Using the Capacity Approach to improve the sustainability of teacher inservice training

Tanzanian teachers often value ‘being able to control class’ (in order to help students learn), however unfortunately, corporal punishment is often a result of teachers contending with constraint on this functioning. Teachers are resigned to the fact that short periods and large class sizes were systemic problems that they could not change, however noisy children who were constraining their capability ‘to be in control’ was something that teachers felt they could contend with. A teacher attested to this process when noting:

If you punish a pupil and you hurt them very badly, it makes me upset. But that is caused because of the high concentration of pupils in the class. It’s very hard to control them in the class, so sometimes I have to use a stick. It causes me frustration and anxiety…But sometimes the environment forces me to use the stick (Peri-urban Male Teacher).

This view – that caning is a ‘forced’ action – demonstrates that teachers do not often have alternative nonviolent classroom management techniques at hand; so even if a teacher does not like to cane, she often feels that that is the only way to contend with the constraint of a noisy class. It should be noted that it was preventive non-violent classroom management techniques that teachers lacked (those that allow teachers to control class and pre-empt disruption), rather than punitive non-violent techniques (such as making children squat, or do frog jumps and push-ups), which were used a great deal but could still be argued to be violations of students’ physiological and psychological integrity.

Another instance of being ‘forced’ to cane was discussed by a teacher from the peri-urban school who stated, “I don't like caning, but it is necessary. If you don't cane, the students will just keep talking and not learn. You tell them one time, two times, three times, and they do not listen. It makes me angry.” This quote suggests how corporal punishment is used first because students constrain a teacher’s capability to teach, but then this constraint is exacerbated as the repeated ignoring of a teacher’s requests constrains two other valued capabilities – ‘being respected’ and ‘being free from shame’ (or rather, ‘not losing face’). Darwall (1977) delineates two forms of respect that can be related to what teachers valued: recognition respect, which consists of giving appropriate recognition or consideration to an individual by virtue of their role or position; and appraisal respect, which is predicated on a judgment of an individual’s behaviour or achievements. In this teacher’s case, recognition respect was an entitlement to be gleaned by her position as a teacher, and students ignoring her requests constituted constraint on this capability. With regard to appraisal respect, this was contingent upon her meeting various expectations set by broader discourses and codes of conduct (such as having an obedient class). Thus, when students repeatedly ignored the teacher, not only was her recognition respect constrained, so was her appraisal respect, as having control of her class was a common expectation she was assumed to meet.

Given these problems, it seems that implications for EGR training that is sustained by teachers should entail classroom management techniques that are grounded in context and experience, and not imposed by a cultural outsider. Such contextualised alternatives are needed, as legislation alone does not stop teachers from caning, nor do interventions that simply demand the elimination of corporal punishment from a rights-based perspective. As a teacher noted:

...this organisation from Mwanza, they are called Kuleana. They came there with their rules. Children will not do work in the house...they shouldn't be hit. Where do those rules come from? Are these coming from