Patterns of classroom practice and the history curriculum reforms in Zimbabwean secondary schools

[摘要] Research on implementation has shown that curriculum reform is a complex and controversial process, littered with unfulfilled policy pronouncements and unfinished business (Cohen, 1990; Cuban, 1993; Fullan, 2000(a); Spillane, 2002; Sahlberg, 2006; Zindi, 2018). Rarely are policies implemented as written or as intended by their initiators (Ganon-Shilon & Schechter, 2017:4); but this has not deterred policy makers from rolling out new reform projects in an attempt to correct the shortcomings of previous reform initiatives. The present study examines teachers' interpretations of new curriculum policy and how their sense making of reform signals influences their classroom practices as they implement a new curriculum in Zimbabwean secondary schools. Using a multiple case study of four history teachers, who had started implementing the new history curriculum with Form 3 classes in January 2017, I explored how the teachers' interpretations and understanding of reform policy influenced their choice of teaching methods. An analysis of various curriculum reform policy documents, semi-structured interviews with the teachers and extensive non-participatory lesson observations enabled me to gain in-depth insights and explanations into how teachers' understanding of new reform policy influenced their patterns of classroom practice. The intention is to ascertain congruence, or dissonance, between the teaching methods the policy documents recommend and the classroom practices teachers actually engaged in.The key findings of this study suggest that teachers lacked knowledge on the new history curriculum reforms they were implementing. It appears that the new curriculum was hurriedly introduced without adequate teacher consultation, reform dialogue and preparations for the anticipated changes. One fundamental change in the new curriculum that the teachers seemed to lack knowledge on was the practical execution of the research based continuous assessment tasks which required students to collect data outside the school yard. Although all the four teachers appeared to know that the new curriculum required them to use learner-centred pedagogy, only one teacher in the present study had completely transformed her classroom practice to meet this policy requirement. The other three teachers' patterns of practice tended to vacillate between tradition and change with very little observable progress towards learner-centred classroom practices, as demanded by policy prescriptions.The findings of the present study also challenge the commonly held myth that large classes influence teachers to use rote pedagogy and, conversely, small class sizes encourage teachers to use learner-centred pedagogy (Geoff, 2014:133). The most progressive teacher in this study (Emmy) used progressive learner-centred pedagogy in a class with 49 students and totally avoided rote pedagogy. David, with a class of only 20 students, still believed that the teacher must play his role as the master of the subject and so teacher exposition, dictation and note giving are inevitable in history instruction. It was also unexpected that Emmy's classroom practices were ahead of official reform policy. This was rather unusual as teachers are 'historical beings and schools are 'conservative institutions that cannot easily shed their old habits in pursuit of new practices (Cohen, 1990; Fullan and Miles, 1992). But Emmy had totally discarded the old teaching methods in favour of progressive practices. Another unusual finding from my study was that a teacher's positive attitude towards reform does not necessarily make their classroom practice learner-centred. One teacher in the present study accepted the new history curriculum from the beginning but, for a variety of reasons, she still depended on lecturing and dictation in her classroom practice.This study recommends collective consultation and reform dialogue between policy makers and teachers as a way of reducing the gap between reform policy and what teachers actually do in the classroom. It is necessary to empower teachers with knowledge of the change process, by putting in place comprehensive change strategies and practical implementation mechanisms, so that they understand why it is necessary to change the curriculum and how they can implement the required changes. When decisions are made to reform curriculum policy in Zimbabwe, teacher interests must be represented at national level so that the teachers own the changes. Due to lack of collective consultation (NCRS Report, 2017:15) the unpopular research-based Continuous Assessment Tasks were officially withdrawn from the schools in March 2018, until a time when better a research based model is developed. I took up this challenge and developed a Research Task Model (RTM) which can be conducted by history students, without going outside the school yard to search for data, so that research–based learning becomes a reality in Zimbabwean secondary schools.

[发布机构] University of the Free State