MY PERSONAL TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

My name is Sibongokuhle Gladness Masango from the rural areas of Elukwatini in Mpumalanga Province. I am currently enrolled for B Ed foundation phase at the University of Mpumalanga, teacher’s education campus in Siyabuswa and I am doing my first year of the four year course.

My goal as a teacher is to give the learners the correct and appropriate foundation education that will ensure that they develop fully so that they may find the rest of their lives to be a little bit easier. With the experience that I have had in the past, I have noticed that many learners struggle not only academically but also in their personal lives due to insufficient development in the foundation phase. A lot especially in the black community end up hating school and not succeeding in life because they were never given the chance to develop as a normal child is supposed to. This can be due to a lot of things and the foundation phase teacher is the key to all this changing because they are the ones who determine how or to what a child will grow up to be like.

The work of a foundation phase teacher is very delicate and fragile. They have to make sure that they care for the child properly in all aspects and be protectors of the child. Nowadays, most of the parents are teenagers and do not really know how to raise a child properly since they also are kids themselves so the work is usually pushed to the grandmothers. The grandmothers too are also tired of this because they have their own lives to live and have played their part in raising their kids. When they are given these small children, they see them as burdens. At the end of the day the child is left alone and feels deserted thus they tend to be unruly and development is slowed. The world has changed from what it was before because there used to be a saying that goes like; ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, but these days it is not like that, u raise your own child and the village (community) will corrupt it for you.

My aim for doing this degree is to change the perception and the way of life in the communities that we live in today. I believe that before we can even try to change the child we have to change the environment in which the child lives. The surroundings under which a child lives or grows up has a huge role to play as the early childhood theories have said for example the Bio-ecological, contextualist, behaviourists, constructivists theories and etc. if we as the older generation lack values and morals, then what are we going to be teaching our kids. These days it is all about what is cool and expensive than what is right. If we could change the mind-set of the whole society then our kids will sure be better developed.

As a foundation phase teacher, I have to ensure that my learners are safe and secure meaning that I have to know what goes on in their lives after school so that if there is something wrong I can try and help the child. I see all foundation phase learners as innocent little souls who are products of dysfunctional societies and just need proper care, be given the correct directions to life and also given the chance to develop fully in all aspects so that they can find their true talents not the ones that will quickly give them money. 

I personally aim at changing the future of South Africa through the foundation phase learners by giving them what they need and not what I want.  If learners were allowed to develop to their full potential and their development be understood by foundation phase teachers then we would not be having these problems. We as foundation phase teachers will have to teach the parents and community how to treat and behave in front of their children so that the learner can be allowed to process things on their own and at the end of the day not blame their parents. We cannot expect to raise good and perfect children if we as adults still have the bad habits that turned us to be the kind of society we are now. We have to stop praising money and work on ethics, morals and values.