More Than a Teacher is a holistic teacher development programme, designed to equip pre-service teachers with tools for their professional, personal, and spiritual growth. The programme lends its approach to the principles of transformative learning.
Transformative learning supports critical ways in which pre-service teachers consciously make meaning of their lives, beyond just learning a concept and leaving it at that (Daniel Brown, Transformative learning).
This model is built on the notion of agency, the ability of young people to be actors and decision-makers in the process of bettering their lives. Amartya Sen describes development as the ‘freedom to choose the life that you might have reason to value’ (Development as Freedom 1999).
Vision
More than a curriculum, more than the classroom, more than a teacher for more communities.Mission
More Than a Teacher is committed to becoming a global vocational training movement, embedded in Christ-centred (value-based) approaches to develop integrated, inclusive, and holistic educators for all the classroom and beyond, in collaboration with the community.Why Teaching
“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, and that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.” Nelson Mandela. “The power of education extends beyond the development of skills we need for economic success. It can contribute to nation-building and reconciliation.”Why More Than a Teacher
Our holistic, integrated, and person-centred approach sets apart the More Than a Teacher’s approach from other pre-service teacher training programmes. Below is a list of unique offerings that the More Than a Teacher approach provides:- An intentional focus on pre-service teachers’ personal, social, emotional, spiritual, and cognitive development.
- The facilitation of partnerships between the public and private sectors. This strengthens each party through their joint focus on the development of pre-service teachers.
- Gradually developing a network for the exchange of pre-service teachers between schools.
- Exposure to public and private contexts.
- Fostering a culture of diversity as well as an awareness and appreciation of differences.
- Providing volunteer opportunities in townships, rural communities, and informal settlements. Reinforcing the culture of young people as solution providers for South Africans’ educational obstacles.
- Utilizing the wealth of knowledge from experienced educators, retired principals, independent education consultants, and field experts to shape learning processes.
- Provide credible role models for learners.
- Creating pathways to employment for young people from under-resourced communities.
Values
Kutloano Toko
Managing Director
Pearl Makhene
Head of Marketing and Communication
Riekies Huisamen
Head of Learning and Development
Sifiso Mdletshe
More Than a Coach Programme Coordinator
