Eerstejaarstudente se Belewing van Leerderdissipline tydens Praktiese Onderwys

Abstract

Despite a steady stream of publications recently on learner discipline at South African schools two lacunae persist: a perspective of student teachers (while doing their practice teaching), and a value perspective. The aim of this article is to fill these two lacunae. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to investigate first year student teachers’ experience of learner discipline in the schools where they did their teaching practice. It was found that while relatively minor forms of malbehaviour dominate when it comes to learner discipline problems; it is the frequent occurrences of these problems which is cause for concern. Amongst the learners, the dominance of so-called “self-centred” values with the concomitant de facto negation of religiously centred values should be taken into account in the selection and choice of methods to maintain discipline, for the sake of creating a positive teaching-learning environment. Concerning the values of educators, it was found that they act in accordance with values expected from educators, but that the poor state of learner discipline in schools bring/force them to act out of self-defence or self maintenance, to the detriment of religiously founded values. This underlines the urgency that the disciplinary environment in which educators work should be improved, in order to enable educators to realise those values which the profession requires and on which effective teaching and learning are based.