Teacher Education and the Development of Practical Judgement

Ruth Heilbronn

• Editore: Continuum
• Anno: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781441174710
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Bildung
• Categoria: Sportunterricht

Current conceptions of teacher training reflect key issues in professional practices. Two prevailing views seem to be in conflict, the first is that a teacher ought to be able to act as an autonomous professional, trusted to have and apply subject knowledge, through the exercise of judgement. The second conception views the teacher more as a 'deliverer' of a specific curriculum, defined centrally in various government sponsored strategies. Much has been written on the development of 'the reflective practitioner' as crucial to the first conception, and a strong critique of 'the audit culture' in education has emerged. Currently we are at a significant moment in teacher education, - a 'lighter touch' KS3 curriculum and the instigation of new standards for the award of qualified teacher status (QTS). The QTS standards are important as they are set to form the basis of standards at all levels of teaching. This book examines in depth current education and suggests why and how teachers need to develop and exercise practical knowledge and understanding; how standards assessment alone cannot support this teacher 'formation'; and what good 'formation' might be. The nature of practical knowledge is analysed, using some concepts from the work of John Dewey, in two theoretical chapters (4 and 5). The current standards-based model of teacher training in England is predominantly instrumentalist in its application of 'technical rationality' and unsuited to the formation of teachers. However, the often invoked concept of the 'reflective practitioner' is underdetermined and a conception of reflection is needed to illuminate its contribution to the development of practical judgement. The book's argument applies more widely to the debate between 'deregulators' and 'professionalisers' in other spheres of economic and social activity. In asking specific questions about teacher education, questions about the aims of education within specific conditions are raised.

Part 1
The Nature of Teacher Capacity and Judgement

Chapter 1
Setting the Scene

Over the past 25 years the story of educational change is complex (but may be captured in one underlying principle) that of control replacing autonomy in both the general education sector and teacher training. Centralised directives replace the autonomy of both schools and teacher training institutions to devise their own curricular and programmes. This control is exercised through the introduction of a statutory curriculum for pupils as well as for trainee teachers, in tandem with an assessment system involving targets for pupils and standards for teachers. The two curricula are necessarily tied together: both have assessment and reporting mechanisms from which quantifiable outcomes may be drawn. The national curriculum (NC) for pupils has attainment target levels, with statutory reporting ages. The NC for teacher trainees is expressed in standards. The standards relating to teaching and learning are tied in with pupil learning. Where this pupil learning has already been defined in terms of the attainment targets of the NC, the performance of pupils is measured against whether they achieve certain teaching and learning objectives. These objectives are largely determined by the scheme of work to which individual teachers must work. Although in theory these schemes of work may be produced by teams of people within a school, there are tight limits placed on how they may develop. This is because the schemes of work are to a large extent assessment led, in that the outcomes to be achieved by the teachers must result in the highest possible achievement of the attainment target levels. The schemes of work are designed to ensure that pupils cover all the things they need to know to achieve at each attainment target level. These attainment levels are then plotted for each school against national targets. The achievement of each school against a national target impacts on every teacher in the school. Teachers’ experiences of teaching in their schools are heavily determined by how the school is defined in this process. Teachers in those schools deemed to be ‘good’ by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) have a different perception of their roles and are ‘managed’ by their senior managers in a different way to those teaching in schools deemed to be ‘failing’ on this process. The discourse of technical rationality pervades all aspects of school life, so although this chapter discusses recent history of growing control over these two areas in separate sections, they are inextricably linked together.

General Educational Context

Differing views about the purpose of education and the role of the teacher can be traced in educational policy and practice over the last 50 years (Corbett, 1968; Wright, 1983; Chitty, 1990; Goodson, 1990; Whitty et al., 1992; Davies, 1994; Gardner, 1996). The 1970s were a significant decade of challenge to an apparent consensus about the role of the autonomous education professional. The roots of this consensus lie in the 1944 Education Act, with its lack of prescription about curriculum and pedagogy (Benn & Simon, 1972; Chitty, 1990; Hirst, 1996). Chitty has characterised the period as a ‘cosy era of... teacher autonomy’ (1990, p. 5) and it is generally agreed that by the 1960s a ‘post-war consensus about the general good that education pursues was … clearly set out’ (Hirst, 1996, p. 167; see also Corbett, 1968; Peters, 1965; Peters & White, 1969). So although there was no centralised control over the curriculum, there was a consensus about many aspects of educational practices, in which education was generally seen to provide ‘the foundations of a good life for everyone, through the promotion of their development as rationally autonomous individuals’ (Hirst, 1996, p. 167). There was also consensus that the matters at stake in education could be debated in ‘the rationalist climate of the time’ (ibid.).

The good life was seen as the rational life, the product of each individual applying in her or his own context, the ever increasing knowledge and understanding provided by the physical sciences, the social sciences … and so on.

(ibid.)

This conception of education is one in which ‘education has a value for the person as the fulfilment of the mind, a value which has nothing to do with utilitarian or vocational considerations’ (Hirst, 1974, p .31)¹.

Alongside this view of education, other conceptions also emphasised the individual learner at the heart of education (Newsom, 1963; Plowden, 1966).

At the heart of the educational process lies the child. No advances in policy, no acquisitions of new equipment have their desired effect unless they are in harmony with the nature of the child.

(Plowden, 1966, vol. 1, chapter 2, section 9, p. 7)

Plowden emphasised individualised approaches to learning, the centrality of play (at primary level), the use of the environment and curriculum flexibility. The report recommended that teachers should not assume ‘that only what is measurable is valuable’ (Gillard, 2005). The terms ‘progressive’ and ‘child centred’ education cover a broad field of educational thinkers such as Dewey, Piaget and Bruner, whose views cannot be crudely conflated. Nevertheless the terms came to be shorthand for the kind of approach favoured by Plowden. Proponents of Plowden and Newsom found a rationale for the introduction of comprehensive schools and the abolition of secondary selection in the two reports (Gillard, 2005; Kogan, 1987). While it is true to say that various types of schools and views on education could be found at the time, a ‘dominant discourse’ has been identified in which the teacher was viewed by many as a committed idealist, and a charismatic and inspirational figure (Moore, 2004, p. 33). Many teachers were attracted into teaching in this setting (Corbett, 1968, p. 26). It is worth noting that although there were differences between liberal philosophy of education and progressive education, the two shared a belief in the value of individual autonomy. Subsequent control mechanisms, which are discussed in this chapter, attacked both alike.

Comprehensive Schools

Social equity was a strong value underlying educational debate in the early 1970s and writers such as Benn and Simon argued for the establishment of comprehensive schools on social equity grounds (Benn & Simon, 1972, pp. 491–507). Other writers concurred:

Education for democracy … precisely describes the nature of our concern for education at the present time. We want more and better education of a type appropriate to a democracy, and leading towards a much more democratic society than we have at present. Education for democracy, not for aristocracy, meritocracy, plutocracy, or any other kind of elitist system.

(Daniels, 1970, p. 9)

It is not too strong to state that a view of the liberal aims of education, as defined by Hirst, came to be associated by some teachers and writers on education, with a view of education as a socially liberating, egalitarian force and that this view in turn was rejected by others as an ideological justification for a certain kind of school and curriculum. The Plowden report for example has been accused of ‘seeking refuge in ideology, by dipping eclectically into … the pluralistic, often self-contradictory field of progressive education’ (Gillard, 2005).

Significant, fundamental disagreement about the aims of education from the political right, particularly in the Black Papers, emerged to challenge contemporary educational practices, sowing the seeds of the current debate about teaching and teacher education and training. The views of some teachers about the socially transformative value of education, coupled with the desire to establish non-selective schools, in which children of all social classes and abilities were to be educated as individuals, came to be attacked as undemocratic and even revolutionary:

If informed, civilised, mature and well-balanced citizens are wanted … we must scrutinise most carefully those educationalists who teach hatred of authority and contempt of tradition; who nurture ignorance and self-indulgence as a point of principle … and disregard the claims or indeed the realities of the social world.

(Cox & Boyson, 1971, pp. 16–17)

Cox and his co-writers of ‘the Black Papers’, claimed that educational standards were falling and that this was a direct result of progressive education and educators (Cox & Boyson, 1971, p. 17; Cox & Dyson, 1971). A government initiated ‘Great Debate in Education’² highlighted a climate of ‘assertive teacher-power’ (DES, 1976, p. 17) and initiated a process of government scrutiny of curriculum and pedagogy that reached a significant stage under the government of Margaret Thatcher, when the Black Papers authors began to influence educational policy (Furlong, 2002, p. 23). Flew, for example, published a pamphlet for the Centre for Policy Studies promoting education for ‘examinations, excellence and elites’, in which he challenged the egalitarian slant of the comprehensive school movement, in favour of a system to promote ‘excellence’ and its inevitable formation of an elite class.

To achieve excellence in any sphere is to become a member of an elite; as such one is no longer, in whatever maybe the relevant respect, equal to those who have not achieved that particular form of, or perhaps any, excellence.

(Flew, 1982, p. 23)

It has been said that Cox and Flew grossly misrepresented educational practices in the early 1970s as

comprehensivism, secrecy, curricular erosion and teachers trained behind closed college doors on sociological pap.

(Davies, 1994, p. 21)

We can claim then that by the later 1980s there is evidence of considerable debate about the aims of education and the proper role of teachers and teacher training, with some writers perceiving an attack on the professionalism of teachers, their autonomy of judgement on curriculum and pedagogy:

‘teacher-power’, if it ever existed, was to be first eroded, then destroyed – at least in theory.

(Chitty, 1990, p. 10)

A National Curriculum

Part of the story of control exercised over schools and teachers lies in the introduction of the first national curriculum (NC) through the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA), which was seen as a narrowing of the curriculum by some contemporary critics. White, for example, pointed out that it contained:

nothing about the prerequisite understanding of socio-economic structure, or the principles of democracy, about fostering the virtues necessary in democratic citizens, about equipping people for critical reflection on the status quo, or about building the imperfect democratic structures we have now into something more adequate.

(White, 1990, p. 37)

It was framed within the confines of subject divisions, rather than across subjects, and this made it difficult to sustain some of the earlier curriculum initiatives, which teachers were free to introduce without centralised direction. An example is the fate of the various projects on ‘language awareness’, such as Garson et al. (1989) on linguistics, which was taught across the subjects of Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), English and Humanities. In theory, such initiatives were not condemned, but in this case the NC for Modern Foreign Languages, with its ladder of attainment levels and targets, took specific and statutory curriculum time.

The NC was devised to cover specific curriculum subjects; to apply to four key school stages, from ages 5 to 16, to match pupil achievement against ten levels, and to accompany an assessment and testing regime, designed to raise standards of achievement. The rationale for both the choice of NC subjects and the testing regime was questioned (Davies, 1994) and two years after the introduction of the NC Goodson remarked that:

The first thing to say about this whole exercise is that it unwinds 80 years of English (and Welsh) educational history. It is a case of go back to go.

(Goodson, 1990, p. 49)

The genesis of the so-called ‘deregulator’ view of education and other areas of social policy in England at this time has been located in a particular historical context, the 1973 oil crisis and subsequent 1974 major world recession. Bernbaum (1979) believes that when an economy ceases to be characterised by high rates of growth, ‘the assumptions that growth is closely related to the benefits obtained through large-scale educational enterprises are more readily challenged’ (p. 12). Chitty (1990) has speculated that the oil crisis and the recession led to a crisis of confidence in the notion of progressive economic expansion, and a challenge to the concomitant liberal beliefs of the 1960s, including the liberal philosophy of education.

During the period, changes in ITET run parallel with, or follow swiftly on from changes in general educational policy (Hewett, 1971). This is to be expected in that ITET is ‘a contingent service’, which cannot exist in its own right ‘but is there to further the development of children and young persons by its supply of manpower and by the quality of its teacher education’ (Millins, 1971, p. 38).

ITET in the Period

This section notes some major stages in the reorganisation and reconceptualisation of teacher education, to reveal the roots of a profound conceptual rift between the DCSF’s view of ITET, which is further developed in Chapter 2, and that of a significantly different view, further discussed in Chapter 3. (Key dates appear in the Appendix.) The genesis of the current ITET debate emerged as early as 1944, in the McNair committee investigation into the formation of teachers, particularly concerning two related, pertinent topics, one on the role of the universities and the other on the definition of an appropriate relationship between theory and practice in ITET³. McNair’s committee was divided on the role that the universities should play in teacher training, and ‘adopted the unusual procedure of presenting two alternative scenarios in the main body of the Report, each supported by five members of the committee’ (Turner, 1990, p. 41). One group prioritised practice over theory to the degree that it recommended that the colleges should continue to work with the existing Joint Boards, which had been established in 1929 and functioned only for the purposes of certification⁴. There is evidence that this view was seen as ‘foreshadowing the anti-intellectualism of many subsequent writers on teacher education’ (Turner, 1990, p. 43). The other group recommended that the universities should take over responsibility for teacher training and should establish Schools of Education, which could militate against ITET coming under the direct control of a single centralised service.

We reject anything approaching permanent central control over the training of teachers. Centralisation of power and authority has potential dangers in every sphere of education and nowhere are those dangers so great and subtle as in the training of teachers. We believe that in years to come it will be considered disastrous if the national system for the training of teachers is found to be divorced from the work of the universities or even to be running parallel with it.

(McNair, 1944, para. 169)

Post-McNair, most of the existing teacher training colleges opted to become part of the university Schools of Education, almost all of which called themselves Institutes of Education⁵. In so doing, they created the opportunity for aspects of the ITET curriculum to remain independent of central government. As university departments, the opportunity to retain or develop a strong theoretical basis to the ITET curriculum existed. The McNair Report has been described as ‘surprisingly prescient’ in this regard (Turner, 1990, p. 42).

It recognised … the importance of collaboration between various kinds of specialist colleges and the universities.

(ibid.)

In Chapters 5 and 6 the importance of ‘communities of practice’ in supporting teachers’ work is discussed. The universities at this time supported such communities, in the form of teacher development networks, which worked independently of the DES and evolved their own particular committee structures (ibid., 44–45)⁶.

The HEI Role in ITET

The higher education institutions (HEI) role in ITET during the past 40 years has undergone significant changes. First, following the Rob...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Detication Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Part 1 The Nature of Teacher Capacity and Judgement
• Chapter 1 Setting the Scene
• Chapter 2 Competencies and Standards in ITET
• Chapter 3 The Reflective Practitioner
• Chapter 4 The Nature of Teacher Knowledge and Understanding
• Chapter 5 Experience as a Foundation of Practical Judgement
• Chapter 6 Mentoring
• Part 2 Implications for Teacher Training and Education
• Chapter 7 Educational Research
• Chapter 8 Assessment
• Chapter 9 Conclusion
• Appendix
• References
• Index