Negotiating teacher pedagogies within a transforming South African schooling setting

Abstract

The paper focuses on the dynamics surrounding teacher’s work in which a combination of teacher personal and professional identities help shape the way teachers conduct their professions. The paper explores various ways in which teacher’s training and the personal choices tend to inform their pedagogical approaches. The spaces in which teachers work are not only complex but they tend influence the teacher- student relationships which ultimately paly a central role in determining learner success. The paper explores some of the issues related to measuring teacher competencies through results. The papers key argument is that to understand the work of teachers a holistic approach to understanding their identities, their professional competencies, approach to work as well as the work context out to be followed as any narrowly construed approach would not result in any meaningful understanding of the complexities surrounding teacher pedagogies especially in a transforming setting. The paper is based on review of literature and it adopted a constructivist approach in its interpretation of arguments.