Teaching teachers pays off
2008-11-27
Although Palabora Mining Company/Palabora Foundation’s programmes are regularly praised for their effectiveness, the Foundation staff don’t sit on their laurels. Whenever there is a way of improving outcomes, the Foundation makes changes to its methods of working with communities.
A recent example is the Foundation’s decision to place emphasis on training school educators in learning theories. The change has been met with enthusiasm so far, prompting one of the educators to write to the Foundation. Emmah Mahlake-Sibanda, a grade 6 educator at Xithlangu school in Lulekani, wrote:
“As Ba-Phalaborwa municipality we feel very privileged to have Palabora Foundation as a motivator and supporter in our schools. The Foundation staff is doing great work in instilling the love of mathematics and science among learners and teachers around Phalaborwa. When an educator has thorough knowledge and information about a learning area he/she offers, in turn learners tend to enjoy that learning area and wish to go further in it. The Foundation staff do not only assist us in classroom situations; they help us in our personal matters. In one of their workshops at Oasis in Giyani, Lizzy Mphuthi-Maffa offered a lesson about Piaget theories in Mathematics. The knowledge I acquired that day helped me a lot as I was writing one of my examination papers with UNISA in mathematics [education]. I would like to wish them all the best and encourage them not to get weary with the good job they are delivering to the community.”
Many people think of a “theory” as something that is said and cannot be practised. In the context of education, learning theories are explanations of what happens during learning. Although educators learn these theories at college, it is easy to forget them with time.
The Foundation’s In-Service Education and Training (INSET) unit decided to run refresher workshops and a conference to address this important area. Ray Duba, head of the INSET unit, says, “We believe that teachers can only help children learn if they understand what happens during learning”.
In 2007 the Palabora Foundation INSET unit decided to revisit and revive the knowledge of theories such as Piaget’s cognitive development theory and Kolb’s learning styles and experiential learning theory in educators. These are some of the theories that underpin the approach of outcomes based education in our National Curriculum Statement.
Ray Duba says, “We are still assessing the impact of this new approach but we are happy at the unintended outcome, in the case of Emmah, whom it helped in passing her private study examinations. We are thrilled by the prospect that more teachers will benefit in the same manner”.
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