Faculity Of Arts

This paper explores the concept of race to illustrate how problematic the concept is and the issues around it. This study aims to help the readers understand why race is not biological but rather socially constructed. Yet race has not only become a political signifier embedded in our minds but also became a reality that has been accepted worldwide. And this research study is to help readers understand more about race.

This is a short piece I worked on during my undergraduate studies at the University of the Western Cape in 2018. In this paper, the focus is on the people I have interacted with in Cape Town who shared their stories about their living experiences. From this paper, we can learn and understand that people tend to create meaning from their memories and the places they live in or visit. Life history, as a subject, helps us understand why ‘memory’ is important for both past
and present events (Portelli, 1998). On the other hand, ‘place’ is significant in relation to what people experience and remember (Mesthrie, 2000; Field, 2012).

Due to their role and purpose professionally and societally, teachers can potentially impact their students indefinitely within the educative process during one or more education phases (pre-primary, primary, secondary, and tertiary). The quality and depth of education impacts society at large, and education is optimal where it is holistic and purposeful. Educational processes “involve and shape the student and teacher in their depths” (Mayes, 2017: 26). The lack of this type of practice among educators impacts the purpose of education, which is to prepare and equip students in the best possible way for their future, post graduate life and subsequent career.
Within Clifford Mayes’s archetypal pedagogy, archetypes are typically fundamental modes of human experience and reflection upon these modes supports teachers professionally and personally in the instrumental role they play within systems of education. Through the practice of archetypal reflectivity (AR), educators are able to better understand and explore their purpose, teaching practice and underlying factors that affect it.
This interpretivist study explored AR among HE educators in the form of in-depth interviews followed by content analysis. Findings indicate that experienced educators sought to shape students positively, their teaching methods had changed significantly from when they first began teaching and the profession of teaching overlaps personally and professionally. Consequently, the practice of AR among educators was found to be valuable due to the rich insights gained from experienced educators in areas of self-knowledge, content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge.