Sustaining Quality Teaching and Learning to Instil Good Discipline and Academic Performance

This book presents an engaging as well as inspiring array of issues and insights drawn from the perspective of dialogic imagination aimed at quality teaching and learning experiences. The authors passionately uphold their belief that the prevalence of good discipline and good academic performance are mutually interrelated and if these two prevail in the ecosphere of any classroom, these can significantly enrich and enhance the quality of learning in any school settings. Based on this, South Africa has made huge strides towards improving the quality of education and people’s lives. However, discipline and academic performance still lag behind, due to the lack of quality teaching, which also prevents the Department of Education from accomplishing its objectives. Ironically, this takes place at a time when the government has resolved to prioritise education, among other important developmental issues.To this effect, this book explores how quality teaching and learning can ensure that discipline and academic performance prevail. It shows that quality teaching and learning have the potential to determine discipline and academic performance; particularly now that other disciplinary measures have been seen to be ineffective. It is framed theoretically by the school improvement theory supported by Radical Constructivism and Critical Realism, and uses case studies to highlight its findings.The book shows that quality teaching and learning can free human potential and ensure that it is developed in line with democratic ideals, and identifies the environment as playing an important role in ascertaining whether or not quality teaching and learning can determine discipline and academic performance in schools.