Can I (as a living contradiction) Join the We in Ardra Cole’s (1996) Question and Can You and I Help Each Other to Take Forward Our Self-Studies of Teacher Education Practices?

Jack Whitehead

University of Bath, Bath, UK

 

Can I (as a living contradiction) Join the We in Ardra Cole’s (1996) Question and Can You and I Help Each Other to Take Forward Our Self-Studies of Teacher Education Practices?

As part of my contribution to the session on An Epistemology of Practice with Ben Cunningham, Moyra Evans, Pam Lomax and Zoe Parker, I agreed to consider my learning as a living contradiction in creating productive tensions with others.

 

The first contradiction I experience is in wanting to become included in the ‘we’ in Ardra’s question, yet not feeling the living affirmations of those of you who are constituting the ‘we’. I don’t yet know who identifies with the ‘we’ in the question.

 

Ardra’s question:

How do we, as a community of researchers committed to self-study both in theory and in practice, create a legitimate space for ourselves and our work both within our own institutions and within the broader educational and academic community?

 

My second contradiction is in holding together the high status I give to the teaching profession and the low status it appears to have within my culture.

 

In the hope that you and I can become ‘we’ in sharing our questions, answers and ideas, I want to share two forms of activity which I think have helped to create a legitimate space for ourselves and our work both within our own institutions and within the broader educational and academic community.

 

The first form of activity is directly related to the academic legitimation of self-studies of teacher education practices for Certificates in Education, Advanced Diplomas in Professional Development, M.Ed., M.A., M.Phil. & Ph.D Degrees. The examples of successfully completed work at these different levels are on the World Wide Web at the address below. The reason I think that the academic legitimation of these studies has helped to create a legitimate space for ‘our’ work is because they are grounded in an epistemology of practice, an epistemology which is helping to establish a new knowledge base(s) of self study. I am thinking particularly of the new kinds of educational standards of judgement which can be used to justify an individual’s claim to know her or his own learning and educational development. I am also thinking of the legitimacy of the new view that educational theory in general is being constituted by the living educational theories of individuals in the descriptions and explanations which they are producing in their self-studies of inquiries of the kind, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’. Tom Russell (1995) has explained how ‘our’ work in self-study can contribute to the reconstruction of educational theory. If you have the time to look at Chapter 8 of Moyra Evans’ Ph.D. on ‘Creating my own living educational theory’, do let me know what you think of this new view of educational theory. Moyra’s work will download directly to PC or Mac into Word, using N etscale 2.0.

 

The second form of activity is a direct engagement with those power relations which influence the professional status of teaching within my cultural context. The letter below has been sent to a powerful committee in our Houses of Parliament in an attempt to establish self-study of teacher education practices as a major force in the enhancement of teacher professionalism. The committee has decided to focus on the professional status of teaching over the next few months. The Member of Parliament for Bath, Don Foster, is on this committee. Don received his Masters Degree, by research, from the University of Bath in 1982, for an enquiry on teacher research and professional development, and supports the ideas in the letter below. My intention is to share my learning with those of you who might be interested in the inquiry, as I work at contributing to the creation of conditions which will support the enhancement of teacher professionalism through self-study. Do please think of ways of helping me to learn how to engage more effectively with the power relations in my culture in a way which can enhance professionalism in teaching.

 

Letter to committee inquiring into teacher professionalism.

 

3 June 1996

Sir Malcolm Thornton M.P.

Chair of Select Committee on Education and Employment

House of Commons

London

 

Dear Sir Malcolm,

1) I ask your committee to focus some attention on seeking evidence which shows how teachers are enhancing their professionalism in a way which improves the quality of pupils’ learning and the quality of school management.

 

2) I support the statements of principle for teacher development and the national framework for continuing professional development set out by the University Council for the Education of Teachers, in A National Framework for the Career-Long Professional Development of Teachers: Quality and Achievement through Partnership. I also support the proposals from the General Teaching Council (GTC Trust, England and Wales) for the establishment of a statutory GTC.

 

3) Whilst recognising the importance of such proposals my experience tells me that there is an urgent need to relate such abstract and general statements to the living, professional development needs of teachers who are asking practical questions of the kind,’How do I help my pupils to improve their learning?’.

 

4) I am urging the committee to ask of those who are making submissions on the professional status of teaching a particular kind of question. I am thinking of the question, "Can you show where there is evidence which demonstrates how your proposals either can be, or, are already being, directly related to the lives of teachers who are enhancing their professionalism in a way which improves the quality of pupils’ learning and/or the quality of school management?"

 

5) My reason for urging the committee to look as such evidence is that they might then be in a position to make recommendations about enhancing teachers’ professionalism in a way which could link the rhetoric of policy documents directly to the lives of those who are trying to improve the quality of pupils’ learning.

 

Examples of the evidence I have in mind are at the Internet address: http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw

 

The evidence includes:

i) Classroom research from novice teachers.

ii) Advanced Diploma and Masters Degree modules on professional development.

iii) The Ph.D. Degree of a Head of English of a Wiltshire Comprehensive School.

iv) The Ph.D Degree of a Deputy Head of a Community School in Milton Keynes.

 

This evidence spans the working lives of teachers from their early twenties, and just entering the profession, to their late fifties and nearing retirement. The practical questions which form the basis for the teachers’ professional development are of the form, "How do I help my pupils to improve their learning?" and "How can I improve my management to enable my colleagues to improve the quality of pupils’ learning?".

 

6) I am asking the committee to ground their recommendations on enhancing teacher professionalism in a particular kind of evidence. Evidence which shows how the processes of improving the quality of pupils’ learning can be related directly to the accreditation of teachers’ professional development through a lifetime’s service to education.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Jack Whitehead

Lecturer in Education, Convenor of the Action Research in Educational Theory Research Group

 

Copied to Don Foster, M.P. for Bath.

 

References

Cole, A. (1996) Teaching as Autobiography: Connecting the personal and the professional in the Academy. Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, April 1996.

Russell, T. (1995) Reconstructing educational theory from the authority of personal experience: how can I best help you learn to teach? Studies in Continuing Education, Vol. 17, No. 1 & 2., p.15