Life Skills teachers’ experiences of human rights education: possibilities for transformative curriculum development
Abstract
One would expect schools in a democratic country to be a safe haven. Unfortunately this is not the case for all schools. In many South African schools, human rights violations persist. Even though the Life Skills curriculum content advocates for and teaches against human rights violations, these violations continue. This research study focused on Life Skills teachers’ experiences when interpreting and implementing human rights education and it explored the possibilities of a transformative curriculum. The scholarly literature explored the possibilities of conceptualising a curriculum for justice. Underpinned by curriculum studies as informed by currere, this conception provides a critical curriculum development perspective. As the focus of this research study resonates with HRE, this chapter also unlocks slow pedagogy as a theoretical insight for fostering transformative curriculum development with a curriculum for justice as the ideal. In this exploration, a qualitative single case study methodology was employed and an idealist interpretivism paradigm underpinned this study. Employing purposive sampling, data was generated through document analysis of the Life Skills Curriculum and Assessment Policy documents and through interviews with Life Skills teachers in two primary schools. All the generated data was analysed using content analysis. Seven themes have emerged from the findings. The first theme reveals that teachers are sometimes frustrated when teaching human rights education and alternatives such as a curriculum for justice could be considered when revisiting curriculum development. Secondly, the Life Skills curriculum is underpinned by the ten human rights values that are promoted by The Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy (Department of Education, 2001a). Thirdly, this research study also reveals that teachers are already using slow pedagogy (the quality and depth of the curriculum) when teaching human rights education in the classroom and that it has proved to be beneficial for both the learners and the teachers. However, despite the strides that the curriculum and the teachers are making towards educating learners on human rights education, South African society is still riddled with human rights injustices, as the fourth theme shows. The fifth theme reveals that curriculum-as-lived is crucial and should be infused with the formal curriculum when teaching human rights. For the Life Skills curriculum to be transformative, human rights education should be more conceptually accessible to learners. Two possible factors that could hinder this are age and language as is revealed by the sixth theme. In the last theme, it becomes evident that teachers rely on the Department of Basic Education to provide them with support in addressing the challenges they face when teaching human rights education in the Life Skills curriculum. The research study concludes by highlighting possible limitations and making suggestions for further research.
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