Teaching for results or for well-being? To what Extent can pedagogical tact be an alternative teaching approach in Refugee secondary schools? A hermeneutic phenomenology inquiry into the lived experience of teaching refugee students in Dadaab refugee camp
Kalisha, W.
Abstract:
Somali refugees have had a long history of displacement and crises since the 1970’s. They have lived in protracted refugee situations in a marginalized refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya for over two decades now. Their movements and access to essential services like education is restricted to organizations like United Nations Higher Commission on Refugees (UNHRC) and other providers of education. Research in refugee education is an emerging field of study that has however limited itself to showing the available educational opportunities, provision of quality education in such contexts with an emphasis on resources available and donor funding. It seems from the research work already done that the work of teachers in refugee schools is emphasized from a positivistic oriented research paradigm that uses means-end methodologies to enhance the technical aspects of teaching, with little attention paid on the non-technical aspects and experiences of teaching. The concern in most emergency and refugee camps is that the group of students being encountered is a special one in need of psychological, emotional, cognitive care, a sense of belonging among other existential needs in dealing with their present realities. With this in mind, positivistic paradigms on teaching approaches do not bear much fruit in nurturing the young ones into holistic growth. A teacher experience acknowledges that teaching is much more than execution of technical tasks. This paper aims to discuss aspects of teaching where the issue is not skill-based strategies but the necessity for pedagogical tactfulness or the sensitivity or sensitiveness to a situation that enables the teacher to do what is pedagogically right for the child. By use of a hermeneutic phenomenology research methodology, I endeavor to propose how pedagogical tact can be researched phenomenologically in education especially in refugee contexts. I will use the field work interview material and other literature to provide an alternative to the highly technical teaching espoused in educational research.
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APA citation
- Kalisha, W. (2013). Teaching for results or for well-being? To what Extent can pedagogical tact be an alternative teaching approach in Refugee secondary schools? A hermeneutic phenomenology inquiry into the lived experience of teaching refugee students in Dadaab refugee camp Kenya. International Journal of Teaching and Education, 1(1), 84–100.