Being a Teacher: Section Two - Being a teacher in South Africa. This section is not as strongly rooted in South Africa as its title suggests. It addresses the basic question of what it means to be a teacher in a broader social setting.
This module is an attempt to dispel much of this uncertainty, to help you understand and cope with a degree of uncertainty, and to help you to develop some of the special competences needed to meet the challenges of being a teacher. As you study this module, it may be helpful to think of yourself as undertaking a ‘journey’, moving towards a clearer understanding of the world of teaching as you answer questions that increase your practical competence and professional confidence.
In this section, the key questions will therefore focus on the personal and public contexts in which teaching takes place in South Africa. The section begins by stepping back to question our ‘common-sense’ view about the need for teachers, before going on to explore what motivates teachers to take up teaching as a career.