At Nelson Mandela University we have gone through a rigorous curriculum renewal process to develop a teacher education curriculum that is underpinned by humanising pedagogy principles. Humanising pedagogy refers to teaching practices that intentionally utilize the histories, knowledges, and realities of students as an integral part of educational practice and cast students as critically engaged, active participants in the co-construction of knowledge. Traditionally, teachers who use a humanising pedagogy to engage in classroom practices respect cultural differences and reflect genuine care for their students. As such they utilize and build on students’ existing knowledge. They critically question their deficit views of subordinated students and recognize students as knowers and active participants in their individual learning. Applying a humanising pedagogy helps teachers become transformative intellectuals.

During our curriculum renewal process we engaged in stakeholder consultation and tapped into the voices of various stakeholders including our students, alumni and school principals to determine what needs to be included in our teacher education curriculum. We also embarked on benchmarking activities during which we analyzed teacher education curriculums offered at other universities in South Africa and globally to see how they apply humanising pedagogy principles. Our curriculum renewal process including the development of modules and course material was guided by a set of fundamental questions. These questions were: who are our students; what do we need to teach them; how will we teach them; where will this learning and teaching take place; and how will we ensure that learning has taken place. Three cohorts of students have successfully completed the full cycle of the revised curriculum. This paper provides a reflection of student feedback on how they experienced the revised humanised curriculum.

A selection of students who completed the revised curriculum were organized in a focus group and were provided with questions enquiring about their experience of the curriculum. They responded to a set of questions using narrative free writing and then discussed their responses in the focus group. The data that was generated through the free writing as well as the discussion notes of the focus group were analyzed in a thematic analysis using humanising pedagogy principles as a guide. The findings showed that students generally had positive experiences of the curriculum. However, there were some challenges highlighted, including the misinterpretation of the concept humanising pedagogy as well as not understanding the responsibility of co-creating knowledge. These findings support the critique that humanising pedagogy contains problematic dualisms.

This paper reflects on the curriculum renewal process followed by the Faculty of Education at Nelson Mandela University including the implementation of the revised teacher education curriculum that is underpinned by a humanising pedagogy. The paper seeks to provide insight on students’ experiences of the humanising curriculum and to provide suggestions on how to further enhance humanising pedagogy.

Keywords: Curriculum, Teacher Education, Humanising Pedagogy, Transformative Intellectuals.