Pushing limits and drawing lines : initial encounters in the secondary classroom

Abstract

This dissertation is about initial encounters in the Secondary School classroom. Ethnographic research was carried out during the first few weeks of the scholastic year in a class of Form 1 boys, who were observed with five of their teachers during their lessons of Mathematics, Integrated Science, Maltese, English and ICT. Several phases were observed, including the 'honeymoon', where students quietly observe their new teachers, and the elementary escalation phase, where students find out about their new teachers by 'sussing them out'. Relationships were also observed being formed between the pupils and the teachers. Teachers set out to establish themselves through several strategies, while pupils tried to challenge them by using their own strategies. All of this was part of the process of establishment which all students and teachers undergo at the start of the scholastic year. Further observations were carried out at the end of the scholastic year and it was seen that a working consensus had been successfully negotiated for some of the teachers. These further observations were important for testing and proving the claim that initial encounters serve "not only for understanding what comes later but in actually providing for what comes later" (Ball, 1980).