- Email: [email protected]
Activist professionalism: An alternative ideological platform
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Teaching and Teacher Education 21 (2005) 585–591 www.elsevier.com/locate/tate
Essay review Activist professionalism: An alternative ideological platform J. Sachs, The Activist Teaching Profession, Open University Press, Buckingham, 2003.
1. Introduction During the last decade we have both become involved in partnership initiatives: one a partnership between Levinsky College of Education and schools in the greater Tel Aviv area in Israel, and the other between the University for Professional Education and schools in different areas in the Netherlands. The primary goal of the initiative in Israel was to develop, together with schoolteachers, a school-based curriculum for studentteachers in pre-service teacher education, and to invite the schoolteachers, student-teachers and their college supervisors to consider this new curriculum, while the initiative in the Netherlands concerned experienced teachers in post-initial courses and in-service professional development activities. The aim was to develop a culture in which practice-based research by both teacher educators, teachers and their schools would be seen as fundamentally important and, in that sense, taken for granted (Ponte, 2002). Our interest in inquiry-based partnerships led us to the writings of Judyth Sachs about her work on Innovative Links (Sachs, 1997; Yeatman & Sachs, 1995). Although our partnerships are much smaller, it did not take long for us to reach the same conclusions that she reached during her work on larger projects in Australia. She concluded that ‘‘if partnerships between schools and universities are to be successful and to become an integral part of the professional life of academics and teachers, doi:10.1016/j.tate.2005.03.008
then both parties must have opportunities to try out and refine new practices. This means that they must be collaboratively involved in conceptualizing, implementing and evaluating new forms of relationships’’ (Sachs, 1997: p. 460). Like the teachers and teacher educators of Innovative Links, we developed and established new roles for the persons involved (ours was the role of research coordinator). We established new structures for talking about our work in the schools and in the teacher education institutes and for working on new tasks (proposal writing, documenting practices, curriculum planning, public presentations). We became intensively involved in creating a culture of inquiry not only for the teacher educators involved in the partnership, but also for pre-service, post-service and in-service teachers. In Tel Aviv, the college curriculum was reconstructed in order to encourage studentteachers and cooperating teachers to inquire into their own work with children and with each other. At the University of Professional Education in the Netherlands, teacher educators and experienced teachers were encouraged to start collaborative action research projects in the schools as well as self-studies in the university. Within our partnerships, as within Innovative Links, ‘‘professional learning and dissemination is expected, sought after, rewarded and an integral and ongoing part of institutional and personal life’’ (Sachs, 1997: p. 460). In our effort to disseminate the knowledge created within the partnership, we tried to explain how partnerships can lead to a transformation in the culture of schooling for children and their teachers, and for student-teachers and their teacher educators. We tried to show how this new culture creates opportunities for all participants to experience learning as a collaborative practice that
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Essay review / Teaching and Teacher Education 21 (2005) 585–591
is supported by their participation in the community of inquiry. We argued that creating such a culture was an important end in itself. We highlighted the changes that we documented in the teachers and teacher educators’ conceptions of knowledge, collegiality and agency. While doing that, however, we realized that the connections we made between learning communities, inquiry, and change needed to be further explained even to an audience of teacher educators who questioned why these were the inevitable ingredients of any significant effort to renew teacher professionalism. Judyth Sachs’ new book, The Activist Teaching Profession, was an important source of this justification.
2. Challenges under new policies The need to explain is particularly critical today, when our governments are demanding increased external standardization and external accountability for teaching and teacher education, thus making our task even more difficult. In Israel, a commission headed by high-tech tycoons has been appointed by the government to construct guidelines for the reorganization of schools, the teachers’ work and teacher education. They applied some principles they adopted from business ventures to devise a reform program for the country’s education system: the panel has clear goals, method of implementation and instruments for follow-up and control. The goal is to develop a compact, efficient, smart state-public educational system that suits the 21st century. The commission hopes to achieve its goal with the help of the teachers and principals, who, they expect, will cooperate of their own volition to reduce their numbers and streamline the system (thousands of teachers will be dismissed as a result of the reform), in return for higher pay and social prestige—which will attract top-level people from outside the educational system. As in many other countries (see for instance Darling-Hammond, 1999; Furlong, 2002), this reform is explained by the overriding concern with economic growth and international competitiveness. Those in authority, for instance, are encour-
aged to view themselves as managers, and to reframe the problems of education as exercises in delivering the right outcomes; attempts are developed to standardize ‘products’ and to achieve economy of scale. As a result, in the Netherlands the implementation of follow-up and control measures left limited scope for teachers and teacher educators’ professional autonomy and professional judgement, mainly because of added bureaucratic rules and market-oriented budget systems. In line with such developments, in her book (p. 21), Sachs distinguishes three key elements of the public sector reform agenda in Australia. These are: Corporate managerialism, which she defines (with Sinclair, 1995) as a rational output-orientated, plan-based and management view of organizational reform. Devolution, which she defines as a bureaucratic strategy to reduce duplication of activities and costs, and as a way to achieve more predictable and effective outcomes. Marketization, which takes two forms. The first is a commercial strategy whereby schools market themselves and compete with other providers in the marketplace. The second sees educational institutes restructuring themselves to reflect the structures of business and industry as more efficient, effective and economical. According to Smith (2002), the result of such developments in English-speaking countries has been a drive towards the achievement of specified outcomes and the adoption of standardized teaching models. The emphasis is less on community and equity, and rather more on individual advancement and the need to satisfy investors and influential consumers. Education has come to resemble a private, rather than a public, good. Smith (2002) writes that Just what is needed to push back and undermine this pernicious process is fairly clear. We need, for example, to adopt ways of thinking about, and acting in, the world that have at their core an informed commitment to human flourishing in its fullest sense. It is necessary to reassert the public domain and to police the
ARTICLE IN PRESS Essay review / Teaching and Teacher Education 21 (2005) 585–591
boundaries between it and the market sector with some vigilance (Leys, 2001: p. 222). Furthermore, we need, as educators, to be able to do what is right rather than what is ‘correct’. But how is all this to be achieved within societies and systems conditioned by globalization and neo-liberalism and in which there are asymmetrical relations of power? The answer, of course, is that we cannot. But we can, at least, seek to undermine the narrowing and demeaning processes that pass under the name of education in many systems. Alternative ways of educating that look to well-being and participation in the common life have been well articulated. Whether they can be realized is down in significant part to our courage as educators, and our ability to work with others with a similar vision.
In our opinion, Judyth Sachs’ book offers the teaching profession an alternative ideological platform, through which we can, perhaps, ‘push back and undermine’ this movement towards the globalization of education. The alternative ideological platform that she suggests places learning, participation, collaboration, cooperation and activism in the center of attention. Although this platform will probably not be able to transform the notions of ‘managerial professionalism’ held by those who seek the implementation of externally imposed demands over standards and accountability, it will, we believe, empower those seeking to create an alternative route for the professionalization of teachers. What makes Sachs’ book worthwhile is her message that new trends in education policy should not only be seen as ‘‘something done to the profession’’, but also as a challenge for teachers and teacher educators to look critically at their own practice and to rethink the notion of professionalism by themselves. ‘‘Paradoxically,’’ she argues (p. 22), ‘‘while many initiatives to reform education have the possibility to deskill teachers, they also provide new opportunities for teacher professional engagement.’’ Teacher education should play a central role here. To achieve the professional engagement of teachers we need, according to Sachs, teacher
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education that is contemporary, rigorous and intellectually demanding. The Activist Teaching Profession focuses on the following questions (p. 3): 1. What forms of professionalism are shaping the teaching profession? 2. What are the differences between the old and new professionalism? 3. Why is professionalism an important concept for the teaching profession? 4. What conditions and contexts facilitate one form of teacher professionalism over another? 5. What are the tensions and sites of struggle that are shaping the discourses and practices of teacher professionalism? 6. What are some alternative ways to rethink and revitalize the concept and practice of teacher professionalism so that it is relevant to the needs and aspirations of teachers working in increasingly difficult and constantly changing work environments? The intent of the book is to create discussion among various constituencies interested in the teaching profession and its role and responsibilities in a rapidly changing and complex society. It draws on Sachs’ experience in restructuring teacher professional development in Australia during the 1990s. She recounts how she and her colleagues transformed professional development into a vehicle for school reform and for the repositioning of the teaching profession both in the eyes of the teachers and in those of the community. Although some aspects are very specific for the Australian context, the main analyses and conclusions in the book will be relevant for a wider audience.
3. An alternative ideological platform As mentioned above, the approach that Sachs takes is that, rather than trying to convince the advocates of corporate managerialism, devolution or marketization to accept the notions of the new teacher professionalism, teachers and teacher educators should view managerial top-down
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initiatives as opportunities for reconceptualizing their mission and their place in the world. In other words, Sachs invites the professionals to become proactive and to think in strategic and divergent ways in order to be able to respond to governmental pressures to regulate their work. So, instead of managerial top-down professionalism, she argues for a transformative, activist professionalism; based on ‘‘a mutual engagement around a joint enterprise, namely the improving student learning outcomes’’ (p. 16). From our point of view, she is discussing four key issues in establishing a transformative, activist professionalism, namely, ownership, partnership, teacher research and the need for reconceptualization of teacher education. We will discuss these four issues below.
4. Four main issues In the first place, the transformative and activist approach would allow teachers to maintain ownership of the profession. This would mean more autonomy and thus more internal responsibility for the development of the profession. When standards become the basis for reforming the teaching profession, the ownership of the development and the content of the standards should be part of the political project of teacher professionalism. In other words, teachers should create their own standards and thus mark out milestones for career-long professional development. Rather than accepting the simple solution of following external bureaucratic rules and extending their working days, teachers should create for themselves a more flexible working environment that takes into account different student needs and expectations, and uses both material and intellectual resources in more creative ways. Because Sachs’ book primarily addresses academic teacher educators, it focuses on the roles of teacher educators in the development of an activist teaching professionalism. She provides four examples of transformative professionalism in practice within different national contexts: the National Schools Network and the Innovative Links between Schools and Universities Project, both in Australia; the Coalition of Essential
Schools in the USA and the Teachers Network in Singapore. What is noteworthy in these examples is that the change processes that she describes involve teachers and teacher education in the simultaneous complex reconstruction of school curriculum, school architecture, staff organization, approaches to learning, teaching and assessment and professional development, as well as social relations and technologies. She claims that when such complex projects are continually monitored and evaluated by teacher educators as well as by teachers within the school, conditions and possibilities are created for the redefinition of teacher professionalism from within the profession rather than from without. Another way of maintaining ownership, according to Sachs, is through partnerships—from our point of view the second main issue in Sachs’ book. She describes partnerships as complex arrangements that demand that the participants neglect the hierarchical worldview and develop relationships that are neither top-down nor bottom-up. Her view is associated with the circular, non-hierarchical approach to educational change, which is also described by Keiny (2002), a view that is based on collaboration and mutual learning. This approach is completely different from the linear thinking of both the top-down and the bottom-up models of knowledge construction. Keiny argues that the bottom-up movement, which often succeeds in bringing about classroom or even school change, has failed to gain the critical mass necessary for a more comprehensive, larger systematic change. Like Sachs, she concludes that formal educational systems in most western countries tend to adhere to old agendas. As a result, teachers are torn between their genuine desire for change and the demands of educational policy. For this reason, Sachs does not delimit the notion of partnerships to the engagement of schools and universities concerning the improvement of teacher education, but also to building alliances with other stakeholders concerning many other aspects of teaching as a profession. She goes as far as to suggest building alliances with unions, corporations and industries, because she believes that these partnerships, as Cochran-Smith (1994:
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p. 151) writes, ‘‘attempt to bring together people with inside and outside perspectives on teaching, not in order to homogenize ideas or create consensus in language and thought, but in order to intensify through collaboration the opportunities student teachers have to learn to teach against the grain.’’ For Sachs, engagement in partnership does not mean only ‘‘learning, participation, collaboration, cooperation,’’ but also ‘‘activism.’’ Sachs writes that in partnerships, ‘‘teachers have a wider responsibility than the single classroom, including school-system, other students, wider community and collective responsibilities of teachers themselves as a group or profession’’. Such arguments voice a more critical and political view of teaching than the prevailing practical-psychological view, that envisages teaching as a moral activity. This practical-psychological work is mainly limited to the interactions between teachers and students within classroom or schools, it is seldom focused on the moral responsibility of teachers beyond their daily work in school (for an overview, see Hansen, 2001). The third main issue in Sachs’ book is the idea that Teacher Research has the potential to act as an important source of teacher renewal through the production and circulation of new knowledge about practice. In accordance with others (see, for instance, Somekh, 1994; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1998; Zeichner, 1999), she views teacher research as a collaborative enterprise, in which teachers and academic colleagues work together, each providing different kinds of expertise. While directing her writing to the political context, Sachs manages however to problematize these already taken-for-granted understandings of the importance of collaborative inquiry, as she raises the important question: ‘‘How do you overcome the cultural differences between schoolbased practitioners and academics to facilitate a climate of professional reciprocity?’’ (p. 79). She explains that ‘‘As a prime consideration for success of such endeavours it is important that neither partner asks the other to become the same as them. Instead each partner needs to respect and appreciate the difference between them and the different roles they play in the education enterprise’’ (p. 83).
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Unlike many other writers on collaborative inquiry, she suggests that it is the responsibility of both parties to demonstrate reciprocity, ‘‘since they each have their own distinct agendas and particular forms of expertise, and that both need to negotiate the nature of research and how it is published’’ (p. 89). Unfortunately, in much of her experience, the reciprocity, or the desire to cross the divide, was not spontaneously demonstrated by teachers. They often showed lack of interest in academic work or in the demands placed on academics in their work. Only when a distinction is made between academic and practitioner research, is it possible to focus attention on how these two types of research can be articulated, and for what purpose. In other words, only then can a shared culture of academics and practitioners be established. The underlying assumption here is that academic knowledge cannot prescribe how teachers should act, but this does not mean that research carried out by teachers should be a-theoretical. Teachers do not simply apply knowledge unthinkingly; they judge how, when and where they want to use general academic knowledge. This means that general academic knowledge needs the knowledge of teachers if it is to make a contribution to good education (see also Somekh, 1994). However, the reverse is also true: without theory, without distancing, the knowledge of teachers can get stuck at the level of experience with everyday events, without consequences for future action. Goodlad (1990) expressed this idea thus: ‘‘practice alone is, of course, not enough; without some coordinating theory, some inter-connected ideas, purely practical subjects can ossify and degenerate into congeries of rules-of thumb and obsession with technique. Practice without theory can become basely conservative; theory without practice can become arcane, unintelligible or simple trivial’’ (p. 54). In accordance with Sachs’ ideas, we have developed second-order research (Ponte, 2002; Zellermayer & Tabak, forthcoming) through which we examine teachers’ efforts at understanding and improvement practice as well as theory through teacher research. From our separate studies we learned the same lessons that Sachs did: that the desire to engage in teacher research must be a choice; it cannot be mandated from
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above. In addition, teachers who engage in research need the kind of support that will enable them to see what they can learn from the academic culture and provide them with the opportunities to talk about their research experience and outcomes, and the difficulties of engaging in this sort of activity. Finally, we learned that engaging in collaborative research with teachers is also an important opportunity for the professional development of academic teacher educators. As Sachs writes, ‘‘academics can learn a great deal which contributes to the broader goal of improving their own practice and also that of their students, many of whom will become the next generation of teachers. Furthermore, such activities have great potential to renew teacher professionalism and contribute to the broader political project of establishing a transformative teacher professionalism directed towards activist ends’’ (p. 93). The question is how a culture can be established in which reciprocal collaboration and research is seen as a core platform. This brings us to the last main issue in Sachs’ book.
5. Reconceptualization teacher education Sachs argues that the development of a transformative and activist teaching profession requires a radical reconceptualization of teacher education programs, in a manner that enables faculties to contribute in collaborative ways to the intellectual and professional leadership of the teaching profession. One of the primary outcomes of any teacher education program should be educating and skilling intellectually reflective and strategic practitioners. These are teachers who can work both collaboratively and independently, are able to solve complex practical and theoretical problems, are able to reflect on their practice in order to develop quality learning opportunities for their students, and, finally, are professionals who are able to cope with rapid social and technological change. She quotes Fullan, Galluzzo, Morris, & Watson (1998) in suggesting that this would need ‘‘a rigorous and dynamic research enterprise focusing on teaching, teacher education, and on the assessment and monitoring of strategies’’ (p. 58).
Our experience in implementing such a dynamic research enterprise in teacher education institutes has further taught us, in keeping with Sachs’ ideas, that teacher research must be embedded in the total infrastructure of the teacher education program: in the objectives, the course content, the procedures and the organization. The need for embedding also applies to the schools with which the institutes collaborate. Hence, teacher research is not about inserting a separate module into a curriculum based on traditional assumptions, but a total concept for the professionalism and professional development of prospective and experienced teachers. Our research (Ponte, Beijard, & Ax, 2004) confirms Sachs’ suggestion that embedding in the total infrastructure requires the development of a shared culture. This, in turn, requires: (1) continuity in the teaching team and in the management team; (2) communication between management, educators, researchers, teachers, students and mentors about individual and collective insights relating to reflective, researchoriented practice as part of the course; and (3) commitment on the part of educators and managers in the institutes as well as in the schools. Learning to do teacher research takes time and requires commitment on the part of the students as well. A culture like this cannot be imposed and bureaucratically ‘controlled’. It develops gradually through practice.
6. Conclusion In conclusion, Sachs’ book has constructed a rationale for the kind of work that we do. Such a rationale, we believe, will not only come in handy when our governments’ policies are implemented, but will help us present the kind of work that we do as a proactive strategy for helping teachers and teacher educators to confront the imminent reform and use it to transform their professionalism and to empower themselves as educational activists. Her ideas about ownership, partnership, teacher research and reconceptualization of teacher education can be related to the debate about teacher leadership. In contrast to traditional notions of leadership, teacher leadership is characterized by a
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form of collective leadership in which teachers develop expertise by working collaboratively. Teacher leadership, according to Harris and Muijs (2003), ‘‘is not a formal role, responsibility or set of tasks, it is more a form of agency where teachers are empowered to lead development work that impacts directly upon the quality of teaching and learning. Teacher leaders lead beyond the classroom, they identify with and contribute to a community of teachers and influence others to improve educational practice’’ (p. 1). Indeed, Sachs devotes the majority of her last chapter to the features of the activist identity. The activist identity, she claims, stands at the core of the teaching profession. In contrast to theories about teacher leadership, it provides not only a framework for teachers but also for teacher educators. Both should view themselves as members of a ‘community of practice’ (Wenger, 1998), in which they build an activist and transformative profession. Communities of practice, according to Sachs, provide the context in which both can construct their own ideas of ‘‘how to be,’’ ‘‘how to act’’ and ‘‘how to understand their work and their place in society’’ (p. 135). These communities facilitate the basic values for the activist profession: respect, reciprocity and collaboration. References Cochran-Smith, M. (1994). The power of teacher research in teacher education. In S. Hollingsworth, & H. Sockett (Eds.), Teacher research and educational reform (pp. 22–51). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1998). Teacher research: The question that persists. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1(1), 19–36. Darling-Hammond, L. (1999). Teacher quality and student achievement: A review of state policy evidence. Educational Policy analysis archives, 8(1). Retrieved from http:// www.nctaf.org/publications/abell_response.pdf Fullan, M., Galluzzo, G., Morris, P., & Watson, N. (1998). The rise and stall of teacher education reform. Washington DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Furlong, F. (2002). Ideology and reform in teacher education in England: Some reflections on Cochran-Smith and Fries. Educational researcher, 31(6), 23–26. Hansen, D.T. (2001). Teaching as a moral activity. In: Richardson, V. (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching. 4th ed.
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Harris, A., & Muijs, D. (2003). Teacher leadership: A review of research. University of Warwick. Retrieved from: http:// www.ncsl.org.uk/mediastore/image2/randd-engaged-harris.pdf Goodlad, J. I. (1990). Teachers for our national schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Keiny, S. (2002). Ecological thinking. A new approach to educational change. Boston: University Press of America. Leys, C. (2001). Market-driven politics. Neoliberal democracy and the public interest. London: Verso Books. Ponte, P. (2002). How teachers become action researchers and how teacher educators become their facilitators. Journal for Educational Action Research, 10(3), 399–423. Ponte, P., Beijard, D., & Ax, J. (2004). Don’t wait till the cows come home: Action research and initial teacher education in three different countries. Teachers and Teaching, 10(6), 591–621. Sachs, J. (1997). Renewing teacher professionalism through Innovative Links. Educational Action Research, 5(3), 449–461. Sinclair, A. (1995). Leadership in administration: Rediscovering a lost discourse. In P. Weller, & G. Davies (Eds.), New Ideas, Better Government. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Smith, M. K. (2002). Globalization and the incorporation of education: The encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/biblio/globalization.htm. Last updated: February 14, 2004. Somekh, B. (1994). Inhabiting each other’s castles: Towards knowledge and initial growth through collaboration. Educational Action Research, 2(3), 357–382. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yeatman, A., & Sachs, J. (1995). Making the links: A formative evaluation of the first year of the Innovative Links project between universities and schools for teacher professional development. Murdoch: Innovative Links Project. Zeichner, K. (1999). The new scholarship in teacher education. Educational Researcher, 28(9), 4–15. Zellermayer, M., & Tabak, E. (forthcoming). The knowledge constructed in teachers’ community of inquiry. Teachers and Teaching.
Michal Zellermayer Levinsky College of Education, 15 Shoshana Persitz St., 61484 Tel Aviv, Israel E-mail address: [email protected] Petra Ponte Pompsteeg 13, 1621 AL Hoorn, The Netherelands E-mail address: [email protected]
Teaching and Teacher Education 21 (2005) 585–591 www.elsevier.com/locate/tate
Essay review Activist professionalism: An alternative ideological platform J. Sachs, The Activist Teaching Profession, Open University Press, Buckingham, 2003.
1. Introduction During the last decade we have both become involved in partnership initiatives: one a partnership between Levinsky College of Education and schools in the greater Tel Aviv area in Israel, and the other between the University for Professional Education and schools in different areas in the Netherlands. The primary goal of the initiative in Israel was to develop, together with schoolteachers, a school-based curriculum for studentteachers in pre-service teacher education, and to invite the schoolteachers, student-teachers and their college supervisors to consider this new curriculum, while the initiative in the Netherlands concerned experienced teachers in post-initial courses and in-service professional development activities. The aim was to develop a culture in which practice-based research by both teacher educators, teachers and their schools would be seen as fundamentally important and, in that sense, taken for granted (Ponte, 2002). Our interest in inquiry-based partnerships led us to the writings of Judyth Sachs about her work on Innovative Links (Sachs, 1997; Yeatman & Sachs, 1995). Although our partnerships are much smaller, it did not take long for us to reach the same conclusions that she reached during her work on larger projects in Australia. She concluded that ‘‘if partnerships between schools and universities are to be successful and to become an integral part of the professional life of academics and teachers, doi:10.1016/j.tate.2005.03.008
then both parties must have opportunities to try out and refine new practices. This means that they must be collaboratively involved in conceptualizing, implementing and evaluating new forms of relationships’’ (Sachs, 1997: p. 460). Like the teachers and teacher educators of Innovative Links, we developed and established new roles for the persons involved (ours was the role of research coordinator). We established new structures for talking about our work in the schools and in the teacher education institutes and for working on new tasks (proposal writing, documenting practices, curriculum planning, public presentations). We became intensively involved in creating a culture of inquiry not only for the teacher educators involved in the partnership, but also for pre-service, post-service and in-service teachers. In Tel Aviv, the college curriculum was reconstructed in order to encourage studentteachers and cooperating teachers to inquire into their own work with children and with each other. At the University of Professional Education in the Netherlands, teacher educators and experienced teachers were encouraged to start collaborative action research projects in the schools as well as self-studies in the university. Within our partnerships, as within Innovative Links, ‘‘professional learning and dissemination is expected, sought after, rewarded and an integral and ongoing part of institutional and personal life’’ (Sachs, 1997: p. 460). In our effort to disseminate the knowledge created within the partnership, we tried to explain how partnerships can lead to a transformation in the culture of schooling for children and their teachers, and for student-teachers and their teacher educators. We tried to show how this new culture creates opportunities for all participants to experience learning as a collaborative practice that
ARTICLE IN PRESS 586
Essay review / Teaching and Teacher Education 21 (2005) 585–591
is supported by their participation in the community of inquiry. We argued that creating such a culture was an important end in itself. We highlighted the changes that we documented in the teachers and teacher educators’ conceptions of knowledge, collegiality and agency. While doing that, however, we realized that the connections we made between learning communities, inquiry, and change needed to be further explained even to an audience of teacher educators who questioned why these were the inevitable ingredients of any significant effort to renew teacher professionalism. Judyth Sachs’ new book, The Activist Teaching Profession, was an important source of this justification.
2. Challenges under new policies The need to explain is particularly critical today, when our governments are demanding increased external standardization and external accountability for teaching and teacher education, thus making our task even more difficult. In Israel, a commission headed by high-tech tycoons has been appointed by the government to construct guidelines for the reorganization of schools, the teachers’ work and teacher education. They applied some principles they adopted from business ventures to devise a reform program for the country’s education system: the panel has clear goals, method of implementation and instruments for follow-up and control. The goal is to develop a compact, efficient, smart state-public educational system that suits the 21st century. The commission hopes to achieve its goal with the help of the teachers and principals, who, they expect, will cooperate of their own volition to reduce their numbers and streamline the system (thousands of teachers will be dismissed as a result of the reform), in return for higher pay and social prestige—which will attract top-level people from outside the educational system. As in many other countries (see for instance Darling-Hammond, 1999; Furlong, 2002), this reform is explained by the overriding concern with economic growth and international competitiveness. Those in authority, for instance, are encour-
aged to view themselves as managers, and to reframe the problems of education as exercises in delivering the right outcomes; attempts are developed to standardize ‘products’ and to achieve economy of scale. As a result, in the Netherlands the implementation of follow-up and control measures left limited scope for teachers and teacher educators’ professional autonomy and professional judgement, mainly because of added bureaucratic rules and market-oriented budget systems. In line with such developments, in her book (p. 21), Sachs distinguishes three key elements of the public sector reform agenda in Australia. These are: Corporate managerialism, which she defines (with Sinclair, 1995) as a rational output-orientated, plan-based and management view of organizational reform. Devolution, which she defines as a bureaucratic strategy to reduce duplication of activities and costs, and as a way to achieve more predictable and effective outcomes. Marketization, which takes two forms. The first is a commercial strategy whereby schools market themselves and compete with other providers in the marketplace. The second sees educational institutes restructuring themselves to reflect the structures of business and industry as more efficient, effective and economical. According to Smith (2002), the result of such developments in English-speaking countries has been a drive towards the achievement of specified outcomes and the adoption of standardized teaching models. The emphasis is less on community and equity, and rather more on individual advancement and the need to satisfy investors and influential consumers. Education has come to resemble a private, rather than a public, good. Smith (2002) writes that Just what is needed to push back and undermine this pernicious process is fairly clear. We need, for example, to adopt ways of thinking about, and acting in, the world that have at their core an informed commitment to human flourishing in its fullest sense. It is necessary to reassert the public domain and to police the
ARTICLE IN PRESS Essay review / Teaching and Teacher Education 21 (2005) 585–591
boundaries between it and the market sector with some vigilance (Leys, 2001: p. 222). Furthermore, we need, as educators, to be able to do what is right rather than what is ‘correct’. But how is all this to be achieved within societies and systems conditioned by globalization and neo-liberalism and in which there are asymmetrical relations of power? The answer, of course, is that we cannot. But we can, at least, seek to undermine the narrowing and demeaning processes that pass under the name of education in many systems. Alternative ways of educating that look to well-being and participation in the common life have been well articulated. Whether they can be realized is down in significant part to our courage as educators, and our ability to work with others with a similar vision.
In our opinion, Judyth Sachs’ book offers the teaching profession an alternative ideological platform, through which we can, perhaps, ‘push back and undermine’ this movement towards the globalization of education. The alternative ideological platform that she suggests places learning, participation, collaboration, cooperation and activism in the center of attention. Although this platform will probably not be able to transform the notions of ‘managerial professionalism’ held by those who seek the implementation of externally imposed demands over standards and accountability, it will, we believe, empower those seeking to create an alternative route for the professionalization of teachers. What makes Sachs’ book worthwhile is her message that new trends in education policy should not only be seen as ‘‘something done to the profession’’, but also as a challenge for teachers and teacher educators to look critically at their own practice and to rethink the notion of professionalism by themselves. ‘‘Paradoxically,’’ she argues (p. 22), ‘‘while many initiatives to reform education have the possibility to deskill teachers, they also provide new opportunities for teacher professional engagement.’’ Teacher education should play a central role here. To achieve the professional engagement of teachers we need, according to Sachs, teacher
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education that is contemporary, rigorous and intellectually demanding. The Activist Teaching Profession focuses on the following questions (p. 3): 1. What forms of professionalism are shaping the teaching profession? 2. What are the differences between the old and new professionalism? 3. Why is professionalism an important concept for the teaching profession? 4. What conditions and contexts facilitate one form of teacher professionalism over another? 5. What are the tensions and sites of struggle that are shaping the discourses and practices of teacher professionalism? 6. What are some alternative ways to rethink and revitalize the concept and practice of teacher professionalism so that it is relevant to the needs and aspirations of teachers working in increasingly difficult and constantly changing work environments? The intent of the book is to create discussion among various constituencies interested in the teaching profession and its role and responsibilities in a rapidly changing and complex society. It draws on Sachs’ experience in restructuring teacher professional development in Australia during the 1990s. She recounts how she and her colleagues transformed professional development into a vehicle for school reform and for the repositioning of the teaching profession both in the eyes of the teachers and in those of the community. Although some aspects are very specific for the Australian context, the main analyses and conclusions in the book will be relevant for a wider audience.
3. An alternative ideological platform As mentioned above, the approach that Sachs takes is that, rather than trying to convince the advocates of corporate managerialism, devolution or marketization to accept the notions of the new teacher professionalism, teachers and teacher educators should view managerial top-down
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initiatives as opportunities for reconceptualizing their mission and their place in the world. In other words, Sachs invites the professionals to become proactive and to think in strategic and divergent ways in order to be able to respond to governmental pressures to regulate their work. So, instead of managerial top-down professionalism, she argues for a transformative, activist professionalism; based on ‘‘a mutual engagement around a joint enterprise, namely the improving student learning outcomes’’ (p. 16). From our point of view, she is discussing four key issues in establishing a transformative, activist professionalism, namely, ownership, partnership, teacher research and the need for reconceptualization of teacher education. We will discuss these four issues below.
4. Four main issues In the first place, the transformative and activist approach would allow teachers to maintain ownership of the profession. This would mean more autonomy and thus more internal responsibility for the development of the profession. When standards become the basis for reforming the teaching profession, the ownership of the development and the content of the standards should be part of the political project of teacher professionalism. In other words, teachers should create their own standards and thus mark out milestones for career-long professional development. Rather than accepting the simple solution of following external bureaucratic rules and extending their working days, teachers should create for themselves a more flexible working environment that takes into account different student needs and expectations, and uses both material and intellectual resources in more creative ways. Because Sachs’ book primarily addresses academic teacher educators, it focuses on the roles of teacher educators in the development of an activist teaching professionalism. She provides four examples of transformative professionalism in practice within different national contexts: the National Schools Network and the Innovative Links between Schools and Universities Project, both in Australia; the Coalition of Essential
Schools in the USA and the Teachers Network in Singapore. What is noteworthy in these examples is that the change processes that she describes involve teachers and teacher education in the simultaneous complex reconstruction of school curriculum, school architecture, staff organization, approaches to learning, teaching and assessment and professional development, as well as social relations and technologies. She claims that when such complex projects are continually monitored and evaluated by teacher educators as well as by teachers within the school, conditions and possibilities are created for the redefinition of teacher professionalism from within the profession rather than from without. Another way of maintaining ownership, according to Sachs, is through partnerships—from our point of view the second main issue in Sachs’ book. She describes partnerships as complex arrangements that demand that the participants neglect the hierarchical worldview and develop relationships that are neither top-down nor bottom-up. Her view is associated with the circular, non-hierarchical approach to educational change, which is also described by Keiny (2002), a view that is based on collaboration and mutual learning. This approach is completely different from the linear thinking of both the top-down and the bottom-up models of knowledge construction. Keiny argues that the bottom-up movement, which often succeeds in bringing about classroom or even school change, has failed to gain the critical mass necessary for a more comprehensive, larger systematic change. Like Sachs, she concludes that formal educational systems in most western countries tend to adhere to old agendas. As a result, teachers are torn between their genuine desire for change and the demands of educational policy. For this reason, Sachs does not delimit the notion of partnerships to the engagement of schools and universities concerning the improvement of teacher education, but also to building alliances with other stakeholders concerning many other aspects of teaching as a profession. She goes as far as to suggest building alliances with unions, corporations and industries, because she believes that these partnerships, as Cochran-Smith (1994:
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p. 151) writes, ‘‘attempt to bring together people with inside and outside perspectives on teaching, not in order to homogenize ideas or create consensus in language and thought, but in order to intensify through collaboration the opportunities student teachers have to learn to teach against the grain.’’ For Sachs, engagement in partnership does not mean only ‘‘learning, participation, collaboration, cooperation,’’ but also ‘‘activism.’’ Sachs writes that in partnerships, ‘‘teachers have a wider responsibility than the single classroom, including school-system, other students, wider community and collective responsibilities of teachers themselves as a group or profession’’. Such arguments voice a more critical and political view of teaching than the prevailing practical-psychological view, that envisages teaching as a moral activity. This practical-psychological work is mainly limited to the interactions between teachers and students within classroom or schools, it is seldom focused on the moral responsibility of teachers beyond their daily work in school (for an overview, see Hansen, 2001). The third main issue in Sachs’ book is the idea that Teacher Research has the potential to act as an important source of teacher renewal through the production and circulation of new knowledge about practice. In accordance with others (see, for instance, Somekh, 1994; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1998; Zeichner, 1999), she views teacher research as a collaborative enterprise, in which teachers and academic colleagues work together, each providing different kinds of expertise. While directing her writing to the political context, Sachs manages however to problematize these already taken-for-granted understandings of the importance of collaborative inquiry, as she raises the important question: ‘‘How do you overcome the cultural differences between schoolbased practitioners and academics to facilitate a climate of professional reciprocity?’’ (p. 79). She explains that ‘‘As a prime consideration for success of such endeavours it is important that neither partner asks the other to become the same as them. Instead each partner needs to respect and appreciate the difference between them and the different roles they play in the education enterprise’’ (p. 83).
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Unlike many other writers on collaborative inquiry, she suggests that it is the responsibility of both parties to demonstrate reciprocity, ‘‘since they each have their own distinct agendas and particular forms of expertise, and that both need to negotiate the nature of research and how it is published’’ (p. 89). Unfortunately, in much of her experience, the reciprocity, or the desire to cross the divide, was not spontaneously demonstrated by teachers. They often showed lack of interest in academic work or in the demands placed on academics in their work. Only when a distinction is made between academic and practitioner research, is it possible to focus attention on how these two types of research can be articulated, and for what purpose. In other words, only then can a shared culture of academics and practitioners be established. The underlying assumption here is that academic knowledge cannot prescribe how teachers should act, but this does not mean that research carried out by teachers should be a-theoretical. Teachers do not simply apply knowledge unthinkingly; they judge how, when and where they want to use general academic knowledge. This means that general academic knowledge needs the knowledge of teachers if it is to make a contribution to good education (see also Somekh, 1994). However, the reverse is also true: without theory, without distancing, the knowledge of teachers can get stuck at the level of experience with everyday events, without consequences for future action. Goodlad (1990) expressed this idea thus: ‘‘practice alone is, of course, not enough; without some coordinating theory, some inter-connected ideas, purely practical subjects can ossify and degenerate into congeries of rules-of thumb and obsession with technique. Practice without theory can become basely conservative; theory without practice can become arcane, unintelligible or simple trivial’’ (p. 54). In accordance with Sachs’ ideas, we have developed second-order research (Ponte, 2002; Zellermayer & Tabak, forthcoming) through which we examine teachers’ efforts at understanding and improvement practice as well as theory through teacher research. From our separate studies we learned the same lessons that Sachs did: that the desire to engage in teacher research must be a choice; it cannot be mandated from
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above. In addition, teachers who engage in research need the kind of support that will enable them to see what they can learn from the academic culture and provide them with the opportunities to talk about their research experience and outcomes, and the difficulties of engaging in this sort of activity. Finally, we learned that engaging in collaborative research with teachers is also an important opportunity for the professional development of academic teacher educators. As Sachs writes, ‘‘academics can learn a great deal which contributes to the broader goal of improving their own practice and also that of their students, many of whom will become the next generation of teachers. Furthermore, such activities have great potential to renew teacher professionalism and contribute to the broader political project of establishing a transformative teacher professionalism directed towards activist ends’’ (p. 93). The question is how a culture can be established in which reciprocal collaboration and research is seen as a core platform. This brings us to the last main issue in Sachs’ book.
5. Reconceptualization teacher education Sachs argues that the development of a transformative and activist teaching profession requires a radical reconceptualization of teacher education programs, in a manner that enables faculties to contribute in collaborative ways to the intellectual and professional leadership of the teaching profession. One of the primary outcomes of any teacher education program should be educating and skilling intellectually reflective and strategic practitioners. These are teachers who can work both collaboratively and independently, are able to solve complex practical and theoretical problems, are able to reflect on their practice in order to develop quality learning opportunities for their students, and, finally, are professionals who are able to cope with rapid social and technological change. She quotes Fullan, Galluzzo, Morris, & Watson (1998) in suggesting that this would need ‘‘a rigorous and dynamic research enterprise focusing on teaching, teacher education, and on the assessment and monitoring of strategies’’ (p. 58).
Our experience in implementing such a dynamic research enterprise in teacher education institutes has further taught us, in keeping with Sachs’ ideas, that teacher research must be embedded in the total infrastructure of the teacher education program: in the objectives, the course content, the procedures and the organization. The need for embedding also applies to the schools with which the institutes collaborate. Hence, teacher research is not about inserting a separate module into a curriculum based on traditional assumptions, but a total concept for the professionalism and professional development of prospective and experienced teachers. Our research (Ponte, Beijard, & Ax, 2004) confirms Sachs’ suggestion that embedding in the total infrastructure requires the development of a shared culture. This, in turn, requires: (1) continuity in the teaching team and in the management team; (2) communication between management, educators, researchers, teachers, students and mentors about individual and collective insights relating to reflective, researchoriented practice as part of the course; and (3) commitment on the part of educators and managers in the institutes as well as in the schools. Learning to do teacher research takes time and requires commitment on the part of the students as well. A culture like this cannot be imposed and bureaucratically ‘controlled’. It develops gradually through practice.
6. Conclusion In conclusion, Sachs’ book has constructed a rationale for the kind of work that we do. Such a rationale, we believe, will not only come in handy when our governments’ policies are implemented, but will help us present the kind of work that we do as a proactive strategy for helping teachers and teacher educators to confront the imminent reform and use it to transform their professionalism and to empower themselves as educational activists. Her ideas about ownership, partnership, teacher research and reconceptualization of teacher education can be related to the debate about teacher leadership. In contrast to traditional notions of leadership, teacher leadership is characterized by a
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form of collective leadership in which teachers develop expertise by working collaboratively. Teacher leadership, according to Harris and Muijs (2003), ‘‘is not a formal role, responsibility or set of tasks, it is more a form of agency where teachers are empowered to lead development work that impacts directly upon the quality of teaching and learning. Teacher leaders lead beyond the classroom, they identify with and contribute to a community of teachers and influence others to improve educational practice’’ (p. 1). Indeed, Sachs devotes the majority of her last chapter to the features of the activist identity. The activist identity, she claims, stands at the core of the teaching profession. In contrast to theories about teacher leadership, it provides not only a framework for teachers but also for teacher educators. Both should view themselves as members of a ‘community of practice’ (Wenger, 1998), in which they build an activist and transformative profession. Communities of practice, according to Sachs, provide the context in which both can construct their own ideas of ‘‘how to be,’’ ‘‘how to act’’ and ‘‘how to understand their work and their place in society’’ (p. 135). These communities facilitate the basic values for the activist profession: respect, reciprocity and collaboration. References Cochran-Smith, M. (1994). The power of teacher research in teacher education. In S. Hollingsworth, & H. Sockett (Eds.), Teacher research and educational reform (pp. 22–51). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1998). Teacher research: The question that persists. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1(1), 19–36. Darling-Hammond, L. (1999). Teacher quality and student achievement: A review of state policy evidence. Educational Policy analysis archives, 8(1). Retrieved from http:// www.nctaf.org/publications/abell_response.pdf Fullan, M., Galluzzo, G., Morris, P., & Watson, N. (1998). The rise and stall of teacher education reform. Washington DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Furlong, F. (2002). Ideology and reform in teacher education in England: Some reflections on Cochran-Smith and Fries. Educational researcher, 31(6), 23–26. Hansen, D.T. (2001). Teaching as a moral activity. In: Richardson, V. (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching. 4th ed.
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Harris, A., & Muijs, D. (2003). Teacher leadership: A review of research. University of Warwick. Retrieved from: http:// www.ncsl.org.uk/mediastore/image2/randd-engaged-harris.pdf Goodlad, J. I. (1990). Teachers for our national schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Keiny, S. (2002). Ecological thinking. A new approach to educational change. Boston: University Press of America. Leys, C. (2001). Market-driven politics. Neoliberal democracy and the public interest. London: Verso Books. Ponte, P. (2002). How teachers become action researchers and how teacher educators become their facilitators. Journal for Educational Action Research, 10(3), 399–423. Ponte, P., Beijard, D., & Ax, J. (2004). Don’t wait till the cows come home: Action research and initial teacher education in three different countries. Teachers and Teaching, 10(6), 591–621. Sachs, J. (1997). Renewing teacher professionalism through Innovative Links. Educational Action Research, 5(3), 449–461. Sinclair, A. (1995). Leadership in administration: Rediscovering a lost discourse. In P. Weller, & G. Davies (Eds.), New Ideas, Better Government. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Smith, M. K. (2002). Globalization and the incorporation of education: The encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/biblio/globalization.htm. Last updated: February 14, 2004. Somekh, B. (1994). Inhabiting each other’s castles: Towards knowledge and initial growth through collaboration. Educational Action Research, 2(3), 357–382. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yeatman, A., & Sachs, J. (1995). Making the links: A formative evaluation of the first year of the Innovative Links project between universities and schools for teacher professional development. Murdoch: Innovative Links Project. Zeichner, K. (1999). The new scholarship in teacher education. Educational Researcher, 28(9), 4–15. Zellermayer, M., & Tabak, E. (forthcoming). The knowledge constructed in teachers’ community of inquiry. Teachers and Teaching.
Michal Zellermayer Levinsky College of Education, 15 Shoshana Persitz St., 61484 Tel Aviv, Israel E-mail address: [email protected] Petra Ponte Pompsteeg 13, 1621 AL Hoorn, The Netherelands E-mail address: [email protected]