How Is the Process of Self-Study Transforming Me as a Professor and University Chaplain in a South African University in a Poor Rural Community?

• In Event: “Starting With Ourselves”: Perspectives From the Transformative Education/al Studies Project

Abstract

As an experienced academic and newcomer to self-study research, I am fascinated by the concept of self-study and the vast possibilities of this methodology. I see in self-study the potential for improving not only my practice and my being, but more importantly, empowering and transforming my students and taking their learning experience to a higher level. The possibility of transforming all of us to a higher level of humanity, in addition to the acquisition of the academic knowledge, as a way of contributing to a public good is more than a wondrous attraction to me, in a society with a brutalized past whose scars are evident and which needs more than knowledge to achieve a sense of healing and peace.

As a university lecturer in a poor rural community in South Africa, where it is understood that the students are mostly unprepared for university, the need for a drastically different approach and attitude to reaching them where they are is essential. Yet, universities like mine seem to have little if anything in place to address this unique position and students continue to be ‘thrown in at the deep-end’.

This makes the Transformative Education/al Studies project’s central question of “How do I transform my education/al practice as ….?” for the public good extremely critical for me. The traditional university teaching and learning ‘practice’ is supposed to be well established and we all know to just ‘fit in’ and not to ask questions. The idea that I can improve my practice within this environment by questioning what I do and come up with innovative ideas of my own which encompass getting to know who my students are, who I am in relation to them and what their needs are so that their learning starts from there is incredible. The involvement of my relationship with my students in the learning experience seems unimaginable.

When I look at my personal journey, however, in the same environment for the past ten years, I find that I and my students are perhaps a living testimony of what is possible when the great mask of academia is removed and we are revealed as humans with feelings and that the values of love, hope, compassion and respect are an integral part of transforming lives if we hope to work for the public good.

In this presentation, I take a narrative inquiry stance to explore my story and experience as a woman with multiple roles, some of which may seem contradictory, in my journey as a single mother, a Roman Catholic University Chaplain, ‘the Professor’ and until recently, head of the English Department, on top of being someone’s else’s child, sister, friend, and so forth. Using self-study methods of artefact retrieval (Allender & Manke, 2004) and journaling (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009), I will offer a self-reflexive examination of my dual role as a university lecturer and that of Chaplain, and how the two have transformed my practice and some lives, including my own, without my even knowing it.

Author

• Theresa Chisanga, Walter Sisulu University