.
The material aspects of teaching and learning in Tanzania are highlighted in numerous studies (e.g. Mbunda, 1996; Tandika, 2016; Tilya & Mafumuko, 2010; Vavrus
& Bartlett, 2012) and overcrowding has become a priority focus in the Education Sector
Development Plan (MoEST, 2017a). Even the World Bank’s Service Delivery Indicators include at least some aspects of the interaction order, such as teacher time in school and in class (World Bank, 2016). However, these studies do not often integrate the material conditions with sociocultural aspects.
Exploration of the interaction order in classrooms draws attention to the challenging material circumstances in which teachers and students in Tanzania work, yet it also highlights the intertwinement of material circumstances with cultural practices, moral, and epistemological beliefs. The ways in which teachers use the resources available reveals much about authority relations, about who has valued knowledge and how it is best taught or conveyed to students. In discussing the management of large class sizes, teachers reveal their thought processes in selecting particular teaching strategies over others and also moral convictions related to their roles as teachers who help to raise children (kulea), and not only impart academic knowledge.
91 I will begin the chapter with an examination of the physical layout of classrooms and how this both reflects and encodes particular authority relationships, as well as how the layout coalesces with the organization of talk in the classroom. I will move to a discussion of class sizes and then to the availability of resources for teaching and learning. Teachers’ use of materials reveals their repertoire of teaching strategies as well as differing forms of pedagogical content knowledge and varying perceptions of the authority of texts on the part of different teachers. The specter of class sizes runs through
(haunts, one could say) all of these discussions. A further aspect of the interaction order I will discuss is the organization of time, where an interesting contrast between the two schools points toward differing relations with authority. I will close the chapter by spiraling outward to demonstrate how wider policy issues in the organization of financing and development aid had an impact on teachers’ options for classroom-level assessment of students’ progress.
Organization of Classroom Space
In the previous chapter, I shared a glimpse of the material conditions of classrooms at each school, which could be termed as adequate but very basic. Classrooms are built to government-issued standards and dimensions. None of the Standard IV or higher grades’ classrooms in either school had anything on the walls other than the one central blackboard. In the classroom, student desks are also uniform and stipulated by government directive, reflecting the centralized education system and the careful way in which norms aim to ensure that all children receive the same treatment—the same space, the same standard equipment, the same instruction. Though the desks are wide enough to
92 comfortably seat three children and accommodate their notebooks, it does mean children rub shoulders – with far less personal space than American or European students are accustomed to.
At Jifunze, the high number of students in each class meant that the only configuration in which the desks could fit in the room was in rows facing the front of the room (see Figure 4.2). Somesha had more flexibility with the arrangement of desks because they had two streams and only 50–55 students per class, yet the unidirectional focus on the teacher and the blackboard remained the same. The infrastructural parameters, specifically the availability of light, was the main determinant of the organization of desks and learning spaces at Somesha. When the weather was mostly sunny (which, in Iringa, is the case for extended periods of up to five–six months), desks were lined up similar to Jifunze, in rows all facing the blackboard (see Figure 4.3). Since there were half as many students and desks in each class (compared to Jifunze) at least a third of the room was empty at the back. I never witnessed that space being utilized in lessons by teachers or students. However, the rooms would be so dim on cloudy days that during the rainy season desks were re-arranged into two long rows in front of each set of windows, facing the center of the room, with only a few or no desks left at the center of the room facing forward (see Figure 4.4). Again, I did not see this central space being used, aside from teachers circulating to see if students were writing exercises or copying notes into their books, just as they also circulated through the ‘normal’ rows on sunnier days. While students at the back of class at Jifunze sometimes had to stand or wander up the aisles to see notes at the bottom of the blackboard, at Somesha they were more likely
93 to move because a glare from the window would block the board. So long as students were clearly copying information from the board, this type of movement was allowed with no comment from the teachers. Otherwise, students were expected to stay seated throughout the school day, whether or not a teacher was present, unless they asked permission to use the restroom.
Figure 4. 7. Jifunze Standard IV Classroom layout (94 students)
94
Figure 4. 8. Somesha Standard IV classroom layout (~52 students)– sunny
Figure 4. 9. Somesha Standard IV classroom layout (52 students) cloudy
95 As noted by Alexander (2000), classroom layout “signal[s] distinct views of the relationship between individuals, the group, the class and the teacher, and of the relationship between the learner and what is learned” (p. 535). Desks in rows facing forward reinforced the centrality of the teacher and the blackboard. The focal point of every classroom was the blackboard at the front of the room, where the teacher normally stood when teaching the class, and where most of the written information that made up students’ education was catalogued. The students as a singular body faced and gathered knowledge from these two authoritative (and often sole) sources of valued information.
The blackboard was populated by information the teacher gathered from expert sources, or sometimes short passages from a particular textbook that was selected by the teacher
(see Figure 4. 5). Students would assist teachers in drawing the illustrations. Teachers, especially at Jifunze, often relied on their own handwritten notebooks full of painstakingly gathered notes, which they had put together over years of teaching, with notes from teachers college, syllabus summaries, and various government-approved reference books. With no libraries and few textbooks, these teacher notebooks were the repository that formed the basis of their teaching and the content for classes.
96
Figure 4. 10. View from standing in the back row, Jifunze Std. IV English class, with sketches and dialogue from the single copy of the textbook drawn on the board.
(2017.08.21)
The layout of the room clearly signified that what was most important came from the teacher (rather than peers), and that the students were a unified group. Indeed, the student body was treated as if all students were uniform – all were expected to follow and complete the same tasks at the same pace. It was also known to students that the information the teachers gave them came from external, ‘higher up’ or authoritative sources. The vernacular verb commonly used to describe a teacher giving students notes
97 is “kushusha” – to drop – the same word for stepping down to get off of a bus. The teacher is taking the information from on high and dropping it down where the students can grab hold of it. This notion of the curriculum or valued knowledge coming from a higher source external to the students was also reinforced in part by the accepted interactions during lessons. Mtitu (2014, p. 41) has referred to this as a:
historically inherited teacher-student relationship where teachers [were] believed to acquire knowledge and authority to transmit to their students who do not possess it. On the other hand, students presented a cultural continuation of respect and an inferiority complex to their teachers.
The layout and organization of interactions and information in the classroom thus can be seen to at once reflect continuities with the inherited cultural practices of participants
(both students and teachers) while at the same time, by continuing to enact them, re- inscribing these relations on to the next generation.
In line with the authority-role of the teacher, the spoken discourse in lessons revolved around the teacher presenting information and asking students questions.
Students called upon individually always stood to give answers to the teacher. Standing drew the attention of other class members and also emphasized the formality of the interaction. Although students asking the teacher questions was far less common than them answering questions asked by the teacher, they stood to ask questions as well, only when acknowledged by the teacher to do so (e.g. I almost never observed students
“calling out” without being called upon by the teacher). Eye movement/focus of peers occasionally shifted to the student speaker, but not necessarily – a continuing gaze on the teacher, blackboard or one’s own notebook was equally common. Students were sometimes chastised or punished if they did not speak loud enough for the entire class to
98 hear, but the answer was always directed at the teacher him/herself. Choral responses and choral reading of the blackboard as the teacher pointed toward text were also common practices in most subjects. The direction of communication in the class was thus very much centered upon and directed by the teacher; to use Alexander’s (2000) terms, the layout and the format of interactions gave lessons a unitary focus.
The only time I observed teacher-sanctioned student-student interaction was during the setting and answering of riddles in Kiswahili class or during a role play in front of the class in one English lesson. Of course, there were unsanctioned communications between students. During almost any lesson, one might see the boys in the back row looking at stickers or sketches, playing with rulers, or even the occasional spit wad tossed back and forth. Girls or boys sometimes shared a surreptitious snack
(often peanuts, fruit, or baobab seeds) with a friend, but this did not happen for more than a couple minutes in any given lesson, normally during the note writing or exercise- completion stage of the lesson when teachers were writing on the blackboard, or after the teacher had left the room and students were still (supposed to be) completing their notes.
If students were caught in any of these interactions, they might simply be told off, have to kneel at the front of the class with their hands in the air or receive a quick rap with a stick on their open palms, depending on the teachers’ mood. Indeed, across all of the Standard
IV lessons at both schools, while praise was normally given only for correct answers or excellent performance on an exercise or test, punishment was most often given for not listening, not completing given tasks, being late or not following the school’s dress code.
That is, positive reinforcement was reserved for high academic performance only, while
99 punishment was related to academic work as well as more general obedience and respect of rules.
Teachers rarely assigned or encouraged group work. Students were seated in desks together, but each would individually write in their own notebook with attention
[meant to be] focused singularly on the teacher or blackboard. The three students seated together could see each other’s work or share a textbook placed on the desk in front of them easily, but the shape and depth of the desk made facing any direction other than forward uncomfortable. The desks were also quite heavy and cumbersome—not easy to move around—and thus not conducive to re-arrangement for group work. Mbunda (1996) pointed out in the mid-90s that, among other factors, “large classes and immovable furniture” which were “beyond teachers’ control” made teaching approaches other than whole-class, teacher-directed learning difficult to implement. It was possible for one row of students to turn around and face the desk behind them, creating a group of six, so long as they did not all need to write in their individual notebooks, as the desktop was too narrow for six books to fit. However, I observed this form of group formation in class only in five or six out of hundreds of observed lessons, in order for students to share a small number of textbooks. In other words, the use of the groups was still to facilitate the students in gaining knowledge from an external expert source, in this case from a text instead of the blackboard or teacher.
So far, I have argued that the use of classroom space illustrates the privileging of a certain type of knowledge and relationships. Knowledge is a set body of content, which comes from authoritative sources, through teachers to students, via the focal points at the
100 front of class: the teacher and the blackboard, or occasionally via textbooks. The physical constraints of the space and type of desks provided contributed to a unitary focus on the teacher and blackboard, especially at Jifunze school where there was no space to re- arrange. However, even at Somesha where desks were re-arranged to maximize the light available, the teachers’ continued use of the blackboard and teacher-at-front-of-class as the focus of interactions served to reinforce the same relationship. Next I will turn to how this pattern of teaching was constrained by class size and related management strategies.
Class Size and Management
“Wanafunzi wakishakuwa wengi ni kazi kweli” “When there are a lot of students, it is really work.” -Jifunze Teacher, 09/18/2017
Class size varies vastly from one school to the next in Tanzania, with wide variation between regions as well. According to the government’s Basic Education
Statistics (BEST) data from 2017, the average number of Primary School students per classroom in government schools ranged from 29 in Moshi (rural) district of Kilimanjaro, to 138 in Chato district of Geita region29 (PO-RALG, 2017, pp. 201–202). While the government’s target is for classes in Standard I to IV to have 40 students (MOEST &
PORALG, 2017, p. 3), the government set a more realistic interim goal of a pupil- classroom ratio of 76:1 by 2020/21 (MOEST, 2018b, p. 52). In Iringa region, Iringa municipal district has the second highest average pupil-classroom ratio, at 54 pupils per
29 In 2017 there were 11 regions with a PCR between 46 and 70, and 14 regions with PCR >70 (PO-RALG, 2017, p. 201). Kilimanjaro was the only region in 2017 with a Primary School PCR <45; it is the region with the highest number of primary schools overall (PO-RALG, 2017, pp. 59–63). According to Samoff (1979), Kilimanjaro already had more schools than other regions at the time of independence, which he attributed to prosperity from cash crops, parent advocacy for education and a history of strong relations with churches that helped provide educational opportunities. 101 classroom in public and private primary schools (PO-RALG, 2017, pp. 201). As noted in
Chapter 3, because there are two classrooms or streams per grade level at Somesha, its pupil-classroom ratio reflects the district average. The fact that Jifunze only has six classrooms means they have double the average class size – in 2017, it ranged from 94 to
112 children per class.
It should be noted that Somesha teachers were usually assigned to teach both streams of a grade level. This meant that there were fewer children in the classroom during a lesson, and they could prepare a lesson once to be taught in both streams.
However, they still had to grade assignments for the entire standard (grade level), which placed considerable demand on their time.
The time consumption of marking assignments should not be underestimated. My fieldnote journal while observing and teaching at Somesha reflects the impact of this burden of marking for large classes. Since the 40-minute periods barely allowed time for students to copy and complete an exercise, books had to be marked outside of class. My time for other classroom observation dwindled and time in the staff room grew as I found myself spending upward of an hour a day ticking and crossing off answers in children’s notebooks. The implications for teachers who have four to five classes to teach is even greater. In discussing class assignments in the staff room, teachers commented that they would purposefully assign few questions (the average was six–eight), so that they would have time to mark them.
Because of the smaller class sizes at Somesha as compared to Jifunze, one might assume that Somesha teachers would come to know their students better; however, due to
102 other organizational and leadership circumstances, I did not observe this to be the case.
For instance, the Standard IV Jifunze teachers knew and called on students by name far more often in class than at Somesha. In addition, while Somesha teachers were conscientious about marking exercises before the next day’s lesson, they rarely kept track of student scores, aside from mid-term or end-of-term tests. In fact, I observed the
Somesha teachers marking books so quickly they would not pay attention to whose book it was; the child would receive feedback in the form of ticks or crosses and a score for the exercise in their notebook, but the teachers did not track the performance of individual students. Moreover, the teachers did not have records or grade books of each students’ performance on the daily exercises.
As I noted Chapter 3 (see biosketches) the Somesha head teacher, Mr. Salehe, had instituted several accountability measures which he hoped would improve performance
(Interview, 2018.03.19). At a staff meeting once, after collecting a random sample of student notebooks, he gave feedback in general to the staff on marking, by saying he felt the marking of English was not careful enough – and that teachers should attend more to students’ spelling (Field notes 2018.02.27). He did not, however, have follow-up conversations with teachers on individual performance or student understanding. His measures might have helped to ensure that teachers kept up with the teaching and grading of the large classes, but they did not foster a closer relationship between teachers and students.
In contrast, Mr. Josephat, the head teacher at Jifunze, encouraged teachers to get to know their students, and he would ask them to give him a summary of highest/lowest
103 performers – which they were expected to know, by name, off the top of their heads, and to have assessment data to back up. I frequently observed him checking in with teachers in the staff room, individually or in a small group of teachers of the same grade level, to ask about who needed more support in their subjects. The teachers, who must have been used to this behavior, always had a ready response. The follow up usually involved a meeting with the parents of the children whose performance was a concern; the teachers and Mr. Josephat making a point to note the home situation of each child (e.g. whether they lived with both parents, a single parent or other relatives). Mr. Josephat explained to me on more than one occasion that the way to ensure the overall school performance was strong, was to ensure that teachers increased the performance of the weakest students.
This demonstrates that although large class sizes can make getting to know individual students a challenge, and marking and grading take a considerable amount of time, they do not necessarily preclude effective instruction and assessment. Leadership practices appear to have a strong influence on how much attention teachers give to individuals’ performance and progress in large classes. Adjustments made to the timetable at Jifunze also aided teachers in getting to know individual students and their performance.
Class Size and Discipline
Teaching groups of 52 or 94 nine and ten year-olds made teachers feel they had to maintain discipline to ensure learning and avoid chaos. As noted above, students were expected to be seated, facing the teacher or board, and attentive throughout lessons, speaking only when called upon by the teacher. Most of the time, students were seated
104 and expected to be (and indeed were the majority of the time) quiet and still.30 This means that students had already developed a high degree of self-discipline by this age. As
Stambach (1994) found in her classroom observations in northern Tanzania, and
Tabulawa (2013) and Guthrie (2015) have found in other African countries, this seemingly passive role of students was an active construction of deference. Students actively helped to construct what was seen as the proper teacher-student relationship through quiet obedience in class—answering/asking questions only when called on— leaving the floor to the teacher. If there was whispering or shuffling in the class, teachers would normally give a verbal warning, which was usually sufficient to stop the infraction. However, if teachers found individuals were not writing notes or exercises properly or did not have a notebook or pen, the response was swift and physical: a rap on the palms with a stick or a pinch of an ear, or, less often, being shamed by having to kneel at the front of the class.
Teachers were aware that Westerners generally don’t approve of corporal punishment31 and often gave defensive reasons for their actions. Ms. Zawadi, one of the teachers at Jifunze, and several teachers at Somesha often remarked in staff room conversations that “African children won’t learn unless they are beaten.” However, in
30 I observed only one teacher who would often start her lessons by telling students to stand up and stretch. I also observed only language teachers sometimes using songs with actions or with drumming on desks/floor to energize students; 31 Corporal punishment is generally accepted and often used by parents/caregiviers in the home in Tanzania . Its use in schools is legal, according to a law from 1979, yet the amount that can be used has been increasingly restricted through government directives (official documents called circulars). In a very recent case that went viral on social media, a Regional Commissioner was chastised by the Minister of the President’s Office – Regional and Local Government for caning secondary students who had set fire to their school dormitories. The President then came out in favor of the Regional Commissioner, saying he believed the students deserved more punishment (“President Magufuli defends” 2019). 105 private conversation, Ms. Zawadi said she used corporal punishment because of the large class size, “There are so many children, they’re such a big crowd, that you can’t control them otherwise. They won’t learn anything. [You or they] will waste time” (Field notes,
2017.08.03). I heard her argument about “wasting time” echoed by other teachers in staff room conversations. They felt they must cover the curriculum in the form of notes and exercises within a set number of months. They believed the threat of corporal punishment ensured “crowd control” and student focus in lessons, which would allow them to meet their curricular goals.
Teachers’ second reason for using corporal punishment to instill discipline was tied less to class size and more to their conception of a teacher’s moral duty. As I will explain further in Chapter 6, the teachers at both schools agreed that preparing students to be good members of the community, with proper habits, relations with others and self- discipline, was a major purpose of primary education. Because the teachers believed that corporal punishment improved student behavior, they felt it was their moral duty to use corporal punishment to set students on the correct path; that it would be more wrong for them to leave students on the wrong path. It’s like the proverb about the donkey,” Ms.
Daima said to me one day, “A donkey only moves with a whip – we want the students to move, so we have to whip them. We can’t leave them, and then they learn nothing” (Field notes, 2017.08.03).
These teachers’ sentiments echoed the views of parents and caregivers described in a study about corporal punishment by Frankenburg, et.al. (2010). They found that caregivers had four major reasons for disciplining their children: to protect them from
106 danger, for children to understand and change bad behavior, to internalize right and wrong, and to behave according to social norms. While the caregivers in the study did not condone overly harsh punishment—described as “beating children like a snake” and considered by them to be child abuse—they did approve of what they considered legitimate or reasonable beating. Moreover, they considered non-beating as a form of
“non-care.” This was the same sentiment expressed by Ms. Daima, Ms. Zawadi and their colleagues in regard to teachers’ management of student behavior in school.
So far, I have attempted to show how the classroom layout/furnishings and class size contribute to teachers’ choice of pedagogical practices and teaching strategies, including the use of corporal punishment, and how these choices intertwine with what knowledge is valued and the relation of students to knowledge. I have also highlighted teachers’ conceptions of a responsible and moral role for teachers and students in relation to authority, which was embodied in their organization of classroom interactions and the verbal and physical interactions they used to manage lessons and student behavior.
Teachers’ choices were shaped by these conceptions at the same time as they were influenced by the physical and material challenges of teaching large classes. In the next section I will look more specifically at the availability and use of teaching and learning materials. I argue that, while sometimes the availability of resources shaped teachers’ choice or avoidance of certain teaching practices, at other times, teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and views on the authority of texts shaped the use of materials.
107 Teaching and Learning Materials and Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Forms of Teaching and Learning Materials.
Teaching and learning materials in schools can take vastly different forms, depending on the subject, curriculum, teacher preferences and resource availability. In
Sub-Saharan African countries such as Tanzania, most of the policy and development aid
centers on the provision of textbooks
and exploration of the use of digital and
information technology (IT) to support
learning (see, for example, Kafyulilo
2014; Kafyulilo, et.al., 2015; Read,
2015; and initiatives such as the
African Digital School Initiative of the Figure 4.11. Mr. Josephat demonstrates the use Global e-Schools and Communities of three key materials: the blackboard, chalk and Initiative (GESCI) or UKAID’s new “e- pointer in the new (and not-quite-finished) pre- learning hub”). The reality at Jifunze primary classroom at Jifunze Primary School, and Somesha during my time at these (March 21, 2019). schools was that chalk, the blackboard and pointers were the key technologies used in teaching (Figure 4.6). The blackboard plays a central role for several reasons, one being the lack of other print and visual materials in most classrooms. This situation was particularly acute at the time of my observations.
108 My observation period happened to coincide with the cusp of the old national curriculum and introduction of the new one in Standard IV. The new curriculum was rolled out grade-by-grade, so in 2017 (while I was at Jifunze) it had reached Standard III, and in 2018 (while I was at Somesha) it was implemented for the first time in Standard
IV.
At Jifunze, with the old curriculum in 2017, teachers drew on a variety of textbooks from different publishers. Most often the school only had one copy of each text. I observed that a few students had their own copies of textbooks (which were available in local bookstores), but there were never more than five or six books, if any, in classes I observed at Jifunze. As previously noted, neither school had a library either.
Thus, the blackboard became the textbook for students. For all subjects except mathematics, a portion of notes would be written on the board almost every day, and students had to copy it carefully, so that they could study from their own books later.
Some teachers had systems where notes and tests were written in the front of students’ notebooks and practice exercises were written in the back. As noted above, students were required to bring their notebooks, pens and ruler to class everyday – failure would result in minor corporal punishment, and if repeated, students would be sent home mid-day to track down their parents and buy a new one. “Don’t return without a notebook,” I heard many a teacher admonish culprits.
Chalk, however small the bits and pieces, and red pens for marking were the two indispensable teaching supplies, always available in either schools’ staff room. Some classrooms had actual chalkboard erasers, whereas others had a rag for cleaning the
109 board—keeping the eraser was a coveted student responsibility. Required teaching skills for this environment included neat, legible and high-speed writing on the board and a commanding, loud voice to reach the whole class.
I will look at the epistemological underpinnings of relying on notes and note- taking in the Chapter 5, but in terms of implications for organization, both the writing of notes and exercises and students’ copying them down took significant amounts of class time. The only exception was math, for which problems (straightforward calculations rather than word problems) were normally used rather than notes.
Teachers commented on the many ways in which large class sizes impacted the materials they chose to use and the interactions they could have with students. One teacher noted that the large class sizes deterred teachers from making visual aids or bringing artifacts to teach with:
… [kama] una zana zako ukitaka kufundisha, ukibandika ubaoni, wale wa nyuma sidhani kama wanaona, sidhani wote wanaona vizuri. Ukisema njoo mbele wanajaa. Ukianza kupitisha unakuta muda mrefu, kipindi kinakwisha 110ab ado unapitisha unasogeza kwenye madawati yao tu. Kwa hiyo unakuta changamoto wa idadi ya wanafunzi (Interview, 2017.09.18)
…[if] you have a teaching aid you want to teach with, if you stick it on the board, the students in the back, I doubt if they’ll be able to see it; I don’t think they can all see well. If you tell them to come up close, they crowd the space. If you decide to pass it around the room, you find it takes so long that the lesson has finished and you haven’t done anything but show it to them – these are some of the challenges of having large classes. (Interview, 2017.09.18)
Another teacher noted that even if one could use readily-available local materials, it would be expensive to get enough of them for the whole class, even with students working in groups. Several teachers during interviews also said they were aware of
110 teaching strategies such as group work or gallery walks, but that the space and desks in the classrooms made it difficult to use these strategies. Thus, the classroom layout not only implicitly reinforced a unitary focus on authoritative knowledge, but also it was perceived by teachers to actively deter them from using some teaching strategies. The convergence of the organization of classrooms, with the sheer size of classes and the unavailability of textbooks and teaching aids, further contributed to teachers’ choice of strategies and their most frequent use of question and answer, giving notes and short exercises.
Thus, the organization of classrooms and talk, the materials available as well as the class size contributed to teachers’ perception that a particular pedagogical formula was best. If the material conditions and organization of resources do not change, these conditions will continue to constrain teachers’ choices. Interviews with the Standard IV teachers at both of these schools showed that often teachers were aware of (at least some) other strategies but chose not to use them because of the size of their classes. This suggests that teacher training alone, while important, may not be sufficient to change the way teachers teach in schools; simultaneous changes in class size and materials available are needed. However, the converse of this is also true – simply providing more textbooks also does not necessarily lead to change, as I found when I returned to visit the two schools almost a year after completing my participant observation.
I had the chance to visit both schools again in March, 2019, to hold focus group discussions about my findings. I learned that by this time, the government had provided textbooks for all but one of the Standard IV subjects at both schools. The teachers
111 reported that the textbook ratio in Standard IV was then 3:1 (3 students per textbook), which meant that at each desk, there would be a textbook for students to share. I asked them, now that you have textbooks and you’ve had a year to become familiar with the new curriculum, how has your teaching changed? If I came back to observe Standard IV lessons today, what would I see that was different? I also asked whether students spent less time copying notes or reading orally from the board. The reply I received at both schools, from teachers and the head teachers (separately and together), was no, it hasn’t changed how we teach. As one teacher emphatically proclaimed and others agreed,
“ufundishaji ni ule ule,” “[our] teaching is the same.” Even with the textbooks available, teachers still put notes on the board for students to copy daily. The reason teachers in the focus group gave was that by keeping the notes on the blackboard, they could ensure all students were focused, paying attention and staying with the teacher. If students were all looking down at books on their desk, one teacher added, their concentration would be difficult to gauge. Teachers felt responsible for ensuring students focused on the important information and believed the blackboard enabled them to monitor this more efficiently. Notes from the board also provided students something to read outside of class. Perhaps an unspoken reason was the comfort of familiarity with using the blackboard to manage children’s intake of information. This suggests there are additional factors that influence how teachers use the materials available to them. I will explore this further in the next section on teachers’ use of materials and pedagogical content knowledge.
112 Use of Materials and Pedagogical Content Knowledge
The ways in which teachers select and choose to use resources in classroom interactions relates to their individual pedagogical content knowledge, epistemologies and their personal relations to authoritative knowledge. Pedagogical Content Knowledge
(PCK), a concept put forward by Shulman and widely accepted in teacher education circles, has been explained as “a special kind of knowledge that is neither content nor pedagogy per se. …[PCK is] a form of teacher understanding that combines content, pedagogy, and learner characteristics” (Gudmundsdottir & Shulman, 1987, p. six 9).
Bermeo, et.al. (2013) further explain PCK as “the understanding and skills teachers … need to transform the conceptual, factual, and theoretical knowledge about a subject into a language filled with appropriate examples, metaphors, and applications for a particular group of students” (p. 41). In other words, PCK denotes a teacher’s ability to make content comprehensible in ways students can grasp it. In my observations, teachers’ use of the resources available to them, particularly textbooks, revealed much about their
PCK, self-confidence, and regard for the authority of printed texts.
Teachers differed in their use of textbooks and resources, both within and between the two schools. Most teachers used textbooks as the primary classroom resource, but there were a few instances where teachers recognized the value of practical demonstrations in the classroom. In the nine months that I conducted research in each school, there were only two lessons where science teachers brought in practical examples.
The Standard IV science teacher at Jifunze demonstated melting and evaporating and at
Somesha, the teacher encouraged students to make simple circuits (See Chapter 5 for a
113 more detailed description). Even topics that could have been done practically using the materials already at school, such as the topic of measuring rainfall in geography, or drawing maps to scale, were taught only theoretically. Any one of several factors, or all intertwined could contribute to this theoretical approach. Possibly, the geography teacher thought it was a more effective use of time to ensure students had notes on the procedures and materials needed to draw maps or to measure rainfall so that they could study the notes for tests, rather than having students understand mapmaking or rainfall measurement by doing it themselves (epistemology will be discussed in depth in Chapter
5). It is also possible that the teacher perceived the time and amount of materials that would be needed for 94 children to draw maps or measure rainfall as impractical. With both of these factors (the material and epistemological) reinforcing each other, it becomes difficult for a teacher to see the more practical, constructivist way of teaching as a desirable option. It may also have been that the teacher simply followed the topics of the curriculum in the order presented in the curriculum guide and happened to reach the rainfall topic during the dry season when it was impossible to measure.32
Since most teachers used few resources aside from the notes and textbooks, the different uses of textbooks by teachers was more striking. In my analysis of my field notes, two kinds of teachers emerged: those who followed the textbook as the authority on their subjects, and those who drew from textbooks along with other sources to reach their lesson or unit objectives. The first group were teachers who tended to rely on one
32 The dry season in Iringa lasts 4 months with virtually no precipitation 114 main textbook, and to believe that they had a duty to cover everything (text, exercise, puzzle, etc.) included in the textbook.
The English teachers at Somesha were a good example of this approach, despite the fact that the Standard VI English teacher had a set of 13 textbooks for her class while the Standard IV teacher had only one. The Standard VI teacher, Ms. Valilwa, planned her schemes of work33 around covering the units in the set of 13 threadbare textbooks. As this was the class I was assigned to teach for a while, the use of the textbook was sometimes a point of negotiation between the two of us. On the one hand, I needed to stay within her scheme of work and plan of units for the year, so that when she took the class back after three months the students would still be on the track she set for completing work by the end of the year. On the other hand, I wanted to bring in my training and experience in
Teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) to do as much as possible to improve the classes’ English during the time I had with them, and I did not always feel that the textbook was the optimal approach. About one month into teaching, I recorded in my field notes:
Next week is the end of month so [the Standard VI English teacher] wants them to finish the chapter and to do a jaribio (practice test) on Friday. There’s one random crossword- vocabulary puzzle after the reading in the textbook. Concerned with the time needed to help the class understand the story in the textbooks, I suggested we could skip that crossword, and just focus on the reading comprehension, but she feels it’s important to cover everything in the book. (FN 2018.2.22)
33 A scheme of work is a termly or annual curriculum map for a subject, showing which topics will be taught when. 115 The negotiation with Miss Valiliwa over the use of the crossword puzzle is an example of how she projected authority onto the textbook. If an exercise was in the textbook, it needed to be completed by the class. This crossword puzzle, which to me did not hold pedagogical power to advance students’ reading comprehension, was no exception.
According to her, the puzzle was prescribed by the textbook and, thus, must be completed.
The Standard IV English teacher at Somesha, Ms. Mtima, shared a similar deference to textbooks, even when faced with textbooks inappropriate to her students’ level. The Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE) was producing new textbooks to support and align with the new curriculum, and the textbooks were meant to be in schools at the time the curriculum began to be implemented. Unfortunately, due to several circumstances ranging from lengthy printing procurement procedures to political intervention,34 the Standard IV textbooks did not start reaching schools until five months into the school year. Also due to related political pressures, the Ministry of Education had required schools to return any old/previous textbooks for Standards III and IV earlier that year. This meant that for the entire period I was observing at Somesha Primary in 2018, the teachers had no textbooks to use for Standard IV. This caused considerable complaint from teachers and parents, and the district’s solution was to recommend that each school procure a set of English-medium textbooks designed for the new curriculum, and that they translate these for use in their Swahili-medium schools. Both Somesha and Jifunze
34 A group of Members of Parliament complained about the color quality and editing of the Standard III textbooks, which had to be reprinted, setting back the timetable for all books 116 accordingly purchased one set of these English medium texts. These textbooks were not official, nor produced by TIE. They were from private publishers who had a market amongst private, English-medium schools whose students thus knew English much better than students in the Swahili-medium public schools. The math and science teachers complained about having to translate their books for class, but the English teacher had a real conundrum. The children in Standard IV had just started learning English as foreign language the year before, in Standard III. The temporary books, in contrast, were written for students assumed to be fluent in English and familiar with modern, urban contexts such as airports. The textbook did follow the topics in the new curriculum but using advanced vocabulary and sentence structures.
Despite this fact, Ms. Mtima trusted the textbook’s wisdom over her own judgment of her students’ needs. For instance, one topic in the English curriculum for
Standard IV is to listen and comprehend announcements. The textbook provided announcements from different scenarios –at a hospital, a train station, and an airport. The teacher copied one or two of these announcements out each day on the blackboard. After she read the paragraph about the train announcement aloud, she asked the class what they had understood. Only one student raised a hand, and the only word he had understood was “ticket.” There is no train passing near Iringa urban district, and only a tiny percent of the population has ever used the tiny regional airport, which at the time could only accommodate 12-seater (and therefore quite expensive) planes. Aside from the unfamiliar contexts provided, each of the “announcements” had fairly difficult words, like
“resident,” “apologies,” and “inconvenience.” During the initial lessons, the teacher
117 would put the text on the blackboard, read it to the class, translate it into Swahili, then have the class chorus read it several times. Later, she told them to copy it down so that they could do an exercise based on it. She copied the exercise straight from the book as well, and the next day asked me if I could review the pronunciation of vocabulary with the class (the textbook had identified arbitrary words from the various announcements and listed them with no logical organization as “vocabulary”). In my effort to help, I drew on previous TESOL training and tried to group the words (e.g. words related to trains or travel), to use role play to demonstrate the meaning of the words, and to use the words for real communication, e.g. “raise your hand if you are a “resident” of Mtwivila, of Kihesa…” We also dutifully practiced pronunciation in chorus, by row, by gender, by individuals (a strategy I’d observed from my Jifunze and Somesha colleagues). Yet it was still obvious that the majority of students had no idea what the majority of vocabulary meant. Most of them were obediently parroting the words, but there was no comprehension and probably very little memorization happening.
In conversation with the English teacher after the lesson, I expressed my concern with the level of English in the textbook. Ms. Mtima agreed that the book was too difficult for her students – she even showed me an old textbook she had kept, which was designed for ESOL and was much more appropriate for these students. Yet, she had taken the district leaders’ suggestion to use the English-medium textbooks for the new curriculum as an order, and now that she had the textbook, she believed it was best to follow it page by page, to ensure that she was covering the new curriculum. The feeling she emitted was a fear of ‘getting it wrong’—that she did not seem comfortable with her
118 understanding of the new curriculum, but by following the textbook, she could safely assume that she had done her duty by delivering the curriculum to the students.
There are two elements of the nexus of practice at play here. Firstly, there is Ms.
Mtima as a historical body: The aggregation of her life experiences, training, and personality culminated, in this instance, in her deference to the authority of the textbook over her own judgment of content appropriate for her students, and in her faith that by following the authorities who gave her this textbook, she had done her duty as a teacher.
Through the eyes of this teacher, the textbook itself was an authority by nature of being a published textbook; moreover, it was given to her by her superiors—educational authorities at the district level. Despite her own misgivings, she felt safer following the authority of the text and experts, rather than using her own observation and assessment of the students in front of her. The second element of the nexus is the object that mediated the interaction – in this case, the textbook that was used as the basis for the topic of announcements. It was through the analysis of Ms. Mtima’s use of this object that her
PCK and deference to authority were revealed.
For the designers of scripted teaching materials, Ms. Mtima might be an ideal teacher. Unfortunately, in this case, her students gained little English from the unit on announcements. The textbook-coverage mode of teaching did not seem to be highly effective according to other teachers in the school– the English teachers in all the upper grades (Standard V, Standard VI, Standard VII) constantly complained that students came to them without knowing even basic English, and unready for the curriculum of that grade level. My own observation and assessments while teaching Standard VI showed
119 that most of the Standard VI students at Somesha understood and could recall less
English than the Standard IV students at Jifunze. This appeared to be because English teachers at Somesha would continue to move through topics of the curriculum with the textbook, whether or not students had understood. Once Ms. Mtima had covered the textbook pages on announcements she did not reteach or find other methods to help students understand the topic, she simply moved on to the next topic. As a repeated pattern, this may help to explain why Somesha students lagged behind their Jifunze peers in English.
In contrast to the textbook and District Officer-as-authority approach of Ms.
Mtima, the Standard IV English teacher at Jifunze, Ms. Lyungai, relied much more on her own PCK and assessment of the students, drawing on the textbook only when she felt it had useful content or exercises for her students. While I was at Jifunze in 2017, seeing her compare and draw examples of dialogue, text, vocabulary or exercises from a variety of English textbooks was a daily occurrence (she had collected single copies of various textbooks over her years as a teacher). When she put text on the board, especially for new units, she would have students draw the pictures from the textbook on the board as well, so that students had the visual support for learning vocabulary (see fig. 3.5 above). Her lessons also included repetitive oral (choral and individual) reading, but this was interspersed with a large amount of her acting out and explaining vocabulary as well as asking genuine and spontaneous questions to the students in English. Occasionally she would have students role play dialogues in front of the class. After observing the
“announcements” unit under the new curriculum at Somesha, I went to Jifunze to ask Ms.
120 Lyungai how she handled the unit. Jifunze had also received the same instructions regarding textbooks for the new curriculum, and Ms. Lyungai had been given the same
English book as Ms. Mtima. Ms. Lyungai immediately said, “Ah, the book is too difficult. I chose one example from there only.” Ms. Lyungai always stressed, even in other conversations and again in the focus group discussion at which I was sharing preliminary findings, that teachers should emphasize the “muhtasari” – the curricular summary guidelines – for their subject; they should ensure they understand and reach the objectives. Textbooks, she said, should be “analyzed” (kuchambua) to find the best materials that will help your class.
Based on my observations and analysis, I argue that teachers who use Ms.
Lyungai’s approach have higher pedagogical content knowledge and greater confidence as a professional. Higher PCK and confidence enabled such teachers to take textbooks and even the District Officer’s advice as suggestions, while relying on their own ideas and judgment to select lesson content and ensure student learning. This stands in sharp contrast with the teachers who feel they must follow authorities (whether Officers or textbooks) as directives. This underscores the importance of examining not only the presence of textbooks, but the way in which they are used.
By contrasting two English teachers as a specific example of archetypes, I have attempted to show how, despite the material conditions at both schools, teachers did vary in how closely they followed government directives and whether they put more faith in the textbook contents or in their own assessment of the students and their own selection and sequencing of content and activities. Teachers’ content knowledge was not the only
121 factor here. Teachers’ deference to authority may also have played a role in whether textbooks were taken as a definitive authority or as a resource to be drawn upon when needed. Aside from the personal experiences and traits that might have led to this difference, it is notable that more of the teachers at Somesha were likely to defer to resources as authority while the teachers at Jifunze were more likely to sample from and combine resources to serve their lesson objectives. This hints that the school ethos and approach to pedagogy at Jifunze was differently shaped by the school leadership, a fact which was also manifested through the organization of time in the school.
In the rest of this chapter, I will move to other aspects of the interaction order – specifically the school calendar, lesson schedules, and larger organizational parameters of the school system such as school funding in so far as each interacted with teachers’ daily practices in the classroom. These aspects, like the ones discussed in the previous sections, show the ways teachers’ pedagogical choices are informed by their material and temporal environment at the same time as their beliefs shape how they use the objects available to them.
The Effect of Time on Teaching Practices
Calendar
Scollon (2005) notes that time affects the interaction order on different scales.
Actions are rhythmically attuned to scales ranging from the “cardiac-respiratory cycle – pulsations of the lungs and breathing – to “circadian” 24-hour cycles, to “entropic” cycles of the formation and decay of materials (Scollon, 2005, p. 24). On a “solar” timescale (a
365-day year), the Tanzanian school year for primary school follows the calendar year –
122 January to December, with two main “terms” broken up by a one-month vacation in June.
There are also two-week vacations in March or April (around Easter) and in September
(when the Primary School Leaving Exam is administered). This rhythm had some effects on teaching practices and school routines: for instance, many teachers gave mid- and end- of-term assessments which were recorded in gradebooks.
The annual calendar was particularly significant for classes preparing to take national assessments: The PSLE is held in September each year, and the SFNA in
November. Teachers reported they aim to finish the syllabus at least two months before each exam, to give students plenty of time to practice with past papers. Teachers at
Jifunze even started extra classes (for free) with the Standard VI students immediately after the Standard VII exam, so that they could “get ahead” and finish the curriculum early the next year. This pressure to quickly cover the syllabus appears similar to that reported by Tanzanian secondary school teachers in another study of factors shaping teachers’ pedagogical choices (Vavrus & Bartlett, 2012), where it was found that among other factors, time pressure and lack of resources made teachers more likely to use teacher-directed lessons.
Schedules
In a more immediate way, daily scheduling had a large impact on shaping lessons.
Scheduling was an area where the two schools had starkly different practices. Jifunze may be one of the only Primary Schools in Tanzania that lacks the iconic ringing of the bell to mark lesson periods. In order to adapt to the large number of students in class, the head teacher abandoned the 40-minute lesson schedule. Instead, teachers stay in class for
123 as long as it takes to complete the lesson they planned, often including the completion of exercises and marking of them in class. During my observations, lessons lasted anywhere from 45 to 100 minutes. Occasionally this led to the curious situation of teachers waiting in the corridor, “kuvizia nafasi” - so they could sneak in a chance to teach. Overall, however, the extra time used for lessons appeared to contribute to students’ good performance on exams. Though the exact order and length of lessons varied day to day, teachers had worked out their own rhythm and turn-taking which ensured that within any given week, they had a chance to teach all of the subjects.
At Somesha, the ringing of the bell (a surprisingly resounding hand bell, in this case) was impressively executed promptly and regularly by a designated Standard VI student. Teachers told me with dismay that they struggled to complete lessons within 40 minutes, but they strove to adhere to the schedule so that one teacher would not encroach on the teaching of another subject. Personally, in the English lessons I was assigned I struggled to get through the lessons I’d planned in 40 minutes. I mentioned this to two of my colleagues at school, and they said, “here, we’re told we have to teach, give exercises, have it done and mark it in 40 minutes” (Field notes, 2018.2.22). As this speed of marking (grading) was not possible, most of the marking was done after class, in the staff room. The 40-minute periods also meant that there often was less explanation and fewer exercises given compared to Jifunze.
Although Somesha was more disciplined in the daily school structure, the national exams and assessments illustrate that learning achievement is higher at Jifunze (See
Tables 3.3 and 3.4). The strict adherence to daily schedules would make it easy to follow
124 up whether teachers at Somesha were present, teaching all the lesson periods they were supposed to, compared to Jifunze where this would be difficult to track. Yet this daily structure did not correspond with higher performance. This lends weight to Alexander’s
(2015) argument that easily-measurable indicators, such as time on task or teacher presence in school and lessons, do not necessarily correlate with actual quality of learning. How teaching and learning time is used (a more difficult but not impossible indicator) may be more indicative of quality learning outcomes. The flexible scheduling at Jifunze School served its teaching and learning goals well.
Classroom-Level Impact of Larger Policies and Practices
While the organization of time affected the rhythms of teaching and assessment, government fiscal policies also at times directly constrained what teachers could or could not do in the classroom. The staff meeting at Somesha just before the first midterm break in 2018 provides a vivid example of this:
As the midterm break approached at Somesha Primary school, one of the agenda items in a staff meeting was assessing student progress. The head teacher, Mr. Salehe, had some bad news: He explained that they had planned to have midterm exams this month. He said you [teachers] prepared them and the tests are now being typed [as schools don’t have secretaries and most teachers/schools don’t have computers, internal tests are usually typed by external secretarial services]. Unfortunately, Mr. Salehe explained, the money for photocopying is needed by the Local Government Authority (LGA) for the district-wide Standard VII Mock Exams. Mr. Salehe proceeded to give details of the school budget, which included exams, utilities (e.g. water/electricity), maintenance – which hadn’t been carried out for 18 months – and a lump sum that the school had sent to the LGA for sports earlier that year. Mr. Salehe explained that this does not leave enough money to cover these midterm tests AND end of term tests in June. Especially, he adds, considering that the need to purchase more chairs for the office and chalk, pens, cleaning supplies. First, an uncomfortable silence greeted this news. Most teachers were sitting in the circle of desks looking down, avoiding eye contact. Then Mr. Ngwila pointed out that they could not
125 request help from parents,35 and suggested that since the papers are being typed, they should be saved for later. Another teacher dared to ask – do LGAs know how much money schools receive? Mr. Salehe ambiguously replied that the money used to come to schools through the LGA, but now it is sent directly to schools. Another teacher suggested, “Let’s get the papers back from the typist, and choose at least 20 questions to give students on the blackboard.” A long debate then ensued as to the amount of time and blackboard space needed for 20 questions, the number of questions appropriate for various grade levels to copy down, and whether to use an exam schedule or regular class schedule. In the end it was agreed that each teacher would assess their subject for midterm in their own way in regular lessons. Observations showed teachers took different approaches. In Standard VI English, Ms. Valilwa advised we should prepare a twenty- question test, but give it to them over two different days. In Standard IV, most of the teachers gave short tests that resembled (sometimes word-for-word) exercises they had done in regular lessons, except that this time, unlike the daily exercises, the teachers recorded the scores of students in a mark book.
This vignette is meant to demonstrate several points: the unintended constraints on teachers caused by various central government policies, the competition for resources in a cash-strapped system, and how these deductions from the school budget ultimately affected teaching and learning. In a nexus of practice, the interaction order refers to the organization of space, time and resources. I am taking the fiscal situation as a part of the school’s resources, as it rendered unavailable objects that the teachers desired for instructional purposes (that is, printed mid-term tests).
In the staff meeting, two key central policies were alluded to – the new disbursement systems for capitation grants and fee free basic education. The reason schools’ budgets were being tapped by the Local Government Authority (LGA) is related to the national-level fiscal policy shift whereby capitation grants were disbursed directly
35 This used to be how teachers covered the cost of mid-term tests – they would tell each child to bring a small amount (for example, 200 shillings-about 50 cents USD) to contribute to the cost of typing and photocopying the tests. The Fee Free Basic Education Policy banned this sort of contribution from being mandatory for parents. 126 to schools. Apparently, an unintended side effect seemed to be that some LGAs were struggling to meet their own education budget needs. There was an implicit understanding by Mr. Salehe and his staff that refusing to send the requested money to the LGA was not an option. One cannot fault the Local Government council for wanting to stage Standard VII Mock Exams, a long-standing annual practice in preparation for the
PSLE, nor for organizing sports competitions for public schools. However, their lack of creativity in seeking alternative funds or in advocacy for their own budgets within the government, ultimately put pressure on Somesha which, as we have seen, affected classroom level assessment.
What would have been the difference if the school could have printed and photocopied the mid-term tests teachers had prepared is a fair question to ask. Firstly, students and teachers would have saved considerable time by not having to write and copy questions from the board for every subject. Moreover, any mistakes made by students in copying the questions down could affect students’ scores, so questions copied from the board may not be as good a gauge of student understanding as printed tests.
Normally, at both Somesha and Jifunze, when there are photocopied papers, the class goes outdoors and spreads out to take the tests, to ensure each test reflects an individual’s work, and not copying from others. Tests taken in the classroom, like regular exercises, are done with three students sharing each desk, making it harder for teachers to monitor cheating. One could argue that having more questions to answer on a photocopied test rather than fewer questions in class may also have given a more comprehensive or representative sample of students’ understanding.
127 This example shows that even financial organization has direct impact on pedagogical practices. While the organization of finances being disbursed directly to schools was meant to ensure the capitation grants were used for the school’s immediate needs, the new fiscal system had not adequately guarded teachers and schools against the competing actions of the LGA. The Somesha teachers were aware of the advantages of printed tests for assessing individual students’ knowledge, but their ability to use them was hampered by the material lack of finances and the privileging of the Local
Government council’s use of funds over the school’s use.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have attempted to show how the organization of space, time, resources, and interactions, as well as the class size and use of material objects intersected with conceptions of knowledge, cultural practices of authority, and individual teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge to produce particular pedagogical practices. I draw four important conclusions from this exploration of the interaction order.
Firstly, my findings support the findings of other studies in Tanzania which argue that the material aspects of the classroom have a large influence on teachers’ pedagogical practices (Barrett, 2005; Mbunda, 1996; Tilya & Mafumiko, 2010; Vavrus & Bartlett,
2012; Vavrus & Salema, 2013). The convergence of large class sizes, bulky furniture, and limited teaching resources severely restricted teachers’ preferred repertoire of teaching strategies and influenced their strategies to manage children’s behavior. Because various material aspects are intimately related to one another, addressing only one of the pieces (e.g. textbooks) without changing the others will not necessarily lead to
128 pedagogical change. However, my second argument is that it is not only the presence or absence of materials that is important, but their organization and how they are taken up by participants. The proclamation that the provision of Standard IV textbooks had not changed the daily teaching pattern demonstrates that provision of materials will not necessarily affect how teachers choose to use them.
The third argument of this chapter is that the organization of classrooms and interactions and the take-up of materials is intertwined with conceptions of knowledge, authority relations, moral values and PCK. These conceptions, values and preferences are embodied in what the nexus of practice framework calls “historical bodies.” Two aspects of teachers as historical bodies that I focused on were teachers’ PCK and their response to authority, that is, the degree to which they would unequivocally follow directives or make selective adjustments to suit their teaching goals. This was exemplified by the
English teachers’ use of the temporary textbooks and also in Mr. Josephat’s adjustments to the daily school schedule. My findings demonstrate that both aspects influenced teachers’ use of materials and appeared to influence learning outcomes, as well.
Finally, the intertwinement of organization (of space, time, resources) with conceptions of knowledge, authority relations, and moral values also demonstrates the dialectic nature of the interaction order. For example, the combination of a physical classroom layout structuring students’ attention and deference to the teacher as authority, teachers’ insistence on transmitting notes (from the teacher or textbooks), along with discouragement of student-student interaction during lessons reflected particular beliefs about knowledge, and also served to reproduce those beliefs in the new generation of
129 students. On another level, Mr. Josephat’s decision to make the daily lesson schedule flexible reflected his willingness to take risks (flouting the Ministry’s prescription for school schedules) so long as the action proved to serve his educational goals, such as the goal to ensure that the entire, large class comprehends a lesson before moving on to another subject. In addition, I believe his example and his encouragement of teachers at
Jifunze to make their own pedagogical decisions based on learning goals produced a greater likelihood that Jifunze teachers, like Ms. Lyungai, would rely on their own assessment of students’ needs rather than merely following a textbook. This does not mean that teachers’ PCK was only dependent on Mr. Josephat as a role model, but I am suggesting that Mr. Josephat created an environment which supported teachers’ selective use of resources and their reliance on their own PCK over the potential authority of textbooks or officials. In this way, Mr. Josephat’s manipulation of the interaction order transformed the semiotic system of the teachers at Jifunze: they focused on analysis and response to the students in front of them instead of focusing on following procedures, such as page-by-page following of a text or the directions of a district official.
In this chapter I isolated salient aspects of the interaction order to highlight their importance in influencing teachers’ pedagogical choices. Yet in practice, the interaction order works simultaneously with other elements of the nexus of practice. In the next two chapters, I will turn to Discourses in place which are also significant to the nexus of pedagogy, starting with the inter-related Discourses of curriculum, assessment and epistemology.
130
131 Chapter 5: Discourse in Place - Curriculum, Exams and Epistemologies
Taking pedagogy as a nexus of practice, it is not only the material and organizational elements of the interaction order that come together to shape pedagogy as a social practice. Various Discourses also circulate through the educational environment and are taken up in different ways by various actors. In this chapter I will focus on
Discourses related to the nature of learning and knowledge – epistemologies. Some
Discourses, such as constructivist Learner-Centered Practice (LCP) and competence- based education, are articulated explicitly in policy documents and curriculum; others, such as “content-based,” or “transmission/reception,” are implicitly reflected in beliefs, practices and the nature of exams and assessments. Researchers and reformers often paint stark pictures of teachers’ practices as either one or the other (constructivist or transmission), forming a deficit view of teachers (Tao, 2015). I will argue in this chapter that the teacher deficit Discourse is not only oversimplifying in setting out teacher practices as binary, but it is also unproductive because it overlooks how the d/Discourse of national examinations influences teachers’ practices. My examination of the
Discourses in place regarding examinations and knowledge will demonstrate how these elements contribute to teachers’ valuing of their current practices as the most effective, or
“best practice.” This chapter shows that teachers have adapted elements of constructivist, learner-centered approaches that serve their purposes within the larger picture of curriculum and exams driving the primary education system in Tanzania. In particular, I will highlight the current disjuncture between assessments and the new curriculum and consider how the absence of support systems in rolling out the new curriculum in 2015 –
132 2018 may have exacerbated this disjuncture. Overall, in terms of a nexus of practice, in this chapter I will demonstrate that teachers have resemiotized, or internalized into practice, elements of LCP to fit within the examination and “given,” propositional knowledge system in which their schools operate.
I will first summarize the two main Discourses or epistemologies of learning in education; and the way these are sometimes used to create a deficit picture of African and
Tanzanian teachers. I will then analyze my ethnographic data to demonstrate how my teacher colleagues understood some of their practices to be constructivist, and ways that they navigated the difficult material situation (described in Chapter 3) to occasionally provide hands-on learning opportunities, at the same time that most of them exhibited a preference for certain type of “propositional” knowledge (Alexander, 2000), which is also reflected in and reinforced by the nature of national exams and assessment practices.
I will close with a discussion of how these teachers interpreted the new curriculum, given the systems and Discourses in which they were situated.
How Do We Know? Major Discourses of Epistemology in Tanzanian/African
Education
Although there is great diversity in the world regarding conceptions of knowledge
(de Sousa Santos, et.al., 2007; Escobar, 2017), two Discourses currently dominate the literature on teaching in Tanzania and Africa as a whole. On the one hand there is the
Discourse I will call “transmission,” characterized by teacher-led, rote learning and
“given” knowledge. This approach is often called “traditional” teaching. On the other hand, there is the Discourse of LCP which, in current Tanzanian education policies is also
133 described as “competence based” education. Based on a constructivist view of knowledge and learning, this is the official Discourse promoted by the Ministry of Education and in teacher education programs.
Though it is not a term teachers in my study ever used themselves, “transmission” or “transmission-reception” models of learning is a common term used in many parts of
Africa (Awuah, 2018; Tabulawa 1997). It denotes a teaching approach which implies that
“to learn” means to receive and memorize information, and “to know” means to accurately recall it. In summarizing a review of literature on teaching and teacher preparation in Sub-Saharan Africa, Awuah (2018) asserts “the transmission-reception mode of teaching, in which teachers deliver factual content and children learn through repetition and memorization, is the dominant pedagogy across much of Sub-Saharan
Africa today” (p.2). This finding is corroborated by numerous studies in Africa (see, for example, Bashir, et.al. 2018; Guthrie, 2015; Jansen, 2005; Tabulawa, 2013) and in
Tanzania more specifically (for example, Mbunda, 1996; Roberts, 2015; Vavrus &
Bartlett, 2013). For teacher educators, this form of teaching is often associated with
Freire’s (1970/2000) characterization of traditional, teacher-led pedagogy as “banking” education (Tabulawa, 2013).
In Freire’s (1970/2000) seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he defined the
“banking concept” of education as that in which “the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor… the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits” (e-book, loc 989). In this depiction, students are “an empty container or vessel” and the “deposits” consist of predetermined
134 knowledge or “facts” (Matrin & Te Riele, 2011, p. 26). Freire also highlighted that the banking approach to teaching assumes there is a fixed canon of knowledge, decided by authorities outside or beyond the students and the teachers. His purpose was to question the power held by these ‘authorities’ and to uncover how the knowledge they promoted gave them privilege over subordinate classes. This latter half – the meat of Freire’s critique—is often left off in mainstream, or non-critical, uses of his banking metaphor.
That is, mainstream teacher education often makes use of Freire’s banking metaphor to criticize the notion of the child as an “empty vessel,” but does not question the power relations of knowledge production. Suffice to state that in teacher education and often in
CIE, transmission style of education is understood to entail learning in the form of memorization of given knowledge. This knowledge is not questioned; rather, an effective teacher is the one who enables students to “master” the information given through memorization, until it can be accurately recalled.
Official education curriculum and policy in Tanzania does not endorse this transmission approach. The Discourse officially espoused in the Education and Training
Policy of 1995 (MOEVT, 1995), the current Education Sector Development Plan
(MOEST, 2017a) and in the introduction of the competence-based primary curriculum
(TIE, 2015, 2016) is the “learner-centered” approach, which draws on a constructivist epistemology. Rather than taking learning to be the depositing or accumulation of knowledge inserted from outside the learner, constructivism posits that all humans already have internal schemata, knowledge or conceptions and learning happens when new experiences and interactions rearrange and expand these understandings.
135 Windschitl (2002) delineates two main strands, or versions of constructivism: cognitive and social. “Cognitive constructivism,” according to Windschitl, is “a system of explanations of how learners, as individuals, adapt and refine knowledge” and is based largely on the work of psychologist Piaget (2002, p. 140). The basic premise is that all children already have conceptions of the world, and teachers should help children “move from their inaccurate ideas toward conceptions more in consonance with what has been validated by disciplinary communities” (2002, p. 140). A second branch of constructivism, which Windschitl terms “social constructivism” stems mainly from
Vygotsky’s work, which shares the notion of children having conceptions that need to be refined, but differs in that, rather than conceiving of learning as an individual/internal process, Vygotsky emphasizes the social nature of learning. Windschitl (2002) summarizes:
From the social constructivist perspective, a major role of schooling is to create the social contexts (zones of proximal development) for mastery and the conscious awareness of the use of cultural tools (e.g., language and technologies of representation and communication) so that individuals can acquire the capacity for higher-order intellectual activities. (p. 141)
Thus, there is a degree of differentiation between the extent to which learning happens individually or requires social interaction, but the basic, shared premise of constructivism is that knowledge and concepts are built (“constructed”) and continually re-shaped and adapted by the learner, psychologically and through experience. From either a cognitive or social constructivist perspective, a large problem with transmission ‘banking’ conceptions of education is that the child is assumed to know nothing and to simply receive or accumulate already-formed concepts and information.
136 Often these two strands of constructivism are blended. For example, the influence of Piagetan and Vygotskyan thought can be traced in this definition of LCP by Chisholm
& Leyendecker (2008):
• knowledge is not transmitted; it is constructed in the mind of the learner. Learning is a mentally active process and learning results from personal interpretation of knowledge; • learning is a process in which meaning is developed on the basis of prior knowledge and experiences. Prior knowledge and experiences are determined by culture and social context; • language influences culture and thinking and is central to learning and the development of higher cognitive processes. (p. 197)
This definition acknowledges both the personal interpretation and constructive process in the mind of the learner, as well as the importance of language (Vygotsky’s social/interactional side) in the learning process. In Tanzania, the international and local agencies promoting these “best practices” often use the language of ‘active learning’ and
‘participation’ (see, for example, TEN/MET 2019; USAID, 2018; World Bank, 2018).
Often, by the labels “active” and “participatory” this Discourse is referring to social or hands-on learning engagements, such as students doing experiments, or discussing or debating ideas together, or engaging directly in the subject being learned (e.g. students reading books to themselves to learn language, or measuring real objects or using objects to make patterns in mathematics). Often these approaches lead toward the conceptualization of the teacher as a facilitator rather than expert or authoritative figure, and sometimes there is much emphasis given to the “voice” and “agency” of students within the classroom (see, for example, the “Enhanced Primary Years Programme,” IBO,
2018). 137 The new competence-based primary school curriculum in Tanzania explicitly espouses learner-centeredness, elaborating this as based on belief that all children can learn and that the teachers’ role is to facilitate their learning through “participatory methods.” These aspects can be seen in this extract from the Curriculum for Basic
Education Standards III – VI (TIE, 2016a):
This curriculum emphasizes learner-centred approach in which the pupil is the focus. Bearing in mind that every pupil has an ability to learn, the main task of a teacher is to facilitate the learning process. Therefore, this curriculum emphasizes participatory methods of teaching and learning. In the whole process of teaching and learning, the teacher must ensure that every pupil gets an opportunity to participate fully in the learning activities regardless of their differences. This view of teaching and learning is mainly based on the philosophy of education for self-reliance. (p. 28)
There is a resemiotization of the philosophy of Education for Self-Reliance (ESR) at the end of the paragraph. Nyerere (1967) did not explicitly use terms such as the teacher as facilitator, however, ESR has been associated with constructivism for a number of reasons. Mtitu (2014) argued that ESR could be considered constructivist or learner- centered because it emphasized the need for learning to be connected to students’ lives, thus building understanding from their prior knowledge and experiences. The ESR emphasis on practical, or hands-on learning may also be viewed as aligned with the notion of participatory learning promoted in this document’s definition of the learner- centered approach. Chisholm and Leyendecker (2008) assert that not only ESR, but many of the anti-colonial education movements following independence in southern and eastern
Africa incorporated learner-centered ideas. By stating that this learner-centered, inclusive and participatory conception of teaching and learning is based on ESR, the Tanzania
Institute of Education (the official curriculum writer) is asserting local roots for this
138 approach, and forestalling any claims that this type of learning is a cultural imposition from outside (as Guthrie, 2015, 2017; and Tabulawa, 1997, 2013 have elsewhere asserted). Nevertheless, as I will demonstrate with my data in the remainder of this chapter, this claiming of a constructivist epistemology as indigenous, and even the reformulation of the curriculum as competences (rather than “content-based”) still collides with other (big D and little d) discourses that shape teachers’ pedagogical practices toward transmission.
From Binaries and Teacher Deficits to Selective Appropriation
In many IDE programs and literature reviews, teachers are judged negatively for espousing the transmission approach instead of learner-centered constructivist teaching.
Tao (2015) has identified two prominent Discourses in the literature, government and international development communities operating in Tanzania’s education sphere: the
“Third World Teacher” Discourse and the “Technical Assistance” Discourse. The former carries implicit assumptions “of poor-quality teachers with ‘deficient’ behaviors” while the latter is a discourse developed by international development agencies and inter/national consultants “introducing technicist interventions to reduce or alter these
‘deficient’ practices” (Tao, 2015, p. 210).
This deficit discourse is evident in the summary of findings on “teaching and learning in the classroom” by Bashir, et.al. (2018). Their review of studies from multiple
African countries found that “teachers who are able to assess students’ abilities and academic progress … are a small minority among their colleagues” (p. 281), teachers lack “cognitive knowledge” (p. 302), and “serious gaps in teachers’ repertoire of teaching
139 practices also exist: Most students receive instruction passively” (p. 303). A similar, negative view of African teachers is presented in a review of the World Banks’ Service
Delivery Indicator data from multiple countries. Bold, et.al. (2017) assert:
Poor knowledge of general pedagogy was mirrored in behavior in the class- room. … During their lessons, many teachers asked questions that required students to recall information or to practice what was learned, but significantly fewer asked questions that required higher-order skills and encouraged students to apply what was learned to different contexts and be creative. (p. 196)
Judging teachers as having poor knowledge of pedagogy because they are not using the researcher or international agency’s preferred best practice (be it learner-centered, competence based, higher order thinking) assumes that teachers share these same goals for their students. On the contrary, I will demonstrate that good performance on examinations is a driving goal for most of teachers in my study. The nature of the exams does much to reinforce and also produce the pedagogical practices that teachers choose to employ.
Blaming teachers themselves for the failure of constructivist pedagogical reforms is unproductive because it removes the research gaze from other elements that may be contributing to the continued use of teacher-led, transmission pedagogy. As Mtika &
Gates (2009) contend, "While policy makers and teacher educators in Sub-Saharan Africa and more widely often blame the teachers for failing to implement learner-centred education, they rarely are aware of the underlying issues which affect the appropriation and application of learner-centred education in real classrooms” (p. 397). In deficit characterizations, teachers are judged as simply good (that is, learner-centered) or poor
(read: transmission-focused, teacher-led) as if there were a clear binary between these
140 two poles. Even Tabulawa (2013), who critiques technicist pedagogical interventions from a sociocultural perspective, asserts that “constructivist learner-centeredness” and
“objectivist” teacher-centeredness are “diametrically opposed” (p. 49). Yet many teachers in my study have appropriated elements of constructivism into their beliefs and practices, even as their overall conceptions of knowledge and teaching practices may still emphasize transmission and a conception of knowledge as given and external. Other researchers have found similar appropriations and variation among teachers in Tanzania
(see, for example, Barrett, 2007; Bartlett and Mogusu, 2013; Vavrus, 2009). Vavrus
(2009) proposed that the possibility for different forms of constructivism, or “contingent constructivism” be considered, while Schweisfurth (2013) convincingly argues that teaching should be thought of on a continuum more or less constructivist or learner- centered, with the possibility of hybridity and selectivity in teacher practices, rather than a dichotomized categorization of one or the other (Schweisfurth, 2013). My findings support these arguments.
Jifunze and Somesha Teachers’ Practice and Beliefs Regarding Knowledge and
Learning
In this section, I will move through several aspects of the Tanzanian teachers’ beliefs about learning and knowledge and related pedagogical practices. First, I will utilize my teacher colleagues’ explication and reasoning for their use of a particular teaching strategy, Question-and-Answer (Q&A), to demonstrate elements of constructivism which they had appropriated into their thinking and pedagogical practices.
Next I will use one particular teacher, Mr. Josephat to explore not only his constructivist
141 epistemology, but also how his form of constructivism may be shaped by other cultural influences. I will also consider other teachers that exemplified similar influences. Then I will provide examples of and consider the balance between hands-on versus rote lessons.
This will lead into a discussion of preferred forms of knowledge.
Just What is “Participatory?” Revisiting Question and Answer
Only two teachers I interviewed at Somesha and Jifunze were familiar with the term Learner-Centered Practice in English or Swahili (“mwanafunzi kuwa kitovu au chanzo cha ujifunzaji”). However, when I tried to describe it, all the teachers would immediately associate with participatory learning. All teachers were familiar with several participatory teaching strategies, such as group work, debates, and gallery walks, yet they admitted they did not usually use these strategies due to the large classes, time and material constraints I noted in Chapter 4. They did, however, strongly associate Q&A with participatory learning.
As I have previously mentioned, recall Q&A, note taking, and short exercises were the preferred teaching strategies for most of the teachers I observed at both schools.
Teachers often used Q&A at the start of a lesson, calling on individuals either to introduce a new topic or to review previous lessons. The latter can be seen in the more extended example below from Ms. Daima’s Standard IV Civics Class at Jifunze which was introduced in Chapter 1:
The teacher starts the lesson by asking questions about what was discussed in the previous lessons. Many students raise their hands to answer the questions, and the teacher calls on a different boy or girl each time.
Teacher: When did multipartism start in Tanzania? Student: 1992
142 Teacher: What are drawbacks of multipartism? Student: To foster democracy. Teacher: Do you know what “drawback” means? (Another) student: People spend too much time on debates and not enough on development. Teacher: Another? Student: Too much money is spent on campaigning and elections. Teacher: Yes. Another? Student: People criticize the government. Teacher: [The teacher pauses from questioning here to explain that] Critiquing the government is positive, not negative, because it holds the government accountable. [She gives a teacher analogy] Maybe a teacher doesn’t teach in class, but if the school inspector comes, the teacher teaches, so the students benefit. If the opposition critiques the government, it makes the government do its job well, so citizens benefit. But it is NOT right just to criticize everything, only when it is deserved. [She then pivots to review another part of the topic] Who can name a political party? Student: Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo Chadema (The Party for Democracy and Development) Student: CCM Teacher: What is CCM? Class shouts in chorus: Chama cha Mapinduzi! (The Revolutionary Party) Student: CUF Teacher: What is CUF? [No one can say what CUF stands for] Student: DPP Teacher: What does DPP stand for? [No one can say what DPP stands for] Teacher: How often is the president elected? Student: Every five years Teacher: Who would like to be a politician when you grow up? Several students raise their hands and mention the jobs they would like to have – e.g. ward councilor, mayor, member of parliament, president The teacher then gives them an exercise – to write the full name of each of eight political parties.
(Field notes, 2017.08.09)
Ms. Daima had presented the answers to these questions in previous lessons, so she was checking to see what the students remembered. However, her analogy of the teacher and inspector to explain how critiquing can be beneficial, and her last question (“who
143 would like to be a politician”) related the subject to students’ own experience and potential lives. Other teachers provided a litany of content-based questions with little pause or reflection, as in this example:
Standard IV Science class, Somesha Primary The teacher starts class by asking students question, nearly verbatim, from the exercises and notes they’d been taking for the last couple of days. A number of students raise their hand for each question and one is called on each time. No incorrect answers were given: Teacher: What are the two groups of living things? Student: Plants and animals Teacher: What do animals breath in? Student: Oxygen Teacher: And what do they breathe out? Student: Carbon Dioxide Teacher: Where does oxygen come from? Student: Plants (Field notes, 2018.01.30)
Teachers also used Q&A to introduce a new topic, as can be seen in these examples from different subjects:
Standard IV Personality Class (Haiba), Jifunze Primary The teacher is starting a new topic – to protect and improve health. First, she asks the class: Teacher: What are examples of healthy habits? Individual students raise hands and when boys and girls are called on, they give various answers: “eating healthy” “get enough sleep” “bathe every day”
(Field notes, 2017.08.09)
Standard IV – Civics and Moral Education Class, Somesha Primary The teacher is starting a lesson on the school rules. Teacher: Our head teacher read the school rules at the start of the year. Who can remember? Student: To be on time Teacher: Who’s on time?
144 [many hands are raised] Teacher: Liars! Wait till I’m the teacher on duty, then you’ll see! Other rules? Student: To clean the school. Student: To arrive at 7 am exactly. Student: Don’t leave the school grounds until you’re allowed to. Teacher: When are you allowed? Student: 2:30 [p.m.] Student: Take care of school property Student: Receive visitors or teachers [e.g. carry their bag or books for them] [The teacher then reads off the school poster all the rules they haven’t yet mentioned.]
(Field notes, 2018.02.21)
When individual students are called upon, it is often those who have raised their hands, but teachers would also call on those who did not. One teacher would even use the class register to randomly choose the name of who would be called upon to answer. Sometimes
Q&A was used for choral response by the whole class, usually just after new information was introduced, as in this science lesson at Jifunze Primary:
Science Class – Standard IV, Jifunze Primary The teacher has introduced a new topic (states of water—hali ya maji) by spending about five minutes explaining the three states of water. Without writing on the board, she carefully reads aloud notes that define each state of water, sometimes repeating a line more than once. Then she starts to ask the class questions: Teacher: If you boil water to 100 degrees C it becomes…? Class (in chorus): “steam” Teacher: If you freeze water it becomes… Class (in chorus): “solid” The teacher then has the class repeat after her the three states of water – “solid, liquid, gas”
(Field notes, 2017.08.07)
Tandika (2016) argues that teachers’ use of Q&A as a primary teaching strategy signifies that pedagogy is still “teacher-centered” and is in opposition to a competence-
145 based curriculum. These examples demonstrate that the interactions are teacher-led, like most of the classroom interactions as I noted in the interaction order. Nor do the particular questions asked allow students to demonstrate competences. Nevertheless, these teachers felt Q&A is a good example of participatory teaching and an efficient means to gauge the class’ understanding of a topic. Even the teacher educator I interviewed,36 Ms.Litawa, shared most of my teacher colleagues’ view that “ukimpa maswali kwamba ukauliza maswali na majibu – ni mbinu shirikishi. Umeuliza, mtoto akajibu” – “…if you give questions, that is, you use Q&A, it is a participatory method.
You ask, the child answers” (Interview, 2018. 08.29). Because the child is answering, she seemed to imply, the child is participating. In whole-class Q&A sessions, it could also be argued that because any child could be called upon, all students need to be actively thinking (i.e. participating). Ms. Litawa seemed to be getting at the shift in focus and talk time described by Mr. Salehe, the Somesha Head Teacher, as he distinguished
“old” or traditional teaching from participatory methods:
Zamani mwalimu alikuwa ndio mtoaji wa maarifa zaidi, lakini kupitia participatory method, …mtoto sio debe tupu. Ana vitu ndani. Kwa hiyo kupitia kumchokoza chokoza yeye anasema kwa hiyo unajua huyu ana nini ndani yake. Anasema … anachokifahamu; wewe unaenda unamrekebisha hapo hakiko hivi, kiko hivi na hivi. Lakini ukisema wewe muda wote huwezi kujua mtoto ana nini. (Interview, 2018.03.19)
In the past, the teacher was the main source of information, but with participatory methods, … a child is not an empty canister. S/he has something inside. So through provocations, s/he will speak, so then you will know what s/he has inside. S/he says … what s/he understands; you go and correct – here, it’s not like that, it’s like this. But if you [the teacher] talk all the time you cannot know what the student has.
36 Ms. Litawa was the teacher educator who supervised student teachers at Somesha Primary during my time in the field. 146
Mr. Salehe not only notes the importance of teachers giving students time to talk, or give their answers, but he also explains why. In Mr. Salehe’s terms, Q&A gives every student the potential chance to demonstrate what they already know. This is the argument which aligns the teachers’ assertion that Q&A is participatory with constructivist LCP.
The teachers said they use Q&A so they can find out what children already know. In interviews, several other teachers also explained that the use of Q&A demonstrates that the teacher recognizes the child is not an “empty vessel.” Teachers articulated these beliefs through their assertion that each child “has something” – mtoto ana kitu.
“Mtoto ana Kitu” – The Child has Something
Teachers interviewed in my study were quick to point out that students are not an
“empty set” as one teacher put it, using a mathematical analogy. More than one teacher, from both schools, used this phrase: “mtoto ana kitu” – “the child has something.” The teachers interviewed made these statements with the emphasis, tone of voice and follow up explanations, as of one making a controversial statement or of one trying to convince a disbeliever—as if it were a statement that needed to be defended and explained rather than taken for granted. Nevertheless, when I asked later, several teachers confirmed that this was an idea they were taught in their teachers’ college training. The teachers in my study do seem to have accepted and internalized this notion. That is, teachers did not only profess this belief in interviews; classroom observation bear out the teachers’ claims that they seek to understand what children already know when they are teaching.
Teacher: I mean, myself, as a teacher, I understand that when I receive a student, it’s not like s/he is an ‘empty set,’ I understand that that student has
147 something. So even when I’m teaching, I have to involve him/her to a large extent, so s/he will tell me what it is s/he has so that where something is loose or is missing I can fill in that missing piece… That’s why we use [Q & A technique] especially in the introduction to a new subject. Yes we use it. Interviewer: So, after this you ‘fill them in’ based on the syllabus or based on what? Teacher: Yeah, I mean there you uncover some information, and s/he who had knowledge will also share and you share what you know so that you can find out what [the student] has, because I see that is where the student can get [more]. I mean, once you know that perhaps this one is like that, then you know where to begin with your teaching and you know what style to use going forward.” (Interview.2018.3.19)
Another teacher described a similar process and reasoning for using Q&A in more succinct terms:
Mtoto ana kitu. Unajaribu kudodosa, unajaribu kumshirikisha. Njia ya maswali. Atajibu. Baadaye sasa utaendelea. Unarekebisha pale atakapokosea, unaongeza maarifa zaidi.
The child has something. You try to inquire, you try to involve the child. The strategy is Q&A. S/he will answer. Later, you’ll continue. You correct him/her when s/he makes a mistake, you add more knowledge/information. (Interview, 2017.09.18)
The Jifunze English teacher, Ms. Lyungai, whom I described in the previous chapter as having a high level of PCK, added another element of the social side of constructivism. In our interview, she explained that she believes when the class sees that one child knows something, it motivates the other children to learn it. “Students learn first from their peers. [They think,] “Oh, our friend knows that!” This motivates the others to learn more, to pay attention, to understand the teacher better” (Interview,
2017.09.14). This view implies that even if it is the teacher directing the conversation by asking most of the questions, the students are still participating in peer-to-peer support and learning from their peers. In the classroom, Ms. Lyungai still often asked students to
148 recall vocabulary (especially through dictation/spelling practice), but she also asked questions to extend their vocabulary for each topic. For instance, on the topic of
“occupations,” after she had introduced five or six occupations in English, she asked if any students could name more occupations, and some of them could. On the topic of politeness, after using an example of motorcycle-taxi drivers as being reckless, she asked the class to give examples of reckless actions they’ve seen motorcycle-taxi drivers make.
In these instances, she is both assessing and allowing students to share their prior knowledge, and, according to her theory of learning, she is motivating the other children to learn as well.
A Constructivist “Provocateur”
The teacher who espoused the most straightforward constructivist conception of learning was Mr. Josephat, the head teacher at Jifunze. Mr. Josephat espoused a fully constructivist view of mental schemata and conceptions that adjusted and developed as new experiences were gained. For example, he explained:
When a child first starts school, even before the teacher enters and starts teaching, the child has some idea in their head of what school would be like, some image of a classroom. When they arrive at school, they see the classroom and the blackboard. They see the desks and many other children. So immediately or automatically, they start adjusting what they think school is. (Field notes, 2019.3.21)
Rather than learning by being told something, in Mr. Josephat’s anecdote, the actual experience of coming to school and comparing their original idea with what they see, is an example of learning. This is a very dynamic view of the integration of new experiences and information with previous concepts to continually develop new conceptions and levels of understanding, very akin to Piagetan constuctivism. In line with
149 this conception, Mr. Josephat saw the idea of the teacher as an ‘authority” as being very
“outdated.”
Mr. Josephat provides a very compelling example of the ways in which various educational traditions may be combined in one philosophy of learning and pedagogy.
While he feels teaching is a calling or vocation of (Christian) love, similar to that of priests (personal communication, July 18, 2016), and he espouses a constructivist concept of learning, he also draws on metaphors that appear more akin to precolonial or indigenous approaches to teaching and learning.
Stambach (2000) identifies two aspects of teaching and the concept of learning based on descriptions of initiations from older ethnographies (ethnographies reported on interviews with and, in a few cases, observations of, older men who went through initiation before or during the early years of colonial rule (such as Gutmann, 1932 and
Raum, 1940). One element she identifies was the use of humiliating tactics to “imprint adult knowledge on initiands’ bodies and minds” (p. 124), and another, conveying knowledge through a riddling style wherein a preceptor uses a threatening and complaining style and an “interpreter” tries to guess the answer to riddles.
While Mr. Josephat’s affable manner did not reflect humiliating tactics, echoes of a rhetorical style stemming from the teacher providing shock, shaming, and puzzles to goad the students into learning can still be found in his metaphors for teaching. Though
Mr. Josephat espoused what appeared to be a classic constructivist conception of learning and formation of new understandings/knowledge, he used an interesting twist on the usual constructivist metaphor for teachers. Most constructivist teacher education
150 (including the new primary curriculum in Tanzania – see TIE, 2016a, p. 28) pushes the image of the teacher as facilitator (mwezeshaji) or “guide on the side.” Yet Mr. Josephat declared that the teacher should be the “mchokozi wa mada” (FN.2019.3.21).
Formally, “mchokozi wa mada’ translates as ‘discussant’ – the role of one who listens to a speech, paper, or presentation, and gives comments that summarize and challenge the views given, as well as asks questions for the audience and presenter to consider together. The term is used in political contexts as much as academic settings in
Tanzania. Yet this was the first time I had heard it applied to the role of a primary school teacher. Compared to mwezeshaji (facilitator) mchokozi is a more aggressive term, stemming from the verb “to antagonize, provoke or tease” (kuchokoza) instead of the verb “to enable” (kuwezesha). In terms of mental images, mchokozi conjures images of prodding or poking, but not necessarily in a negative way, more in the way of an alarm clock that prods you to wake up and get moving in the morning – it can sting, and you may even resent it at the time, yet inside you know it pushes you toward meeting responsibilities and taking opportunities that move you forward. That the teacher most steeped in a constructivist worldview should choose the term mchokozi rather than mwezeshaji, echoes of a rhetoric of shock and challenges as the most effective means through which to learn. Mr. Salehe also used the term “kuchokoza chokoza” (to provoke) to characterize Q&A and teachers’ efforts to reveal student thinking. Cultural notions of knowledge, teaching and learning run deep.
In my study, one of the youngest teachers, Ms. Pona, appeared to share a rhetorical style similar to that described by Stambach. In fact, my initial reaction to this
151 teacher was that she was ‘harsh’ and I was surprised, as I continued observing, to see the close relationships she developed with most of the Standard IV students. She often scolded the class (see math lesson vignette, below), and yet could easily move from shocking and shaming the students to providing advice and demonstrating care. For instance, in the following vignette, she uses both shaming and shock:
Ms. Pona draws a clock and calls on one of the struggling students to write the time on the blackboard. He writes 3:30 instead of 2:30. She tells him to turn around and he sees a thicket of hands raised behind him, so he realizes he has it wrong, and erases his answer, but doesn’t know what the correct answer is. Ms. Pona calls on a girl to correct the answer. This student writes the correct time but Ms. Pona makes fun of her numeral 3: “Who taught you to write three? Did I teach you this?” The other children laugh and the girl erases her 3 to write a neater one. This time making it very tiny. Ms. Pona asks the class, “Which grade should she go to, to learn to write number 3?” The class shouts “Standard I!” Ms. Pona says, “Should I bring a Standard I child here to show her how to write? Or should I ask my [three-year-old] daughter?” “Yes!” shouts the class. “Nenda zako”-“Go on,” says Ms. Pona. Then she tells the class to boo the girl. When the response is very quiet, she goads them and the class gives a loud “ooooooh” with some hand waving. Ms. Pona then moves toward the boy who answered incorrectly first. She says to him [for the whole class to hear], “You understand things in class, but on exams! What is it? Have you married? Is your wife making you confused?” There are shocked twitters at this. One boy’s eyes pop. [This is a normal explanation/excuse for adults but of course a joke for a fourth grader]. The class mostly quiets down and Ms. Pona asks how many of them have done a certain practice paper. (Field notes, 2017.10.26)
Yet it was barely two weeks later that Ms. Pona was the teacher who took the time to calm students’ nerves by explaining in detail how the national Standard IV exam would be conducted. It was she who followed up with one of the most struggling girls in the class to the extent of regularly visiting her home and enlisting the girls’ aunts to help her prepare for the exam so that she would not have to repeat a grade. And it was often to her that students came in private when they had a personal problem. While Ms. Pona
152 may be only one out of the ten Standard IV teachers I observed closely over the year of data collection, her style is a reminder that we must be open to students having different interpretations of and reactions to teachers’ approaches than one might expect when coming from the US. We must also be mindful of obliquely labeling teachers as either or only “constructivist” or “transmission”-based.
Instances of Hands-On Learning
Demonstrations of hands-on learning, in which students actually witnessed or experienced what the lesson was about, were relatively rare. In nine months of observations, I observed one role play in an English class where students practiced a dialogue in a shop setting, and three science experiments (one at Jifunze and two at
Somesha). The Standard IV science teacher at Somesha, Ms. Faustina, would circumvent the dearth of equipment in the classroom by explaining and encouraging simple experiments the students could do at home. In addition to writing notes about the experiment, she would help students to memorize the steps until they could recite them verbatim, then she would urge them to try it at home. While this does not guarantee that all (or, indeed, any) of the students will have an opportunity to actually carry out the experiment, nor does it allow for instruction during the experiment itself, it does at least encourage active, scientific “method” (through a controlled experiment with only one variable). The openness of the assignment left room for students to work together at home if they chose to, which could accommodate those who didn’t have the resources at home or the interest to carry it out by themselves. A few of the students carried out circuit experiments (connecting one or more batteries and wires to light a bulb), and when they
153 shared the products with their class, they were much celebrated. Even two months later,
Ms. Faustina would introduce them to school visitors and give them a chance to show their work, which encouraged students to take interest in further experiments at home.
Following Q&A about what living things need to survive, Ms. Faustina described an experiment in which two cockroaches are kept in containers – one airtight and the other with airholes, to see prove if living things really need oxygen to survive.
Ultimately, the experiments were meant to reinforce the knowledge previously transmitted by the teacher via notes and Q&A, but it was an innovative move to encourage hands-on, demonstrative experiments without the resources to carry them out in class.
Ms. Pona, who taught science as well as math at Jifunze Primary, demonstrated changes in the state of water for her students through observing ice melt in the sun and borrowing the staff room gas burner to boil water and observe the steam. She undertook this live experiment after learning that I owned a cooler in which I could bring the ice to school. (We also tried to freeze liquid water into ice in the cooler, but it was not cold enough.) Whether she would have carried out the evaporation/steam part of the experiment with the school burner without the melting/freezing part of the experiment that my cooler potentially provided, is unclear. This is likely an instance where my presence as a researcher affected her practice (in terms of providing equipment, and possibly also raising in her a desire to appear as a “good” science teacher who does experiments).
154 However, Ms. Pona also made novel use of group work for her Standard Four national exam preparation in ways that had nothing to do with my presence or absence from the scene. Avoiding the constraints of time and space in class for group work, she formed students into groups based on their home neighborhoods and assigned each group past exam papers for homework. Students within each group shared one copy of each paper, and the papers were rotated between groups, efficiently cutting back on the amount of photocopying needed. As the groups were heterogeneous, or mixed ability, students were expected to support each other, to ensure everyone could complete the practice papers. The papers were then graded and discussed in class. The examples of
Ms. Pona and Ms. Fausinta show that teachers will implement new pedagogical approaches (in this case, hands-on learning or group work from LCP Discourses) in ways that suit their circumstances (Thompson, 2013).
Recall, Coverage and Correct Answers
Despite the examples above of group work, hands-on experiments and most teachers agreeing on students not being empty sets, I nevertheless also observed many teacher practices that align with the “transmission” characterization of teaching. This was exhibited not only in the reliance on note-taking which I described in previous chapters, but also through the type of questions teachers asked students (as seen in the examples above, mostly recall questions), the nature of exercises and assessments used in class, and even outright teaching of memorization strategies.
At times, “cramming” or memorization for the sake of recall on a test, is a strategy that teachers helped their students master. In one Jifunze geography lesson, for
155 instance, the teacher put a term and its definition on the board and asked what it meant no less than 3 times—every time the response being a verbatim reading of the definition on the board. Then the teacher told the class to turn around and face the back of the room and recite the definition. They had to practice this until they could recite it correctly
(Field notes, 2017.09.19). Even Ms. Faustina, the teacher who encouraged hands-on science experiments at home, deemed the best way to use up an extra week of teaching days before a mid-term test was to give repetitive, single-answer items for the class to complete every day. The order of questions changed from one day to the next, but the content was nearly verbatim, so that students would have memorized not only vocabulary, but also specific examples to use for each term. (Field notes, 2018, between
March 10 and March 22).
The desire for a single, correct answer was exhibited in the nature of most practice exercises teachers gave students. These took the form of fill in the blank, sentence completion, multiple choice, matching, straightforward mathematical computations, or true and false questions. At times, it was not only the answer for which uniformity was expected, but even the method, as in this science/math lesson at Jifunze
Primary:
It’s a cool August morning in Iringa. Students had been observing water melting, boiling, and evaporating for a lesson on states of matter in a Standard IV Science class. The teacher, Ms. Pona, who teaches both science and math, makes a cross- curricular connection: Having asked the students to record what time we started our experiment and what time they noted the ice had completely melted, she now asks them to calculate how much time had elapsed. [these phases of the experiment started at 8:20 and ended at 9:00]. When she sees few hands raised, the teacher is angry. She demands her stick. More hands go up. She complains again. A few more hands up. Now she starts asking every child for their answer, hand up or not. She asks more than 20 kids for their answer. Most say 40 minutes, though there were
156 two or three students who said 60 minutes. Then Ms. Pona asks how they got the answer 40 minutes. A few students say they took 20 away from 60. Ms. Pona does not accept this and is angry that they can’t explain how they got their answer. One student elaborates that an hour has 60 minutes, and it was 8:20 at the start and 9:00 at the end, so they took 20 minutes away from 60 minutes, but Ms. Pona still won’t accept this answer. A few students give explanations that do not seem to make sense, about adding, and one says he used multiplication to arrive at his answer. The teacher is upset and there is visible fear in the room. She turns toward me and I ask her quietly, how did she want them to solve it? She says she wants “subtraction of time.” She takes chalk and writes the problem the way she wants it solved on the board – it is the way they did similar problems in math class two weeks ago, the way shown in the math syllabus: 9.00 – 8.20 using borrowing [bridging ten] to solve the subtraction. Of course, the answer is still 40 minutes.
(Field notes, 2017.08.14)
While the lesson described in this vignette has many laudable characteristics, such as demonstrating science experiments and making cross-curricular connections, the aspect being focused on here is the teacher’s insistence that there was only one correct way to solve the math problem. The example in this vignette was not the only time I observed the acceptance of only one answer among several possible correct answers. For instance, on a mock exam for English, there was a sentence-ordering exercise (students had to arrange five sentences into a paragraph). Although more than one logical and coherent arrangement of the sentences given was possible, only one sequence was accepted as
“correct” on the marking scheme. In over 150 lesson observations over the year I spent at
Jifunze and Somesha, about 97% of the exercises given to students in class involved single answer exercises, compared to only 3% involving more open-ended questions or activities for the students.
157 An accumulation of interactions such as these, in which not only the answer, but often a single procedure for arriving at the answer, was accepted, (not to mention the threat of physical reprisal if one did not answer as desired) created in most students a fear of making mistakes and a dependency on teachers to give very precise instructions. In the absence of such guidance, most students were confused or would hesitate to do tasks.
When faced with a new task, such as filling in a self-reflection table from the new Civics and Moral Education curriculum, or copying down and answering open-ended reading comprehension questions (instead of fill-in-the-blank or matching), the majority of students waited in bafflement, only copied what was on the board without writing answers, or asked a slew of questions37 before they could complete the task.
Teachers’ reliance on close-ended, single-response questions, when coupled with the type of notes they would supply students, suggest that a particular type of pre- conceived knowledge was preferred. If we return again to teachers’ discussion of students as not being “empty” we can note that in addition to agreeing that students “have something” they already know; most teachers also went on to say that once they ask what students know, they, as teachers, can “fill the gaps.” One teacher had said: “…where something is loose or is missing I can fill in that missing piece” while another used
“add” similarly: “you add more knowledge/information” In fact, a review of all my teachers’ interview responses revealed that the verbs most often used in relation to students’ knowledge were to “have” and to “get” followed by to “fill.” The verb
37 For example, with the reading comprehension, many student asked: “Should we write all the questions, then the answers (1,2,3,4,5, 1,2,3,4,5) or each question than each answer (1q 1a, 2q 2a…)?” “Should we use the front or back of our exercise book?” They were hung up on procedural details rather than with showing their comprehension of the passage. 158 “understand” only came up in relation to the teacher. This language conveys learning as knowledge transmission, rather than an internal process of observing or experiencing then integrating new knowledge with previous understanding to arrive at new conceptions.
Though students do “have something,” and the extent of what they “have” must be interrogated by the teacher, the teacher’s role is then to ensure all aspects of the topic are covered—to fill in any “gaps” in students’ knowledge. In order for there to be gaps, there must be a set, specific content to be mastered. This was the type of knowledge reflected on examinations, and has been referred to as propositional (Alexander, 2000) or definitional (Thomas & Vavrus, 2019) knowledge.
Propositional and Given Knowledge
My colleagues’ conception of knowledge being held in varying degrees by individual students and having a singular, specific or correct content seems to reflect the definitional knowledge sought by participants in a teacher in-service training program described by Thomas and Vavrus (2019). Referring to this conception of knowledge as more definitional rather than using the “transmission-reception” label, Thomas and
Vavrus (p. 10) vividly capture the tension between this conception and constructivist notions of knowledge:
We often heard the Tanzanian facilitators define terms in a formal manner, as in ‘debating is a method of teaching whereby...’. We knew that definitions like these were often asked on the national exams and reflected a particular form of knowledge production and dissemination, but we continued to feel that defining terms conflicted with the more analytical skills for knowledge generation we sought to privilege in the program.
Thomas and Vavrus further note that their teacher participants’ idea of “what was essential about an essential question” differed from the standard McTighe and Wiggins 159 (2013) criteria. Asking an essential question at the start of each lesson is a (constructivist) teaching strategy intended to stimulate learners and promote analytical and higher-order thinking (McTighe & Wiggins, 20130. In contrast, after introducing this strategy in the in-service program, Thomas and Vavrus (2019) found, “what seemed essential to our
Tanzanian colleagues about an essential question was that it could be taught directly and recalled precisely by students” (p. 12). In this, these secondary teachers share most of my primary teacher colleagues’ conception of knowledge and how it is to be learned.
Another typology of knowledge which appears to apply here is what Alexander
(2000) refers to as “propositional knowledge”—that is, knowing that. This is contrasted with knowing how, which could encompass more “analytical” and procedural knowledge
(p. 343). Eggleston’s classification of knowledge as “received”—“given and non- negotiable”—also applies to my teacher colleagues’ conception (Eggleston cited in
Alexander 2000, p. 344). In short, unlike Mr. Josephat and to some extent, Ms. Lyungai, most of my teacher colleagues treated knowledge as propositional and given, notwithstanding their beliefs that students are not empty vessels and that participatory methods can help students to learn (i.e. remember better).
A preference for propositional or definitional knowledge is also exemplified in the way that everyday experiences are rendered abstract when taught in school. For example, even in the new (competence based) curriculum, while one “Specific
Competence” in Social Studies is to “Apply knowledge of weather conditions in daily activities,” the activities expected to be performed by learners are to “(a) Define the concept “temperature” [and] (b) Identify ways of protecting oneself from very cold or hot
160 weather in the school environment” (TIE, 2016c, pp. 7–8, emphasis added). This abstraction of everyday knowledge into school knowledge is similar to what Coe (2005) found in Ghanaian schools. Coe demonstrated how, through codification characterized by lists, definitions and formal language, everyday knowledge of farming or cooking became unfamiliar to students. In Tanzania’s Standard IV curriculum, even practices such as cooperating to support friends, neighbors or relatives in case of funerals or weddings—a common life experience in Tanzanian society—is abstracted and taught formally through codified notes and multiple-choice tests. (I will explore this further in the Chapter 6).
This conception of knowledge is both reflected in and reinforced by the interaction order, as I demonstrated in Chapter 4. The physical layout and the organization of interactions in the classroom both reflects and reinforces the notion that knowledge comes from external authorities and is given to students through teachers.
This conception is further supported by the manner in which the official curriculum, policy and directives are handed to teachers by the central government. These documents are “shusha’d”—dropped—on teachers fully formed and above question, in the same manner that teachers pass on official, sanctioned knowledge to students. As one teacher noted, in terms of the curriculum, changes in examination formats, or any other policy- related instructions, “sisi ni wapokeaji tu” – “we are just recipients” (Teacher focus group discussion, 2019.03.26). Teachers, like their students, experience the curriculum as non- negotiable and received. In addition to this, another significant factor driving this condition is the national examination system.
161 Exams as a Driver of Propositional, Given Knowledge
Assessment in Jifunze and Somesha, like all of Tanzania’s primary schools, is based on written examinations. The two mandatory national examinations administered to all primary students, the Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE) at the end of Standard
VII and the Standard IV National Assessment (SFNA), serve as the model for class exercises, tests and mock exams. Both are standardized tests, similar in format and question style. For each subject, students take a selected-response exam which is electronically graded by machine. Up until 2017, all 50 questions were selected response
– a mixture of multiple choice, true and false, matching, or sequencing questions, and some open calculations (with no answer choices provided) for mathematics. This pattern for examinations carries into secondary school as well, according to the analysis national examinations for ordinary-level secondary (Certificate in Secondary Education
Examination) by Bartlett and Vavrus (2013). As I noted in Chapter 4, teachers strive to
“finish” the curriculum early enough that students in Standard IV and Standard VII can practice many past papers, for at least a month before the exam is held.
An analysis of specific samples of assessments used during my observations demonstrate how the “little d” discourse of written prompts on examinations contributes to teachers’ preference for propositional knowledge. Examples from Personality & Sports
(2017) and English practice exams exemplify the types of questions found on national exams, and correspondingly, in the exercises teachers give students in class (see Figure
5.1 and Figure 5.2 ). The questions on these extracts follow the same pattern as the national examinations for the PSLE, and on the ordinary-level secondary (Certificate in
162 Secondary Education Examination) as analyzed by Bartlett and Vavrus (2013): They assess factual information. Questions are taken from a variety of topics in the curriculum, as can be seen in the Standard IV Personality and Sports test extract, which includes questions about sports, soccer, and hygiene. The English practice (or mock) exam paper is from Standard VI, and it was given to schools by the municipal education office so that they could measure the preparation of students who would take the PSLE in the following year.
SELF-ASSESSMENT (PRACTICE) TEST, STANDARD 4, NOVEMBER 2017 SUBJECT: PERSONALITY & SPORTS
SECTION A: CHOOSE THE CORRECT ANSWER 1. ______normally builds endurance, cooperation, love and happiness. (a) Sports (b) Dance (c) Poetry (d) Plays 2. Cleanliness [hygiene] and safety are ______of sports. (a) laws (b) principles (c) steps (d) effort 3. The origin of football [soccer] is ______. (a) Brazil (b) Germany (c) Kenya (d) England 4. The Football Federation of Tanzanian is usually called ______. (a) T.F.F. (b) C.C.M. (c) CECAFA
Figure 5. 4. Mock Exam Extract – Personality & Sports Subject (author’s translation)
163
Figure 5. 5. Mock Exam Extract English Subject.
As can be seen in these extracts, the questions mainly test the recall of vocabulary and facts. The grammatical section (questions 31–34 in the English extract, Figure 5.2) is a slight exception, in that students need to not only remember vocabulary, but also choose the right term for the context of that sentence, thus calling for application of syntactic knowledge. However, any emphasis on communication of meaning is diminished by the fact that even when two answers are correct, only one is accepted as the official correct answer. For instance, Question 31 has two possible correct answers— “beside” or “very near”—yet the answer key only allowed one response (“beside”). Similarly, the composition section is also a bit ambiguous, as putting the sentences in the order: 44, 45,
42, 41, 43 and 44, 42, 45, 41, 43 both make sense; yet again, the answer key only accepted the first sequence. The acceptance of only one response creates a situation in which students must guess the “correct” response rather than think about what words or sentence order(s) communicate meaning effectively.
164 The second half of the Personality and Sports practice test (see Figure 5.3) demonstrates that even when other question formats are used, for each question there is still just one correct answer. Note that Questions 16 and 19 make some strong assumptions, which it is presumed would not be questioned, since they are either true or they are false (whichever the answer key declares them to be).
Figure 5. 6. Mock Exam Extract, Personality & Sports (author's translation)
The abstract nature of knowledge in this schooling context is also reflected in these questions. For instance, the Standard IV students at these two schools had not watched or taken part in athletics as part of instruction, but they were expected to know factual information such as the length of long distance races and the three sports that make up “athletics” (what in the US may be called track and field). At the time this test 165 was given in class, many students correctly named “stopwatch” as the answer to Question
13, yet when I asked them if they had ever seen or used a stopwatch, not one of them had.
Question 17 refers to the abstract concept of “patriarchy.” If students were told in class that patriarchy oppresses women then they could declare that it is false to say patriarchy liberates women, without the need to understand what patriarchy is or how it may affect their own lives.
The role of the national exams in the evaluation of schools and teachers and the effect of this public Discourse on teachers’ pedagogical choices should not be underestimated. The Standard VII national exam, the PSLE, is conducted in September each year. This exam formerly determined whether students could proceed to secondary school at all, with a large proportion of the student population not qualifying to continue.
With the implementation of the 2014 Education and Training Policy and 11 years of compulsory basic education, all students now have the right to proceed on to secondary school after Standard VII. However, the exam is still used to determine whether students qualify for places at prestigious or high performing public and private secondary schools, as opposed to poor-quality, generally understaffed public ward schools or less prestigious private schools that still require tuition. The SFNA is meant to provide a formative measure for schools, to ensure students are on track for upper primary, and students who fail this exam can be held back to repeat Standard IV.
Overall, the national exam is a large determinant of a school’s “success.” Schools are publicly ranked on the website of the National Examination Council of Tanzania
(NECTA) by their PSLE results at ward, district, regional, and national level. Although
166 the public (aside from parents of the Standard IV students) do not pay as much attention to the SFNA results, schools are publicly ranked by SFNA results in the same way as on the PSLE, and district, regional, and school quality assurance officers use the data to monitor school performance. Pay-for-Results incentives from MOEST and the donor- funded Education Programme for Results award cash incentives to the top- scoring and most-improved schools in each local government authority council. Jifunze Primary received Tsh. 2,000,000 (~ $900 USD) for their high performance on the PSLE in 2017.
Socially, the reputation of a school and of teachers, individually and as a staff, is determined by their students’ pass rates on this exam. A child’s abilities are also judged by the exam, that is, the exam is a socially accepted global measure of a student’s academic performance and their identity as a success or failure. There are report cards given each year for each grade level, yet these do not have an official role in determining a child’s educational career; only exam results are considered in secondary school placements.
It is no wonder, therefore, that teachers feel the best way to teach is to prepare their students for exam-style questions. Tao (2010) had similar findings in an ethnographic study of primary schooling in northern Tanzania. She, too, found that, “rote teaching is considered the best method for preparing students for national exams” (p. 7).
Roberts (2015), also using school ethnography in primary schools in yet another region of
Tanzania similarly concluded, “…national exam preparation was the main reason why teachers were reluctant to adapt learner-centered pedagogical skills, methods and knowledge” (p. 38). Just as Bartlett and Vavrus (2013) found regarding the secondary
167 school examinations, the fact that knowledge of factual information is tested while analysis, synthesis and comprehension are not assessed encourages teachers to emphasize recall.
Curricular-Exam Disjuncture and Teachers’ Interpretation of the New Curriculum
The preceding analysis of the format of examinations demonstrates a clear disjuncture between the new, competence-based curriculum on the one hand, and national examinations as well as classroom-and school-level exercises and assessments on the other. While the new curriculum (TIE, 2016a) not only stresses learner-centered teaching and the development of competences—abilities, skills and attitudes—but also provides rubrics for continuous and performance assessment, the national examinations at
Standard IV and Standard VII were still one-off, paper-based, machine-scored standardized tests which, by and large, contained recall questions. Kwayu (2017) refers to this as a “lack of alignment between the curriculum objectives and assessments” (p. 3).
At the time of my study, there had been no articulation of any official use for the curriculum rubrics, aside from informing teachers’ instructional decisions. That is, neither the rubrics nor any other form of performance/competence assessment is officially a part of students’ grades or report cards.
In response to the new curriculum, small steps were taken in 2018 to change the format of the PSLE. Around five months before the PSLE was to be administered, schools received a circular stating that starting that same year, the PSLE would have only
40 selected response questions (instead of 50), worth one point each, plus five “open response” question, worth two points each. “Open response” questions were defined as
168 questions with no answer options provided. Students would be expected to write a sentence of their own to answer each question. No samples were provided to the schools.
Teachers were highly concerned that students would not be prepared for this task, and that they would find it exceedingly difficult. Unfortunately, copies of the 2018 PSLE and
SFNA were not yet available for analysis when I was concluding my research, so it is not clear if the “open response” questions still had single, factual, correct answers, or if they were open ended in the sense of having multiple possible correct answers. Given that teachers closely model their in-class assessments and tailor their pedagogical strategies based on the national exams, this change could lead to the introduction of more full- sentence responses by students, as opposed to selected response and fill-in-the blank exercises. Yet if the questions still require the recall of propositional knowledge, it is not likely to significantly change teachers or students’ conceptions of knowledge. The addition of five open-response questions on a culminating, high-stakes examination is not likely enough to shift practice toward rubric-based performance evaluation of skills and competences.
Not only are rubrics and demonstration of competences missing from official assessment policies and practices, but teachers also did not always understand rubrics.
The Standard IV teachers (and other upper primary teachers) at both Jifunze and
Somesha primary schools had not received any training or support to help them understand the new curriculum and its approach. They were simply given copies of the new curriculum with a teaching guide for each of their subjects. My experience with a teacher at Somesha illustrated that assuming teachers will be able to correctly interpret
169 the new curriculum when they have never been introduced to rubrics or competences is unrealistic. This teacher, Ms. Jina, was very confused by the new curriculum and sought out my help to interpret it. When she looked at the rubric, for example, this page from the
Civics and Moral Education curriculum (Table 5.1), she thought that she was supposed to teach students directly, or lead them through, each of the (as she saw them) stages of the activity. That is, she thought students were supposed to do “different activities with no compliance” and then do a few “to comply,” and then do “different activities to comply,” etc. She could not understand why she should start by teaching students to not comply with guidance from teachers, parents or guardians.
Table 5.1.
Extract from the Standard IV Civics and Moral Education Curriculum (TIE, 2016b, p. 22)
Main Specific Activities Assessme Benchmarking Competence Compe- to be nt tences performed Criteria Beginning Average Good Very by the Good pupil 1. Respect the 1.1 Love b) Do Guidance Do Do a few Do Advise community oneself different from different activities different colleague and activities to teachers, activities to comply activities s on the others. comply parents/ with no with the to comply importanc with the guardians compli- guidance with the e of doing guidance is ance with from guidance various from followed the teachers, from activities teachers, according guidance parents/ teachers, to comply parents/ -ly in from guardians parents/ with the guardians. doing teachers, guardians guidance various parents/ from activities. guardians teachers, parents/ guardians
170 Given that teachers could this drastically misinterpret a rubric, they naturally re- semiotized the new curriculum into their existing conception of knowledge, learning and expectations for students. Ms. Jina tried one Civics and Moral Education lesson with me, as co-teachers, based on the subject’s accompanying teacher’s guide. We role played performing chores well or badly and asked students to evaluate whether we “complied with guidance,” poorly, average or well. Then we asked students to reflect on how well they complete their own chores. The teacher’s guide suggested students make a table to list their chores and rate themselves on whether they performed them poorly, average or well. Even after we both demonstrated how to use the table on the blackboard (Ms. Jina filled in answers for herself, and I filled in different answers for myself), and Ms. Jina tried to explain it several times to the class, only a few students could complete this exercise. Many of them marked themselves as all three (poor, average, good) for the same chore, or they simply copied our sample table from the board instead of creating their own. Following this lesson, the Civics teacher gave up on the rubrics, took each of the “Activities to be performed by the pupil” as a topic, and taught it in the same way she used to teach the previous “content-based” curriculum; that is through giving students factual information, using Q&A, notes and exercises to check their recall. My observations in Standard IV English, Swahili, Science and Math lessons over the next four months of the school year showed that the other teachers also skipped or ignored the rubric-based evaluations. Similarly, they ignored the more reflective or application activities in the teachers’ guide accompanying the new curriculum.
171 By ignoring the rubrics and any other confusing elements, and interpreting the competences and activities of the new curriculum as “topics,” teachers’ recast the new curriculum in terms of their existing framework of knowledge. When I returned to
Jifunze and Somesha in March 2019 to hold teacher focus group discussions about my findings, I took the opportunity to ask them what differences they had noticed about the new curriculum, now that they had been implementing it for a full year. Their response was that the only difference was “that some topics moved around.” For example, they noted, reproduction, which used to be taught in Standard VI Science was now introduced in Standard IV. Had the paradigm shift from a “content based” to “competence based” curriculum brought about a shift in pedagogical practices? No, the refrain I cited in
Chapter 3 still applied—“Our teaching hasn’t changed.”
Conclusion
In this chapter I have argued that Tanzanian teachers’ preference for single- answer, rote or transmission learning is not merely due to a lack of technical training or teachers’ misunderstanding of learner centered practices, as implied in much IDE literature. Rather, teachers privilege the type of knowledge which is assessed in examinations, and they choose teaching strategies they believe will enable students to master this knowledge. Other elements, such as the interaction order within classrooms, and social acceptance of information and decisions coming from above (e.g. in the relationship between the Ministry and teachers) reflect and reinforce the conception of knowledge as propositional and given. However, the nature, or d/Discourse of exams appears to play a strongly determinative role in shaping teachers’ practices, particularly
172 the desire to “cover” topics rather than develop competences. The “little d” (specific instances of written discourse) lies in the influence of the particular construction of exams on teachers’ classroom assessment practices. The “big D” Discourse comprises the pressure on teachers and schools to achieve a good reputation based on their students’ exam performance.
The lack of support for teachers in understanding the new curriculum combined with teachers’ familiarity with propositional knowledge and its assessment create a kinetic thrust that makes it easier for teachers to assimilate the new curriculum into their existing knowledge order rather than to change their practices in the way the curriculum intended for them to do. Nevertheless, teachers have appropriated elements of constructivism into their beliefs and practices, particularly the notion that students “have something” and the need to assess what they have in order to inform their teaching.
Teachers have interpreted participatory to mean any activity in which students share responses with teacher and peers (mainly verbally).
In this chapter, I also highlighted traces of other possible influences on conceptions of knowledge, such as indigenous theories of learning and strategies of teaching, such as shock, provocation and riddling, which, though more subtle, still appear to have some role in the nexus shaping these teachers’ pedagogical practices. In the next chapter, I will further explore culturally specific social, moral and philosophical
Discourses that contributed to the nexus shaping teachers’ pedagogical practices.
173 Chapter 6: Discourses in Place - Morals, Behavior and Personhood
In the previous chapters I examined aspects of pedagogy that have received a fair amount of attention in research and policy, though perhaps not brought together in the same conceptual frame (see, for example, Barrett, 2005; Mbunda, 1996; Tandika, 2016;
Tilya & Mafumuko, 2010; Tao, 2013a; Vavrus & Bartlett, 2012 on material and working conditions in Tanzania specifically, and Guthrie, 2017; Mtitu, 2014; Schweisfurth, 2011;
Thomas & Vavrus, 2019; Vavrus, 2009 on epistemology and teaching practices in
Tanzania and Africa). In examining the interaction order in Chapter 4, I demonstrated how the organization of space, time and resources as well as class size and availability of materials shaped teachers’ determination of effective teaching strategies and reinforced particular forms of knowledge and relationships. In Chapter 5, I examined Discourses encompassing curriculum, exams and epistemology.
The set of Discourses in place that I move to now—morals, behavior and personhood—has received far less attention in educational research. I will demonstrate that for the teachers in my study, the moral development of good behaviors and socialization into community norms are as important as any academic goals of schooling.
Moreover, I will argue that the teachers (and the community) at Somesha and Jifunze are operating with a different conception of and Discourse around morals and personhood
(utu) than the individualist Western conceptions that drive many policy reforms and strategies promoted as best practices. I will demonstrate that ideas regarding moral behavior and utu (personhood) manifest in particular practices and intertwine with
174 conceptions of knowledge and the interaction order to further shape the pedagogical practices I observed in these schools.
To address the complex facets of this set of Discourses, I have organized this chapter in four sections. First, I will share teachers’ perspectives on the moral function of primary education and their role as primary teachers. Then I will move to an unfolding of equivocations between teachers’ conception of morals and my own conception from a
Western perspective. I will share the morals or behaviors that teachers felt were most important for children to learn, which leads to a discussion of personhood, in the philosophy and Discourse of utu. In the third section, I will examine how moral norms and ideas of utu translate into pedagogical practices, considering both explicit and implicit (or “hidden”) teaching and learning. Finally, in the fourth section I will explore how the moral order is contested and ways in which these contestations may bear on teachers’ practices and pedagogical reform initiatives.
Elimu Inamchonga Mtu “Education Carves [Shapes] a Person”
While development partner programs and policy makers have focused almost exclusively on technical teaching strategies for academic outcomes, parents and teachers have long recognized the moral, particularly behavioral and “character-building,” aspects of schooling. A favorite analogy for this comes from Stambach’s (2000) ethnography of schooling and cultural change in northern Tanzania: Stambach quotes a college instructor she worked with as saying moral instruction in secondary schools was the “real education
‘beer’ - the ‘meat’… [while] lessons in geography, English and the like, in contrast, are
175 the ‘dried fish’ of schooling” (p. 126). The teachers I worked with in my study, though not as colorful in their metaphors, seemed to agree.
In formal interviews, I asked teachers, administrators and teacher educators what they saw as the purpose of primary education. While half of them expressed academic goals for primary education, all of them explicitly highlighted the socialization learned in school as a goal of primary education. According to Mr. Salehe, the head teacher of
Somesha School, the goal of primary education is “kumpa msingi na kuweza kuishi na jamii” – “to give the child a foundation and ability to live with(in) the community”
(Interview, 3.19.2018). A Jifunze teacher, whose first response was that in primary school, children learn the basic foundation for studies at secondary level, then added:
“Masomo ayajue lakini na tabia na jinsi ya kuishi na watu” “S/he should know the academic subjects, but also habits and how to live with people” (Interview, 9.18.2017).
Echoing this sentiment, another teacher from Somesha saw the desired outcome of primary education as: “kuishi na jamii na majirani na ile jamii … kuweza kukubalika katika ile jamii yasiwe na kikwazo,” that is: “to live with the community and neighbors of the community… to be able to be accepted in that community without barriers/conflict” (Interview, 2018.3.21).
This demonstrates that my teacher colleagues, as well as head teachers and teacher educators I encountered in my time in the field, conceptualized the purpose of primary schooling as not only providing for the academic/cognitive development of students. In addition to academic learning, they placed equal or greater value on—and took equal responsibility for—the moral, character and behavior development of students.
176 To use de la Cadena’s (2015) terms, for my teacher participants, pedagogy exceeds the technical and cognitive. Technical strategies and cognitive development are an undeniable part (and goal) of the process, but pedagogy is not only about academic learning. As Mr. Josephat put it in strong metaphorical terms: “Elimu inamchonga mtu”
“Education carves [shapes] a person” (Field Notes, 2019.3.21).
In fact, several of those interviewed conceived of a teacher’s role as being that of a parent (mzazi) or caregiver (mlezi–literally, one who raises/brings up children). Ms.
Litawa, a teacher educator ascribed a parenting role to teachers: “…mwalimu ni mlezi. … anaact pale pia kama mzazi. …yaani anakuwa husika ambao yule mtoto kila kitu anamtegemea Mwalimu.” “…a teacher is a caregiver … he/she acts also as a parent … that is, s/he is the responsible one on whom the child depends for each and every thing”
(Interview, 2018.08.29). This expands a teacher’s role beyond academic subjects. Ms.
Zawadi, a teacher at Jifunze, said she decided to become a teacher to be “mlezi wa taifa”
– “a caregiver for the nation.” She elaborated “mlezi/caregiver” in this way: “… mlezi ni yule anayeelekeza watoto kuwa na maadili au tabia nzuri, na kujifunza mambo ambayo yatawasaidia katika maisha yao.” “… a caregiver is the one who instructs children to have morals or good habits/behavior38 and to learn things that will help them throughout their lives” (interview, 9.19.2017). This statement emphasizes the normative, moral aspects of caregiving as part of a teacher’s role.
Nyerere also promoted the moral side of schooling, not only in asserting that
Education for Self-Reliance (ESR) should promote communal rather than individualistic
38 The synonymous way in which the teacher used the term “morals” and “good habits/behavior” is a significant signal of an underlying philosophy which I will explore in the next section. 177 values, but also in explaining a teacher’s role. In a famous speech titled “The Power of
Teachers” Nyerere (1966) asserted:
When a child first comes to school at the age of six or seven, it has already developed some character traits, and it has absorbed some ideas through life in the family. But it is usually approaching for the first time all the things which are connected with the community outside the family. Its ideas of what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ in non-family situations are mainly unformed. Its mind is still very flexible and can be turned in any one of many different directions. These things are true whether the child is naturally very intelligent or rather dull. In all cases the child is like a young tree which can have its growth stunted and twisted, or which can be fed until it grows beyond its unassisted height, or whose branches can be pruned and trained so that the maximum fruit is obtained at maturity. And the people who have the opportunity to shape these infants – who have that power – are the teachers in our schools. (p. 37).
Mr. Josephat drew a parallel from before independence and ESR – he saw a connection between the moral aspect of modern schooling and education in pre-colonial times, before formal schooling was even introduced. He saw a continuity in the desire to instill the community’s values and moral or correct behavior (Interview, 2019.3.21).
Though pre-colonial education was centered on specialized skills for daily life (such as farming, hunting, cooking, herbal medicine, iron work) while formal, modern education centers on academic and more abstract skills in reading, math, science, geography, according to my participants, educators both then and now consciously focus on developing well-behaved, moral members of the community. I will explore what these morals are and the philosophy underlying them in the next section.
Moral Equivocations, Ideal Behaviors and Personhood/Utu
Moral Equivocations – Maadili and Translation
Before exploring teachers’ definitions of what is moral or good behavior, I must first address the terms maadili, morals and ethics, and translations between English and
178 Swahili. The perennial issue of equivocation in translation arises with the Swahili term maadili. Its translation into English is slippery. Firstly, maadili may be variously translated as morals, ethics, values or righteous conduct in English. For the purposes of this discussion, I am more interested in the English concept of morals – “notions of what is right and good” to borrow Scherz’s (2014) definition. I have avoided the term ethics, because in the recent context of Tanzanian education “ethics” tends to be used in reference to formal codes of conduct and discussions of teacher misconduct or lack of accountability and work ethic (see, for example, Anangisye, 2010, 2011; Anangisye &
Barrett, 2006; Bashir, et. al. 2019; and Service Delivery Indicators measuring teacher time in school/in class, World Bank, 2016). However, it must be kept in mind that whenever I discussed maadili with my Tanzania counterparts, it could be interpreted as morals or ethics.
It is important to pay attention to the subtle misgivings and puzzlements encountered in the process of translation, particularly to avoid imposing the researcher’s own worldview on the data. Vivieros de Castro (2004b) explains:
To translate is to emphasize or potentialize the equivocation, that is, to open and widen the space imagined not to exist between the conceptual languages in contact, a space that the equivocation precisely concealed. The equivocation is not that which impedes the relation, but that which founds and impels it: a difference in perspective. (p. 10)
In other words, rather than considering moments when interlocutors may use the same terms but with different meanings as impediments to a relationship, these moments should be embraced and explored, to understand better the differences in perspective.
179 Translating the Swahili term maadili to the English term moral and vice versa poses the first clue that conceptions of the word may vary between the Swahili/East
African and English (Western) context; that a univocality cannot be assumed. Teachers’ and students’ use and word associations with maadili also often surprised me. These clues hint at more profound differences underlying surface level behaviors.
I will describe two conceptions of maadili/morals as separate poles, as I will later describe utu and a philosophy of African personhood as a separate, and quite different ontology from European philosophy. I am setting up archetypes, or a “strategic essentialism” (Spivak, 1988) for the purpose of analysis. However, I do not mean to imply that all Africans, Tanzanians, or anyone else think of the world in only this one way, or that there cannot be understanding across the two philosophies. Like Setel
(1999), who drew on Rosaldo:
I do not assume ‘that all individuals within a culture are the same, all ‘socialized’ to be the ideal ‘persons’ of their society [but] rather … insist that the reproduction of a given form of social life demands such continuities in discourse as would permit a shared and sensible frame for the interpretation of daily practice” (p. 93).
I draw stark differences here to help recognize potential equivocations or differences in perspective, yet actual, individual beliefs may range between or assemble aspects from more than one philosophy (see Scherz, 2014 for an excellent example of what she terms
“ethicomoral” assemblages). In my experience, too often, practitioners working in international education do not even recognize that a radically different worldview or philosophy is at play. To disrupt this pattern, I seek to highlight the equivocations that arose in my observations and communications during my time at Somesha and Jifunze,
180 and to use African philosophy to understand my data. Conversely, my data seen through the lens of African philosophy may help others begin to understand the depth of the difference in ontological context.
Let us start with dictionary translations. Table 6.1 shows definitions from Swahili dictionaries and textbooks in the left column, and English dictionary definitions on the right.
In the Table 6.1, we can observe that both the English and Swahili definitions of morals comprise principles and behavior. However, there is a difference in emphasis. The English definitions focus on the principles first—the conceptions or
“standards”; as in definitions a (“principles”) and b (“expressing… a conception”) from Merriam Webster, whereas the behaviors are the 3rd definition. The Cambridge
Dictionary also says “the standards” for character or behavior, rather than going directly to the behaviors themselves. The Swahili definitions, in contrast, directly associate morals with behavior or conduct; in the Standard V textbook morals are even explained in terms of “habits.”
181 Table 6.1. Definitions of maadili and morals
Definitions of maadili in Swahili Definitions of morals in English
TUKI (2014) Dictionary of Kiswahili (p. Cambridge Advanced English Dictionary (Cambridge, 2003, pp. 805– 292) 806)
Maadili: “nm [ya-] 1. Mwenendo mwema. Morals: “standards for good or bad 2. Onyo au mafundisho yatolewayo kwa character and behavior” njia ya hadithi au shauri na yenye nia ya Moral: “1. Relating to the standards of kufundisha; mafundisho mazuri ([root: good or bad behavior, fairness, honesty, Arabic]).” etc. which each person believes in, rather than to laws. Author’s translation: “1. Good behavior 2. 2. Behaving in ways considered by most A caution or lesson usually conveyed people to be correct and honest through a story or advice and with the goal of teaching; good teaching/lesson.”
Standard V Haiba na Michezo textbook Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary Moral: (p. 44) 1. a: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior “Maadili ni mambo mema yanayokubalika katika jami. … Mtu asiye na maadili ni b: expressing or teaching a conception of mwenye tabia mbaya. Mtu mwenye right behavior maadili ni mwenye tabia nzuri.” c: conforming to a standard of right behavior Author’s translation: “Maadili are good d: sanctioned by or operative on one's things which are accepted in the community… A person who does not have conscience or ethical judgment maadili is a person with bad habits. A e: capable of right and wrong action person who does have maadili is a person with good habits.”
What I am highlighting here is that both the Swahili and English conceptualizations of morals/maadili entail abstract principles and behavior—the two are compatible, and principles are part of behavior just as behaviors can stem from principles; these are not exclusive to one philosophy or the other. However, the
182 orientation and therefore how one thinks and talks about morals differs. Swahili has words for the abstract principles of generosity, honesty, respect, kindness, etc. and any
Swahili speaker can understand and use these terms. But I found when I tried to discuss morals with teachers and even to translate morals in Swahili, the words habits and behaviors (tabia), or descriptions of habits and behaviors repeatedly arose, whereas terms reflecting abstract principles did not arise. Furthermore, teachers and students would use the word ‘maadili’ in ways that surprised me, or they would associate it with behaviors that I (as a white, middle class American) would not associate directly with morals.
An example of this arose when I asked Ms. Litawa (the teacher educator) if morals/morality is part of pre-service teacher preparation. She said yes, and her example of this was how teacher candidates are held to a dress code. Specifically, she said they were admonished for wearing shoes without socks (Interview, 2018.08.29). Similarly, a teacher at Somesha who was upgrading her certificate to a diploma had to wear her
Teacher’s College uniform to work during her student teaching for the diploma program.
When I asked why, she also referred to wearing of the uniform as “demonstrating morals,” even though she dressed perfectly respectfully without her uniform when she was not student teaching. Dressing properly was one of the behaviors associated with good, moral behavior. Though this may have appeared curious to me at the time, it is in line with Mngarah’s (2015) assertion that “The moral competences of a teacher are rooted in self-regulation mechanisms rather than abstract reasoning … where people monitor their conduct and the conditions in which it occurs” (p. 2). A focus on self- regulation extended from teachers to students, and the most commonly mentioned
183 expectations for behavior were greetings, following directions, using good (polite) language, cooperating with others and performing duties to help one’s family or class, as
I will explain in the next section.
Teachers’ Ideals for Good Morals and Behavior
In contrast with epistemology or PCK, where teachers within and between the schools varied in their orientation, in the area of morals (maadili) and proper actions or behavior (i.e. good tabia), teachers were surprisingly similar in their responses. This was true across both schools. I coded and categorized teachers’ responses to the questions
“what are examples of good behavior” and “what behaviors or habits do you want your students to have” (See Figure 6.1). When I returned to discuss my findings at both schools, the head teachers and teacher focus groups felt that Figure 6.1 was an accurate, fair summary of teachers’ expectations for “good behavior” and morals.
Figure 6. 6. Good habits/behavior for children, according to teacher interviews
184
The white boxes show the responses that formed larger or overarching expectations while the gray boxes elaborate with examples. The responses are prioritized in order of how many teachers identified them, with the pair at number three having a similar number of responses. Three teachers at Jifunze primary explicitly connected these habits with students’ academic performance. That is, they mentioned listening, completing the work given, and cooperating with teachers was needed because they improved students’ learning. Most teachers seemed to consider “good habits” more generally, as in good habits for life and not only for increasing academic achievement.
Discipline is highly valued in this moral order, as reflected in expectations for obedience, listening, and following rules. Yet cooperation and dignity (of self and others), is also emphasized, in “proper’ manners and dress, cooperation, helping with work/chores and using good language. Taken together, these five behavior norms work toward building and sustaining relationships, and indeed, developing successful members of the community, which I noted teachers stated as a goal of primary education.
The use of language should not be underestimated. In an exploration of social definitions of knowledge and wisdom on the Swahili coast, Kresse (2009) found that
“language (the mastery of words, rhetoric) and sociality (being part of a group) are core components of wisdom” among the Swahili community (p. 161). Although I did not formally interview parents, in conversation, some parents in the community around
Jifunze and Somesha also associated greetings with “kuelimika,” which literally translates as being educated yet implies a person who has not only gone to school but has gained knowledge or wisdom.
185 There is other research, both within and outside of Tanzania which supports a similar valuing of moral behavior. A study of parent and teacher expectations for social and emotional learning in southeastern Tanzania found the six values mentioned most frequently as desired values by parents, students and teachers were: “Respect, attentive listener, obedient, cooperative, clean, polite and humble” (Jukes, et.al., 2018, p. 168).
Jukes et.al. noted, “participants placed more emphasis on aspects of social responsibility, for example respect, obedience and being an attentive listener” (p. 160). Mlambia (2016), in studying Hehe children’s songs in Iringa, found that many of the songs had a pedagogic or instructional role: “… the words [of children’s songs] are intended to guide children toward good behavior and to make children dislike actions that are not sanctioned by their community” (p. 1). The themes Mlambia found in the children’s songs were greeting/taking leave of parents, respect, facilitating work, strengthening love, avoiding witchcraft, and carrying on customs. Again, this shows a clear consistency with the expectations of teachers at Somesha and Jifunze schools.
The association of morals with habits, behaviors, politeness and wisdom is not unique to these teachers or to Tanzania. Researchers working in other African countries have found similar parallels and equivocations in relation to morals and behavior.
Jacobson-Widding in ethnographic work among the Mandinga found that the Mandinga word for morality, tsika, also translated into English as “‘good manners’, or ‘how to show respect’” (Jacobson-Widding, 1997, p. 59). Olfe (1997) found that in the Caprivi region of Namibia, the closest translation for “knowledge” or “wisdom,” ngana, was understood as disciplined behavior, defined as “first and foremost, showing respect for others” (p.
186 29). The valued morals or behaviors identified by my Tanzanian teacher colleagues also require a disciplining of the self, not only in obedience, but also in fulfilling one’s chores, and in presenting oneself and communicating respectfully. Drawing on an ethnography of the Fulani, Jacobson-Widding, (1997) notes, "To show self-mastery is … a way of recognizing the relative positions of people who interact, rather than to recognize their respective individual identities. It is a way to express social personhood, and to show what it is to be a person among other persons” (p. 52). Jacobson-Widding made a crucial connection between self-mastery and politeness with personhood. I found that Discourses and indeed an ontology stemming from particular notions of personhood also powerfully explained the teachers’ moral norms and the intertwinement of morals and behavior.
Morals as a Part of the Discourses and Philosophy of Utu/Personhood
To help make sense of what I learned from the Jifunze and Somesha communities regarding maadili, community, schooling and pedagogy, I turn to anthropology and
African philosophy.
The anthropological concept of personhood often draws on the work of anthropologist and philosopher Mauss, who categorized different forms of “self” (Mauss,
1985). A common contrast stemming from Mauss’ historicized categorization of selfs is that between individualist inner personhood versus collectivist, social personhood. In this line of thinking, social personhood encompasses the notion that identity is based on one’s position and roles in social categories rather than on one’s identity as an individual (La
Fontaine, 1985; Mauss, 1985). This is the argument of Reisman, quoted above, which
Jacobson-Widding (1997) also espouses. The recognition of obligations and entitlements
187 endowed by virtue of one’s position (for example, as a teacher, a parent, or a leader) is useful in so far that it suggests a constellation of social relations constituted differently from individualism. In this way, it also rings true with my experience of life as a spouse, mother, head teacher and researcher in Tanzania, as well as my observation of the interactions of those around me. However, it does not sufficiently explain the significance of behavior and actions in the moral norms I found in the Jifunze and Somesha community.
One reason this formulation of personhood is insufficient may be the cultural bias inherent within the theory. This line of research has been criticized as suffering from its own ethnocentric bias:
… the theory employed in studies of personhood, beginning with Mauss’s own (Mauss, 1979: 75–86), … have made fundamental, and ethnocentric, category error. They have almost all located the concept of person within the concept of mind, and hence within a phenomenological model of meaning and cultural experience closely associated with the Western concept of self. (Setel, 1999, p. 89)
In contrast to “the mind,” in his ethnographic work on AIDS, culture and demography in northern Tanzania, Setel found that “persons were signified through the uses of their bodies” (p. 90). I believe my teacher colleagues’ understanding of morals through behaviors, that is through people’s physical and verbal actions, also signifies a bodily manifestation of personhood. To fully understand this connection, I turn to African philosophy, and specifically Discourse around a notion which in Swahili is termed utu.
The Swahili term utu may not be familiar outside of East Africa, but the philosophy and Discourses that sustain utu are common in most of Africa. Probably the most widely-known moniker is the South African term ubuntu. Ubuntu has been
188 represented as recognizing the paramountcy of human dignity, and therefore continually seeking consensus and unanimity (Nussbaum, 2003) or emphasizing interdependence and caring for others (Venter, 2004). Venter (2004) helpfully notes that “[Ubuntu] refers to a positive ethical/moral way of going/being in relation with others” (p. 152). It has been promoted as a philosophy that is relevant to education (Waghid & Peters, 2014; Waghid
& Smeyers, 2012), even being selected as the theme for the annual conference of the
Comparative and International Education Society in 2015.
Both utu and ubuntu are sometimes translated into English as “humanism” (Higgs,
2011; Kresse 2011). Gyeke (1997:158) has asserted:
if one were to look for a pervasive and fundamental concept in African socioethical thought generally - a concept that animates other intellectual activities and forms of behavior, including religious behavior, and provides continuity, resilience, nourishment and meaning to life - that concept would most probably be humanism. (quoted in Letseka, 2000; p. 182)
Perhaps drawing on a similar translation, African politicians of the independence era, most prominently Nyerere, Kaunda and Nkrumah, consciously found and forged connections between Western liberal humanism and African philosophy (Kresse, 2011).
However, to understand the puzzle of maadili, morals and behavior, I am less interested in the political aspects of humanism, and more interested in the notion of personhood. I will continue to refer to utu as personhood, an equally valid, if less popular, translation of the term from an etymological perspective.
Utu is what is known as a stative noun; the prefix “u” in Swahili refers to a state of being. For example, the verb to love (kupenda) becomes the nominal state of love– upendano, or an ignorant person (mjinga) is in a state of ignorance–ujinga. The Swahili
189 word for unity–umoja–stems from the word one (moja), so umoja literally translates as the state of being one. This word construction can be applied to almost any noun: a citizen, mwananchi, —citizenship uananchi; an enemy, adui—a state of enmity—uadui; a beautiful person mrembo and a state of beauty—urembo. Nyerere’s term for “African socialism” – Ujamaa – literally translates as the state of being relatives or “familyhood,” from the stem jamaa – relatives. In the same way, a person, mtu, derives the term utu, the state of being a person or being human, or personhood.
Philosophically, utu is a complex notion shared across many communities. A poet, Nassir (1979), wrote an epic poem of over 400 stanzas about utu, addressing the various codes of good behavior in different types of relationships, and utu’s relation to love and equality (Kresse, 2009). Mr. Josephat explained that even though Tanzania’s many ethnic groups differ in social customs, language, degree of hierarchy and patriarchy, at root they all shared the moral foundation of utu.
Within African philosophy, Menkiti has most eloquently expounded the particular philosophy of personhood captured in utu. Menkiti (1984) firstly distinguishes the location of the self in what he refers to as “African traditional thought” from its location in Western thought (Figure 6.1). He maintains that “it is the community that defines a person as person, not some isolated, static quality of rationality, will or memory,” making a concise contrast between the Cartesian motto, “I think therefore I am” and Mbiti’s
African proverb, “I am because we are” (p. 174). Menkiti elaborates on Mbiti’s sentiment by asserting that “… it is by first knowing the community as a stubborn, perduring fact of the psychophysical world that the individual also comes to know himself [sic] as a
190 durable, more or less permanent, fact of this world” (p. 174). Thus, personhood and understanding of the self is located outside of the self or the individual mind. Menkiti provides a useful visual metaphor to distinguish the traditional African conceptualization from European/Western (particularly Cartesian) thought traditions (Figure 6.2):
Figure 6. 7. Menkiti’s diagram of conceptions of society Source: Menkiti, 1984; p. 181. [S stands for Society and P individual persons]
Figure 6.2 highlights the distinction between a society made up of individuals and individuals constituted through/by a society.
Lest Menkiti’s schematic be seen as overly determinative, Eze (2008) reminds us of the “inter-subjectivity” of community and individuals; that is, while community may define persons, a community is constituted of individual persons for its existence. This dialectic is accommodated within Menkiti’s (2004) distinction between individual agency and individual persons. Within this framework, every human has individual agency, yet to be considered an individual person requires a moral function. Herein lies the second
191 distinguishing feature of this conception of personhood: that personhood is not a given.
It must be achieved and can only be achieved through moral actions.
According to this philosophy, personhood is a journey, completed through time and the fulfilment of duties. One only achieves personhood “in direct proportion as one participates in communal life through the discharge of the various obligations defined by one’s stations" (Menkiti, 1984, p. 177). That is, personhood is attained through actions and behaviors—behaviors, Menkiti adds, with a moral function. For this reason, when children are born, they are not considered persons, rather they are, in Menkiti’s terms, an
“it” which has to earn the status of a person.39 While children are individuals with agency, the child’s preoccupation with physical needs and self-centeredness precludes its moral function. It is notable that the Swahili word for adult – mtu mzima – translates literally as “a whole or complete person.”
Ikuenobe, in an introduction to Menkiti’s (1984) essay, summarizes the journey of communual personhood this way: “This process of trying to achieve personhood requires incremental growth, which can come only by virtue of one’s actions and the acquisition of wisdom” (p. 171). Ikuenobe further notes:
Menkiti suggests that the ability to perform moral functions or having the capacity for moral agency is a defining feature of a person as a member of a community. This moral function requires that a person is able to perform some requisite duties that are demanded of one in a community by virtue of social incorporation. (p. 172)
39 It is not uncommon for children or babies to be referred with the pronoun “it,” in Tanzania; see for example the Nyerere quote on pages 171–172. 192 By this token, individuals may fail or succeed to varying degrees at achieving personhood; the pursuit of which is a constant, lifelong process. This parallels how
Comaroff and Comaroff (2001) have characterized Tswana personhood in South Africa as not a state of “being” but of “becoming.” While the Comaroffs emphasized accumulation of wealth and allegiances rather than moral duties, the same notion of a personhood which is dynamic and may be achieved to varying degrees pervades their characterization of Tswana personhood.
In thinking with my empirical data, this conception of personhood as achieved through moral behavior and actions that fulfill social obligations is highly explicative.
One’s actions within a community are what ultimately define a person, or indeed, their claim to personhood –it is through this moral behavior that one achieves personhood and standing within a community, and it is the community which sets the moral and social norms for desired behavior. This helps to make sense of what initially appeared as disparate pieces of data: the insistence and focus of my teacher colleagues on normative behaviors and manners as morals; the centrality of greetings, and the importance of showing respect and maintaining one’s own respect (e.g. through dress, language), with the overarching need for continually building and extending relationships.
Greetings as Enactment of Morals and Utu in Everyday Life
Because my participants repeatedly focused on greetings in the discussion of morals, I pursued many conversations to get a deeper understanding of greetings’ importance. As I mentioned earlier, as soon as I would ask about morals or good behavior, the first thing mentioned was greetings. Conversely, one day I was discussing
193 greetings with some parents—without any mention of morals/ethics—I asked them why greetings are so important. They gave lengthy answers describing how, especially in smaller communities, people depend on each other, so you have to know how they are faring, and spontaneously, one of them said “maadili ni muhimu” – “morals are important” as if greetings and morals are synonymous.
Understanding greetings as the verbal forging and maintaining of social relations begins to make clear its significance in light of becoming a person through fulfilling social obligations. Through informally questioning the importance of greetings in numerous conversations I came to understand that greetings serve several purposes.
Greetings in Tanzania involve a minimum of three or four questions (How are you? Are you healthy? How is your work? How is your family?) and can easily extend up to five or ten minutes. Greetings show you recognize/identify (tambua) the other person, and that you give them the status they are due.40 Asking after the other person signals you have concern for them, and that you’re furthering the relationship between the two of you and your families. In contrast, if you do not greet someone, they could label you as conceited and shun you.
At my request, Mr. Josephat further explained that greetings enable a person to be recognized as a member of particular community group, ethnicity or nationality.
According to him, greetings enable greeters to build and maintain interpersonal relationships and allow human needs to be communicated, opening up the possibility for the listener to respond in support. In Menkiti’s terms, greetings provide the grounds for
40 There are different forms of greeting for elders or leaders versus for peers. 194 opportunity to fulfill social obligations, and further one’s development of personhood.
Mr. Josephat declared proper greetings to be part of the values that parents had inherited and wanted to pass on to their children, as a form of respect and cultural heritage which would ensure the next generation stands together in unity and cooperation. Through observation, I noted that the opposite was also true – refusal to greet another person was a public display of anger or dissatisfaction with another’s actions; a public severing of ties.41
The exploration of personhood also lent new significance to common phrases one hears in conversational discourse, in addition to greetings. For instance, “tuko pamoja”
—“we are together”—is often said to neighbors or friends at funeral wake or in preparation for large life events such as weddings or confirmations. If a person is deemed selfish or unsupportive of relatives or neighbors, one of the most scathing epithets used is “hana utu” – “s/he doesn’t have utu.” Thus, interpersonal actions and words (little d discourse) play an important role in validating and (re)producing the communal relations of utu personhood. In the next section I will look specifically at how this moral order is resemiotized, or takes form, in actions and interactions within schools.
41 I witnessed this in the community surrounding the schools in a falling out between two acquaintances. A commission was appointed to investigate the bankruptcy of a local institution. It happened that one of the former administrators called in for investigation was a close friend of the head of the commission. Though there was evidence that the board directors had ruined the institution’s finances through corruption and nepotism, the commission concluded that it was the former administrators’ fault for not stopping the board leaders. While this particular administrator understood the element of scape-goating, what was most upsetting to him was the personal betrayal in the head commissioner suggesting criminal prosecution against him. Tellingly, the administrator swore to demonstrate the degree of his anger by declaring “Simsalimii tena - I will never greet [the head of commission] again.”
195 Moral Norms and Personhood in Pedagogical Practices
In this section, I will present how teachers’ expectations and ideals for moral behavior were translated into actions and interactions in the school environment. In terms of the pedagogical nexus of practice, this is where the circulating Discourse of utu was manifested and recreated in daily practices in these schools. I will begin by examining explicit teaching of moral norms, and then consider implicit or the “hidden curriculum” of moral education.
Explicit Teaching of Morals
As I pointed out in Chapter 2, moral education is a formal subject in the
Tanzanian primary curriculum. In 2017, it was taught through the subject Personality and
Sports (Haiba na Michezo), and in 2018, it became Civics and Moral Education (Uraia na Maadili). Elements of moral behavior, such as ushirikiano—cooperation, were also taught in History. For instance, in a Standard IV history lesson, students copied down notes on “Communication, Relationships and Cooperation” listing actions that “develop” social cooperation, like “visiting neighbors,” “helping in times of need and of joy,” and strategies that “strengthen” cooperation, such as “communicating and helping each other regularly, in funerals and in celebrations” (Field notes, 2017.08.02). In another history lesson, the topic was “the role of customs and traditions,” and the notes for students to copy included the following:
Getting along and respecting each other: (a) Communities from the past lived by getting along with each other, respecting each other, helping and supporting each other in various things, including wedding celebrations, initiation rites for young men and women, farming and funerals.
196 Teaching children good morals (a) Children were taught good morals, like how to greet elders and to do small chores (b) They were also taught to be obedient and good listeners…”
(Field notes, .2017.09.19)
Although these notes were about the past, the wording of the notes is almost verbatim the responses of teachers to my questions about what behaviors or morals they desired their present-day students to develop. This consistency of message reinforces the wider social practices and Discourse of utu.
The moral obligation of cooperation was also taught and assessed in
Personality & Sports. As a part of the formal curriculum, the everyday behaviors of cooperation were transformed into formal, definitional language or propositional knowledge. See Figure 6.3 for class notes from a Standard IV Personality & Sports lesson.
Figure 6. 8. Personality & Sports class notes to be copied off the blackboard
197 This knowledge was also tested in formal assessments. A Jifunze Standard IV practice exam for Personality & Sports had these questions: “True or False: when a person calls another person [on the telephone] s/he is strengthening their cooperation;” and a Matching item: “Actions which promote cooperation: Counseling/giving advice to each other” (Field notes, 2017.11.7). Students were asked to believe, copy down and recall these statements as a matter of fact. In these lessons, teachers did not make any explicit connection to children’s own lives and experiences, despite the fact that such instances of cooperation were daily occurrences and the students, teachers, and I had witnessed and experienced them together in the school community during my observations.
Sometimes I naively asked why moral obligations needed to be taught explicitly to students when they see it happening in their everyday lives. The history teacher as well as others I asked, including a curriculum developer and a teacher educator, all agreed that schools need to teach morals such as cooperation and greetings because it cannot be assumed their caregivers will teach them at home. Mr. Josephat pointed out that there were a high number of orphans at the school (about 1/3 of the students), who received less care from the relatives who raise them. Ms. Zawadi and Ms. Litawa observed that most parents are so busy trying to make a living they do not have time to teach or model morals for their children. Mngarah (2016) had a similar finding in a coastal urban center:
“primary school teachers are the immediate socializing agencies after children leave their families to commence schooling… most parents are [too] occupied with formal and non-formal employments to have adequate time with their children. This means that the training of teachers in moral dimensions stands a change to enable trainees [to] offset the socialization deficiencies that children might miss from families” (p. 21).
198
Reportedly, parents and students appreciate that moral behavior is taught in schools.
In a study of [secondary] students’ and parents’ attitudes toward the provision of moral education in schools, Seleman (2016) found students and parents were positive. They viewed moral education as important “life skills” and leading to improved self-discipline.
On a larger scale, the curriculum developer reported that the impetus for developing the Civics and Moral Education curriculum was a shared perception among the Tanzania Institute of Education, religious and (at least some) political leaders that there was a need to combat a moral decline in Tanzanian society. Evidence of this moral decline cited by the curriculum developer ranged from corruption among public officials to disrespectful youth who no longer knew how to work, greet or dress properly
(Interview, 2018.8.15).
While taking over the parental role of moral education is in line with my findings regarding conceptions of teachers as caregivers, I believe the way in which ideal moral behaviors were taught is also intertwined with the valued ways of knowing. As discussed in Chapter 5, most teachers showed a preference for definitional and propositional knowledge. By taking behaviors such as those that build cooperation and codifying them in theoretical notes and multiple-choice questions, teachers were transforming informal experiences into formal and official knowledge.
Many of the “good behaviors” teachers desired in their students were also codified in the official school rules (see Figure 6.4). As noted in Chapter 4, students
199 breaking any of these rules were usually swiftly punished either with a verbal warning or scolding, or with corporal punishment.
Figure 6. 9. Somesha Primary School Rules (Photo taken 2018.2.21)
Implicit Teaching of Morals
In addition to the formal, explicit teaching of expected behaviors and moral norms, much moral education is learned implicitly. Often the term ‘hidden curriculum’ is used to denote implicit social or cultural norms, practices and beliefs structured into the organization, curriculum, and practices of schools (Apple, 2004; Bourdieu & Passeron, 200 1977; Giroux, 2008; Kamugisha and Mateng’e 2014). At Jifunze and Somesha Primary
Schools, teachers’ lived examples of social cooperation modeled expected behavior for students, while sometimes unintended yet common circumstances taught students self- discipline and patience. Students also experienced opportunities to begin fulfilling social obligations through school chores and integration into the school hierarchy. I will discuss each of these in turn to demonstrate ways in which good habits and morals were implicitly a part of teacher and school practices.
Cooperation with ones’ neighbors and relatives in times of need, particularly for funerals and weddings, was not only extolled in the formal curriculum. It was a social obligation in daily life for teachers and the community surrounding the schools. During the nine months of my field work in the two schools, there were three funerals that directly involved the schools themselves. First, a former Jifunze teacher’s spouse passed away, and later a secondary school teacher who lived in the schools’ neighborhood passed away. Unfortunately, a Standard VII student at Somesha also succumbed to
(congenital) HIV/AIDS. In each of these cases, lessons were dismissed, and almost the entire teaching staff and many students left school to attend the funerals. Several teachers also spent the nights before and after each funeral at the wake, and all teachers contributed funds for the bereaved families. Official letters were sent from the affected school to all the other (primary and secondary) schools in the area to inform them of the funerals, with the expectation that each schools’ staff would send monetary contributions.
Because contributions are frequently required, systems are in place to facilitate them. The teachers at each school agree on a set amount that everyone will contribute
201 (either monthly or per event), and they appoint a treasurer to collect and manage the funds. The contribution system also applies for weddings, and if the wedding is for a teacher or the child of a teacher, their colleagues also serve on the wedding committee which plans, organizes and runs the wedding reception.
Thus, although teachers stressed the importance of explicitly and formally teaching about cooperation, they also “taught” it through the example of their own actions which were witnessed by students. Indirectly, these examples also demonstrated obedience to community expectations that everyone should share their material wealth with those in need through the reciprocal process of contributions—today you may contribute to my family for a funeral, next month I may contribute to a wedding in your family.
Other habits and behaviors which students learned informally appeared to involve less conscious intention on the part of teachers. For example, students learned a high degree of self-control and patience through the amount of time they spent waiting in school. In addition to learning to wait their turn to be called on, which is probably inculcated in most schools in the world, there were several other situations in which the
Jifunze and Somesha students had to wait quietly or face consequences. In my observations, as in the data from the World Bank Service Delivery Indicators (World
Bank 2016) for Tanzania as a whole, classes spent a relatively large amount of time without instruction during scheduled lesson periods. Sometimes this was due to teachers’ not going to class because they were marking assignments in the staff room or they were late from a previous lesson and were finishing their cup of tea in the staff room. Other
202 times, it was for organizational reasons beyond the teachers’ control. If teachers were ill, had a family emergency or were called away on other official duties (such as getting materials from the district education offices, following up their promotion paper work, or
[a less common opportunity] attending seminars), there was no system of substitute teachers to replace them.
Even during lessons when the teacher was teaching, there were subtle ways in which other adults could interrupt children’s lessons and children were expected to wait.
This was true whether it was another teacher popping their head in the door to ask the teacher a question, or a visitor (e.g. a parent) or the head teacher who needed to talk to the teacher. In such a case, if the teacher had already written notes or an exercise on the board, students would be told to carry on with their work while the teacher met the visitor; however, if the lesson was still at an explanation for Q&A stage, the children were typically told to keep their heads down on their desks and wait quietly until the teacher was ready to continue teaching. Students who completed tasks quicker than the rest of their peers were also expected to wait quietly or review their notes until the end of the lesson. When teachers were not in class, the monitors would keep records and report students who were too loud or misbehaving. In one Standard IV class at Somesha, one monitor would wield a stick on his fellows, just as a teacher would. Other teachers passing in the corridor would also stop and scold or punish the class if they were too noisy. The sum total of these practices was that students learned that one should wait quietly, without complaint nor making noise.
203 Waiting patiently may be an unconscious “lesson” resulting from teacher practices and organizational structure, but it is still a form of conformity and obedience to expectations and thus an early opportunity for students to demonstrate self-discipline in the performance of social obligations. Other opportunities to fulfill obligations to the community, while building habits, also presented in school-wide practices. Every class at both schools was assigned chores, such as sweeping the classroom and watering the school flower gardens. Students’ integration into the school organizational hierarchy
(Figure 6.5) also provided them with fledgling opportunities to demonstrate their willingness and ability to fulfill obligations. Note that the school organization chart is linear and vertical, entailing a clear hierarchy. Monitors, of course, had a larger role play to play, but following the school rules and obeying the instructions of teachers and monitors began to inculcate desired habits and behaviors in all the students.
204
Figure 6. 10. The Structure of School Leadership, as presented in the Standard IV Civics and Moral Education Textbook (2018), p. 18.
Contestation of Social Norms and Moral Ideals
The high level of consistency in the ideal moral behaviors espoused by teachers and enshrined in the explicit and informal curriculum can give an impression of a unanimous and purely harmonious experience of utu and moral behavior. Moreover, the association of moral practices with cultural heritage and intergenerational continuity lends itself to a level of cultural conservatism. Personhood, or humanism, as a moral order that seeks to prepare children to “live with and in” their community may “only
205 think of education as socialization, as a process of the insertion of newcomers into a pre- existing order of humanity” (Higgs, 2011, p. 13).
However, the actual lived experience of this moral order as I observed it at
Jifunze and Somesha was characterized by negotiation and contestation, and its proponents argue that the norms change over time.42 It is not possible to describe every instance of negotiation of moral norms, but I will discuss pertinent and revealing examples that demonstrate the degree to which schools can be a site of moral struggle or change and the types of negotiation practices and strategies that teachers and community members employed, including their deployment of Discourses of utu and moral righteousness.
The first example I will discuss demonstrates the ways in which the fulfillment of moral obligations was not a given. In the case of monetary contributions, members of the teacher community used various means to encourage, negotiate and cajole members into meeting expectations. While no teachers openly expressed unwillingness to contribute, there were a number who were frequently delinquent in making their monthly contributions. At both schools, the elected treasurers and secretaries used break times and staff meetings to remind and persuade teachers to submit their funds. (5000/- Tshillings or approximately $2.00 per month per teacher was the set amount at both schools). Near the end of the school year (November) at Jifunze, the officers had to call a special staff meeting to discuss what should be done because there were teachers who had not kept up
42 Fischer (2016) has argued that multivocality and negotiation are also standard features of traditional rituals and rites in southern Tanzania. 206 with their monthly payments and now the staff did not have enough money to fulfill the latest obligation. The issue was brought to a head by a succession of funerals and weddings to which contributions needed to be made. This staff meeting was the most tense and vociferous of all those I witnessed, perhaps because it involved pocketbooks, or perhaps also because the authority figure of the head teacher was not present. (He intentionally did not attend as the teachers organized and agreed on contributions among themselves). Unlike at other staff meeting discussions, teachers interrupted one another, shouted, and had to be called to order several times by other staff members. Complaints and accusations were made, and although they resisted at first, the treasurer and secretary eventually listed the names of teachers who owed back payments, and the amounts they owed, on the staff room blackboard (a public shame in the staff community’s eyes). Over the following week, the money came in and the names were erased from the board.
This example demonstrates that while everyone may appear to agree with a moral obligation, they may not successfully fulfill it, whether because they secretly feel the system is unfair or due to personal circumstances. The strategies teachers used to get the officers to “out” those who owed money ranged from loud complaints at the meeting on the unfairness of everyone being charged more to compensate for the delinquents (guilt) to whispers outside the meeting disparaging the character of those who were not contributing (which, combined with the blackboard embodied the strategy of shaming).
These interpersonal interactions are one means through which the larger Discourse of utu and social obligation is maintained.
207 According to a key informant, the form of social obligations has and continues to change over time. As we discussed utu together at some length, Mr. Josephat gave several examples of how social roles and obligations have evolved due to changing social circumstances. As an example, at community level, Mr. Josephat explained that before cars and local clinics were available, family members who fell ill had to be carried on the back of their relatives to the regional hospital in Iringa town center. The villages around
Iringa had evolved a system whereby as soon as the people carrying the patient reached the edge of the next village, some of its inhabitants would immediately drop their activities and help to carry the patient through to the other end of that village. This gave the relatives a break that would allow them to resume carrying the patient up to the next village, and so on until they reached town and the hospital. Nowadays, with the availability of more local clinics and motorcycle taxies for transport, this system of social obligation has largely disappeared. Yet the obligation to help others, even strangers who are ill, remains; it is not uncommon to see pleas for monetary assistance for health operations televised on the news or via social media – campaigns which are often successful in raising the needed funds.
In a school-related example, Mr. Josephat cited the notion of children’s rights, which is introduced in the Civics and Moral Education curriculum (and in Personality and Sports in the old curriculum). In particular, the notion that children have certain rights owed to them by their parents was quite new or foreign for many parents according to Mr. Josephat’s observations. Yet, with the introduction of children’s rights through the formal school curriculum, he has witnessed children questioning their parents—
208 demanding uniforms and equipment for school—a situation which apparently left the parents bemused at best, or affronted at worst. This, in Mr. Josephat’s opinion, shows how social norms change over time and how primary education can help to foster change in social norms and obligations.
The last set of examples I will examine exhibit a far more threatening form of social pressure which arose at both schools in different ways and took the form of envy. A teacher at Somesha, Mr. Ngwila, distinguished two types of envy – “good envy” which causes a person to strive for a goal (e.g. I am going to study hard so that I can perform as well as that student on my exam, or I am going to work hard so I can buy a car as nice my neighbor’s), and “bad envy,” which causes a person to try and bring down the person(s) of whom s/he is jealous. Both of the scenarios I witnessed fall into the category of “bad envy.”
The first case happened among the Standard VI students at Somesha and I was inadvertently the cause. Alarmed at the low level of English comprehension I observed and desperate to motivate students with an immediate reason to study vocabulary, I set up a competition between the two classes in Standard VI. I gave both classes a vocabulary quiz every day for three weeks and informed them that whichever class had the highest cumulative score on the quizzes would receive a prize. In terms of a pedagogical strategy, there was some success in that over the three weeks, many students’ scores did improve on the quizzes (and I maintained the sanguine hope that through repetition, they would remember at least a few words after the tests). A few students who had been chronic truants even started attending school regularly to participate. While I gave individual prizes (colorful pencils) to the individuals from both classes who had the
209 overall highest scores, I also prepared a class prize as a means to encourage all students to participate. By learning even two or three words, any student might contribute the marks that would lead their class to win. So, on the big day, and my last day of field work at the school, I presented the prizes, including a chocolate cake for the winning class. To my dismay, I learned that during the recess immediately after the prize-giving lesson, three boys from the class that lost beat up students who had received the cake. The class homeroom teacher and teacher in charge of discipline immediately went to separate the boys and speak to them, while most teachers in the staff room responded with a smirk and comments such as, “envy” and “maybe they didn’t have breakfast, so they were really jealous of the cake.” I also spoke to the three culprits; we agreed that they had to apologize in front of the class to the students they had assaulted, but the teacher in charge of discipline did not agree that this was enough of a consequence. He felt a larger consequence was required to teach them that at school, harming others due to negative envy is not acceptable. He solidly blamed the children’s parents/home environment for this attitude and felt it was the school’s duty to teach them otherwise. This became another instance of corporal punishment being used pedagogically, with the aim to instruct children on (un)acceptable behavior.
However, negative envy is not limited to playground squabbles and child’s play. A very serious event happened at Jifunze school, again attributed to envy over high performance. When the national PSLE results for 2017 were released, Jifunze Primary
School was ranked third in the district and region. It was the only public school in the top
210 five. As I noted earlier, the results are publicly available, and the school received a School
Improvement Grant from the local government.
The day after the exam results were publicized, the school’s staff room was set on fire. It was a Saturday, between five and six p.m., when the school was empty; apparently oiled rags were lit and tossed in a window. Students playing nearby noticed the smoke and ran to Mr. Josephat’s house to inform him. He, along with students nearby and a choir practicing at a neighboring church put out the fire using water from the school’s water tank, as the municipal fire trucks arrived too late to be of assistance. They managed to put the fire out before it spread to all of the staff room, but a cupboard and several boxes of teacher’s materials and some student exercise books were destroyed or suffered smoke and water damage. I later learned that this was the second time the staff room had been set on fire—the same thing had happened three years earlier, also immediately after exam results were released.
On Monday morning there we no classes, but teachers, parents, and students came to school to clean up the aftermath of the fire. In my field notes, I recorded mental images of charred wisps of paper wisps, not quite ash—the remains of teachers’ painstaking notes and collections of past papers, and the disconsolate faces of the other teachers, as we sat on benches in the corridor outside the staff room.
Most of my colleagues and the parents who had gathered blamed the fire on the devil. “This was the devil’s work,” people commented. Other parents and teachers offered that, “Someone saw the results and was ‘possessed’.” “The devil is always struggling – he
211 did this before and now he does it again.” Teachers and parents also used Christianity to ward off this devilry. In my field journal I noted:
As we were talking, one parent sent Ms. Zawadi a phone message that she read aloud. It basically said the parent was sorry she couldn’t come to school that morning but poleni (sorry/condolences), “we are together,” and the “devil will not triumph.” She quoted Psalm 30:10-11 – “I’ll turn your sorrow to joy…” Other teachers looked up the Psalm to read it for themselves. The need for Christian protection against evil was echoed many times (Field note, 2018.10.23).
Throughout the day and during the week, parents continued coming to show solidarity by witnessing the damage, giving the teachers condolences and contributing to repair the damage. The government was informed, yet it was over a week before any officials came, and the repairs were entirely funded by the parents and neighboring community members.
While the Christian, religious idiom of envy taking the form of possession or devil’s work was the most common response, the comments and reactions of a few people were tied to disturbing conceptions of “an African” or African “nature.” When I arrived that Monday morning, one of the teachers asserted that “in the village” (i.e. in rural, less modern areas), “when people are jealous, they wait until you’re in the house, asleep for the night, then they set it on fire and watch you burn.” Her twofold meaning was clear: a) this is not unusual behavior and b) we should be thankful the school was empty. She elaborated, that “they wait until you just succeed, or your child just graduated, you’ve barely tasted success, and they burn you and your house down.”
This Discourse of success causing jealousy and retribution is one I’ve heard from other Tanzanians for many years. Green and Mesaki (2005) note that Tanzanian
212 discourses on witchcraft (which can be used to destroy or protect) also “consistently address envy, greed, consumption, cannibalism and death” (p. 373). No one ascribed the fire to witchcraft, but the element of envy was implied even in the “devil’s” motivation to attack the school.
The same teacher with the village comments then told me a remarkable story. She said :
“there’s a bible story – maybe Lot’s kids? [her words] – anyway, there was a man who had three sons and there was also an uncle of theirs who was a drunk. One day the youngest son found him drunk and naked, passed out. He called his brothers and laughed at the drunk, but his brothers felt sorry for the drunk and went to get a blanket and covered him up. So, the story goes, the two kind brothers went off to different countries and were the founders of Europe and other continents, and the brother who didn’t help, who laughed and was mean, went to Africa and was the founder of Africa and that’s why it’s called the dark continent, not just because people’s skin is dark, but because of their behavior.” She went on, ‘I don’t know if it’s true, but it could be, there could be truth in it, we Africans!” (Field note, 2018.10.23)
Even Mr. Josephat said to me “Unaona? Mwafrika anachoma shule!” “You see? An
African burns down a school!” However, more than once in the days that followed he changed his lament slightly, to: “What kind of devil burns down a school? Burn down a bar! Not a school!”
The “imperial debris” (Stoler, 2013) of internalized negative stereotypes and tropes of “Africans” is in equal parts disturbing and heartbreaking. It also suggests the circulation of (often implicit) unequal racial power dynamics. By implication, this includes relations between local teachers and expatriate (usually non-African) researchers and experts that come with their prescriptions for best teaching practices—even if the experts do not consciously perceive or intend to bring this dynamic.
213 Through Mr. Josephat’s force of will and various parent and community contributions, classes were back to normal within two days. Within a week the staff room looked better than before (fresh paint, new windows, curtains, and cupboard) and people somehow, at least on a consciously voiced level, forgot about the fire by the end of the year. Though he must have been upset, that Monday Mr. Josephat put on his usual, cheerful, smiling face and told everyone the fire was nothing. He was clearly concerned with keeping up morale. It was not lost on the teachers that it was their staff room and teaching materials that were targeted in both fires. The teachers were most upset about the loss of their notes that had been compiled over time from different sources. Mr.
Josephat quickly organized the parents to collect contributions, and once the room was cleaned up on Monday, he immediately set to finding books to support teachers. Over half of the books destroyed were not available in Iringa; he had to put in orders with a bookshop that would try to find them, and he bought some alternatives for reference.
Despite Mr. Josephat’s and the school’s resilience, social pressure not only exerts obligations to help the community in positive ways; it also creates sites for power struggle and threatening attempts to keep people or institutions from outperforming others. In both of these cases, the Standard VI students and the Jifunze school fire, the attackers did not succeed in lowering the performance of their targets, however, withstanding the threat of retribution and the weight of such ill-wishes requires strength of will and determination. The implied message in both cases, was that everyone within the community should stay more or less equal, should not succeed too much.
214 This has interesting implications for pedagogical and teacher education strategies.
For instance, being singled out as an exemplar or model practitioner may reasonably make someone uncomfortable in this environment. It is interesting that teachers often identify and the class claps for students who perform well in class, while teachers who were singled out as role models by the Tusome Pamoja 3Rs program (Mr. Josephat and
Ms. Lyungai) reported they had to brush off incredulity and some taunting from teachers at other schools. Secondly, it may be that teachers’ preference for whole class instruction and expectations that everyone should learn at the same pace are not only based on class size and lack of resources, but could also have some philosophical underpinnings in the need to “be together.” At the very least, the fact that envious reprisals, while frowned upon, are not unusual suggests that cooperative approaches to working and learning that involve all as team members (such as the pairing and group tasks among teachers fostered by Mr. Josephat – see biosketch in Chapter 3) may be more likely to succeed in this context.
Conclusion
I have covered a lot of ground in this chapter to demonstrate both the breadth and depth of the moral aspects of pedagogy. Teachers at Jifunze and Somesha schools understand their role and the goal of primary education to be as much about moral socialization—“preparing children to live with and in the community”—as about academics. While the moral aspect of education is generally ignored in technicist policies, reforms and teacher training initiatives, it is very important in shaping the pedagogical practices of teachers in my study. Teachers’ expectations for desired, moral
215 behavior interact with the organizational structure (interaction order) and valued ways of knowing (epistemological Discourses) to shape both explicit and implicit pedagogical practices.
I have also attempted to illustrate that researchers and reformers from outside
Tanzania should not assume that the philosophy and moral order shaping teachers’ actions are the same as those from a Western perspective. Those working in IDE must be attuned to possible equivocations and alternative Discourses and philosophies that may drive teachers’ actions, and be particularly careful of internalized sedimentation of racist, colonial power relations.
In the fourth section of this chapter, I argued that despite the seemingly harmonious and coherent Discourse of utu and moral ideals, in this context as in all social settings, social obligations are internally negotiated and contested. At times social actors have to be encouraged and even manipulated to enforce social ideals. Contestations of a moral nature may seek to transform the existing social order, as in children’s rights discourse, while in yet other cases it may seek to conserve and hold back what could be perceived as success or progress. Whether one wants to defend local ways of being and pedagogical practices or to transform them, moral Discourses, behavioral norms and personhood must be reckoned with.
216 Chapter 7: Conclusions
Despite an international drive for “best practices,” a policy focus on learner- centered, active and competence-based education, reform of the curriculum and
“upgrading” of teacher qualifications, the pedagogical practices most teachers in my study prefer remain rooted in whole-class, teacher-led presentation and assessing of information through Q&A, note-taking, and single-answer, recall exercises. Feeling unsatisfied with the dominant IDE Discourse which posits that this is due to teachers’ lack of knowledge and motivation, the impetus for my study was twofold: On the one hand I wanted to understand why teachers had these particular pedagogical preferences.
On the other, I wanted to demonstrate that pedagogy is a socioculturally-embedded practice, and that technicist explanations and interventions alone are inadequate for bringing about pedagogical change.
In this final chapter I summarize my findings and synthesize them with a discussion utilizing my conceptual framework of the nexus of pedagogy. For the teachers with whom I worked, the policy and curriculum Discourse of competence-based, learner- centered, “best practice” teaching exists largely outside or tangential to the nexus in which teachers’ current pedagogical practices reside. I will discuss possible opportunities for bringing the Discourses closer together, and I will highlight other insights that arose from my study, regarding Discourses about teachers, cross-cultural equivocations, and
Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). I also consider the implications of my study for policy and for the field of International Development Education and close the chapter by suggesting areas for further research.
217 Dissertation Summary
While each element of a nexus of practice is intertwined, I separated out strands of this nexus for the sake of analysis in each of the three data chapters. I began, though in
Chapter 2, with a brief overview of education in Tanzania through four phases – precolonial, colonial and missionary, post-independence Education for Self Reliance, and human capital development. In the chapters that followed, I highlighted where traces of ideas, beliefs or epistemologies from each of these phases can be found in teachers’ practices or policy today. For example, teachers perceived a continuity from pre-colonial education in their upholding and passing on of moral behavior and social relations. The notion of a teacher as provoker (mchokozi) also seemed to relate to indigenous epistemologies and the role of instructors in traditional initiations and rites of passage from adolescence into adulthood. The subsequent chapters also drew on this historical review in Chapter 2 where there was evidence of how the abstraction of school subjects and knowledge from daily life that began in the colonial period still lingers in the curriculum of today.
In Chapter 3, I provided the details of my prolonged engagement as a participant observer in the two schools and an overview of the two sites. Though they are located very near each other, draw on the same student population and have a teaching staff similar in age and years of experience, the schools differ in terms of exam performance, and the leadership in the two schools has led to distinct practices and work environments in each school.
218 In Chapter 4, I focused on the interaction order – the organization of space, materials, resources, interactions and time – and how this influenced teachers’ pedagogical choices. The organization of space, and reliance on the teacher and blackboard as sources of information in classrooms, provide a unitary focus on knowledge that comes to students from an external, authoritative source. This is further reinforced through interactions directed between teacher and students, rather than among students themselves. The large classes also deterred teachers from using artifacts, hands- on activities or even visual aids, due to the difficulty of procuring materials in enough quantity or visual size for the whole class, and the time that would be lost in sharing materials.
Within the interaction order, the deployment of materials is as important as their presence or absence. I used the example of different English teachers’ use of textbooks to demonstrate that how materials are used depends not only on teachers’ technical, subject knowledge, but also on whether the authority of texts and officials supersedes the teachers’ firsthand assessment of what activity would be most beneficial for their students. All of these elements, from class size, to the organization of space, time and materials, reflected and served to (re)produce particular social relations and conceptions of knowledge. In turn these conceptions of knowledge and normative social relations informed teachers’ preference for certain teaching practices, that is, the teacher-led,
Q&A-notes-exercises formula. My findings also pointed to the influential role of the head teacher in building a school culture that is more oriented toward following procedures or toward ensuring student achievement.
219 In Chapter 5, I demonstrated that the preference for Q&A/notes strategy is also driven by the value placed on given, propositional knowledge. Although most teachers believed that children were not “empty,” they still saw their role as identifying gaps in what children knew, and “filing” the gaps. This implies that there is a set body of knowledge, which is sanctioned or approved externally (by those with authority, in this case the writers of curriculum and exams). In other words, knowledge is “given.”
Teachers’ use of the term “mere recipients” to describe their own relationship with the curriculum and education ministries suggests that even organizational structures reflect and reinforce a concept of knowledge as given, and the need for deference to authority.
Chapter 5 also showed how the favoring of propositional knowledge is reinforced by the nature of examinations comprising primarily close-ended, recall questions with a single, accepted answer. This model of assessment extended from the national exams to practice papers, in-class tests and daily exercises. By exploring the practices of two science teachers, I illustrated that even in the rare case where hands-on experiments were used and encouraged, they served to reinforce the recall of the topic for exams. I argued that the importance of examinations in determining not only student placement in secondary schools, but also teachers’ reputation and school performance further bolstered teachers’ preference for strategies that “teach to the test” and their valuing of the propositional knowledge promoted by the exam discourse.
In Chapter 6, I explored teachers’ social and moral goals for primary education.
Teachers in my study saw the goal of education as socialization and development of moral behaviors as much as to impart academic content. Teachers want their students to
220 learn to live “with the community,” in a moral order underpinned by utu, communal personhood. Desired moral behaviors intertwined with epistemologies and the interaction order to shape explicit and implicit pedagogical practices. Through the discussion of maadili/morals, I highlighted that equivocations are not merely difficulties in translation, but often signal that underlying conceptions, beliefs or worldview may differ. At the same time, I illustrated that social norms and morals are contested, and there is the pressure of envy for schools or teachers to contend with if they are perceived as standing out or succeeding too far.
Discussion: Convergence and Disjuncture in the Nexus
My conceptual framework posits that pedagogy is social practice, and that any particular pedagogical practice is situated within a nexus of particular historical bodies, interaction order, and Discourses in place. Returning to the diagram introduced in
Chapter 1 (Figure 1.2), and adding now more details from my findings, it is possible to visualize many elements converging around the practice of pedagogy as enacted by most teachers in my study. It is equally clear how the policy and curriculum Discourse of learner-centered, competence-based practices exists largely outside of or tangential to this nexus. If one’s goal is for teachers to shift their practices toward learner-centered practices, there are many elements surrounding them that need to change (See Figure
7.1).
In the diagram, the gray petal encompasses the historical bodies of teachers. In this dissertation, I considered teachers’ historical bodies in so far as they overlapped with elements of the interaction order and Discourses in place. For instance, teachers’
221 reputation was connected with their students’ exam performance and the community
Discourse involving the ranking of schools and students by PSLE results. Teachers’ PCK in relation to teaching materials differed in that some teachers utilized textbooks as a resource, and they viewed their duty as selectively drawing on texts to support their curricular objective—thus on the diagram “Text as resource” is placed at the overlapping of historical bodies and interaction order. “Text as authority” refers to teachers who viewed their duty as delivering the content of the textbooks to students, those who placed the authority of the text above their own assessment of students’ understanding. On the diagram this is placed at the overlapping of historical bodies, interaction order and moral
Discourses to denote the deference to authority as part of the mainstream moral
Discourse. In addition, the shared tenets of the moral Discourse of utu overlap with most of the historical bodies petal to denote that most teachers in the study agreed to these ideas, even if they did not always live up to them in practice.
The epistemological Discourse of propositional and given knowledge almost entirely overlaps with the Exams Discourse, as well as with several aspects of the moral order, including to obey, listen, and respect. Aspects of the interaction order such as teacher-focused interactions in the classroom, physical layout focusing on the blackboard, and few other resources or information sources also overlap with this knowledge
Discourse. Together, these moral, epistemological, exam, and interaction order elements converge around the pedagogical practices noted at the center: whole class teacher-led instruction, comprising repeated actions such as Q&A, note taking and memorization.
222
Figure 7. 2. Nexus of practice for teachers at Jifunze and Somesha primary schools
The exams Discourse petal also overlaps with the moral Discourses, particularly the aspects of “listening, obeying seniors and showing respect.” The current examinations format requires students to demonstrate that they have listened well and can replicate 223 what their elders have told them; thus in one way, the examination system has been appropriated to serve cultural purposes of reinforcing a particular aspect of the moral order.
There is another epistemological Discourse present—that of constructivism and learner-centered practice. There is a slight overlap between this Discourse and teachers’ belief that children “have something” in their heads. However, that belief also overlaps with the propositional knowledge Discourse because many teachers felt they could “fill up” what was “missing” from students’ prior knowledge. As I illustrated in Chapter 6, the competences and rubrics of the new curriculum existed outside of many teachers’ understanding of teaching and learning.
Thus far, my findings concur with Guthrie’s (2017) assertion that shifting from a teacher-centered to learner-centered paradigm requires not just technical training, but “is necessarily a proposal that [teachers] fundamentally change their views of the nature of knowledge, of the learner and his/her role, and of classroom organisation in general” (p.
192). Teachers’ views on authority relations and desired behaviors could also be challenged by the suggested changes to their practices. As can be seen on Figure 7.1, the organizational aspects in the interaction order as well as the nature of exams and epistemology of propositional/given knowledge would need to change.
However, Guthrie (2017) goes on to conclude that this paradigm shift should therefore be abandoned; that because of the convergence of “traditional” teaching with material and cultural aspects of African societies, African countries should seek to improve formalistic teaching and respect exam performance instead of changing. In
224 contrast, I believe that explicit and constructive discussion of this nexus is needed within the education sector and Tanzanian society, in order for Tanzania’s community to decide for itself the direction that is best for the country. Furthermore, choosing between a stark dichotomy, such as “traditional” vs purely “learner centered” best practices may not be the only ways forward.
If the government and communities of Tanzania are still committed to a shift toward in pedagogical practices, and toward “learner centered” approaches that policy makers have asserted is a part of Tanzania’s Education for Self-Reliance vision, the nexus analysis sheds light on aspects to be addressed and possibilities for new convergences.
Firstly, so long as examinations are used to judge performance, teachers will seek pedagogic means to enable their students to pass. It follows that if exams were changed to require problem-solving, inference, synthesis and application of knowledge rather than recall, teachers’ pedagogical practices would require corresponding changes. However, the social consequences of this shift would also need to be reconciled with the hierarchical nature of Tanzanian society (from the level of students/teachers or child/adult to the level of populace/government).
Secondly, diversifying sources of information in the classroom and increasing opportunities for student-student interaction could support the shift. Ideally, this would need to happen along with reduction in class size, to allow teachers more flexibility in classroom practices and individual attention to students.
225 I further believe there is potential for finding common ground between the moral tenets of utu and cooperation with more learner-centered practices. Cooperative problem solving and mutual support (e.g. for funerals, disasters such as a fire, celebrations such as weddings) form excellent models for teamwork or group work. If class sizes and layout were more manageable, this connection could be built upon to explore locally contextualized modes of groupwork for learning. The assertion made by the Ministry of
Education and Tanzania Institute of Education, that learner-centered practices themselves are rooted in Education for Self-Reliance provides another local or contextual inroad for teaching and learning which is practical, rooted in the life of the community, and cooperative. However, as long as the examinations remain primarily based in propositional knowledge and continue to play a significant role in evaluation of student, teacher and school performance, paradigmatic changes in pedagogical practice are unlikely.
Implications for Policy
The findings of this study carry several implications for education policy makers.
The first is a general implication, relevant to any school system: the need for carefully- planned, holistic reform that addresses the multiple aspects of a nexus of practice. This is particularly the case when a paradigm shift in the conception of knowledge or teacher- student relations is desired. When such a shift is the goal, the use of a Nexus Analysis demonstrates that several organizational aspects of the education system need to be addressed together, as well as alignment of assessment, curriculum and instruction, and reconciliation with social and moral norms. If only one piece receives significant
226 attention, as in this case with the curriculum and textbooks in Tanzania’s primary education, the result can be disjuncture, as seen in Figure 7.1.
There are several additional policy implications for Tanzania’s education sector, more specifically. Assuming the government continues its commitment to learner- centered, competence-based education, there are several elements to be addressed, as I noted above. Some of these are already recognized by the government, development partners and communities, such as the need for more classrooms and teachers to reduce class size, and the need for an adequate supply of teaching/learning materials. Such initiatives require continued emphasis. The government’s efforts to mobilize and channel a large proportion of current education aid into school infrastructure, as well as development partners’ emphasis on providing teaching and learning materials are important efforts which require continued support. The percentage of the overall budget allocated to education most likely needs to increase in order to hire more teachers, as well, if class sizes are to seriously be reduced.
Another policy implication is that ongoing professional development and training is vital for all teachers, particularly to help them understand new aspects of the competence-based approach, and for some, to further develop PCK. This implication is two-fold; it may require technical training, but it also demands an enabling environment.
The technical side of PCK is critical, and upper primary teachers need opportunities to expand their content knowledge and repertoire of teaching strategies, such as their
Standard I and II colleagues have started receiving from the 3Rs programs. However, even training on the technical aspects of content and PCK will likely be insufficient to
227 change practices if teachers continue to defer their own professional judgement to the authority of textbooks and education officials. This requires, therefore, careful consideration of how to create an environment in which more teachers feel empowered as professional decision makers and assessors of student understanding, and whose decisions contribute to improved student learning. The Government of Tanzania has recently prepared a National Framework for Teachers’ Continuous Professional
Development (NF-TCPD) (MOEST, forthcoming), but whether this framework will contribute to a more conducive environment for teachers as competent pedagogical decision makers, or will reinforce teachers as recipients and followers of directives and given knowledge, is yet to be seen. While the provision of training has large budget implications, the change of organizational behavior and structural relations may be less costly and have a large impact.
The most pressing, and as yet largely unaddressed element within Tanzania’s current policy environment, is the alignment between the assessment system and curriculum. A competence-based curriculum is best aligned with ongoing, performance- based assessment rather than strictly relying on terminal, written exams. This could be fostered by expanding reliance on more diversified sources and data collection methods for assessing the performance of students, teachers, schools and the sector as a whole.
However, a more realistic step at this time could be to change the type of questions and prompts on the exams and to coordinate this change with provision of professional development for teachers under the NF-TCPD .
228 Implications for IDE
This ethnographic study of pedagogy also has implications for practitioners and researchers in International Development Education. As Alexander (2015) and others I discussed in Chapter One have argued (Halliday, 1998; Osaki & Agu, 2002; Tabulawa
2013; Vavrus, 2009; Vavrus & Bartlett, 2012,), to effectively approach the quality of education, pedagogy cannot only be conceived in technical and quantifiably measurable terms. A conception that encompasses both the technical and sociocultural aspects of pedagogy provides more nuanced situation analysis and could contribute to more effective planning of programs or interventions. Furthermore, the influence of many factors on teachers’ pedagogical practices underscores the danger of a teacher-deficit
Discourse. This Discourse assumes the blame is due primarily to a lack of teachers’ content knowledge or strategies, without looking for other factors that also influence pedagogy. While the technical knowledge is important for teachers, this narrow focus, and failure to address wider systemic, social, moral and epistemological issues can contribute to interventions having less than desired impact.
Another implication for non-government (development partner or NGO) programs is to avoid pushing for single-faceted reform (such as new curriculum without holistic system alignment). Without alignment, even well-intended support measures may unintentionally reinforce the very habits that programs seek to change. For example, school improvement grants rewarding teachers and schools for improved exam performance may further encourage teaching to the test and rote learning, unless exams and assessment policies are aligned with curricular and pedagogical reforms.
229 In addition, several examples in my data speak to the presence of equivocations— moments where different actors are using the same terms but not necessarily with the same meaning. For instance, teachers had a different understanding of the term
“participatory” from the way that term is often understood in constructivist teacher education and research literature. This difference might be characterized as one of degree, i.e. to what degree learners must be mentally or physically engaged to merit the title
“participatory.” At times, equivocations signal a much deeper and broader underlying difference in worldview, as with these teachers’ emphasis on morals as behaviors and proper conduct, related to personhood rooted in community and utu. It behooves international actors, particularly those involved in short term technical assistance, to be(a)ware of equivocations.
Finally, my study provides concrete examples of skilled school leaders such as
Mr. Josephat, and competent teachers who, despite the difficult material conditions in which they work, still ensure student learning and high performance within the currently- accepted exam system. Both the research community within Tanzania and the international research and IDE community could gain many useful insights from studying and working with skilled practitioners at the school level when they are developing professional development programs rather than treating them mainly as the recipients of programs developed by external ‘experts’.
Directions for Future Research
This last implication also points to a direction for future research that I would like to pursue. There is relatively little research from within Tanzania on how school
230 leadership and/or school culture shapes teacher practices. How do leaders like Mr.
Josephat come to exist, and how can other school leaders model some of his strengths?
What lessons for policy makers and other school leaders can be drawn from the way Mr.
Josephat adjusted structures and created collaboration among the teachers to optimize learning in the school? These are questions I would like to take up in the future.
Similarly, it would be compelling to do research with teachers who exhibit strong PCK or demonstrate creative uses of group work or resources within the context of large classes.
They could provide promising insights from which to build local models of successful pedagogical approaches.
In addition, several aspects of social and cultural practices and their relationship with schooling are ripe for research. For example, I find myself wondering, why it is that the hierarchical/authority-laden side of local social practices are emphasized and reproduced in schooling, but not the reciprocal social practices of cooperation and decision making/problem-solving by council?43 Also, why is the preferred form of knowledge and language use on exams propositional and explicit, while regular communication and thought in daily life in Swahili (as in many other African languages and contexts) is highly metaphorical and inferential (Nsamaneng, 2011; Kresse, 2011)?
To me, this signals that at the same time that schools and pedagogical practice are inescapably socially embedded in the ways I have illustrated in my study, there is still
43I am referring here to vikao (councils/meetings), which can be extended-family meetings to resolve interpersonal disputes or to plan collective social and economic support for family members. Although usually chaired by an appointed or elected elder, anyone can speak their views for the group to consider at these meetings; there is consensus-building and measured argument rather than authoritative dictation. Another common form of vikao are committees formed of an extended web of friends, acquaintances and relatives who collectively plan, organize, raise funds, and manage wedding celebrations. 231 some fissure between out-of-school and in-school practices. How can these local practices (metaphorical and inferential thought, collaborative problem solving, councils/committees) be drawn on to inform innovation in education?
Finally, the conceptual framework of a nexus of practice provides much scope for further research of pedagogy as social practice. While the Discourse cycles and interaction elements I focused on in my chapters were the most salient in my teacher colleagues’ lives at this moment, there could well be additional d/Discourses in place that have bearing on pedagogical practices in Tanzania, and elsewhere. Furthermore, I addressed historical bodies only in terms of PCK in this study; there is much more to be explored in terms of the historical bodies of school leaders, teachers and students, how or why particular actors take up ideas, materials and Discourses, and how they co-construct classroom interactions and school cultures.
Conclusion
The socially and institutionally supported practice of pedagogy has a complex and dialectical nature. The findings of my study suggest that teachers continue to prefer
“traditional” teaching due to the context in which they work, rather than deficiencies or capabilities on their part. As I argued in Chapter 2, context is a matter of concern (Sobe
& Kowalczyk, 2014) in relation to pedagogy and in the study of education systems as a whole. Context is constantly remade, and like pedagogy itself, must be understood broadly as encompassing technical, material, epistemological and axiological aspects.
Because of this, it is difficult to assert that a single way of teaching is universally, and in all contexts, “best practice.”
232 I would like to close with a crucial observation from Ermenc (2015), and a similar sentiment voiced by Ms. Lyungai, who spoke from her wisdom and experience as a classroom teacher:
Ermenc (2015) states:
[T]here is hardly any pedagogical measure that can be in advance defined as good, bad, or irrelevant. Each pedagogical measure’s usefulness depends on concrete circumstances, time, the child and teacher involved, and the aims to be achieved. A particular measure does not operate on its own, but always in connection with other circumstances. (p. 43)
Ermenc is speaking from the perspective of a European critical comparative educator and researcher. Ms. Lyungai, though coming from a different perspective, that of classroom teacher in Iringa, echoes this sentiment:
Kila mbinu ina faida na hasara. Sijawahi kuona hii ni nzuri kuliko nyingine kwa sababu, mbinu inategemea kile unachofundisha. …. Kwa hiyo mbinu zote zina positive na negative, … according to the [objectives].
Every teaching strategy has pros and cons. I’ve never seen that one approach is better than another because your teaching strategy depends on what you are teaching. … Therefore, all strategies can be positive or negative, …, according to [your] objectives. (Interview, 2017.09.14)
The assumption that one teaching approach is universally a “best practice” is based on a related assumption, that all teachers, school systems and communities share the same objectives for education. Yet objectives for education are multiple—cognitive and social, practical and moral, explicit and implicit. These multiple objectives form a nexus which shapes teachers’ pedagogical practices, and to prescribe one set of practices universally is to prescribe the attendant beliefs and Discourses, as well as to assume similar conditions exist in all classrooms.
233 It was my privilege to work with teachers at Jifunze and Somesha during this study, and to begin to understand what objectives, beliefs and conditions shaped their nexus of pedagogical practices. As they continue to strive to provide learning that will enable their students’ academic and social success, research that brings their experiences, views and conditions to the attention of policy makers and the designers of inter/national educational interventions is imperative.
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262 Appendix A: Interview Protocols
Semi-Structured Initial Teacher Interview For Standard IV Teachers
Before beginning any interview, the researcher will review the consent process, emphasizing the following points: • This interview will take up to one hour. Mahojiano yatatumia takriban lisaa limoja. • Participation in this interview is completely voluntary. Ni hiari yako kushiriki au la. • You may ask questions at any time. Unaruhusiwa kuuliza maswali muda wowote. • You may choose not to answer any question or to stop the interview at any time. Una haki ya kutojibu swali lolote au kuamua kusitisha mahojiano muda wowote. • I will audio record the interview and later type up the conversation. Nitatumia vinasa sauti kurekodi mahojiano na baadaye nitayachapisha. • All information from this interview will be kept confidential and used only for research purposes. Maelezo yote yatakayotolewa katika mahojiano yetu yatakuwa siri na kutumika kwenye utafiti tu. Hakuna mwingine atakayesikia. • There are no right or wrong answers to any of the interview questions; I am simply asking for your opinions and thoughts. Hakuna jawabu sahihi wala lisilo sahihi kwa swali lolote; Ninataka tu kujua maoni yako na mawazo yako.
A. Personal investment in teaching 1. What made you decide to become a teacher? Kwa nini uliamua kuwa Mwalimu? 2. How satisfied are you with teaching as a career? Umeridhika kiasi gani na kazi ya ualimu? 3. Do you currently have any plans to change careers? Je, una mpango wowote wa kubadilisha kazi?
B. “Proper” or “good” behavior and social relations 1. In your opinion, how should a [10] year old behave? Kwa maoni yako, mtoto wa miaka [10] anatakiwa kuwa na tabia gani? 2. How do you expect children to behave in your classroom? Unataka watoto wawe na tabia gani wakiwa darasani? 3. What types of habits do you want your students to have? Ungependa wanafunzi wako wawe na tabia gani kwa ujumla? 4. How do you promote these habits in your students? (if the teacher responds mainly in terms of study habits, probe further for habits related to respect/social relations) Wewe kama mwalimu, unafanya nini ili wanafunzi wako wajenge tabia hizo? 5. Can you tell me what the ideal student-teacher relationship in your school looks like? Mahusiano au maelewano yalio bora kati ya mwalimu na mwanafunzi yakoje? 263 6. What are some kinds of misbehavior you have seen in the classroom? Naomba utoe mifano ambayo umewahi kuikuta darasani ya watoto wasio na nidhamu au wasio na tabia njema. a. What do you think cause these misbehaviors/challenges? Kwa maoni yako, makosa au changamoto hizo zinasababishwa na nini? b. How do you handle these challenges? (Probe for specific stories…Can you tell me about a time…) Unakabiliana vipi na changamoto hizi? Tafadhali eleza.
C. General pedagogical beliefs and experiences 7. In your experience, what have been the most effective teaching practices you have used? Kwa uzoefu wako wa ualimu, mbinu gani za kufundishia zimekuwa na mafanikio darasani? a. How do you know that this practice (or practices) is (are) effective? Unajuaje kwamba mbinu hizi zina mafanikio? b. What made them most effective? Kwa nini zina mafanikio? 8. Could you please define what Learner Centered Practice means to you? Je, kwa maoni yako, ‘learner centered’ maana yake nini? 9. Is Learner Centered Practice something you have worked to implement in your classroom? If so, what was that like? Please give examples. Je, umewahi kuitumia unapofundisha? Kama ndiyo, ilikuwaje? Tafadhali, toa mifano. 10. What challenges have you faced in implementing learner centered practices? Umekutana na changamoto gani unapotumia LCP? a. Why do you think those challenges arose? Unafikiri ni kwa nini changamoto hizi zilijitokeza? 11. What do you see as the purpose of primary education in your community? Kwa maoni yako, nini haswa ni lengo au madhumuni ya elimu ya msingi katika jamii yako?
264 MEMBER CHECKING Focus Group Discussions
Introduction: I will explain the major findings and how I have understood them. Please tell me if you think I have misunderstood or misrepresented anything; or if there is another possible interpretation. Don’t keep quiet! Please speak up and tell me what you think. If you have a question at any point, please ask.
Major findings: 1. The 3Rs and academic content is only part of primary teachers’ job; moral/socialization and preparing kids to live with community also their role and equally important, especially at primary school level. Teachers were likened to caregivers/parents. 2. Maadili (morals) is conceived a little differently than in my home (US/Western) culture – here it is habits, behavior, and that is why when asked about good morals, one talks about greetings, obeying and listening—good behaviors. In the US/my background, morals is principles/abstract concepts so there’s some philosophical difference 2b. Share charts of TABIA NJEMA and TABIA MBAYA (good/bad habits and behaviors) 2c. Overall, the classes I observed are well-behaved; the students don’t have bad habits; they follow the rules most of the time, especially when a teacher is present in class– mostly students respect adults and follow rules. 3. Positive reinforcement is usually used only for very good academic performance; negative reinforcement (usually scolding, corporal, or shaming/ridiculing) is used for not getting work done or inappropriate actions 4. The new curriculum was implemented without any training or orientation for most teachers; the same for the new open-response questions on the exams – there were no examples or training before it was implemented. Is this correct in you experience? 5. Teachers differ in their use of textbooks. Some follow the textbook like it’s the law or the Bible – if it is written in the textbook, it must be done in class -page by page/word-for-word. Other teachers take the lesson objectives and select some pieces form the textbook for their lesson. I’ve distinguished two groups of teachers – those who emphasize authority and those who emphasize the lesson objective. It appears the students of the latter group perform better/ learn more (although I did not formally assess students, this is from observation only). 6. Large class sizes and lack of materials, as well as need to get through syllabus on time generally made Q&A + notes + Exercises the most-used teaching strategies, even though some teachers agree that debate, group work or practical/hands on activities might help students learn/remember better. 7. “Participatory approach” has been accepted by teachers, especially Q&A. Teachers are also aware of other strategies like debates, group work, etc.,
265 though they are not used very often. Teachers agree that the child is “not an empty set”, so you use participatory strategies to see what the child knows, and then fill in any missing pieces. a. In academic language, we’d say these strategies are in the “banking” paradigm and haven’t shifted to constructivism, because knowledge is understood as something the teacher has or resides in the curriculum, tests and textbooks, and children are expected to receive it and show their understanding through recalling the information. It doesn’t mean that information and knowledge never change – there’s technological development and that’s why the curriculum gets updated from time to time, but Knowledge is a set object, children are given it, and exams measure by asking recall questions (brief discussion of Bloom’s Taxonomy, which one Jifunze teacher had presented at a staff meeting during my observations) 8. Share some of the hidden lessons a. Learning to wait, b. importance of cooperation, c. hierarchy d. children/a class should stay together, resemble each other and receive the same; not stand out from others
My recommendations: 1. Policy writers/gov’t/DPs should consider full picture when wanting to make changes, and changes should be systemically planned: e.g. if new curriculum and teaching approaches, what about assessment, what about TABIA, AND how will teachers be enabled/prepared? 2. Consider “school culture” – all aspects of education, be conscious of them – for teachers, do our actions match or support our goals? For gov’t – vision for education and basing changes/improvements within clear, shared vision 3. MORE resources needed for quality 4. Teachers/administrators should be a resource for planners and policy makers, not just endline receivers of edicts [though this is counter to the whole authority/hierarchy practiced in schools]
Additional questions to ask during member checking: 1. Many teachers told me “mtoto ana kitu.” Was this taught in TCs? Where did you get this idea? 2. Have your std. 4 lessons changed at all since you got the textbooks? How have they changed? (e.g. H – still drawing on board? All - Students still copy dialogues/notes into books? Any change in how you spend time in the classroom?) a. Do you still draw on exercises or notes from other/older textbooks?
266 b. Do you still draw on older/other additional books as resources c. What about “continuous assessment” or using the rubrics in the syllabus? d. Do the new textbooks have enough exercises/content? 3. After teaching it for a full year, how different is the new curriculum from the old, in your perspective? 4. Are copies of 2018 PSLE or SFNA available? 5. Why only whole class teaching in school? Why no tutoring/extra help/ability groups in school? 6. Someone told me that if class sizes were smaller (like 45 kids or less) it wouldn’t be necessary to use corporal punishment. Do you agree? 7. Were new questions (open response) added to SFNA or only PSLE? Are any 2018 past papers available? 8. Additional for Mr. Josephat: discuss constructivism vs. revelatory knowledge & “African” ontology – does “becoming” resonate with need for behaviors, primacy of relationships – utu?
267 Member Checking (Swahili)
Major findings (Matokeo) NItaeleza makubwa niliyoyaona na jinsi nilivyoyaelewa. Naomba mniambie kama nimeelewa vibaya au pengine kuna namna nyingine ya kuyaelewa – msinyamaze, maniambie! Pia kama kuna swali lolote, ulizeni.
1. KKK na maudhui ya mtaala ni sehemu moja tu ya ualimu. Kuandaa watoto kuishi na jamii, wawe na tabia njema, wawe na maadili, pia ni sehemu kubwa ya kazi ya ualimu, haswa katika shule za msingi; wengi walifananisha walimu na walezi au wazazi. 2. A. Maadili – dhana ya maadili – ni tofauti kidogo na dhana ya maadili ya kizungu. Nimejifunza kwamba hapa maadili ni mwenendo, ni tabia, ndio maana ukiuliza watoto wawe na maadili gani watu wanazungumzia kuamkia, kutii, kusikiliza – yaani tabia. Kwetu maadili ni fikra; kuna umbali kidogo kati ya fikra na tabia au mwenendo; inashiria tofauti ya kifalsafa (Personhood) 2. B Tabia Njema zinazotakiwa kwa wanafunzi, kutokana na mahojiano na walimu ni:
Tabia mbaya ambazo walimu wanapambana nazo ni:
Matusi/lugh Utundu/Kuchez Kudokeza Kutoandika/kutofany Uong a mbaya a darasani (cheating) a kazi za darasani o 268
Utoro Ubakaji Ugomvi/Kupigan Uwizi Ukatil a i
2. C. Kwa jumla, katika shule zenu, watoto hawana tabia mbaya sana; wanatulia na kufuata taratibu wakati mwingi, hasa Mwalimu akiwa darasani. Yaani, watoto walio wengi wanaonyesha tabia hizo njema; ni wachache na ni baadhi ya wakati tu, hawana adabu. 3. Walimu wanakuza tabia za watoto kwa kutumia POSITIVE na NEGATIVE MOTIVATION, Positive, yaani kumpongeza mtoto (km kwa makofi) hutumika wakati mwanafunzi amefanya kazi nzuri (km amepata maksi za juu). Negative motivation (yaani kumkaripia, kumtisha, kupiga au kumtia aibu- kwa maneno) hutumika pale ambapo mtoto hakufanya kazi au ameonyesha tabia mbaya. 4. Mtaala mpya ulianza kutumika bila mafunzo kwa walimu wengi; hata maswali mapya ya kujieleza kwenye mitihani (la Darasa la Saba) halikutolewa ufafanuzi wala mifano kabla ya kutumika. 5. Walimu wanatofautiana katika matumizi ya vitabu. Wengine wanafuata kitabu kama sheria au Biblia – ikiandikwa kwenye textbook, ni lazima kupitia kama ilivyo (kurasa kwa kurasa/neno kwa neno). Wengine wanaangalia zaidi lengo la mada na kuchagua kati ya yaliyomo kitabuni ili wafikishe lile lengo. Nimetofautisha kwa kuwaita kundi la kwanza “wanaozingatia utii au mamlaka” na kundi la pili “wanaozingatia lengo” Inaonekana walimu wanaofanya hivi wanaokoa muda na wanafunzi wao wanakuwa na uelewa au uwezo zaidi. (Sikufanya vipimo rasmi ya watoto, kwa hiyo hii ni INFORMAL observation) 6. Mbinu za maswali na majibu, kuandika NOTES ubaoni na mazoezi madogo madogo ni mbinu zinazotumika na walimu wengi kila siku. Na mazoezi au maswali ni yale ambayo yana jibu moja tu iliyosahihi (kama kujaza mapengo, kuchagua multiple choice, kujumlisha/kutoa hisabati) Walimu wanasema huenda kufanya kwa vitendo, kufanya midahalo/majadiliano na kadhalika vingesaidia watoto kuelewa na kukumbuka zaidi lakini Kuna sababu nyingi zinazopelekea walimu kutumia mbinu zile zile za Maswali/Majibu na mazoezi tu, sababu zikiwa pamoja na madarasa makubwa (watoto wengi darasani); uhaba wa vitabu na vifaa, Na muda wa kuandaa masomo na kumaki vitabu, Vile vile lengo la kumaliza mtaala linachangia, maana mbinu hizo zinazotumika (Q&A, notes) hazichukui muda mrefu kama mbinu nyingine, kwa maoni ya walimu wengi. 7. Walimu wamepokea dhana ya mbinu za kushirikisha na wanatumia haswa maswali na majibu, na walimu wengi wanafahamu mbinu nyingine kama majadiliano, kutumia vikundi, n.k. ingawa hazitumiki sana. Walimu wanakubali kwamba “mtoto ana kitu” sio “empty set”. Wanatumia mbinu za
269 kushirikisha ili kuona mtoto ana kitu gani, ili Mwalimu amjazie pale alipopungua. a. **Kwa hiyo Kitalaamu, tunasema mbinu hizo zimeingizwa katika ruwaza ule ule wa ‘kibenki” , sio muhamo wa ruwaza kuelekea CONSTRUCTIVISM (kwa jinsi walimu walivyoipokea). UJUZI unaeleweka kama kitu alichonacho Mwalimu au kipo kwenye mitaala, kwenye mitihani na vitabu, na watoto wanatakiwa kukipokea, na kuonyesha ufahamu wake kwa kukirudia (recall). Sio kwamba UJUZI au MAARIFA hazibadiliki – kuna maendeleo ya kisayansi, ya kiteknolojia na ndio maana mitaala inabadilika mara kwa mara; lakini UJUZI/MAARIFA ni kitu kinachofahamika, watoto “wanajazwa” na mitihani hupima kwa kuuliza maswali ya kukumbuka. (Blooms taxonomy). [hii ni tofauti na ruwaza wa CONSTRUCTIVISM na vipimo vya APPLICATION, SYNTHESIS na PERFORMANCE and CREATIVITY]. 8. HIDDEN LESSONS… Kuna mtaala rasmi na mtaala isiyo rasmi. Mtaala isiyo rasmi ni ujuzi au tabia au fikra zinazojengwa kutokana na uzoefu, bila kusemwa. Nimeona baadhi ya vitu visiyo rasmi vinavyofundishwa ni: a. Kusubiri – watoto wanajifunza kusubiri kwa subira. Mwalimu akiitwa wakati anafundisha, au akichelewa; au darasa likaahirishwa watoto wanatakiwa kukaa na kutulia; kutopiga kelele; hata kama ni masaa mawili au zaidi. Ndio maana watanzania mnakuwa na subira hata ofisini, wapi, hasa ukilinganishwa na wazungu ambao hatujawahi kufundishwa hivyo. b. Kushirikiana – pamoja na kwamba mitaala ya historia na wa uraia/maadili inafundisha umuhimu wa ushirikiano wa kijamii, watoto pia wanajifunza umuhimu wa ushirkiano kutokana na mifano ya walimu – walimu mna taratibu za kuchangiana kwenye tabu kama msiba, ugonjwa, na kwenye furaha kama harusi; hata kusaidiana katika kuandaa chai - hivi vitendo pia vinafundisha watoto faida za ushirikiano. c. Heshima ya ukubwa/uzee/mgeni – mdogo lazima asimame na kumsalimia mzee; kumpokea, kusikiliza na si kumbisha; vingine vipo kwenye kanuni za shule lakini pia kwenye tabia na mienendo; k.m mtu mkubwa anaweza kusitisha somo lakini si mtoto; mtu mkubwa anaweza kuchelewa darasani (hatakiwi lakini ikitokea huwa hakuna adhabu) – mtoto anapewa adhabu; mtoto hawezi kubishana na Mwalimu – atapewa adhabu. Na nimeona mtoto akifanya kitu, labda anafanya kitu kizuri darasani, Mwalimu atafanya vizuri zaidi kuonyesha yeye yuko juu; yaani lazima Mwalimu awe juu ilia pate heshima [Mnaona kawaida, lakini si hivyo nchi zote] d. Watoto au darasa wanatakiwa kufanana – kuvaa sare, nyweli sare; lakini pia katika kujifunza – wote wanafanya mazoezi yale yale, na kwa muda ule ule; wanaowahi hawapewi cha ziada, wala
270 wanacohelewa kuelewa hawapunguziwi kazi; na ukifanya vizuri sana – ukajitofautisha na wengine -, kuna baadhi watakuumiza – km waliopata zawadi kwa kushinda shindano la misamiati ya kiingereza darasa la 6 walipigwa na wale walioshindwa. Na shule iliyofanya vizuri kuliko shule zote za serikali katika mtihani wa darasa la 7 lilichomwa – tena mara mbili! Itakuwa ni wachache wanaofanya vitendo hivyo lakini ni ashiria ya wazo la wivi fulani ambalo msingi wake ni fikra kwamba mmoja hatakiwa kuwazidi wengine – wote wanatakiwa kufanana.
Mapendekezo: 1. Walimu, viongozi wa shule n ahata Wanaoandaa sera wanatakiwa kuangalia kwa upana swala la ualimu; wakumbuke kwamba kila kitendo kinafundisha; wafikirie “utamaduni” wa shule– kwamba kila kitu, kila tendo, kila taratibu na hata mazoea – je, tunafanya hiki kwa kufikiria malengo yetu au kwa mazoea tu? Na watoto wanajifunza nini? 2. Wanaoandaa sera na viongozi wanapofanya mabadiliko, k.m. mtaala mpya ukitoka, inatakiwa utoke na mafunzo kwa walimu wote, na mtaala, vitabu/vifaa, na mitihani na mbinu za kufundisha inatakiwa ibadilishwe kwa pamoja, sio kipisi hapa, kipisi pale halafu ukute haziendani. 3. Uwingi wa watoto darasani na uhaba wa vitabu au vifaa vingine viendelee kushughulikiwa 4. Walimu na wakuu wa shule wenye ujuzi na wenye matokeo mazuri watumike – wawe kama washauri kwa walimu wengine na kwa wanaoandaa sera 5. Kwa Walimu – vikundi vile viwili (kundi linalozingatia kutii na linalozingatia malengo) walimu waweke malengo ya kujifunza mbele na kuhakikisha kila wanchofanya kinasaidia kufikisha malengo hayo
Maswali ya ziada: 1. Walimu wengi waliniambia “mtoto ana kitu” – je, mlifundishwa hivyo mkiwa TTC au mmekuja kujua baadaye? Wapi? 2. Je, kuna mbadiliko yoyote katika kufundisha darasani (la nne) tangu mmepata vitabu? Mabadiliko gani? a. Bado mnaandika mazoezi ubaoni na watoto kuandika kwenye madaftari? Mudo ni ule ule? b. Bado vitabu vya zamani/vya ziada vinatumika? c. Mmefanyeje “continuous assessment”- Kuna mabadiliko yoyote katika jinsi unavyopima watoto darasani? d. Je vitabu vina mazoezi ya kutosha? Mnafanya vile vya “nyumbani/reflection” – (Uraia na Maadili) 3. Kwa darasa la nne – mmemaliza mwaka na zaidi kwa kutumia mitaala mipya – kuna tofauti wowote na mtaala uliotangulia katka masomo unayofundisha? Kama ndiyo, tofauti gani?
271 4. Je, kwa nini ofisini meza zinapangwa kuangiliana? 5. Kwa nini mnafundisha darasa zima, bila kutofautisha wale wepesi, wale wazito? 6. Kuna mtu alisema idadi ya watoto darasani wangepungua (45 au chini), ulazimu wa kuwapiga watoto ungepungua. Unakubaliana naye? \ 7. Were new questions “kujieleza” also added to SFNA or only PSLE?
**Serikali inataka “muhamo wa ruwaza” kuelekwa LEARNER CENTERED, ambayo ipo kwenye CONSTRUCTIVISM
Kuna dhana kuu mbili katika elimu kuhusu maarifa au ujuzi (KNOWELDGE) – Dhana moja inasema maarifa yapo (kule) yapo na ukweli wake, na mwenye nayo ndiyo anampa anajifunza. Mara nyinga huitwa dhana la kibenki – kwamba maarifa yanawekwa kichwani, kama hela inavyowekwa kwenye akaunti. Kwa hiyo Mwalimu (na mtaala, na mtunga mtaala – yaani serikali) ni mamlaka na anatikwa kufuatwa kama ilivyo.
Dhana nyingine inasema hakuna chochote kilicho tu pekee yake, ila watu wanajenga maarifa na uelewa kichwani mwao. Kwa hiyo kila mtu anajenga uelewa au maarifa kwa kuunganisha kitu kipya na kile alichokuwanacho. Kwa hiyo mtaala au maarifa yapo, lakini Mwalimu si mamlaka wa kutoa na kumpa mtoto. Anatakiwa awe mwezeshaji wa mtoto, ampe mtoto nafasi ya kugundua na kuelewa na kufanya mwenyewe.
e. Kwa hiyo Kitalaamu, tunasema mbinu hizo za kushirikisha zimeingizwa katika ruwaza ule ule wa ‘kibenki” kwa sababu walimu karibu wote walizungumzia “kumjazia” mtoto; na walimu huwa hawakubali kubishwa wala kuonekana hawajui darasani. Kwa hiyo, sio muhamo wa ruwaza kuelekea CONSTRUCTIVISM (kwa jinsi walimu walivyoipokea). UJUZI unaeleweka kama kitu alichonacho Mwalimu au kipo kwenye mitaala, kwenye mitihani na vitabu, na watoto wanatakiwa kukipokea, na kuonyesha ufahamu wake kwa kukirudia (recall). Sio kwamba UJUZI au MAARIFA hazibadiliki – kuna maendeleo ya kisayansi, ya kiteknolojia na ndio maana mitaala inabadilika mara kwa mara; lakini UJUZI/MAARIFA ni kitu kinachofahamika, watoto “wanajazwa” na mitihani hupima kwa kuuliza maswali ya kukumbuka. (Blooms taxonomy). [hii ni tofauti na ruwaza wa CONSTRUCTIVISM na vipimo vya APPLICATION, SYNTHESIS na PERFORMANCE and CREATIVITY].
272 Kuna wengine wanasema walimu wanatakiwa kubadilika, kuhamia CONSTRUCTIVISM (Hasa wazungu, ingawa sio wazungu tu) na kuna wengine wanasema hapana, kwa utamaduni na fikra za Kiafrika, mkubwa (awe Mwalimu au mzazi au kiongozi) ndio ana mamlaka, ana maarifa, anatoa maarifa kupitia mitaala na inatakiwa watoto wajazwe maarifa hayo na inatakiwa ibaki hivyo hivyo. Sijui mnasemaje nyinyi?
Additional for Mr. Josephat Unakumbuka uliwahi kunielezea maana ya kusalimiana; umuhimu wake na ujenzi wa mahusiano baina ya watu wa jamii moja. Nimesoma kuhusu falsafa za kiafrika. K.m. ujamii na utu; Kifalsafa za Ulaya – I think therefore I am – Nafikiri (ninayo akili) kwa hiyo nipo. Akili ndio inamfanya mtu awe mtu au apate PERSONHOOD. wanafalsafa wanasema katika maoni au fikra za Kiafrika, mtu hawi mtu kutokana na akili yake binafsi; anapata utu PERSONHOOD kwa kupitia vitendo vyake – vitendo anavyowafanyia wengine. Kwa hiyo mtoto anapozaliwa hana utu; au sio mtu; lakini kadri anavyokuwa na ku tii mienendo ya jamii na kushirikiana na kukuuza mahusiano na jamii ndo yeye anakuwa mtu au anapata UTU/personhood. Nafikiri ndio maana walimu wanazingatia sana tabia njema kama kutii, kusikilia, kusalimia, LAKINI je, mipaka ya kutii na kubuni iko wapi? K. m. wewe hapa shuleni – hamfuati ratiba – wakaguzi hawaleti shida katika hilo? Unasema ukweli bila kuogopa – umekuweje hivi na kwa nini hakuna watu wengi zaidi kama wewe?
273 Appendix B: Survey Protocols
Demographic/background information surveys:
Teacher Population 1. Gender (Jinsia): ______2. Age (Umri): ______3. Religion (Dini): ______4. Ethnic group(s) (Kabila): ______5. Home language(s) (Lugha ya nyumbani): ______6. Educational background: highest level attained and year attained (elimu): Standard 7/O level/A level/College/University (Degree:______) 7. Teacher training/certification level (Vyeti): (e.g. date and length of teacher training course, level of certification – A, B C, Diploma or Degree) 8a. Years of teaching experience (miaka ya kufundisha): ______8b. In how many different schools (Katika shule ngapi)? ______8c. Years at current school/position (Muda wa kufanya kazi katika shule hii): _____ 9. Current teaching position (grade level/subjects) (Darasa/Masomo unayofundisha sasa): ______
For student population of observed classes, to be administered at the start of the three month observation period at each school site: 1. Gender (Jinsia) : ______2. Age (Umri): ______3. Religion (Dini): ______4. Ethnic group(s) (Kabila): ______5. Home language(s) (Lugha za nyumbani): ______6. With whom do you currently live? (Unaishi na nani?)______7. Parent/Guardians’ occupations (Kazi ya mlezi): ______8. Neighborhood you live in (Mtaa wako): ______
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