The Future of Teaching
and Teaching in the Future: a vision of the future of the profession of teaching
- Making the Possible Probable.
Joan Whitehead.
University of the West of England, Bristol.
Keynote address
to the Standing Committee for the Education and Training of Teachers Annual
Conference 3rd-4th October 2003, Dunchurch.
First can I begin by thanking Malcolm Lee as the conference organiser for inviting me to give this final key note and allowing me the opportunity to speculate about the future. Whilst the title of this keynote was given to me, I want to add my own subtitle: Making the Possible Probable . I have chosen this phrase because a key message I want to convey is that there are already in the profession, individuals and groups, people here today, who are involved in initiatives which could help transform the profession and teaching. I intend to point to some of these, to consider what is needed for these to become more widespread and to raise the question about the part we might play in a climate which I see as less hostile to us. My speculation about the future is therefore in part grounded in some exciting initiatives already underway and on which I feel we should build.
I want to begin by taking stock of the profession.
We belong to a profession which I see as a dynamic entity embracing a wide spectrum of beliefs and catering for an expanding population of learners in terms of age as well as cultural diversity. It is a profession which is operating in a constantly changing set of institutional and organisational arrangements. Within the secondary sector alone we have for example City Academies, Specialist Schools, Leading Edge Schools, Schools in Networked Learning Communities, schools linked to 14-19 campus developments, schools linked through Excellence in Cities, Federations of Schools , the list seems endless, each with their distinctive missions and supported by a new breed of para-professionals e.g. classroom assistants and learning mentors. Such complexity was inconceivable when I did my PGCE.
The profession today also operates in a context where knowledge is expanding at an ever increasing rate. The profession's achievements as well as its shortcomings and those of the pupils its serves are able to be compared internationally as well as nationally through information systems which make knowledge sharing rapid but potentially overwhelming. I am sure we all move between that real sense of excitement in being able to access knowledge so speedily but can also have a sinking feeling about an ability to keep abreast of all we feel we need to know. More than at any previous stage of our history, we and our students can therefore be nationally and internationally connected with the chance to be informed by as well as to inform the profession globally. The technology which enables us to do this was again inconceivable 30 years ago, rather teaching materials produced on bandas and gestetner machines were about as sophisticated as we got.
So whilst we can describe what now exists and reflect on our own histories, none of us has a crystal ball to know what the profession and teaching will be like in 10 or 20 years from now, and hence the responsibilities put on us in relation to society's changed economic and social needs. However what we can say is that what teaching will look like will, to some extent, be a product of what we individually and collectively do in producing and implementing policies. It will also reflect the extent to which we continue to develop our knowledge, skills, and understandings, and the extent to which we ensure our practices are informed by values which can provide a sense of moral purpose with increasing levels of change and international instability.
Many at this conference today will still be in the profession 10 or even 20 years from now .What the profession therefore becomes is not someone else's responsibility, it is ours too . What it becomes in the future will also crucially depend on those we are training now and will recruit in the years ahead. Teaching, irrespective of technologies yet to be discovered will, I believe, still be crucially dependent upon the people who do it, their values, their knowledge, their skills, their commitments, and their aspirations for their pupils and students.
If we accept our own role in helping constitute the profession then what the profession is today is in part attributable to who we are and what we have and have not done to get it to this point in its development.
As we approach the end of this Conference perhaps we can take a moment to be self congratulatory for, having experienced years when as teacher educators we have been vilified, I think you will agree that it was heartening to read the Foreword to Qualifying to Teach and Charles Clarke's and Ralph Tabberer's (2003) joint statement that, 'The teaching profession has never been in better shape.'
.
This statement may help the 'feel good' factor that we all need from time to time and should be put on staffroom and study walls as our mantra for darker days. More seriously it may also enable us to feel a sense of optimism that provided we can retain these new entrants in the profession, whose commitment and ideals I am frequently in awe, then there is the prospect of the profession becoming even stronger.
However whilst for the first time for many years, the profession is seen by both our funding body and our political masters to be in good shape, I want to ask whether it is the shape we as a profession want? Is it a shape which will enable us to cope in the type of society I began by describing, a knowledge society, globally connected but with political, social and economic instability as possible future scenarios?
Before I expand on how each of us and our trainees/ students can have a role in fashioning the future, I want to stand back and reflect on the external agenda that has framed our professional lives over the past 15 or so years and look at how this has impinged upon our professional identity and purpose.
Of course we are not, nor our colleagues, nor our trainees, free agents to create the future, nor have we been free agents to create the profession as it now is. We all operate in a political, social and economic climate which constrains or facilitates the kind of profession to which we aspire and the kind of professionals we wish to be.
There is little doubt that over the past 15years all of us engaged in teacher education experienced considerable prescription about the knowledge, skills and values that new recruits to the profession should be able to demonstrate. We also saw more prescription for those in the profession about ways in which aspects of the curriculum should be taught and professional development targeted to ensure familiarity with these initiatives. Indeed it was the number of government directives, particularly about content and methods which helped fuel the debate about the relative lack of agency by teachers and with that an erosion of teachersÕ own professional autonomy and control. Indeed we might well ask ourselves whether the profession of which we are members, has to date been shaped much more by external agencies and rather less by the profession.
No matter where we are located I am sure each of us can produce a list of such external developments which have closely structured our professional lives. e.g. the National Curriculum and the various Literacy, Numeracy, KS3 , strategies from the DfES ; the various circulars from the TTA and the Secretary of State governing teacher training, FENTO standards and ILT accreditation. Alongside these initiatives and to ensure compliance with them came an increase in systems of accountability linked to heightened systems of external scrutiny by OfSTED and the QAA. All this occurred alongside an increase in the marketisation of schools, colleges and HEIs and an increase in individualisation and competition against each other.
Whilst these initiatives have contributed in the eyes of the funding body and the government to strengthening the profession, as members of it, we might well have more difficulty in achieving a consensus about whether or not some or all of these changes have, from an insider perspective, enhanced or undermined the profession as we experience it and might wish it to be.
You might like to compare your own views with those with those from members of the Association for the Study of Primary Education, (staff in schools, HEI tutors and LEA advisers) detailed in a small research project conducted by Peter Silcock ( 2002, p. 141).
Main educational changes rated positively and negatively by 100 ASPE members
| CHANGES INCREASING TP | CHANGES DECREASING TP |
| National Curriculum (38) | NLS and NNS (32) |
| Improved assessment (24) | All changes (21) |
| Improved planning (22) | Less autonomy (21) |
| Regular inspections (18) | An over- prescribed curriculum (16) |
| Accountability and self-review (15) | Externally organised inspections (16) |
| Improved staff development (15) | Pace and number of changes (13) |
| NLS and NNS (14) | Assessment-led curriculum (13) |
| LMS (12) | Pay differentials (12) |
| Improved monitoring and evaluation (11) | Centralised control (quangos:12) |
| Peer appraisal (11) | |
| All changes (8) |
(Key: Percentage rating in brackets. Cut-off point 10% rating or above –
with the exception of a positive rating for ‘All changes). TP = Teacher
Professionalism)
What is instantly apparent is the range of responses depending on individuals' prior experience in the profession, their own values and expectations of the profession. For some the heightened regulation was regarded positively as they saw the outcomes of the reforms leading to improvements whilst others perceived the reforms more negatively.
Of interest is the number, about a third who saw the National Literacy and National Numeracy Strategies as diminishing their professional standing, possibly because it is these reforms that some teachers saw as curtailing the pedagogical choices they as professionals made in relation to the contextual understanding they had about their own particular pupilsÕ learning needs. Some saw these reforms, irrespective of their outcomes, as overly prescriptive, deskilling and insufficiently flexible for the contexts in which they found themselves.
Over this period some members of the profession attempted to resist these changes, some became demoralised and left the profession, others remained but have become disenchanted, but the vast majority sought to accommodate these changes in either a principled or pragmatic way.
Although this example is focused on primary education, over the past 15 years much of our professional practice in all sectors of education has been heavily prescribed or we have chosen to see it as such, because of our fearfulness of failing adequately to meet inspection outcomes.
Nevertheless alongside this we do also have examples of some within the profession who have wanted to be more self directing and to look at how they could improve aspects of their practice through researching into it. Some have done this through award bearing courses, through Masters and doctoral programmes for example. It is though worth reminding ourselves that the valuing of such enquiries and support for them during this was period was by no means automatic and we owe much to the energy and commitment of those like John Gray, John Elliott and others who have fought on our behalf to change perceptions of the value of teacher research and to argue for the wider benefits to the profession..
For advocates of action research and, in particular those teachers involved in studying their own practice here in the UK as well as in the United States, in Canada, and in Australia, its power has not been in doubt. It has been seen by them as an undoubted catalyst for professional growth as in this statement from Canada by Claudia Mitchell and Sandra Weber:
"In can be wonderfully motivating in its ability to bring home a painful or beautiful truth, and help us appreciate and even bring about our most meaningful moments as teachers. Studying ourselves does not always involve major change; sometimes it is just about revaluing what was already there and using it in new ways that are informed by both the personal and the social." (Mitchell & Weber 1999, p232).
However in the climate of low trust and high accountability which I previously described, such commitment to advancing the knowledge base of the profession by members of the profession was by no means commonplace. Rather the reverse and far fewer resources and largely of a temporary nature were invested in it compared to the investment made in other national strategies.
As a consequence our professional knowledge base, generated through practitioner enquiries, has been slow to develop due in part too to some teacher educators, because of the Research Assessment Exercise, feeling the pressure to undertake research activities of a social scientific rather than professional orientation.
So enough of retrospection and what has not happened . I want to turn now to what might be possible for us in the future.
I believe we are at the onset of a different and much more exciting era. I believe we have reached a period in which the framing of our activity is becoming looser and offers considerably more scope for the profession actively to engage in shaping its own future and hence the future of teaching.
History will of course tell whether my words this morning are such as to brand me a na•ve optimist or whether the grounds for my optimism are well founded on the basis of the initiatives which are emerging.
There is I believe a growing recognition from many quarters about the better standing of the profession and seeing it as having a key role to play in creating, disseminating and applying professional knowledge (Hargreaves 1998). There is I believe an acknowledgment that the large scale national initiatives from the DfES e.g. the various Strategies, which David Hargreaves (2003a) has described as being based on 'command and control' are on their own insufficient as the sole determiners of professional activity for the future.
We can see examples of this happening. For qualified teachers, opportunities are being created for bursaries and scholarships from the DfES, TTA, and others so that a small number of teachers have been able to undertake activities for their own professional growth and development but with learning implications for their schools. At the level of the school there are funded opportunities for school wide initiatives and the fostering of innovative practices through Training Schools, through membership of Networked Learning Communities, through Specialist Schools, Beacon Schools and the Leading Edge programme. All have a remit to discover more about effective practice to be shared with others in the profession. For those involved teacher training there are opportunities for innovation too through for example regional partnership developments.
Alongside the continuation of central control over specific strategies, what we are also witnessing is the active encouragement of grass roots developments, of greater trust in the skills and professional knowledge of teachers and teacher educators and support for knowledge-sharing and the dissemination of good practice by the profession for the profession. These I see as indications that the profession is becoming increasingly recognised and valued as able to propose and enact its own solutions to the fulfilment of external agenda, be those to do with the better preparation of entrants to the profession, or to further developing those within it.
I want now to look in more detail at two examples where members of the profession have been assuming more control, engaging in innovative practice since I believe that if the profession were to take up such opportunities in a more concerted way, this would enable it to begin to build a future, not independently of national priorities, but able more directly to influence them and to contribute to a professional knowledge base for teacher education which is as yet in its infancy.
My first example is the Training School initiative because it relates to the initial stage of training but is not confined to that and because it is one of the few examples where innovation in teacher education has been and is being encouraged. From just 50 schools 3 years ago the plan is to expand this to 150.
I want to describe work undertaken by my own university working in partnership with Brislington secondary school on the outskirts of Bristol in order to illustrate the energy and creativity unleashed when greater control and additional resources are given and also to highlight the potential of such innovation to contribute to the profession, to trainees and those involved in their training as well as to others.
For the profession to advance it needs to go on renewing its knowledge base and the evidence from this experience indicates Training Schools, in partnership with HEIS, can do just that.
At the time the school made its bid it was concerned about levels of literacy and believed that trainees should have additional opportunities to work with pupils to enhance their literacy. My intention is not though to focus on the substantive areas of training but rather what also emerged during the 3 years of the project. What is relevant today for our exploration about the future of the profession is the different quality of professional relationship between school based mentors and trainees and a different quality of relationship between school based and university based staff which developed. It is this quality which I see as a vital element to the profession of the future. For us it was new but as with many claims to newness, for others it may be more commonplace. However to me it signalled a different form of professionalism for the future, and hence I believe it is worth sharing with you.
For us what was different and moved us on from the previous more limited way in which mentors and trainees, school and university based staff had worked was the greater willingness to learn from and with each other. Although it took time to develop there was a greater open mindedness as trainees and mentors engaged in active listening and learning with a view to informing their actions and with a greater focus on how practices impacted upon pupils' learning. There was greater reciprocity, interdependence as well as independence than had been evident in our other partnership arrangements and these attributes I see as important for the profession in the future.
Let me provide you with some insight into how this happened. The way in which the partnership worked was informed by an action research cycle (McNiff, 2002) in which trainees observed the teaching of their mentors, a common enough practice, but what was different was the fact that the mentor's lesson was videoed, and then elements closely analysed and critiqued by the mentor and trainee (http://pathways2002.uwe.ac.uk/trainingschool/methodology/action-research.htm)
This requirement for the mentor subsequently to engage in dialogue with the trainees about why she had done what she had done, to be openly critical of her own teaching in relation to the nature and quality of learning the pupils had experienced, challenged the mentor to make visible the rationale informing her practice. Through the mentorÕs own questioning and analysis and through the questioning by trainees, there was a deeper focus on what and how pupils were or were not learning and how better their needs might have been met. After this period of collaborative exploration, guided by their mentors and with a heightened level of understanding, the trainees then planned and resourced their own lessons for a parallel group of pupils. This in turn was videoed and a similar process of collaborative critique took place as the trainees and mentors openly discussed the relative effectiveness of these changed practices on pupilsÕ responses and learning.
In this climate of support and trust, mentors and trainees helped each other to develop educational judgement about their own as well each otherÕs actions.
During these dialogues barriers to do with status became less important than learning about each others' strengths and actions with particular groups of pupils and seeing how different ways of organising and structuring learning might be more effective. A key element of this way of working and which was distinctive from that which had previously characterised the relationships between mentors and trainees, was that it was collaborative and developmental for all participants. It was also less hierarchical and more democratic and produced a quality of reflection which directly informed subsequent action which in turn was closely analysed. It was also more public as data from the mentoring sessions, the teaching sessions and examples of pupils' work formed an evidential record for wider dissemination through a website (http://pathways2002.uwe.ac.uk/trainingschool) and school based staff and university based tutors have and are continuing to publish accounts of the learning that accrued thereby adding to the professional knowledge base.
Evaluations by trainees of their experiences indicate a number
of benefits not just about content knowledge but about the process of learning
and also knowledge about being part of a professional community committed
to learning. When interviewed about their experiences trainees stated:
“ …you are not only reflecting on your own performance but you are
being made to reflect on theirs which is really useful.”
“We weren’t just getting a lesson on a lesson , we were getting
a lesson on reflection as well.”
“It allowed us to communicate on a different level, to be more honest.”
Mentors also commented on the benefits
“The trainees are able to improve their own teaching by evaluating it,
learning from the effective practice of others and from evidence,”
“The risk taking within the training school programme allows us to challenge
ourselves and to be more reflective about the practice of teaching. It gives
us the opportunity to just take the risk and by taking the risk, by learning
a new something about teaching, by understanding about students’ learning
, we are able to feed that back. So no initiative sits in isolation.”
In fact the head has chosen to build on the mentoring model which emerged to set up peer coaching in the school whereby those who have been involved in the Training School Project can help teachers from other subjects reflect on and improve their practice .There is an open acknowledgment that all practice is not equally strong but that the school does have the capacity to transfer and potentially transform learning through supportive, collaborative activity.
In describing this example and what I perceive as its strengths, I do not what to paint a false picture about the ease with which this was achieved. What I have described is practice that evolved at the end of 3 years and required considerable commitment from those involved as well as support from management in the school and the university. In addition to professional debates about the nature of partnership we faced personal issues that certainly had not appeared in any risk assessment exercise. We also had staff changes and illness, problems with technology as well as some problems accessing the consent from parents of the pupils whose images and work were to be put on the website. So not a straightforward case.
There were certainly times during this project when we felt concerns about the direction and what we were achieving. Many accounts of so called 'best' or 'good' practice read as though they are in the world but not of the real world. Omitted is the messiness of real staffrooms and real classrooms with real people managing complex professional and personal lives. I say this because being more self directing and exercising human agency with the responsibility that flows from it is no easy option. It is arguably easier to go along with the main flow, continue our current practices, or blame the government, OfSTED, the TTA, etc rather than as professionals be more innovative with the risks and responsibilities for the successes or failures.
I want now to move to my second example, the development of Networked Learning Communities, one of the programmes established by the National College for School Leadership (NCSL).I have chosen this because it again illustrates the profession becoming more self directing, more collaborative and sharing which I see as having some similarities with my first example but on a much larger scale.
For those unfamiliar with this particular programme, it was launched just over a year ago in September 2002 and involves groups of schools, Local Education Authorities, Higher Education Institutions and other groups in the community working together 'to raise standards and improve opportunities for pupils' by developing schools as professional learning communities via six levels of learning (National College of School Leadership, 2003)
These levels focus on
Pupil learning
Staff learning and professional development
Leadership for learning and leadership development
School- wide learning
School-to-school learning
Network-to-Network Learning
The description it offers about its programme emphasises the benefits to be gained by schools and institutions coming together , celebrating their diversity and working together to share knowledge and innovative practices with a view to their adaptability by others in the network.
In other words these schools are helping shape the educational agenda, contributing to their own professional development and that of others .They are helping therefore to create the profession.
So what is the scale of this? Well in June of this year there were approx 84 networks nationally involving approx 1,000 schools and the numbers are growing so it is certainly an initiative with considerable potential to influence the profession.
In his presentation to the Networked Learning Communities Conference this summer David Hargreaves (2003b) spoke of his belief that if such networks do succeed they have a transformatory potential not only to change the nature of the profession but also in how it is perceived. I quote from his Conference speech when he stated:
"It will be a vital demonstration that bottom-up, peer-to-peer and self-organising systems are a powerful and self- sustaining means of improvement. That could change for ever the relationship between ministers and the DfES on the one hand, and the nation's schools and their teachers on the other.|"
For such transformation to occur Hargreaves points to a numbers of qualities teachers will need. Included are commitment and courage combined with self- discipline and 'a determined avoidance of distraction.' I have to say that this list does have something of a hair shirt ring about it and in my view doesn't adequately capture the qualities of energy and infectious enthusiasm I have experienced from those involved in such networks. It is those qualities too which are important if others are to be encouraged to sign up and get involved.
What though is apparent in the two examples I have given is that each involves members of the profession individually and collectively being focused , being prepared to be courageous , to take risks and above all seeing themselves not only as teachers but also and more importantly seeing themselves as learners. As learners themselves, irrespective of their location and length of time in the profession, they are enquiring into aspects of their practice, learning about it in collaboration with others and disseminating that learning collegially through the use of the web enabling them to connect with the ideas and practices of others with shared or different professional concerns in similar and different contexts.
The web provides us with a very quick and very powerful means of making available to others our own practitioner knowledge (Module section of http://www.actionresearch.net/mastermod.shtml) as well as providing each of us with the means to expand our own knowledge by accessing the knowledge and experience of others. In terms of the language of this conference it enables us as professionals, if we so choose, to be both informed by our peers and to take on a responsibility for informing others. Both I see as part of our obligations as professionals as we become in the future more inquiry minded and more collaborative within and across our sites of learning and professional activity.
I want however to sound a small note of caution and endorse the view put forward by Catherine Snow in her Presidential Address to the American Education Research Association Conference in 2001 (Snow, 2001). Whilst wholeheartedly supporting the wealth of knowledge possessed by teachers , Snow indicates that to date it is largely unexploited because of lack of 'procedures for systematizing it' and making it public .Amassing data archives retrievable through the web could of course be a solution and there is a growing number of websites where such studies can be accessed.Jack Whitehead's (2003) award winning website 'actionresearch.net' (http://www.actionresearch.net) is one such example and the research section of the GTCE website is another (http://www.gtce.org.uk/research/research.asp). Both are certainly worth viewing. Snow also urges us to ensure rigour, so that practitioner generated accounts are more than personal anecdote and that we develop procedures for connecting these accounts 'to bodies of knowledge established through other methods.' Here it would seem is a pointer to greater links in the future between school based and HEI based researchers.
If the examples I have been describing were to become more prevalent then I see us belonging to a profession which would be more actively engaged in its own learning than is currently the case .To use a phrase drawn from the Manitoba School Improvement Programme in Canada (Claxton, 2002, p.116) it would be a profession that would also be more inquiry minded. Such a profession in an increasingly data rich world would 'no longer be in awe of data', nor would it as Earl and Lee assert be looking for data 'to confirm its prejudices nor to endorse its practices'. Instead teachers would be 'actively searching for understanding, struggling to describe the complexity of their work, and using systematic inquiry procedures to stand back and think about their school.' As a profession it would of course need time to do this, time which it ought to be possible to gain by a reduction in the present bureaucratic demands placed upon it.
From the examples I have presented I want now to draw together some key attributes present in these initiatives which I see as key to the profession of the future.
I see it as a profession which will be
It will be real examples that will bring this list to life and help move forward the profession and what it becomes. I find particularly exciting for example the commitment to being more outward looking and inclusive. In my own Faculty we are trying to do this with some of our trainees. This term for example our Primary PGCE students are helping pupils from some of our partner schools make animal masks which the pupils will wear in a production of Benjamin Britten's Opera, Noye's Fludde, to be performed with the University Orchestra and Bristol Cathedral choristers. The set for the production is being made by the inmates from the local prison. A great example of inclusive practice and learning to value different contributions.
Returning to my list, well it has much in common with the ideas of Andy Hargreaves (2003) as well as the principles outlined by Judith Sachs in her recent publication 'The activist teaching profession'. In this she identifies 5 principles which together form a platform for the renewal and development of the profession - learning, participation, collaboration, cooperation, activism (Sachs, 2003).
What of course matters is how we translate these words into
action.
Let me turn now to the stances of the key institutions and bodies which frame our professional lives. Whilst these institutions and bodies may not sign up to all the attributes I have listed, there is I believe evidence to suggest support for movement in the direction I have indicated and hence for turning possibilities into probabilities.
Firstly and importantly is the view of the government and the extent to which it is beginning to legitimate this direction. In an article headed 'I have learned the limits of government ', Tony Blair wrote
"after five years in government, I know only too well that passing legislation, or making a speech, will not solve vandalism on estates, raise standards in secondary schools---" (Blair, 2002, p. 15).
He went on to propose the way forward as the empowering of 'front line workers' in the public services , giving them more autonomy over aspects of their work whilst requiring their continued accountability to the promotion of national standards. He wrote
' .. if a service can be accountable for what it achieves,
we need worry far less about how it achieves it. Accountability for outcomes
allows us freedom over means.'
Provided the profession delivers and we continue to produce high quality recruits and schools meet the government's agenda, it appears likely that we will witness what some have described as 'licensed autonomy' with greater scope for innovation and the opportunity for the profession, or at least a proportion of it, to become more self directing.
There is further evidence of greater trust and autonomy within national priorities in a number of the DfES' publications, e.g. 'Achieving Success' (DfES, 2003a) and 'Excellence and Enjoyment' (DfES, 2003b) give teachers more ownership of the curriculum. This is apparent too in the Secretary of State's plan to give more control of the target setting process at Key Stage 2 to primary schools. As you will be aware in future teachers will have a greater say in setting targets and these will be based on what those in the profession working with pupils know about their pupils and what they believe they as professionals can do to help their pupils achieve. A further example and albeit a controversial one is I believe the government's planned workforce reforms (DfES 2003c) which could provide the opportunity for the development of other attributes I have listed. The changes to teachers' contracts should mean a profession less burdened by administrative and clerical tasks and with more time and opportunity to focus collaboratively on improving the quality of learning for pupils.
Secondly and more directly for us as teacher educators is
the stance of the TTA as our major funding and accrediting body for teacher
training.
"We are keen to work with providers".. We will work with providers to develop the shared knowledge base of initial teacher training, bringing together the collective wisdom of the sector and making it available for the potential benefit of all those involved." (TTA 2003, p.5)
The language is certainly different from its earlier Plan where the language was distinctly more monitorial in tone.
Furthermore the Agency is also planning to support innovation by providers, albeit within TTA and DfES priorities and in so doing is allowing providers undertaking such projects, if they choose, to be exempt from inspection grading for 3 years. It appears to be recognising that change takes time, outcomes are unpredictable and benefits may not be instantly visible. Whilst I can see some problems in the implementation of this , in arbitrating what counts as innovation and hence eligibility for deferral from Inspection, this steer from the Agency has the potential to make teacher training providers less risk averse and to free them to develop new approaches.
Thirdly OfSTED. The most recent reports from the Chief Inspector (OfSTED 2003a & 2003b) about the standards of teacher training, which applauds the quality of new recruits, suggest an Inspectorate more trusting and respectful of teacher educators. This I see as evidenced also by the change in the Inspection methodology for ITT which now includes an element of self assessment. Encouraging too is the Report on the Award Bearing INSET Scheme (Soulsby, D & Swain, D. 2003) and its support for the profession's continued learning and development through its recommendation that the scheme be continued. In advocating this the authors claim that:
"teachers who complete an award feel they have gained new and specific skills, knowledge and understanding from the sustained study required .-----Participants frequently claim to be better informed, more confident and more professional as a result of the training, and better equipped to carry out one or more aspects of their main professional role." (Soulsby & Swain, 2003, p.5).
Finally I want to recommend a look at OfSTED's (2003 c)recent publication 'Expecting the unexpected' which reports on a small scale survey identifying good practice in the promotion of creativity in primary and secondary schools. The report endorses several of the attributes I have listed today. It makes uplifting reading as it refers to teachers inspiring each other, in being willing to take risks , working cooperatively within their schools as well as being outward looking and drawing on expertise from external organisations in their quest to promote pupilsÕ creativity.
These examples and doubtless there are others, suggest a changing climate of support from outside the profession and a political will to involve the profession more in finding better ways to train teachers , better ways to enhance pupilsÕ attainment and to realise their potential.
Whilst we can see movement in the direction I have indicated and some teachers are already actively participating in various developments, necessarily we need to ask, what of the rest? Will the very opportunities I have outlined be divisive? Will the future be a profession which is more divided, those within and those without Networked LCs, those within the Leading Edge Programme or in City academies with enhanced resources and those without, those granted licensed autonomy through good OfSTED reports and those without, those teacher education institutions given scope to innovate and with a temporary respite from OfSTED scrutiny and those without such opportunity and so on.
In other words we need to recognise that whilst I have envisaged a profession which is more collaborative and less hierarchical and whilst many of these initiatives require sharing with others, the jury is out as to whether or not this is will happen to the benefit of the profession as a whole. The jury is also out as to whether these statements from government and the TTA about giving more responsibility to the profession is in fact rhetoric or will become a reality. Arguably history will be the judge.
Returning now to my list of attributes about the profession I want finally to ask whether teaching itself might then look different in the future. I want to pose the question as to whether some of the attributes of increased learner centeredness, greater trust, more collaboration, inquiry mindedness etc which I see as characterising the profession will not just impact on our own activities and professional identities but will in turn be manifested in how we work with our pupils, students, trainees. Will the attributes identified for ourselves as educators in a complex, changing world, have applicability to the attributes we wish to foster in those we teach and whom we prepare for that changing world.
I believe this should be so.
I want in fact to suggest that as we as professionals become more trusted, more centred on our own learning, more collaborative in terms of how we work together, so we will reflect this in our practices with our pupils/ trainees / students. We will, as some members of the professional already are and as evidenced by Jean Rudduck and Julia Flutter (2000) and other researchers focussing on pupil voice, by those using approaches such as Building Learning Power as advocated by Guy Claxton (2002) and by those schools that have already set up student councils, come to
Were we to do so I believe we would as Stoll, Fink and Earl (2003) have argued, drawing on ideas presented by Jacques Delors (1996) to UNESCO, begin to shift learning from concentrating on 'learning to know' and 'learning to do' which I see as remaining important and would also include other kinds of learning i.e.' learning to live together' by understanding others' contributions and view points and also 'learning to be', which they see as involving the development of the 'all round person who possesses greater autonomy, judgment and personal responsibility.'
Were we to do so, would this lead us, in John HoltÕs words, to
' turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned?' (Skidmore, 2003, p. 9)
Would we then have helped create a generation of those who were not only able to demonstrate the necessary skills and knowledge for the society of the future but were adaptable to change, engaged in learning, had a real disposition to want to go on learning , and were able genuinely to give life to the notion of life long learning?
Were we to be able to fashion the future in the way I have described, I believe we would be closer to what Sachs (2003, p. 27) refers to as 'democratic professionalism' which is more consultative and more inclusive of those whose interests the profession purports to serve and is more open to listening to those from diverse backgrounds in order that we might better support their learning and development.
We might well pause to consider the possible outcomes if the teaching profession shifted in this way. Might it for example stem the flow of those who leave teaching within the first few years? Would the greater opportunities for self direction, for innovation, for research based practice, for a different quality of being with professional colleagues and with pupils help stem the exodus from the profession. Would it also attract to the profession more men and members of minority ethnic groups?
What if teaching shifted in the way I have described? Would it halt the increasing numbers of families choosing to educate their children at home? According to Roland Meighan there are now more than 30,000 families in the UK educating their children at home compared with just 20 families 25 years ago (Hastings, 2003, p.11). Would those disaffected learners who constitute the pupil absence figures find schools more rewarding if teachers and teaching were different?
In raising these questions we can only speculate on the answers.
If this vision in any way captures your imagination and we are to move forward to realise it then undoubtedly it will take continued support by government and external agencies. But history tells us that such support is fragile and can never be guaranteed for more than the short term. Changing resource priorities, election priorities, changes in personnel, changes in the funding of higher education and the implementation of research selectivity may get in the way. Even if support continued it will also take commitment. Inevitably we will have some differences of emphasis in our hope for the profession and what is achievable and over what time scale. Timescale is sometimes difficult to grasp and governments, funding bodies and even we ourselves are often anxious for quick returns.
Earlier this year I was fortunate to attend Michael Fullan's UK and Ireland Workshop Tour on Leading in a Culture of Change during which he expressed the view that it takes 3 years to change a primary school, 6 a secondary school and 8 years for an LEA .How long might we ask for the profession? In his book 'Change Forces with a Vengeance' Fullan (2003) writes about passion and 'moral purpose' which he sees as 'a critical motivator' in change .So do more of us need to maintain, whilst others rekindle, that sense of passion and purpose that brought us into the profession if we are to be part of creating its future in a way that will make a difference. We could of course settle for what we have, after all we have learnt to follow with some success agendas others have set for us. But were we to do so we could continue to have a problem of teacher supply, and could continue to fail significant numbers of our pupils. We would, I suggest, also be unlikely to cope with the knowledge society as it continues to expand and be unable to meet the as yet unknown demands which could emerge from social, economic or political instabilities.
I want then to conclude by asking whether as a profession we want to take the opportunities becoming available to us in order to influence the future.
If you share some or all of the ideas I have presented you might want to consider how individually and collectively through SCETT, through the GTC, through UCET, through professional associations and through our various workplaces some of this can be converted into reality.
In the examples I have drawn on, there are the foundations for us to build but we will also need energy, commitment, a belief in the possible and recourse to the values each of us holds about making a positive difference to the experiences of our pupils and trainees. Are we then to be part of what Andy Hargreaves has called 'a reinvented profession that does not just deliver value, but is driven by values?' (Hargreaves, 2003, p. 51)
Together, are we going to make the possible probable?
REFERENCES
Blair, T. (2002) I have learned the limits of government. The Independent, 20 May, 2002.
Clarke, C. & Tabberer, R. (2003) Foreword in 'Qualifying to Teach'. London: DfES and TTA.
Claxton, G. (2002) Building Learning Power. Bristol: TLO Limited.
Delors, J. (1996) Learning: The Treasure Within. Geneva: UNESCO.
DfES (2003a) Achieving Success. Retrieved 8 August 2003 from http://www.dfes.gov.uk/achievingsuccess/
DfES (2003b) Excellence and Enjoyment: A strategy for primary schools. Retrieved 8 August from http://www.dfes.gov.uk/primarydocument/
DfES (2003c) WorkFORCE freedoms. Retrieved from http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/remodelling
Fullan, M. (2003) Change Forces with a Vengence. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Hargreaves, A. (2003) Teaching in the Knowledge Society. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Hargreaves, D. (1998) Creative Professionalism: The role of teachers in the knowledge society. London: DEMOS.
Hargreaves, D. (2003a) Teachers must become networking wizards. Independent 26 June, 2003.
Hargreaves, D. (2003b) Transcript of presentation to First Networked Learning Communities Conference. Retrieved 8 August from http://www.ncsl.org.uk/mediastore/image2/nlg-hargreaves-transcript.pdf
Hastings, S. (2003) Home schooling. The Times Educational Supplement -The Issue, 12 September 2003.
McNiff, J. (2002) Action Research for Professional Practice: Concise advice for beginners. Retrieved 8 August, 2003, from http://www.jeanmcniff.com/booklet1.html
Mitchell, C. & Weber, S (1998). Reinventing Ourselves as Teachers: Beyond Nostalgia. London: RoutledgeFalmer
National College of School Leadership (2003) About Networked Learning Communities. Retrieved 8 August 2003 from http://www.ncsl.org.uk/
OfSTED (2003a) Quality and standards in primary initial teacher training. London: OfSTED.
OfSTED (2003b) Quality and standards in secondary initial teacher training. London: OfSTED.
OfSTED (2003c) Expecting the Unexpected: Developing creativity in primary and secondary schools. Retrieved 9 September 2003 from http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications/docs/3377.pdf
Rudduck, J. & Flutter, J. (2000) Pupil Participation and Pupil Perspective: carving a new order of experience. Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 30, No 1, pp. 75-89.
Sachs, J. (2003) The Activist Teaching Profession. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Silcock, P. (2002) Under Construction of Facing Demoloition? Contrasting Views on English Teacher Professionalism from Across a Professional Association. Teacher Development Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 137- 153.
Skidmore, P. (2003) Beyond Measure. London: DEMOS.
Snow, C. E. ( 2001) Knowing What we Know: Children, Teachers, Researchers. Educational Researcher. Vol. 30, No.7, pp. 3-9.
Soulsby, D & Swain, D. (2003) A Report on the Award-bearing INSET Scheme. London: DfES.
Stoll. L., Fink, D. & Earl, L. (2003) It's About Learning. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Teacher Training Agency (2003) Corporate Plan 2003-6, London: TTA.
http://www.tta.gov.uk/about/reports/corp-op-plan/index.htm
Whitehead, J. (2003) ActionResearch.net . Retrieved 8 August 2003 from http://www.actionresearch.net/living.shtml