Vague Meanderings Teaching as an expression of self The world today and tomorrow The role of the profession in this new era How GTCs can best serve the profession.
Freid R L 1995 The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide Beacon Boston Mass. Passionate people are the ones who make a difference to our lives. Sometimes that passion burns with a quiet refined intensity; sometimes it bellows forth with thunder and eloquence.
We Teach Who We Are Parker J Palmer The Courage to Teach Jossey-Bass 1998
The man who has no inner life is a slave to his surroundings. Amiel,Henri-Frederic
Sacred Fire Holding ideals is not exhibiting warm and fuzzy feelings but needs to be valued as part of the intensive educational debate about fundamental purposes….the absence of which undermines the heart of professionalism. » Sockett H. »The Moral Base for Teacher Professionalism>
Teaching: A Complex Interaction … a public recognition that effective learning involves, essentially an interactive chemistry between learner and teacher, which depends on process as much as content and is an expression of personal values and perceptions as much as competences and knowledge. Day, C. Teachers in the twenty-first century: time to renew the vision. Teachers and Training: Theory and Practice, 6, 1, pp
Teaching the Vocation of Vocations Shapers of the Future Custodians of Culture Makers of Meaning Vestigages of Immortality 40 th anniversary dinner
Educational leaders as caring teachers Noddings School Leadership and Management Vol 26 No 4 Education worthy of its name will help students to develop as : Persons Thoughtful citizens Competent parents Faithful friends Capable workers Generous neighbours Lifelong learners It avoids coercion and prefers the language of: Invitation Offering Encouragement Guidance Sharing Advice Rather than compulsion, prescription, testing and assignment.
Children Need Ears that hear the whispers of life Eyes that see both things & possibilities Mind that understands uncertainty Heart that knows the joy of success & the fun of failure An abiding sense of curiosity and wonder
Teaching an Exercise in Vulnerability Teaching is all about mastery but is never far from mystery Teaching transcends the acquisition of skills and is rooted in values and emotional connectedness
D. J. Reitz: 1998 Moral Crisis in the Schools; What Parents and Teachers Need to Know Baltimore Cathedral Foundation Press The impersonal teacher is saying in effect: I am here because I am paid; you are here because you have to be. We will both be satisfied if you get passing grades. I cant be concerned about how you develop as a person or what you do in life with the information I am communicating. I teach you what I am told to teach and that is the limit of my responsibility for you.
Our Work in Context
Past Experiences: Present Realities Political interference Marketisation of education Prescription Central control – –Delegated responsibility –Kentucky Fried Curriculum New Right Globalisation Connectivity Diversity Pax Americana GTcs – Servants or Agents of Control? Codes? Standards? Disciplinary Function?
Fielding, M. (Ed) 2001 Taking Education Really Seriously: Four Years Hard Labour, New York: Routledge/Falmer Press Englands reforms have no place for values or how people should live their lives and care for others: no place for either the language or experience of joy, of spontaneity, of life lived in ways that are vibrant and fulfilling rather than watchfully earnest, focussed and productive of economic activity.
Discourse of Derison Education isnt Wurking Free- Market Stalinism Era of Distrust- Professionals viewed as self interested groups Specificity and density as means of control Kentucky Fried Curriculum Vs The Julie Andrews Model
Present Realities: Cultural Revolution Health Warning
Tesseract Thatcher 79 Reagan 81 NEW RIGHT AGENDA
New Right – culture ? The most obvious hallmark of the Thatcher and Major governments has been a ferocious onslaught on institutional autonomy, diversity and stability in the name of the rationality of the market place. Almost all of the institutions which used to shield an unusually stable and diverse civil society from the arrogance of the politicians in temporary command of the state, or which embodied values and practices at variance with those of market economies have felt the lash of this Tory Jacobinism. Marquand, D Guardian, 16 th of July
Erosion of Social Capital No such thing as society : Liberal individualist Agenda IndividualismvsCommunitarian CompetitionvsCooperation PerformancevsService What we risk losing, many agree, are those communal spaces where meaningful social interaction broadens peoples sense of self beyond the me and I into the we and us. (Crossman et al 2000)
The Economic Revolution Knowledge Society : Global / Knowledge Economy Consumerist Society New Right Consensus
Chindia Syndrome India / Russia China / Brazil Post Industrial Age : New Economic World Order
China India 3 rd largest economy Will be largest user of oil by 2009 Largest exporter of info technology goods 50% of worlds cement Graduates exceeds UK population Oil demands will increase 300% in 10 years India now major source of services such as Tax Management
OutSourcing Outsourcing work to developing countries brings75% reduction in wages and 100% rise in productivity Tradable Services -outsourcing no longer confined to unskilled jobs- ( accountants, computer programmers etc. more readily outsourced than taxi drivers etc. –Alan Blinder Princeton Univ.) SEAGATE move to Indonesia
Globalisation- the Impact Globalisation –Homogenisation ?? –Sameness coupled with fluidity –Cash rich time poor –Work as source of income not pride –Decline in Social CapitalCommon Good? Robert Putnams Bowling Alone Those who dont share in the economic benefits turn inwards: Culture / Ethnicity / Religion Escapist disengagement Parisian Riots Working Class Loyalist Disenchantment Hedonist Lifestyle Suicide –major problem in N. Ireland
Alain Michel-- Inspector General of Frances of Education system 2001 OECD publication on future of education Globalisation, because of the risks it brings of soulless standardization, can lead to fragmentation and a reduced sense of belonging to a wider community. The excesses of unbridled markets, in which prices and the market are more important than social or cultural relationships, are being met with a reaction of narrow nationalism, regionalism and parochialism.
Globalisation : Delors Report People today have a dizzying feeling of being torn between a globalisation whose manifestations they can see and sometimes have to endure, and their search for roots, reference points and a sense of belonging. Learning the Treasure Within Delors et Al 1996 Unesco Report: Paris
Sennett, R.(1999) The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. London WW Norton The conditions of the new economy feed…on experience that drifts in time, from place to place, from job to job….. Short term capitalism threatens to corrode (the) character which binds human beings to one another and furnishes each with a sense of sustainable self. How can a human being develop a narrative of identity and life history in a society composed of episodes and fragments.
SYSTEM LIFE - WORLD GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACY ECONOMY VALUES BELIEFS DREAMS MYTHS HABERMAS 1984 SYSTEM IS COLONISING THE LIFE WORLD
Breaking News Its more of the same. says Carnegie Trust.
Falling Cost of Technologies Increasing Migration Aging Population Increasing Role of Devolved Government Contexts Socio-economic inequalities Corporate power Pressure on global resources Rising individualism Cultural & religious diversity Fluid work patterns Shifting identities Disengagement from formal politics Single issue politics Pervasive technology Rise of digital natives Visibility of security state Regulation of civic life Increasing importance of rights agenda Uncertainties Limits of Economics Shifting Activism Personal Values State and Individual
NEW TIMES: BEST OF TIMES? Disconnected Times Progression Dislocated Logic confounded Simple stories no longer suffice
Passivity = Complicity A dominant force may legitimate itself by promoting beliefs and values congenial to it; naturalising and universalising such beliefs to render them self evident and apparently inevitable, denigrating ideas which might challenge it, excluding rival forms of thought. (Eagleton 1991)
Call to Arms Teacher Activism:Mobilising the Profession Plenary Address bera Conference 2003
Judith Sachs bera 2003 ….the possibility of an activist teaching profession is not the imaginings of an armchair activist or a utopian idealist but rather it is socially responsible strategy for improving education provision across the board. Hope is not enough – mobilizing the teaching profession, the media and various community groups in the interests of intelligent education policy is the priority!
Idealism as Antidote Passion –Nurtures Conviction –Facilitates Freires Loving Pedagogy –Creates Fullans Moral Purpose –Sustains us on that wet Friday afternoon. Ideals prosper in Community Ideals whither in Isolation Social Capital
Moral Visionary Profession …making teaching into a moral, visionary profession once more where teachers know and care about their world as well as and as part of their work. It means teachers recapturing their status and dignity as some of societys leading intellectuals, and not being the mere technicians, instruments and deliverers of other peoples agendas……….. Those who focus only on teaching techniques and curriculum standards and who do not also engage teachers in the greater social and moral questions of their time, promote a diminished view of teaching and teacher professionalism that has no place in a sophisticated knowledge society. Hargreaves A. Teaching in the Knowledge Society2003
GTCNI Response Promote a Sense of Moral Purpose Competences transcending utilitarian Promote Communities of Practice Encourage Wider Debate Re-intellectualise the Profession
Moral Purpose Code of values –developed in partnership with the profession –expressed as commitments – not as a series of commandments Charter for Education – agreed by all stakeholders –Identifying the core purposes of education: eschews the merely utilitarian places holistic development at the centre of our endeavours
Code of Values & Professional Practice Celebrates the unique relationship between teachers and those entrusted to their care Commitments –beneficent approach – Learners –Colleagues & others engaged education –the Profession Makes Explicit Values long Implicit Included in our Competences
Statement of Purpose: CHARTER UNESCO Learning- to KNOW Learning- to DO Learning- to LIVE TOGETHER Learning- to BE
Competences & Professional Knowledge
Professional Knowledge Sharpe R, 2004 How do professionals Learn and Develop? Implications for Staff and Education Developers. Professional knowledge is no longer viewed as just consisting of a standardised, explicit and fixed knowledge base. It is now seen as knowledge which exists in use, is ethical in its use and is changed by experience. The distinctive nature of professional knowledge lies in the interplay between its construction and use. When teachers use their knowledge, use changes what that knowledge is.
Meaningful Competences Competences not Standards Teacher as a Moral Agent Reflective Contextually Situated Professional Knowledge seen as Organic Cognitive underpinning / knowledge values
Competence: developmental continuum Life-long hence Code Commitment Competences- never fully mastered! –the nature and level of the teachers experience and their personal effectiveness; –the work-based context; and –the roles teachers have experienced and the development opportunities arising from such experiences.
Hayes,D. Opportunities and Obstacles in the Competencey-Based Training of Primary Teachers in England. Harvard Educational Review Vol 69 Number If competence statements are used as a basis for informed discussion and reflection upon classroom practice between tutors, students, and classroom teachers, they will fulfill an important function. If they are used mechanically within an inflexible assessment regime framework, it is likely that the preparation of teachers…. will become miserably rigid, unsympathetic towards the realities and rigors of classroom life, and at worst, an impediment to creative and innovative teaching.
Our Collective Responsibility To be….active agents in the production of a new pedagogic discourse, rather than merely the consumers of the professional knowledge produced by academics and educational researchers. (Edwards & Brunton)
Price of Failure …do their job, nothing more nothing less, aided in this by codified rules, timetables and lesson plans. The restrictiveness of their (assigned) texts and regulations serves them to adhere to their minimalist assiduity….the sacred fire which once lit their work gradually dies to a smoulder. » Hamon & Rotman
The Hargreaves Agenda Andy Dont be Too busy rescuing drowning people to look to see whats causing them to fall in. David Remember A society of sheep breeds a government of wolves