INTRODUCTION Akerson, Flick and Lederman (2000: 364) define - PDF document

4/7/2014 INTRODUCTION • Akerson, Flick and Lederman (2000: 364) define children’s ideas “as experience-based explanations constructed by the learner to make a range of phenomena and objects intelligible.” • Thus the home environment, as well as the social interactions children are involved in – from home The Paradox of Teaching Indigenous Knowledge Systems to school, shape their understanding and in South African Schools – A Natural Science Perspective interpretation of what takes place in their lives. By Prof. Sitwala Namwinji Imenda University of Zululand – April 1, 2014 Introduction Introduction • Typically, however, indigenous students' everyday ways of understanding and school • With reference to scientific knowledge, it is science ways of understanding are often very widely acknowledged that “ideas about the different (Chigeza, 2007: 10). biological world are developed in early • Quite importantly, indigenous students, childhood prior to children reaching school particularly in the remote areas, grow up with age.” (Prokop, Prokop, Tunnicliffe & Diran, an understanding of the world that is 2007: 62). subsumed with the meta-physical and supernatural, and antithetical to scientific ways of understanding (Chigeza, 2007: 10). Statement of the Research Problem STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM • The National Curriculum Statement stipulates “one of the • Clearly, this goal is an expression of school differences between modern Science and Technology and science ways of understanding, as opposed to traditional, indigenous knowledge systems is that they have everyday ways of understanding, which typified their origins in different world views (Department of Basic most of indigenous knowledge systems. Education [DBE], 2011: 8). • This realisation, in itself, expresses an inherent tension • Discourse around the possibilities of, and between the two knowledge forms, particularly when the modalities for, teaching indigenous knowledge overall goal of Natural Science and Technology is stipulated systems as an integrated part of the Natural as the “pursuit of new knowledge and understanding of the Science and Technology curriculum, as espoused world around us and of natural phenomena [and the creation of structures, systems and processes to meet in the NCS, is therefore imperative and urgent. peoples’ needs and improving the quality of life.” (DBE: 9). 1

4/7/2014 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES METHODOLOGY • Primary Objective • This was a survey study focusing on – To identify and document grade 6 learners’ respondents’ own qualitative descriptions of notions of the respective roles and functions of what they considered to be the main role and selected internal body parts, namely: liver, brain, functions of the liver in a living body. heart, lungs, kidneys and spleen. • The learners who participated in this study • Secondary Objective came from a predominantly rural area in – To make an overall assessment of the nature of the responses given by the learners against the KwaMbonambi, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. requirements of the Main Stream Science (MSS) curriculum. Methodology Methodology • Data collection was made by way of a researcher- • For the majority of these learners, exposure to designed instrument consisting of open-ended the scientific world is very limited and the questions, formulated as follows: tenets of MSS are encountered mainly � Please, describe what you understand to be the role through school teaching, while traditional life and function of a liver in a living body . and culture remain their dominant sources of � ( Ngicela, uchaze ngolwakho ulwazi ukuthi iyini both informal and non-formal learning. indima nomsebenzi wesibindi emzimbeni ophilayo.) • Altogether, there were 197 participants – 101 � In subsequent sections, “liver” was substituted girls and 96 boys – all doing grade 6 drawn by other internal body parts, in turn – namely, from four primary schools. brain, heart, lungs, kidneys and spleen. Methodology Methodology • Data comprised passages written by the • The reason for using isiZulu was eliminate English, respondents in response to the research question. as a possible communication barrier, given that at • A first language speaker of isiZulu, holding a degree Grade 6 level, most of these rural students have in English language served as a translator of the not yet mastered the language for easy data collected. communication. • Data analysis involved the identification and coding • Further, at their level it was felt that a lot may be of emerging themes of the qualitative data lost in the translation from isiZulu to English. gathered. • It was also envisaged that using isiZulu would allow • The emerging themes were defined and redefined them to express constructs and notions in ways into progressively fewer categories under which the that would be typical of their culture and social various responses were classified until final conditions. categories were arrived at. 2

4/7/2014 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Results and Discussion Demographics • In the analysis of all passages that were • The research sample consisted of a total of provided by the respondents, across the six 197 duly completed responses; seven “spoilt internal body parts, over 95% were context- papers” which were completely unreadable. based – and made no reference to MSS. • There were slightly more boys (51%) than girls • Instead, they were, almost invariably, all based (49%) – with ages ranging from 11 to 18. within the context of the meta-physical and • The home language (HL) for all respondents supernatural world of the respondents. was isiZulu and their first additional language (FAL) was English. Examples (Continued) EXAMPLES � It enables one to decide/choose what he/she likes � “The function of the liver is that if you want to do or do not like. You are able to listen to your heart. If something scary you gather courage, because you you think too much, the heart stops, and if you have want to housebreak and commit robbery. Even if you done something wrong it beats very fast. If the are ill you may go to the traditional healer who takes heart does not like food you will not eat. It is like the liver and mixes it with the herbs for healing the ill when you want to go and the heart does not feel person. There are different types of liver: one which like going, you stay. It makes you decide on what belongs to the goat, cow and human being. I would you are thinking. It is the source of life. [F, 12] like to stress on the human liver, because it makes him attack innocent people. You will die or you will get arrested when you have killed people. You steal people’s stuff and kill people.” [F, 11] Examples (Continued) Examples (Continued) � The brain is there so that when you are ill you know � They use the heart of a dead person on another how to look for help from traditional healers and person who needs it. One cannot live without a fortune tellers. The fortune tellers are able to help heart. The traditional healers use it to cure you when you are ill, they give you herbs and people. The heart is used by izangoma or spiritual medicines, and they are also able to tell you about healers, they clean the bladder or womb, even at spiritual things. Their herbal mixtures help a lot, the clinics they can help. They can help you with they sometimes ask you to use the enema. They an animal heart (any animal). The crushed heart also go to traditional and spiritual healers to ask for of an animals helps in cleaning the inside of a holy water. The traditional/spiritual healer person. It gets rid of all the problems. [M, 11] performs their rituals in the special house, specially built for this. [F, 13] 3