Beginner teachers’ experiences of transdisciplinary demands of a school curriculum

Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Beginner teachers’ experiences of transdisciplinary demands of a school curriculum
 
Creator Woest, Yolandi
 
Subject — beginner teachers; transdisciplinary demands; life orientation; South Africa
Description This article focuses on the experiences of beginner teachers of the transdisciplinary demands evident in school curricula. A detailed inductive thematic analysis of open-ended interviews with ten beginner teachers from socially diverse South African schools provided rich data on their experiences of these demands. Rapid changes in the South African school curriculum since 1994 are discussed against the backdrop of participants’ real lived experience during their first three years of teaching and are posed as main reason for transdisciplinary demands on beginner teachers. Despite the socio-economic differences between schools, all participants experienced the same cognitive and emotional dissonance during their first years of teaching. All participants’ related experiences of heightened levels of confusion, fear of failure to meet demands of school management teams, frustration of not being able to effectively teach subjects for which they had been trained and concern about the influence of their lack of knowledge in unfamiliar subjects on learners. Drawing on the concept of an ‘ideal’ transdisciplinary approach, this article explores the ways in which transdisciplinary demands within the transitional space of the state of the South African educational system compound challenges faced by beginner teachers. Recommendations for tertiary teacher training programmes are briefly suggested in the conclusion.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2018-11-13
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/td.v14i2.488
 
Source The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa; Vol 14, No 2 (2018); 7 pages 2415-2005 1817-4434
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/article/view/488/878 https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/article/view/488/877 https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/article/view/488/879 https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/article/view/488/872
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2018 Yolandi Woest https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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