The Role of Beliefs in Teacher Agency: A Critical Analysis

In their article The role of beliefs in teacher agency, Biesta et al. (2015) claim that the
discourse on teacher agency is an international issue. Indeed, there have been recent reforms
in the national curriculum of several countries such as Scotland with the Curriculum for
Excellence, New Zealand with the New Zealand Curriculum and even in Mauritius with the
latest reform at primary level education, the Nine Year Basic Education Reform. According to
Priestley et al. (2012, p.3), teacher agency can be defined as activities that teachers do at
school, depending on the situation and the environment. Opinions about teacher agency
diverge, with some being for it while others being against it. Now, more than ever, teachers
from around the world are more forthcoming in what they need in terms of infrastructure and
support, for them to be able to do their work in the best possible way. Teacher agency is
largely influenced by the teachers past experience while they are thinking about the future
impact of their actions which are happening right now. From their article, it can be observed
that Biesta et al. (2015) are trying to understand the source of teachers beliefs and how these
beliefs underpin the engagement of teachers in their work. However, it is primordial to note
that teachers beliefs play a major role in teacher agency. Bandura (2000) supports this by
stating that Unless people believe that they can produce desired effects and forestall
undesired ones by their actions, they will have little incentive to act (p. 75). Biesta et al.
(2015, p. 624) further state that to be able to promote teacher agency, the personal beliefs of
the teacher about their practice and that of others must be considered as the teachers personal
beliefs does not necessarily match with what the policymakers debate about. The aim of this
article will be to demonstrate the extent of teacher agency about interdisciplinary works I
observe and experience in a private secondary school in Mauritius. I firmly believe that
interdisciplinary projects can help provide solutions to common issues that different subject
departments in my school face throughout the school year.

Introduction

Biesta et al. (2015) state in their article that A major focus of the new curriculum is to
introduce more interdisciplinary work (p. 632). Interdisciplinary, when discussed in
education, can be defined as the combination of two or more academic disciplines or subjects
into one activity, such as a mini-project, and thinking across the boundaries of each individual

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subject. This is further supported by Spelt et al. (2009) who claim that interdisciplinary
education helps students develop boundary-crossing skills. Boundary-crossing skills are,
for instance, the ability to change perspectives, to synthesize knowledge of different
disciplines, and to cope with complexity (p. 366). Moreover, Andrs-Gallego (2015) implies
that any broadminded humanist project involves interdisciplinarity to create a system of
universal justice, which required linguistics, economics, management, ethics, law,
philosophy, politics even sinology. Indeed, the Mauritian government is aiming towards
sustainable and eco-friendly development, along with sustainable economic development.
Through the latest reforms that are going to be brought about, the Mauritian government is
aiming at providing a secure environment in primary and secondary schools, where proper
pedagogies in line with the demands of the labour market, can be implemented. With so many
issues we face everyday being complex and interrelated, the next best solution would be to
prepare the Mauritian youth to think beyond devices, beyond borders and beyond beliefs
(Caddell, 2015). Hence, the reason for my belief in interdisciplinary projects at secondary
school level.

Background

I work in a private secondary school found in Mauritius. Since the school is privately owned
and was founded by the School Manager, he plans and controls the everyday school
activities, which include the administration and the teaching and learning taking place in
classrooms. The School Manager plans all the work in accordance to the national framework.
However, he does make changes where he believes the students and staff will benefit more
and he strongly encourages all teachers to come forward with innovative ideas that could help
the school. Once monthly, he calls a meeting with all Head of Departments (HoDs), the
Rector and Deputy Rectors, where topics pertaining to the syllabi, school curriculum and any
other extra-curricular activities are discussed. During these meetings, all HoDs get the
opportunity to fully express their ideas and discuss problems with him. The School Manager
also encourages the HoDs to come up with new, innovative and original ideas to help students
in their studies. He listens carefully to each and every suggestion brought forward and either
approves or postpones the application of certain proposals, but he never outright rejects any
idea. I joined this school in 2008 and I have been the HoD of the Computer Science
department for the last 3 years. At the beginning of this year, in January, the HoD of the

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Business Studies department, Mr. S, suggested organising a one-day exhibition for each
department for a period of two weeks. The aim of this would be to increase the awareness of
lower form students about the various subjects that are available at our school, at School
Certificate (SC) level and Higher School Certificate (HSC) level. Mr. S. brought this idea
forward as a possible way to increase the number of students taking certain subjects that are
not really popular amongst students. The School Manager found this was a brilliant idea and
asked the other HoDs their opinion about this initiative. I must admit that at first I was
reluctant because I had already planned out the syllabus and activities to be carried out in my
department for the school year. Everything planned had been done by keeping in mind the
limited time that we have at school. However, due to it being at the start of the first term of
the school year, I decided to join in. Most of the HoDs present were very enthusiastic about
this suggestion, while a few did not seem convinced that this exhibition would make any
difference at all. Consequently, with most HoDs being for this suggestion, the School
Manager validated this project and assigned the last two weeks of February for its
implementation. However, he stressed that in no way this exhibition should disturb the
classes. In fact, it should complement what was being taught in class. As there would be only
ten days for the exhibition, some departments would need to be paired.

With the collaborative work of all teachers in my department and help from Computer
Science students from upper classes, we were able to prepare simple charts which were easy
to understand, a model for a computer-controlled aquarium and a simple hologram, all of
which are complementary to the various syllabi covered at different levels. We prepared the
older students to explain some of the aspects of the exhibition to the younger students.
Following the days after the completion of the exhibition, I observed younger students
showing interest in Computer Science, with many of them approaching me and the other
teachers for more information. I concluded that the exhibition was indeed a success and
hopefully, more students would take this subject at upper levels.

I have talked to teachers of other secondary schools, both private and state schools, and I
have found that there is high teacher agency in many private schools and lower teacher
agency in state schools. Ever since I started attending the monthly meetings with the School
Manager, I have always felt that he encourages teacher agency to a great extent. Because of
the positive attitude of the School Manager, I felt encouraged to voice out a suggestion
concerning interdisciplinary mini-projects at the meeting in March 2016.

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Statement of the problem

Although the student population in the school where I work is quite high, around 1100
students, a steady decrease in the number of students has been observed these past few years.
One of the main reasons is that several secondary schools, both private and governmental,
have been opened in the area. Another reason is that some of other schools show a better
performance in terms of students pass rates at the end of the school year. Although the school
where I work is one of the oldest in Mauritius and has a good name in the area, many parents
prefer to send their children to other newer schools. Being a private secondary school means
that the school is privately owned by the school Manager and he earns a grant from the
government on the school infrastructure and student population but the same type of
education is given to students and same salary paid to teachers as those in the state secondary
schools. Therefore, the very existence of the school is threatened by the decreasing student
population.

Moreover, I am very concerned about the decrease in the percentage pass of students who
have taken Computer Science at School Certificate (S.C) and Higher School Certificate
(H.S.C) levels. I have also observed the same trend in several different subject departments
and the overall percentage pass rate of students has drastically decreased. It is a matter of
great pride when I, as a teacher, see all students passing in all their subjects and moving
forward in their studies. I believe that if teachers of different departments work together, we
can come up with a formula that may help increase the number of students passing their
exams at the S.C and H.S.C levels. Additionally, the government of Mauritius is reinforcing
its Seafood Hub initiative and The Ocean Economy program, which both require
combinations of knowledge from various different disciplines. For these reasons, I firmly
believe that students should be encouraged, from a young age, to develop their knowledge
across multiple disciplines in a common project.

Therefore, I proposed to integrate an interdisciplinary mini-project which would take only

two or three days to be completed during the second term. This project could be used and
marked as an assessment. As an example, I suggested that the Computer Science and
Mathematics departments could collaborate on a simple Christmas treedrawing program
where students would need to apply their knowledge of looping from Computer Science and
inclusive numbers from Mathematics. Here, I need to point out that students, who take
Computer Science as a main subject at H.S.C level, do not necessarily take Mathematics as

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another main subject. Consequently, to encourage students to try their best for this project, I
suggested that it could be marked and the marks could be added to their second term
examination marks. Computer science students would share their basic programming
knowledge while Math students would support this project with their mathematical
knowledge. I believe that both groups of students would, most likely, benefit from this
sharing of knowledge. Having carefully listened to my idea, the School Manager stated that
this was a good idea and was worth trying. He then asked the opinion of the Mr. B., HoD of
the Mathematics department. Mr. B. replied that he was not convinced that this was
necessarily a good idea, although it was an innovative one. He stressed that those Math
students who did not study Computer Science as another main subject might feel reluctant to
work on this project. He further added that he did not believe that those Math students would
benefit in any way from learning to write programming code. I, therefore, explained that the
students would not be required to learn programming but would benefit from learning how
mathematical logic is applied to solve a computer problem. Subsequently, Mr. B. reluctantly
agreed to this project.

The School Manager then advised to try this on a pilot basis in a Lower VI class (Grade 11).
He chose this class as the students did not have to sit for Cambridge examinations at the end
of the year and would, therefore, not be stressed with preparations for the exams. Before
assigning this project to our students, I met Mr. B. to explain exactly what the Christmas
treedrawing program was about. So, on the next day I met him in the Computer Laboratory
during our common free period and showed him the program code and its execution on
screen. He finally understood what I was aiming at and we selected two pairs of students to
try this project in the last week of April.

Implementing the interdisciplinary project

Four students were selected for this mini-project, out of which two studying Computer
Science and Math, another one studying Computer Science but not Math and the last one
studying Math but not Computer Science. The two students who study both subjects were
paired together and called P1 with the remaining two in another pair, called P2. Both, Mr. B.
and I, determined that we would need only four periods, which would span over two days, for
the completion of this project. The project would be carried out in the school Computer

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Laboratory. At the start of the first assigned period, Mr. B. and I thoroughly explained the
students what the project was about and what was expected of them.

All throughout the allocated periods, Mr. B. and I closely observed and monitored the
progress of both pairs. P1 successfully completed the project by the middle of the fourth
period while P2 struggled and did not manage to display a simple Christmas tree on their
screen. As Mr. B. had forecast, the Math student in P2 had not been enthusiast about this
project and had not really collaborated with the other Computer Science student. As a result,
Mr. B. and I decided that it was not worth recording the marks for this project as I had
initially suggested. Needless to say, I was disappointed with the outcome. At the next meeting
with the School Manager, which was held at the start of May, he asked me and Mr. B. about
the success of the project. It was with great dissatisfaction that we explained that the
interdisciplinary mini-project did not bring positive results. Seeing that I was disheartened
about the failure of this project, the School Manager motivated me to discuss this project with
the teachers of my department and encourage them to bring forth their ideas. Nevertheless, he
asked the English and French departments to try a similar interdisciplinary project as he
believed that interdisciplinarity is a good idea but the choice of different subject departments
collaborating together might not have been appropriate.

Barriers to interdisciplinary work

Following the School Managers advice, I discussed the matter with the teachers of my
department and encouraged them to suggest new ideas that could help the students. As the
HoD of the Computer Science department, I strongly encourage teachers in my department to
work together. When they are allocated tasks such as the preparation of examination papers, I
encourage them to discuss amongst themselves to come up with the best types of questions to
set. I also encourage them to think about what new activities could be introduced in the
classroom to make teaching and learning Computer Science more fun for the teachers and
students. In their article, Biesta et al. (2015) state that most teachers agree about their role as
teachers and concede that this role has changed from that of a deliverer of knowledge to
that of a facilitator of learning (pp. 631 - 632). When I asked the teachers in my
department, in an informal interview, about how they felt in relation to this statement, they
replied that they still view themselves as the deliverer of knowledge. Indeed, this is also
how I feel. Given the limited time that I have to complete the syllabus, I believe that it is my

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responsibility to provide detailed notes and explanations to my students for them to pass their
examinations at the end of the year. Similarly, this is also what my students expect from me.
They believe that it is my duty to give all the notes and explanation, while their duty,
according to them, is to take down notes, revise for class assessments and examinations and
try to pass the exams.

Furthermore, Biesta et al. (2015) point out that most secondary school teachers are not
convinced about both the pedagogical approaches .. and its apparent shift towards
interdisciplinarity. (p. 632). In fact, they refer to Ford (2011) who stresses that with
interdisciplinary learning, teachers are being taken out of their comfort zone and this is
not a good thing. Indeed, this is what I felt when I collaborated with the HoD of the
Mathematics department. Mr. B. had not been at ease with the concept of this project.
Moreover, Spelt et al. (2009) refer to Bradbeer (1999) who states that students facing
problems in a specific subject will carry that problem across when asked to blend knowledge
of that particular subject with another discipline. However, Jacobs (2004) explains that a
suitably designed interdisciplinary lesson makes use of collaboration between teachers so that
basic knowledge from each discipline is validated and a connection formed amongst these
disciplines.

The main factor that most teachers in the department stated as being a determinant towards
the success of any particular project was time. As a matter of fact, they all claimed that with
the limited time frame that we have at school for the given syllabus that we have to cover, it
is best to focus on getting the student ready for the end of year examinations and ensuring
that they obtain good marks. The Math student did not see the importance of this mini
project. In fact, she was keener to complete the second term syllabus and get ready for the
second term examinations.

Conclusion and Recommendations

This critical analysis has considered the extent of teacher agency about interdisciplinarity in a
private secondary school in Mauritius. Activities that teachers do at school are greatly
influenced by the different beliefs of the teachers. All schools, including private secondary
schools, have to find ways to increase the level of success of their students to maintain their
reputation. Teachers usually have a strong opinion about what works in the classroom and

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what does not and they are condemned to work together if they want to achieve high
performance from the students. Although the interdisciplinary project organised did not yield
the expected positive result, I believe that it has its place in the school curriculum, if, of
course, it is properly designed. The interdisciplinary mini-project I proposed was to help the
students become aware of the application of knowledge from different disciplines into one
activity, as is the case in most real-life situations. However, the barriers to the successful
implementation of the interdisciplinary work, such as lack of motivation, limited time frame
and teachers working outside their comfort zone, would need to be addressed.

A possible recommendation towards the correct integration of interdisciplinarity in the school

curriculum would be for the School Manager to invite professionals who can provide training
about interdisciplinary work. Workshops could be organised during the school holidays as
this would be convenient for all teachers. Similarly, training could be provided to students to
encourage them to work together. I have often witnessed teachers with a high number of
years of experience be reluctant to change their views and methods in class and in their lesson
planning as they believe that what they are doing is the right thing. I would recommend that
such experienced teachers be paired with novice teachers during the above mentioned
workshops so that they may learn from each other. Teachers should have some self-
introspection time every week. This may help them understand their own feelings, which will
allow them to understand those of others better. The attitude of teachers and students should
be in line with that of the School Manager so that a cordial atmosphere is created at school.
Workshops could be organised to provide a starting point for relevant changes in the attitude
of teachers and students.

Another recommendation would be for students to be encouraged to use technology with

PowerPoint presentation to speak about their work undertaken in the interdisciplinary project
to other classmates.

I may have high teacher agency at the private secondary school where I work, but whether
the ideas that I bring forward are worthwhile and beneficial for all those involved is a
possible question for further research.

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(Chinese) Dream, Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 29(2).

Bandura, A. (2000) Exercise of human agency through collective efficacy, Current

Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 3: 75.

Biesta, G., Priestley, M., and Robinson, S. (2015) The role of beliefs in teacher agency,
Teachers and Teaching, 21: 6, 624 640.

Bradbeer, J. (1999) Barriers to Interdisciplinarity: Disciplinary discourses and student

learning, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 23(3), 381 396.

Caddell, B. (2015) Solving the Most Complex Problems [Online] Available:

http://slidehot.com/resources/solving-the-most-complex-problems.1408284 [Accessed 27
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Ford, C. (2011) The trouble and truth about Curriculum for Excellence, Times Educational
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