Committed to student diversity : teacher narratives of becoming different

Abstract

With the increase of diverse students in today's classrooms, teachers need to differentiate instruction in order to be able to address students' wide variety of strengths and needs. This study explored the teachers' professional journey in responding to student diversity through a narrative approach. Six primary school teachers who differentiated instruction responded to open ended interviews that allowed them to narrate their lived experiences. Findings showed that they had a strong commitment to their profession stemming from their strong beliefs regarding child-centred education, a quality education for all, and respect for diversity. They described several struggles which they had to face. These teachers reported changing professionally as they faced these challenges by: becoming familiar with the syllabus; becoming practical; making efficient use of group work; using multilevel handouts which look similar; observing the children to reach them; teaching unskilled learning support assistants; and by educating parents. Various recommendations arose from the study including the need for the education authorities to provide adequate training in differentiated teaching both in initial teacher education programmes as well as in in-service training and the need for a support system which caters for the psychological and emotional care of teachers to enable them to embrace change.