LEARNERS’ PERCEPTION AS TO WHAT CONTRIBUTES TO THEIR SCHOOL SUCCESS
LEARNERS’ PERCEPTION AS TO WHAT CONTRIBUTES TO THEIR SCHOOL SUCCESS
A dialogical basis for the identified themes can, essentially, be characterised by the principle of reciprocal engagement, for it is clear that the teachers and their learners are mutually approachable, available, toler- ant and devoted; their encounters create and maintain an atmosphere of nearness, simultaneousness, belonging, voluntary in- teraction, genuine caring, sincere intimacy (closeness) and transparent participation (co-operation/collaboration) as well as ac- quiescence, equanimity, mutual acceptance and selfless reciprocity.
It seems that what makes the schools in the case study such examples of academic excellence, could, perhaps, in the final anal- ysis be ascribed to the fact that parents, members of the wider community, as well as teachers aim to instruct the learners with regard to developing and improving their critical
life- and social skills, including de-
cision-making, refusal skills, critical analysis and systematic judgment abilities, as well as how to make sound judgments.
Mutual acceptance seems to be the primary condition for the kind of successful pedagog- ical dialogue described above. A combina- tion of these six essential qualities of mutual acceptance is required to achieve successful dialogue, as illustrated in figure 15:
n appeal (the teacher directs a pedagogi- cal appeal to the learners)
n expectation (the teachers expect their learners to give their very best and the learners expect their teachers to give their very best)
n voluntary capitulation of the learners to the authority of their teacher educa- tors and a voluntary show of continuous goodwill towards them
n response (the learners – of their own volition – decide to respond to the ap- peal made by their educators)
n commitment (teachers and learners are equally committed to the latter’s aca- demic success)
n Experiencing reciprocity and mutuality.
Based on his/her subject knowledge as well as on his/her subject pedagogy expertise, the teacher directs an educative appeal to his/her learners to participate in the teach- ing and learning process. This appeal leads him/her to have certain legitimate expecta- tions of the learners – not only in terms of their subsequent behaviour, but also (and most importantly) in terms of their subse- quent academic achievement.
Because the learners are convinced by (and of) their teacher’s proven subject and ped- agogy expertise, they voluntarily submit to his/her educative authority.
This leads them to respond to their teach- er’s educative appeal by committing them- selves to the task at hand with the result that both teacher and learner experience a sincere and profound reciprocity and mutuality that eventually culminates in the learners’ academic success (refer Figure 1).
Figure 2 is the re-interpretation of Teddlie and Reynolds’ (2000) and Creemers and Kyriakides’ (2009) dynamic model of edu- cational effectiveness: successful academic achievement at school explained from the fountainhead of mutual acceptance and the bedrock of pedagogical dialogue
Successful academic achievement (C) at a school seems to be the result of optimal pedagogical dialogical relationships among teachers (B) and learners (A). These rela- tionships take shape in a context consist- ing of several layers ranging from the wider community in which the school is situated to the actual teaching-learning situation in classrooms.
Successful academic achievement can only materialise if and when all the structural el- ements included in Figure 2 are in place. Schools can therefore use Figure 2 for de- termining for themselves whether they are indeed performing in terms of all the es- sential ontological demands for academic success.1
Expectation
2
3
Voluntary submission to the authority of teacher-educators and goodwill shown towards them
Appeal
1
4
Response
Corrective feedback and action
Experiencing niveau-promoting reciprocity and mutuality
6
5 Commitment
FIGURE 1. Towards an understanding of why some poorly resourced schools manage to perform academically excellent: interrelationship between the six essential qualities of mutual acceptance as primary condition for successful pedagogical dialogue.
B. PARENTS AND TEACHERS
A. LEARNERS
The
Education System
The Wider Societal Context
The School
THE TEACHER LEARNING SITUATION
C. SUCCESSFUL ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
1 Moloi, K.C., Dzvimbo, K.P., Potgieter, F.J., Wolhuter, C.C. & Van Der Walt, J.L. (eds) 2010. Learners’ perceptions as to what contributes to their school success: a case study. South African Journal of Education, Vol 30:475-490.
FIGURE 2: School successes
96 CHAPTER 5 | TOWARDS QUALITY BASIC EDUCATION
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