Transformed teachers transform education: Insights shared by early childhood lecturers

Abstract

The training of teachers in South Africa is fragmented and unstable with little systemic response from the government in the early years. This amplifies the need for initial professional qualifications to provide adequate opportunities to “transform” teachers’ thinking and action to meet contextual demands. The aim is to unpack the concept “transformation” by making sense of the learnings from lecturers’ perspectives to inform initial professional qualifications. The paper provides conceptual insight using Mezirow’s phases of meaning for transformative learning with a particular emphasis on habits of mind and Ellerman’s theory of autonomy. Using the conceptual hooks from theoretical underpinnings of Mezirow’s habits of mind and Ellerman’s autonomy allowed a philosophical stance in the analysis and interpretation of the literature and data. Site visits and observations at Early Childhood Care and Education centres across three South African provinces and several organised reflections from three lecturers (academic lecturers), informed this qualitative case study. The implications from the findings highlight areas for transformation in initial professional qualifications, at: (1) systemic level, intentional and active stakeholder engagement to ensure quality initial professional qualifications; (2) institutional level, capacity building and professionalisation; (3) classroom level, learning and teaching support material that is contextually responsive; and (4) individual level, access and opportunity for continuous professional development for all teachers.

Graphical abstract

Keywords:

• autonomy
• early childhood care and education
• initial professional qualifications
• lecturer
• progressive
• teachers
• transformative

1. Introduction

Caring for young children is often seen as a commercialisation of what women are doing unregulated, or as part of the welfare system; instead of as a separate and imperative function of education. As such, society has devalued the importance of their Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) workforce by remaining ignorant of investing in citizenry from an early age (the Nelson Mandela Foundation & BRIDGE, Ilifa Labantwana, National ECD Alliance (NECDA), 2020). Internationally, the ECCE sector is plagued with inequities, uncertainties and fragmentation; it is also characterised by an unqualified workforce for birth to four; and global health, social and economic crises have further exacerbated already overwhelmed conditions (OECD, 2012). Significantly, education is entrusted to an unqualified and unsupported workforce responsible for teaching an insubstantial curriculum to our aspiring child citizens.

In South Africa, the magnitude of the ECCE problem is also misjudged. According to the Plight of Early Childhood Development Workforce report (the Nelson Mandela Foundation & BRIDGE, Ilifa Labantwana, National ECD Alliance (NECDA), 2020), the primary argument focuses on economic relief for the early childhood sector, however, the researcher argues diversified support for transformation that ambits beyond financial means.

The rapidly changing social, political, economic and technological events of our time are compelling societies to rethink ECCE, leaving the design and training of initial professional qualifications at a critical juncture. Transformation is a way by which change within existing notions is triggered and it “entails creating something new or different through the configuration or remoulding of the constituent elements of the old” (Obikeze, 2003:1). However, progressive theorist, Anderson (2014:81), states that “existing values and beliefs, theories, and epistemologies about early childhood care and education can be transformed using a critical lens.” Progressive Transformative Teacher Education, as philosophy, not only offers opportunities to rethink globalisation challenges, but can direct ECCE to the point where it becomes possible to transform beforementioned problematic frames of references.

Therefore, new critical conversations on quality initial professional qualifications; debates on policy changes; and reflections on transforming perceptions and current practices in ECCE should be prioritised. To forge ahead with appropriate ECCE initial professional qualifications in South Africa, it is important to first gain deeper insight into the context, concepts and practise that warrants action and transformation through teacher education.

From a conceptual and contextual vantage point, this research responds to how lecturers are making sense of transformation whilst observing teachers in ECCE practice. The uncertainties and vulnerabilities within ECCE warrants that the notion of the “technical teacher” is outdated and irrelevant. Thus, amplifying the need for Progressive Transformative Teacher Education to provide adequate student-centred opportunities to disrupt conventional wisdom and to reconstruct working theories to transform thinking and action to meet contextual demands.

2. Literature review

2.1. The “uncontextualized” learner

The devotion of the ECCE sector to preserve the social ecology of children is negated and misplaced; including, inter alia, the function of the family and community, the peer group, educational processes that are culturally adapted, indigenous understandings of intellect and cultural maturity, participatory learning and children as social actors in the schooling system (Nsamenang & Tchombe, 2011).

The construction of disparate and divided early childhood education was socially and politically designed to meet the needs of South Africa at a specific time in history according to Ebrahim (2010a). During the colonial period (1870–1960), education had its own particular purpose and teachers were expected to respond to that mandate. Often these initial professional qualifications not only overlooked the very young child’s individual needs, but also their unique and diversified contexts that South African ECCE is made up of (Nsamenang & Tchombe, 2011). This in turn leads to setting up the teacher for failure, as they are not properly equipped to deal with the holistic child in context; and reinforcing and creating vulnerabilities and uncertainties.

The current South African government wants to improve the lives of young children as ECCE has gained more recognition. Today, there are new educational standards where the emphasis is on training teachers to be progressive thinkers with professional capabilities to respond the holistic education of our young children (H. Ebrahim et al., 2021). However, in light of the contextual realities of South Africa, the mere mechanical interpretation of educational standards will not suffice. Rather, we strive for “ … the organic perspective where value judgments are based on successful teaching and educating in order to enrich learners cognitively and affectively” (Tchombe, 2014:24), and to develop progressive and transformative initial professional qualifications.

2.2. Initial professional qualification in ECCE

Peeters et al. (2019), indicated that in the majority of low- and middle-income countries, there are no national training requirements for the initial training for ECCE. Peeters et al. (2019) allude that initial professional qualifications in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa are limited, and only a few countries require higher education to educate young children. South Africa has an under-qualified ECCE workforce, characterised by teachers positioning themselves as “deliverers” of programmes designed by others for which they have not received proper training. Harrison (2020) further noticed that initial professional qualifications are mainly tied up as technical and practical exercises dominated by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO), with very limited academic participation from higher education institutions. Whilst, Harrison (2017) pointed out that systemic initiatives devoted solely at improving the competences of teachers are lacking and not effected in initial professional qualifications.

In response to the Policy on Minimum Requirements for Programmes Leading to Qualifications in Higher Education for Early Childhood Development Educators (Department of Higher Education and Training, 2017), gazetted in 2017, the understanding is that quality ECCE provisioning is dependent on the readiness of a dedicated and qualified workforce in the sector. Necessitating that the set of requirements spelled out in beforementioned policy be affected in an initial professional qualifications that develops adept ECCE teachers.

From the understanding of literature and policies, a common stance is shared that the quality of ECCE services is directly linked to a qualified and skilled workforce; however, an initial professional qualification dedicated to early childhood does not necessarily assure quality ECCE (Manning et al., 2017; OECD, 2012; Peeters et al., 2019). A network of transformative mindsets to collaboratively understand and contextualise the complexities of ECCE is also required.

2.3. Competent partnerships through continuous professional development

There is a need for a “competent partnership” for ECCE which has proficient policy governance (Peeters et al., 2017:2). The researcher noticed a progressive headway in international research and policy literature to promote and sustain quality ECCE by, acknowledging the importance of continuously developing the ECCE teacher’s competencies, as well as providing ongoing support for them (Peeters et al., 2019). Pre- and in-service teachers’ reflective abilities, collaborative skills, and poise in growing their professional teacher identity should also be developed along with pedagogical and content knowledge (Peeters et al., 2019). It is imperative to incessantly invest and capacitate for professional development of teachers in terms of values, skills, and their specialised knowledge, and thero not only “deliver” the early childhood curriculum. Intentional collaborations of ECCE teachers with cross- and inter-disciplinary teams and communities of practices to experience competent partnership should be part of the agenda for Progressive Transformative Teacher Education.

2.4. Progressive transformative teacher education

Progressive Transformative Teacher Education scrutinises facets of teacher education (e.g., research, policy and training) and endorses ongoing emancipation of teacher education, as in the interpretation of Tchombe (2014) about an African country. Overemphasising curriculum delivery (outcomes and expectations) leads to being unengaged and oblivious to contextual complexities including individual needs of children and the society they function in. Preventing the detachment and alienation of African voices in discourses, policies and ECCE curricula, Progressive Transformative researchers, Nsamenang and Tchombe (2011), used a “mixed approach” to unite global educational approaches. The latter included Arab teaching values and African pedagogies which appreciate culturally relevant ways of thinking about education and the educational needs of culturally diverse communities in Africa. Applying Progressive Transformative principles to ECCE offers the possibility to reveal elements of the social ecology of African children and how all the different role players see these facets and their interpretations of the consequences of this for education.

3. Paradigm and meaning making

Coming to understand and explore the phenomenon of Progressive Transformative Teacher Education suggests there is an epistemological element that the researcher must acknowledge. The nature of the “relationship” between the knower and what is known and what counts as knowledge is framed from a transformative and autonomous learning point of view, nested in a critical paradigm. Such a philosophical stance enabled the researcher to: designate her own understanding of the phenomenon; interpret research events and data sets for trends and discourses; whilst, being aware of her own frame of reference, predispositions and experiences. Transformative and autonomous learning raises the awareness that adult ECCE participants, and the researcher, can transform our understanding and become autonomous by giving freedom to thought and meaning based on the integration of new information with past experiences.

3.1. The merging of progressive education for transformation with frames of reference and autonomy as a meaning-making framework

By creating something new or different through the configuration or remoulding of the constituent elements of the old, the conceptual hooks from theoretical underpinnings of Mezirow’s habits of mind and Ellerman’s autonomy allowed me to take a philosophical stance to analyse and interpret the literature and data of this study. Critical theorists such as Dewey (1957), Kuhn (1962), Freire (1970), Habermas (1971), Kierkegaard (1989), Mezirow’s (1978), and Jack Mezirow (1991), 2009) and Ellerman’s (2006) understanding of progressive education informed the principles of transformative learning and autonomy theory as andragogy. Mezirow (2000, p. 8) alludes to transformative learning as:

process by which we transform our taken-for-granted frames of reference (meaning perspectives, habits of mind, mind-sets) to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, emotionally capable of change, and reflective so that they may generate beliefs and opinions that will prove more true or justified to guide action.

Whilst, Ellerman (2006:ii) defines the theory of autonomy as:

… help must start from the present situation of the doers—not from a “blank slate”; helpers must see the situation through the eyes of the doers—not just through their own eyes; help cannot be imposed upon the doers—as that directly violates their autonomy; nor can doers receive help as a benevolent gift—as that creates dependency; and doers must be “in the driver’s seat”—which is the basic idea of autonomous self-direction.

In light of these two extracts, the epistemology is closely related to the ontology and methodology of this paper.

3.1.1. Habitually reframing your reference

Mezirow (1990) believed that adults possess the ability to interpret new experiences by elaborating, differentiating, and reinforcing existing “frames of reference” (p. 5) or former ways of understanding. Frames of reference are valuable, because it is: i) a guardian of vast amount of information; ii) based on past experience and values; iii) relatively stable and a source for quick decision-making; iv) open for input; v) ascribes meaning using a systems of language and culture; vi) operative within and outside consciousness; and vii) composes of two dimensions, namely: a habit of mind and resulting points of view (Mezirow, 2009). Habits of mind are ways of understanding, experiencing, and behaving, which are conditioned by perceptions and set conventions; meaning, “what one sees and how one sees it” (Kitchenham, 2008, p. 118). In a particular context, habits of mind become embodied as a belief, memory, value judgment, disposition and feeling which shapes a specific point of view.

3.1.2. Autonomy-compatible help

There is a difference “between codified explicit knowledge and more tacit know-how knowledge” (Ellerman, 2004, p. 156). Codified information can be passed on from a helper, whereas implicit know-how needs to be picked up by collaborating with others who have already made changes, or by doers’ own experimenting and learning. Dialogue and collaboration with peers, partnerships, and experts are indispensable to “unlearn”, “un-ascribe”, and “reframe” meaning and become skilled in understanding other’s perspective (Kitchenham, 2008). The process of making-meaning, interpreting situations, challenging one’s own frame of reference, and transforming perspectives requires continuous and habitual engagement in purposeful reflection (Mezirow, 2009). “Progressive” and “transformative” thinking is not inherited, nor does it come naturally; rather it is developed and continuously trained (Ellerman, 2004, 2006).

4. Methodology

This qualitative study employed participatory action research (PAR) that was framed in the critical paradigm and adopted an iterative cycle of reflection, research, and action (Baum et al., 2006). This methodology provided insight into ECCE initial professional qualifications in South Africa not only by examining and investigating the case, but also by offering a transformation action plan (Asghar, 2013).

With the release of a Policy for Teacher Education Qualifications in Higher Education for ECCE (Department of Higher Education and Training, 2017), the well-timed Project in Inclusive Early Childhood Care and Education (PIECCE) began in 2016. The PIECCE project served as an exceptional platform to come to understand how transformation can be enabled in the ECCE workforce. As part of the PIECCE project, a top-down approach to ethics was followed, meaning scrutinising ethical principles and procedures to obtain, inter alia, informed consent, respect for privacy and confidentiality, voluntary participation, non-maleficence, approved by the ethics committee at the University under which this study commenced. Given the diverse settings that were observed, this study further valued situated ethics (Ebrahim 2010b), which included a reflexive position about how situational variables mediate ethics.

At this point, it was realised that lecturers had to go experience such ECCE centres for themselves to understand the contextual and authentic realities of an ECCE teacher and what they would be trained for to serve our youngest children. To understand the importance of Progressive Transformative Teacher Education the researcher then consorted with lecturers to explore their lived-experiences of transforming ECCE to build a professional and competent workforce. With reference to the research sample as depicted in Figure 1, a purposive sampling technique was utilised. The rationale for generating data with ECCE lecturers is because they are relative newcomers to ECCE initial professional qualifications. The sample was diverse and consisted of multiple birth to four practitioners at the various ECCE sites and various lecturers from the PIECCE consortium. Three of the participants who engaged in this research study, and voluntarily conducted observation site visits to a variety of ECCE centres in three provinces, are all academic lecturers that are part of the PIECCE consortium, colleagues in the Department of Early Childhood Education and more specifically, a beginning team of birth to four academics.

Figure 1. Participants, affiliations, research site and data generation opportunities

The education realities, at identified research sites, in caring for young children necessitated collaboration with NGOs who are experienced in these spaces, to understand the existing conditions and practices. The Free State sites were visited in September 2018, Kwa-Zulu Natal sites in January 2019 and Gauteng sites in July 2019. The sites showcased diverse models of ECCE practice and were characterised by the existing provisioning across historically advantaged and disadvantaged contexts. They included community-based centres, a mobile centre, non-centre-based programmes, an early intervention centre for babies diagnosed with a range of complex barriers to development, and a private-for-profit high-cost programme with multiple branches.

At each site, the academic lecturers observed the ECCE teachers in action and each observational visit was followed by a debriefing and reflection session with the larger PIECCE consortium. This allowed the academic lecturers to take note of what was observed and how these observations of on-the-ground realities could inform and transform initial professional qualifications spaces. Member-checking of the generated data sets (recorded observations at the sites, reflections and learning conversations) were strengthened by collaborating with the lecturers during the analysis phase. Three formal meetings were scheduled in line with the site visits where thinking was developed, and several learning conversations took place to supplement the generated data sets. The meetings and conversations were recorded, and notes were taken to further make sense of the aspects to transform ECCE initial professional qualification.

The respective data sets were analysed based on the paradigm of qualitative content analysis. Thematic analysis was applied which was grounded in the contextual paradigm of ECCE and the analysis of participants’ answers had a framing in the theoretical concepts presented by Mezirow and Ellerman.

5. Analysis and interpretation

After coming to appreciate progressive education approaches to transformation and autonomy (e.g., Tchombe, Mezirow and Ellerman), the summarised key learnings informed the observation analysis and interpretation of the data sets and served as impetus to continuously engage and check for multiple understandings in light of the participants unique frames of references across diverse contexts.

5.1. Voices representing diverse frames of reference

The initial stages of generating data sets paved the way for conducting this research project and frames the cognisance, rich quotes and snippets of experiences. On the first day (10 September 2018) of the research process, one academic lecturer came to express that:

Our field observations must be a mindful process: how programmes for birth to four are designed and delivered. We have different ideas of what pedagogy looks like. We are training people; we must go back to where people are implementing. What are the realities on the ground? The purpose of the [PIECCE] framework is to professionalise. The practitioners we visited must be part of our target audience. How do we take a step back and allow our students to learn from these contexts?

With the key principles of progressive and transformative education in mind and being dedicated to the child in context, the observations at the different ECCE sites, also responded to capturing and keeping in mind, inter alia: the grouping of children in terms of size, age, ratio; the environment; the approach to teaching and learning; the curriculum; the resources; the staff; and the management of the site. An academic lecturer observed and documented (ECTE notes; 30 November 2019) after the first set of site visits that “ … assessment and evaluation of programmes, assumptions of quality and institutional differences were recognised [within the various ECCE provisions]”. In addition, a member of the research team deduced that teachers were not equipped to respond to the diversity in ECCE sector. “ … we have to prepare our students for these contexts, yet we [lecturers] are unprepared” (ECTE notes, 11 December 2019). We, as the team, gradually became more cognisant of the multiplicity of knowledge, skills and values needed for functioning in dynamic ECCE environments, we shared an informed appreciation that the realities of practices should be catered for in the design structure of initial professional qualifications.

Seeing that this paper is based on transformative pedagogies, an excerpt from the academic minutes from the PIECCE material working group (January 2019) is also included, to shed light on the collaborative discussion on competent partnerships and work-integrated learning in the initial professional qualifications: “encourage teachers to practice what they preach, to model how to teach children. They may not be the best people to do so, therefore they need to make a plan.” Although current ECCE preparations do not echo aforesaid notions for best practices, the collaborative discussions serve a starting point and a foundation for engaged learning within communities of practice, a shared understanding of the child in context and an emergent transformation of ECCE initial professional qualifications. Reflections recorded during a PIECCE community of practice meeting (3 July 2019):

The deep engagement with each other that we have had the opportunity to be part of, has forged relationships between institutions and individuals. This in turn leads to further partnerships. Through collaboration we can encourage diverse thinking, build unity, and develop group problem solving skills. Collaboration in PIECCE has broadened everyone’s understanding of Birth to Four practices in the sector.’

For a start, there are diverse frames of reference amongst teachers, researchers, lecturers, NGO partners and other role-players about quality in ECCE. Moreover, the miscellany of frames of references became evident when, a diverse team conducted research together at diverse ECCE sites. The researcher needed to ascribe meaning to her sundry of observations, experiences and deductions. This highlighted that diversity of contexts is among the most neglected aspects in ECCE and surely the most challenging. Collaborating with “the doers” in the ECCE workforce, “those” who have initiated changes in their practice, was an effective starting point to gain a shared understanding of the dilemmas ECCE centres are faced with.

Stepping back from their own frames of reference and becoming more understanding of their participants enriched the understandings of the phenomenon. By observing ECCE practices through the eyes of three academic lecturers, within various contexts, impacted how to design the initial professional qualifications, the content that is include and the materials that are developing. The vision for the initial professional programme along with the mode of delivery and andragogy also required rethinking and ascribing new meaning. To transform ECCE practices from the outside to affect change on the inside required challenging, as academic lecturers, our own set of beliefs and value judgements. Envisioning a thinking teacher who is acutely aware, critically reflective, inclusive and collaborative requires diverse stakeholders engagement beyond the four walls of a higher institution.

5.2. Autonomy respecting assistance

A collaborative opportunity at the “autonomous” PIECCE project, shared the following insight in the panel discussion (PIECCE Panel discussion, 22 August 2017):

‘We say it ‘takes a village to raise a child’, but it also takes a village to raise an ECCE practitioner. From stakeholder collaboration we are learning new lessons: that we need a new consciousness of community support; and that teacher education in ECCE needs strong levels of mentorship and with an emphasis on academic support.’

This was one quandary that the academic lecturers experienced which led us back to the ECCE research sites to conduct another stage in the action research process to gain deeper insight of the ECCE realities that require change. We came to face a predicament—

‘ … in the classroom, the practitioner used the ELDAs [Early Learning Development Areas], not sure if she understands the curriculum. When she [teacher] comes from the workshop, she implements what she has been taught, Children wait until the practitioners tell them what to do (Bloemfontein site visit, 19 September 2018).

… [teachers seems] undertrained, and some appear not to understand how to interact with the children’ (Bloemfontein site visit, 19 September 2018).

‘ … there is a lack of stability in the workforce, condition of service is poor with little systemic responses to teacher education in birth to four’ (ECTE, 11 December 2019).

Collaborative reflections from different frames of references assisted our autonomous thinking about why these observations cause reasons for concern. The “book knowledge” about universal best practice was merely transferred to the pre-service teachers and not mentored, explicated, or helped with inside the ECCE classroom. The borrowing of ECCE training material between two distinct providers, namely the non-governmental organisations (NGO) and higher education institutions (HEI) are further reinforcing the fragmentary practices. The principles of commonality for autonomy by doers is non-present which energises “helpers”. The helper should have promoted peer-to-peer learning to spread, to adapt, and to expand the knowledge to other doers. With the “fix” and “one-size-fits-all” attitude from helpers, the vision for teachers to gradually become confident in their capacity and abilities to function independently from mentors and to think autonomously is not observed.

Current training in ECCE is entrenched by Western domination, disabling autonomy and encouraging disparity between general and indigenous knowledge; since help given from a dominant book-knowledge perspective will not be suited for local situations. Progressive Transformative Teacher Education requires, from curriculum developers, to plan the initial professional qualification from where the “doers” are. Envisioning personal and professional growth requires a frame of reference that is mirrors the daily realities of an in-service ECCE teacher.

6. Implications

Progressive Transformative Teacher Education in the ECCE sector is not a “nice-to-have” but a “must-have”. By using the conceptual hooks, the meaning-making framework opened the researcher’s eyes and also provided lenses to make sense of the dilemma as seen from the ECCE teachers’ point of view. The implications that arose from this study highlight four significant areas that require attention in the process of transforming ECCE initial professional qualification.

• Systemic level: to develop a thinking teacher that is responsive to the diverse needs of children, stakeholder engagement and collaboration is central in attaining ECCE intact.

• Institutional level: there is a dire need to provide support to teachers at all levels to ensure access for professional growth and development. Support offered from top-down, predominant or technical level is not appropriate for local circumstances. Therefore, individual, and institutional capacity building in and of ECCE is required.

• Classroom level: Current ECCE initial professional qualifications are not successfully responding to culturally relevant ways of knowing and doing. Thus, material development that is contextually responsive, to meet the demands of the field and incite progressive and transformative practices requires careful thought.

• Individual level: continuous professional development opportunities for teachers are inconsistent and to develop progressive and transformed teachers is to offer opportunities to build a professional and competent workforce individual by individual.

7. Findings and discussion

The intention of this paper was to respond to how academic lecturers interpret Progressive Transformative Teacher Education to inform ECCE initial professional qualifications. The ECCE workforce is unstable and existing practices of training teachers are divided. This leads to the ECCE workforce being vulnerable and unable to respond to the diversity of dilemmas that challenge the educational space of the very young child. There was diversity within ECCE sites, between lecturers, NGOs and teachers. This diversity presented a quandary which required a thoughtful response. In addition, initial professional qualifications in ECCE in South Africa are still in infancy stages with little evidence at this point to make value judgements of its quality and effectiveness. It is however, good timing for established organisations to evaluate and monitor the quality of initial professional qualifications for ECCE from a Progressive Transformative stance. The Progressive Transformative theoretical frameworks of Mezirow and Ellerman, enabled the researcher to understand the progressive build-up or historicity of events that create opportunity for change; adoption of various habits of mind; becoming autonomous thinkers and ultimately a transformed teacher. In addition, the necessity of building a competent and professional ECCE workforce was grounded in notion of autonomy respecting assistance. The process of theorising transformation is one way that to make sense of our experiences and put the pieces together to transform ECCE teacher education.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge Prof. H.B Ebrahim and Dr Mary Clasquin-Johnson, as well as all the PIECCE consortium members for their contribution to this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author received no directfunding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Dm Hannaway

Dr Donna Hannaway holds a PHD in Early Childhood Education. She is the PQM Manager in the College of Education at the University of South Africa. Her research interests lie in technology-based teaching and learning as well as transformative teacher education in the early years. She is also a teacher educator and manages programme development and accreditation. She has published in local and international journals within her niche area.