‘I got content with who I was’: Rural teachers’ encounters with new ways of practising literacy

Abstract

In a context where Foundation Phase literacy teachers’ personal literacy often involves operational and technicist practices rather than creative, this paper argues that it is by exposing teachers to experiences of working with different genres of text for an extended time, in different fields, that teachers are able to imagine the possibilities these genres afford. Using a Bourdieusian framework of habitus, field, capital and doxa and applying imagination to the theorisation of these concepts, I examine the effect on a group of rural teachers from Limpopo province of being removed from their classrooms, and being given the opportunity to complete a 4-year Bachelor of Education degree at the University of the Witwatersrand. This case study used reflective journals and focus groups to trace shifts in the ways these teacher-students enacted literacy and thought about teaching literacy. Findings from this study suggest that teachers of literacy can change deeply entrenched ways of thinking about and valuing literacy by reflecting on the discontinuities between old and new ways of practice and, through anticipatory reflection, to imagine possibilities of teaching and enacting literacy differently. This requires critical imagination, awareness and agency. This paper discusses, in particular, Elela’s experience with poetry and Kganya’s experience with a drama script, assessing the effect this had on their personal literacy practices and how they imagine teaching literacy in the future.

Identity, Agency and Imagination in Literacy Acquisition Narratives of Northern Cape Teachers

“…In this sense, one might say that agency exists "in the interstices between people, rather than within individuals themselves" (Ahearn 2001, 129). Gennrich (2016), using Bourdieu's concept of habitus, related to identity and defined by Bourdieu (1991, 12) as "a set of dispositions which incline agents to act and react in certain ways," calls such a critical experience of difference "a rupture in field" which makes possible a shift in habitus. If such a rupture does not occur, "an individual is like a 'fish in water' and does not 'feel the weight of the water and takes the world about itself for granted'" (Bourdieu andWacquant 1992, 127, cited in Gennrich 2016, 2).…”

“…Although Mrs Mkwayi's school learning made next to no use of the imagination, her drive to become literate appears to have been fuelled by the "generative imagination" (Gennrich 2016) of her family, who aspired to live in a different kind of world.…”

“…Its findings support Carstens' (2014) contention that relatedness is a strong catalyst for literacy development, as well as van der Mescht's (2015) study on the value of "playing school" in learning to read and write. It resonates most strongly, however, with the work of Gennrich (2016), who discusses the importance of the imagination in enabling shifts in literary habitus.…”

“…In South Africa, Carstens (2014), Gennrich (2016) and van der Mescht (2015) are among those who have conducted literacy development studies using teacher language and literacy narratives and journals. Carstens (2014), using New Literacy Studies, identifies relatedness as an important catalyst in literacy acquisition.…”

“…She finds that nearly one-third of her subjects learned to read from other children and recommends more play-based learning in schools. Gennrich (2016) uses the theories of Bourdieu (1991) in her exploration of changes in literate habitus through stimulus of the imagination by poetry and drama study.…”