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Negotiating the traditions of school reform
Teaching & Teacher Education, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 357-362, 1997 © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 07424)51X/97 $17.00 + 0.00
Pergamon
PII: S0742-051X(96)OOO56-X
NEGOTIATING THE TRADITIONS OF SCHOOL REFORM
MARVIN F. WIDEEN Simon Fraser University,Burnaby, BC, Canada AN ESSAY REVIEW OF TEACHER LEARNING." N E W POLICIES, N E W P R A C T I C E S McLaughlin, M. W. and Oberman, I. (eds). New York: TeachersCollegePress, (ISBN0 807734942)
School reform has become an enduring preoccupation of both educators and the lay public. Although reformers have been around since schools begun, the current pressures to reform the schools, which began shortly after the Second World War, have now taken on serious overtones. McLaughlin and Oberman, in the introduction of this edited volume, contend that schools in the United States face unprecedented demands for reform. The proposed changes, taken together, represent the most comprehensive reform agenda ever undertaken in the United States. Pressures for reform have generally followed two traditions which had their geneses in the curriculum reform movement of the 1960s and 1970s (Wideen, 1994). One tradition springs from reform attempts imposed on teachers by policy makers, supported by researchers and developers. These reforms aimed to find the right intervention at the right time to improve schools and teaching practices in them. This approach rested on a top-down, managerial avenue to change, based on the notion that plenty of development work, curriculum packages and inservice through workshops would insure implementation and school change (Haverlock, 1969). But as experiences of the last two decades have shown, attempts to reform schools from the outside have failed (Hoetker & Ahlbrand, 1969; Goodlad, Von Steophasius, & Klein, 1974). Despite this demonstrated lack of success, policy makers still appear to turn to this tradition when seeking school reform.
A counter tradition also developed in which teachers were encouraged to initiate reform, usually with outside support. In this approach, school reform would come through teacher learning and agency. Perhaps Stenhouse (1984) best described this tradition with his remark that the best way to improve schools was to increase the number of teachers who were not constantly being frustrated by the system. It is within this tradition of school reform that the book edited by McLaughlin and Oberman falls. They take a very clear stance with respect to how school reform can best come about. Central to their reform agenda are substantial changes to the way teaching occurs. Teachers must teach for understanding and interact with students so that they develop more flexible, critical habits of mind. This can not occur within present practices of teaching and models of teacher inservice and training. Teachers themselves must engage in new ways with the subject matter they will teach and the way in which they teach it. Clearly, this scenario involves new ways of teacher learning--the focus of this book.
Constructivism: The New Enlightenment The contributors to this volume take the position that teaching must be reconceptualized around constructivist teaching in which teachers facilitate learning as opposed to delivering information. Students are not empty vessels waiting to be filled; rather, they are
357
358
MARVIN F. WIDEEN
intellectually active beings, posing their own questions and generating their own understandings. The three first chapters are devoted to explicating such a theory of constructivism and how it applies in both teaching and teacher learning. Later chapters, such as Bridges and Hallinger's on problem-based learning for principals, pick up on this theme. In the first chapter, Nelson and Hammerman use the teaching of mathematics as the context to argue for teaching as inquiry into subject matter by teachers and students, a form of teaching that stands in contrast to a technical craft of arranging activities so that students learn some 'right' answer. Drawing on research findings from several centers, they illustrate how a different approach to teacher learning in mathematics can be achieved to assist teachers in this change. A central feature of this change is to build on students' and teachers' existing understandings of mathematics to further extend and develop those understandings. New knowledge comes from the reconstruction of prior beliefs. The authors of this chapter close with an observation that this view of learning and teaching creates substantial dissonance for most teachers. They also note that much remains to be learned about this new form of practice and the processes by which teachers reinvent their practice. The second chapter by Falk sets out constructivist agendas for students, and the third chapter by Brooks and Brooks examines what constructivism means for school reform. The authors of both chapters leave little doubt that constructivism is a theory of teaching as well as a theory of education. They make several assumptions to back up that claim. 'Less is more' in terms of curriculum. Broad topics covered in greater depth manifests a constructivist approach as opposed to an emphasis on content coverage, described as the behaviourist approach. Students and teachers create their own meaning and knowledge through social interaction, focusing on real-life situations, and responding to their own needs and interests. The authors argue that this type of learning is based on how human beings engage naturally in learning. Such learning, they claim, will produce teachers who are powerful thinkers, the kind needed to enable students " . . . to take care of their own thinking and their own lives" (p. 29). They conclude that constructivism provides a radical
departure from present thought and practice, and offers great hope for improving the schools of America. The vision of teaching presented under the constructivist rubric will find much support in many circles within the educational community. Few people, particularly those in curriculum, will take issue with setting a vision of teaching and learning that has students and teachers inquire deeply into the nature of knowledge. But, using the label 'constructivist' teaching is highly problematic to many, including this reader. As Cobb (1994) points out " . . . the very notion of a constructivist pedagogy or of constructivist teaching is a misnomer that reflects a category error. It is readily apparent, for example, that the various versions of constructivism...do not constitute axiomatic foundations from which to deduce pedagogical principles" (p. 4). In short, constructivism is a theory of knowing, not a theory of teaching. My concern in this case is not with the approach but rather with the terminology used to describe it. By using the term 'constructivist' the authors are supporting their approach to teaching with the wrong theoretical frame. Clearly, some approaches to teaching appear to be more consistent with constructivism than others, but that is a far cry from adopting the term 'constructivist teaching'. If one accepts the constructivist argument, that one constructs meaning based on prior experience, does it necessarily follow that workshop activity where the teacher acts as a facilitator provides the only setting in which to do that? In some cases, prior beliefs may need to be challenged through direct teaching before a reconstruction of those beliefs can occur. Danger also lies in focusing on teaching as facilitating. As Dewey observed, if teaching as facilitation became a standard, then, " . . . i t is but a short step to the conclusion teachers are guilty of teaching by transmission if they do more than stimulate students' reflection and problem solving" (cited in Cobb, 1994, p. 4). A further issue concerning the approach to teaching described by these authors involves its historic background. One can emerge from these first three chapters with the sense that what we have is a very new idea of teaching. Clearly, it is very new when compared with what we see being taught in most schools and
Negotiating the Traditions of School Reform universities. But the teaching these authors describe parallels the teaching that emerged during the curriculum reform movement of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in mathematics and science. In fact, as a beginning elementary teacher, I attended a workshop that looked much like the Case of Starfish Math described in Part I of this volume. What has changed since that time is the role of the teacher as a learner within the process of change. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was believed that teachers could be told how to change. Today, as these authors point out, teacher learning must parallel the type of learning expected of the students. The other awareness that these authors reflect that was not prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s is that both students and teacher bring perceptions about subject matter to any teaching situation. These authors recognize that process as requiring much more agency on the part of the teacher.
Realities of the Workplace Part II of this edited volume examines how new learning opportunities can be forged as traditional roles and practices are re-examined. Grossman's treatment of the high school situation in Chapter 4 highlights the structural regularities of the time table, the subject matter focus, the organization of teachers, and the role of departments within the high school. She argues that the persistence of these regularities leave little room for reform and change. The key to affecting professional development is to understand subject matter subcultures within the high school. Generic attempts at change will likely fail, leaving the department as the focus for professional development. Here we see a very sharp distinction between the vision described in Part I of the volume and the reality of the high school as a workplace. One leaves Grossman's chapter with the impression that nothing short of a revolution in the high school would render the institution amenable to teaching approaches consistent with constructivism. Opportunities to learn can often be hidden, as Tatel states at the beginning of Chapter 5. Clearly, an opportunity for learning comes through the supervision of student teachers by
359
experienced teachers. When viewed through a constructivist lens, the role of the cooperating teacher can be a unique learning opportunity. Relating the testimony of 30 "teachers, she describes how practising teachers saw their experience; how that experience provided new perspectives on old content and method; and, how it recast the expectations of students and enabled them to rethink their role as teachers. While it is not at all clear what it means to view student teaching from a constructivist perspective, this chapter identifies a window of opportunity for teacher learning. Student teaching is something that occurs on a regular basis and clearly much more can be done to improve the learning that occurs for both the beginning teacher and practising teacher. Current efforts to change assessment practices in schools provides another window of opportunity for teacher learning, as Jamentz describes in Chapter 6. As assessment moves from paper and pencil tests to performancebased forms, both students and teachers will have to tackle complex problems of what these new assessment procedures mean. As Jamentz argues, the real challenge of assessment reform is not necessarily what to put into a portfolio but the opportunity to explore questions at the very heart of the purposes and process of schooling. The problem, however, is whether the policy makers and the commercial testing corporations will allow teachers the time to do that. If performance-based technologies have ignited the imagination of policy-makers, community leaders, and school administrators, as Jamentz says it has, then the real danger is that the outsiders will co-opt the agenda from teachers and, very quickly, with the help of academics, develop and provide the new knowledge base that teachers will have to implement. Gone will be the opportunities to learn by teachers. Phrases like 'performancebased instructional strategies' sound much more like things teachers need to learn from outsiders rather than a shift toward inquiry learning that was to reflect constructivist learning, described in earlier chapters in this volume. While there is little doubt that these areas provide opportunities for teachers to engage in new ways of learning, it was not clear to me how much activity of this nature is currently
360
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taking place in the United States. These three chapters would have been more convincing had they been better grounded in examples.
New Structures for Learning and Change Section III describes more general structures for change and teacher learning such as networks, restructuring, and action research groups. Lieberman and McLaughlin, in Chapter 7, describe how the activities in several networks across the United States are providing support and encouragement for teacher learning and educational change. They argue that teachers welcome the opportunity to exchange ideas with other teacher participants on diverse topics. They believe teachers much prefer networks to traditional inservice activities. Participants join networks to establish a sense of identity around common interests and objectives. However, as the authors quite appropriately point out, the strength of networks is also their vulnerability and weakness. For example, while networks may inspire teachers to try out new ideas, they do not offer opportunity for teachers to assess the quality of those notions and to indicate how such innovations can be improved. Also, the ownership question is often in doubt in a network structure because it is not always clear who controls the agenda. In Chapter 8, Szasbo argues for a rethinking of restructuring. She reiterates the common theme that most innovations do not bring about any fundamental change in classrooms and teaching. The restructuring movement has been no exception. It has become a reorganizing tool not a tool for change. What has been missing from the restructuring equation, according to Szasbo, is a culture of inquiry which, along with the restructuring process, will facilitate change in instructional practices. But this change requires a reculturing process with the aim of creating 'learning centered' schools. She provides examples to illustrate how such reculturing can occur and what policy changes are required to achieve it. In Chapter 9, which deals with teacher research, Cochran-Smith and Lytle argue that the voices of teachers themselves are missing from the knowledge base on teaching. What questions do they ask? How do they talk about
their lives? How do they understand the improvement of their own practice? These authors see teacher research from the voice of the teacher as a powerful means of professional development that will potentially contribute to the knowledge base about teaching. As they point out, no simple steps can be taken to achieve this re-orientation. In fact, the very isolation of teachers, their occupational socialization, the traditional knowledge base of teaching, and the reputation of education research all stand create barriers to engaging teacher in undertaking research and policy makers from supporting that work. These three chapters provide examples of how the teaching profession can be renewed through teacher agency and habits of inquiry. The common thread in these chapters finds teachers acting on their own to improve their practice, supported by policies that allow risk-taking and encourage what might be termed a 'wedge of progressive practice' in the schools. That could be the ultimate solution to school reform over time. Clearly, as these and other authors have pointed out, traditional forms of inservice have not worked. But, on the counter side, the ongoing and relentless pressure to reform and restructure through mandate continues. It is not clear from these authors how teachers are to engage in teacher research and habits of inquiry when state departments are continually issuing mandates that teachers are to follow.
New Wine in Old Bottles The fourth section of the book provides examples of how new roles for traditional structures can potentially provide new ways for teachers to learn. Kerchner, in Chapter 10, describes the use of trust agreements with teacher organizations as one means to move unions beyond a preoccupation with salary and protecting jobs. Trust agreements focus on the teaching-learning process as the central mission of schools, allowing teachers and administrators to manage the ambiguity that results from seeking change within a school. The type of changes that occurred in the pilot projects Kerchmer describes illustrate incremental change, an item that Kerchmer describes as the stealth weapon for change. Chapters 11 and 12, on the professional devel-
Negotiating the Traditions of School Reform opment of bilingual teachers and the preparation teachers for the multicultural inner city school, paint a picture of the new reality facing teachers, a reality that will undoubtedly change teaching regardless of what outsiders try to do. In the chapter on inner city schools, T+llex and Cohen make the point that teaching in inner city schools offers an entirely different challenge to teachers and to those who prepare them. For the children, schools often offer their only hope. Teachers from middle-class backgrounds have little sense of the cultural discontinuity they will experience in such schools. Dalton and Moir, in chapter 12, provide an example of how Santa Cruz County responded to the problem of preparing teachers for these situations. A teacher support program for the first two years was put in place to assist beginning teachers with the task of learning how to cope in such diverse and new cultures. Administrators have not been forgotten in thinking about how to reshape schools to facilitate a new type of learning among teachers. In Chapter 13, Bridges and Hallinger describe problem-base learning for school principals as an alternate approach to the professional development of principals. In contrast to the command-and-control stance traditionally taken, problem-based learning rests on the notion that knowledge and action are linked in such a way that administrators activate their knowledge, use it and revise that knowledge on the basis of its use. This approach reflects the principles of constructivism outlined in earlier chapters. The hope is that problem-based learning can prepare leaders who can facilitate rather than obstruct school reform. What I found unclear in this chapter is how problembased learning actually challenges the traditional views of administrators. It was refreshing to see attention paid in this work to teacher education as a vehicle for teacher learning. As Ken Howie (personal communication, Dec. 5, 1996) has noted on several occasions, when matters of school reform are considered, it is typical that educators and policy makers ignore initial teacher education. Yet it is through initial teacher that all beginning teachers experience their first glimpse of teaching from the teacher's side of the desk. Chapter 14 on school-university partnership by Miller and O'Shea describes a part-
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nership between Southern Maine University and several school districts. This partnership, now in its ninth year, aims to better prepare beginning teachers while concurrently providing a vehicle for professional development among teachers. Much has been gained by both partners in this high profile project. The question remains whether projects less well-funded that this one would have the same success. While this example is held up in fairly positive terms, it may not reflect real struggles that people encounter in undertaking such partnerships. Often they do not work.
Practices and Policies that Support Teacher Learning The final two chapters set out the new paradigm for teacher learning and identify its policy implications. In chapter 15, Lieberman draws together previous chapters under the theme of moving from traditional forms of inservice education to new types of continuous learning that occur within professional communities. The essential shift is from direct teaching, typical of traditional forms of inservice, to the understanding of practice and to direct involvement in deciding how it can be improved. But, as Lieberman points out, if such plans are to become a reality, reform efforts must focus on building new roles and new relationships, on creating new structures, on working on new tasks, and, most importantly, on creating a culture of inquiry. Teachers should begin by observing the learning of children and by seeking new pedagogical approaches to subject matter. Moving beyond this starting point will occur within school cultures where teacher isolation has given way to collaboration, she notes. Districts, networks, and other revitalized structures must provide support. This chapter provides an excellent summary of the earlier contributions to the book and, as such, sets out an ambitious agenda for school reform. It is indeed, as the editors noted in the opening chapter, "the most comprehensive reform agenda ever undertaken" (p. ix). In the final chapter, Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin identify that the policy problem extends beyond mere support for acquiring new skills and knowledge to the more difficult task of
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reflecting on those skills and knowledge in ways that lead to deeper understanding. Like other chapters in this work, the authors emphasize the shift that must occur from the old models of teacher training and inservice to new images of how and what teachers learn. This will involve new ways of preparing teachers and of supporting their ongoing professional growth. Current structures and policies are inadequate. The chapter ends with a series of "interview" questions that can be asked of policy makers. For example, do policies support reducing the isolated working conditions of teachers? Do policies focus on learner-centred outcomes that emphasize learning how and why? As a reader, I am left with the question of how to deal with those policy makers who fail this interview process. Who deals with the policy makers who issue quick-fix mandates? How do teachers respond to hostile parents who want a 'back-tobasics', drill-oriented education for their children? Do we need policies to protect teachers so that they can get on with the new agenda for reform?
Conclusion This work left me with several questions concerning school reform in the United States. They come not as criticisms, but as curiosities. I was curious about the context in which these proposals would be played out. For example, following Lieberman's profound vision for school reform, we are left to ask, how great is the gulf between what is envisioned and the situation with which we currently live? The task ahead would be clearer if the authors had revealed more about the discrepancy between the vision they propose and the schools as they now exist. The most salient issue to emerge from the book for me was the difficulty that lies ahead for teachers in negotiating the two traditions (each with their own perceptions of good teaching) that tend to drive their lives. Teachers have struggled historically with the perceptions that outsiders bring to discussions of school reform. At the same time they have their own perceptions as to what their students need and what they can do to serve those needs. Most frequently, those two sets of perceptions do not coincide. In fact, the perceptions of outsiders are conflicting and often unworkable.
This tension resurfaces again and again in this book. In the first section, which highlighted the constructivist approach, I was left with the impression that teachers must be free to construct their own meaning about teaching, to take risks, and to generate new ideas. But clearly, a set of parameters exist within which such meaning ought to be constructed. Would a teacher be seen to be constructing meaning if he/she decided that transmission teaching was the best approach given the needs of students? In the chapter by Cochran-Smith and Lytle, the knowledge base for teachers was identified as an obstacle for teacher research. They cited Pelligrin's (1976) call for a systematic codified technology about teaching that would make teaching a legitimate profession. It is difficult to imagine an educational world that does not have researchers and developers who believe that they have such a knowledge base. The only problem with the world they would argue is that teachers do not understand it and use it. Yet, much of this book is devoted to encouraging teachers to be part of developing their own knowledge base for teaching. It is reasonable to expect negotiation across these two traditions? With the changes to schools that we saw proposed in several chapters of this book, I doubt that teachers will have time to do much negotiation. What they can do is exercise their own agency and struggle to serve the needs of the children they teach. As for arguing this goal, this book makes a sterling contribution. References Cobb, P. 0994). Constructitivism in mathematics and science education. Educational Researcher, 23, 4. Goodlad, J., Von Steophasius, R. & Klein, M. (1974). Looking behind the classroom door. Worthington, ID: Charles A. Jones. Havelock, R.C. (1969). Planning for innovation through dissemination and utilization of knowledge. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Research on Utilization of Scientific Knowledge, University of Michigan. Hoetker, J. & Ahlbrand, W. P. Jr. (1969). The persistence of recitation. American Educational Research Journal, 6, 14546. Stenhouse, L. (1984). Artistry and teaching: The teacher as focus of research and development. In D. Hopkins and M. Wideen (Eds.), New perspectives on school improvement. London: Falmer Press. Wideen, M. F. (1994). The struggle for change." The story of one school. London: Falmer Press.
Pergamon
PII: S0742-051X(96)OOO56-X
NEGOTIATING THE TRADITIONS OF SCHOOL REFORM
MARVIN F. WIDEEN Simon Fraser University,Burnaby, BC, Canada AN ESSAY REVIEW OF TEACHER LEARNING." N E W POLICIES, N E W P R A C T I C E S McLaughlin, M. W. and Oberman, I. (eds). New York: TeachersCollegePress, (ISBN0 807734942)
School reform has become an enduring preoccupation of both educators and the lay public. Although reformers have been around since schools begun, the current pressures to reform the schools, which began shortly after the Second World War, have now taken on serious overtones. McLaughlin and Oberman, in the introduction of this edited volume, contend that schools in the United States face unprecedented demands for reform. The proposed changes, taken together, represent the most comprehensive reform agenda ever undertaken in the United States. Pressures for reform have generally followed two traditions which had their geneses in the curriculum reform movement of the 1960s and 1970s (Wideen, 1994). One tradition springs from reform attempts imposed on teachers by policy makers, supported by researchers and developers. These reforms aimed to find the right intervention at the right time to improve schools and teaching practices in them. This approach rested on a top-down, managerial avenue to change, based on the notion that plenty of development work, curriculum packages and inservice through workshops would insure implementation and school change (Haverlock, 1969). But as experiences of the last two decades have shown, attempts to reform schools from the outside have failed (Hoetker & Ahlbrand, 1969; Goodlad, Von Steophasius, & Klein, 1974). Despite this demonstrated lack of success, policy makers still appear to turn to this tradition when seeking school reform.
A counter tradition also developed in which teachers were encouraged to initiate reform, usually with outside support. In this approach, school reform would come through teacher learning and agency. Perhaps Stenhouse (1984) best described this tradition with his remark that the best way to improve schools was to increase the number of teachers who were not constantly being frustrated by the system. It is within this tradition of school reform that the book edited by McLaughlin and Oberman falls. They take a very clear stance with respect to how school reform can best come about. Central to their reform agenda are substantial changes to the way teaching occurs. Teachers must teach for understanding and interact with students so that they develop more flexible, critical habits of mind. This can not occur within present practices of teaching and models of teacher inservice and training. Teachers themselves must engage in new ways with the subject matter they will teach and the way in which they teach it. Clearly, this scenario involves new ways of teacher learning--the focus of this book.
Constructivism: The New Enlightenment The contributors to this volume take the position that teaching must be reconceptualized around constructivist teaching in which teachers facilitate learning as opposed to delivering information. Students are not empty vessels waiting to be filled; rather, they are
357
358
MARVIN F. WIDEEN
intellectually active beings, posing their own questions and generating their own understandings. The three first chapters are devoted to explicating such a theory of constructivism and how it applies in both teaching and teacher learning. Later chapters, such as Bridges and Hallinger's on problem-based learning for principals, pick up on this theme. In the first chapter, Nelson and Hammerman use the teaching of mathematics as the context to argue for teaching as inquiry into subject matter by teachers and students, a form of teaching that stands in contrast to a technical craft of arranging activities so that students learn some 'right' answer. Drawing on research findings from several centers, they illustrate how a different approach to teacher learning in mathematics can be achieved to assist teachers in this change. A central feature of this change is to build on students' and teachers' existing understandings of mathematics to further extend and develop those understandings. New knowledge comes from the reconstruction of prior beliefs. The authors of this chapter close with an observation that this view of learning and teaching creates substantial dissonance for most teachers. They also note that much remains to be learned about this new form of practice and the processes by which teachers reinvent their practice. The second chapter by Falk sets out constructivist agendas for students, and the third chapter by Brooks and Brooks examines what constructivism means for school reform. The authors of both chapters leave little doubt that constructivism is a theory of teaching as well as a theory of education. They make several assumptions to back up that claim. 'Less is more' in terms of curriculum. Broad topics covered in greater depth manifests a constructivist approach as opposed to an emphasis on content coverage, described as the behaviourist approach. Students and teachers create their own meaning and knowledge through social interaction, focusing on real-life situations, and responding to their own needs and interests. The authors argue that this type of learning is based on how human beings engage naturally in learning. Such learning, they claim, will produce teachers who are powerful thinkers, the kind needed to enable students " . . . to take care of their own thinking and their own lives" (p. 29). They conclude that constructivism provides a radical
departure from present thought and practice, and offers great hope for improving the schools of America. The vision of teaching presented under the constructivist rubric will find much support in many circles within the educational community. Few people, particularly those in curriculum, will take issue with setting a vision of teaching and learning that has students and teachers inquire deeply into the nature of knowledge. But, using the label 'constructivist' teaching is highly problematic to many, including this reader. As Cobb (1994) points out " . . . the very notion of a constructivist pedagogy or of constructivist teaching is a misnomer that reflects a category error. It is readily apparent, for example, that the various versions of constructivism...do not constitute axiomatic foundations from which to deduce pedagogical principles" (p. 4). In short, constructivism is a theory of knowing, not a theory of teaching. My concern in this case is not with the approach but rather with the terminology used to describe it. By using the term 'constructivist' the authors are supporting their approach to teaching with the wrong theoretical frame. Clearly, some approaches to teaching appear to be more consistent with constructivism than others, but that is a far cry from adopting the term 'constructivist teaching'. If one accepts the constructivist argument, that one constructs meaning based on prior experience, does it necessarily follow that workshop activity where the teacher acts as a facilitator provides the only setting in which to do that? In some cases, prior beliefs may need to be challenged through direct teaching before a reconstruction of those beliefs can occur. Danger also lies in focusing on teaching as facilitating. As Dewey observed, if teaching as facilitation became a standard, then, " . . . i t is but a short step to the conclusion teachers are guilty of teaching by transmission if they do more than stimulate students' reflection and problem solving" (cited in Cobb, 1994, p. 4). A further issue concerning the approach to teaching described by these authors involves its historic background. One can emerge from these first three chapters with the sense that what we have is a very new idea of teaching. Clearly, it is very new when compared with what we see being taught in most schools and
Negotiating the Traditions of School Reform universities. But the teaching these authors describe parallels the teaching that emerged during the curriculum reform movement of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in mathematics and science. In fact, as a beginning elementary teacher, I attended a workshop that looked much like the Case of Starfish Math described in Part I of this volume. What has changed since that time is the role of the teacher as a learner within the process of change. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was believed that teachers could be told how to change. Today, as these authors point out, teacher learning must parallel the type of learning expected of the students. The other awareness that these authors reflect that was not prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s is that both students and teacher bring perceptions about subject matter to any teaching situation. These authors recognize that process as requiring much more agency on the part of the teacher.
Realities of the Workplace Part II of this edited volume examines how new learning opportunities can be forged as traditional roles and practices are re-examined. Grossman's treatment of the high school situation in Chapter 4 highlights the structural regularities of the time table, the subject matter focus, the organization of teachers, and the role of departments within the high school. She argues that the persistence of these regularities leave little room for reform and change. The key to affecting professional development is to understand subject matter subcultures within the high school. Generic attempts at change will likely fail, leaving the department as the focus for professional development. Here we see a very sharp distinction between the vision described in Part I of the volume and the reality of the high school as a workplace. One leaves Grossman's chapter with the impression that nothing short of a revolution in the high school would render the institution amenable to teaching approaches consistent with constructivism. Opportunities to learn can often be hidden, as Tatel states at the beginning of Chapter 5. Clearly, an opportunity for learning comes through the supervision of student teachers by
359
experienced teachers. When viewed through a constructivist lens, the role of the cooperating teacher can be a unique learning opportunity. Relating the testimony of 30 "teachers, she describes how practising teachers saw their experience; how that experience provided new perspectives on old content and method; and, how it recast the expectations of students and enabled them to rethink their role as teachers. While it is not at all clear what it means to view student teaching from a constructivist perspective, this chapter identifies a window of opportunity for teacher learning. Student teaching is something that occurs on a regular basis and clearly much more can be done to improve the learning that occurs for both the beginning teacher and practising teacher. Current efforts to change assessment practices in schools provides another window of opportunity for teacher learning, as Jamentz describes in Chapter 6. As assessment moves from paper and pencil tests to performancebased forms, both students and teachers will have to tackle complex problems of what these new assessment procedures mean. As Jamentz argues, the real challenge of assessment reform is not necessarily what to put into a portfolio but the opportunity to explore questions at the very heart of the purposes and process of schooling. The problem, however, is whether the policy makers and the commercial testing corporations will allow teachers the time to do that. If performance-based technologies have ignited the imagination of policy-makers, community leaders, and school administrators, as Jamentz says it has, then the real danger is that the outsiders will co-opt the agenda from teachers and, very quickly, with the help of academics, develop and provide the new knowledge base that teachers will have to implement. Gone will be the opportunities to learn by teachers. Phrases like 'performancebased instructional strategies' sound much more like things teachers need to learn from outsiders rather than a shift toward inquiry learning that was to reflect constructivist learning, described in earlier chapters in this volume. While there is little doubt that these areas provide opportunities for teachers to engage in new ways of learning, it was not clear to me how much activity of this nature is currently
360
MARVIN F. WIDEEN
taking place in the United States. These three chapters would have been more convincing had they been better grounded in examples.
New Structures for Learning and Change Section III describes more general structures for change and teacher learning such as networks, restructuring, and action research groups. Lieberman and McLaughlin, in Chapter 7, describe how the activities in several networks across the United States are providing support and encouragement for teacher learning and educational change. They argue that teachers welcome the opportunity to exchange ideas with other teacher participants on diverse topics. They believe teachers much prefer networks to traditional inservice activities. Participants join networks to establish a sense of identity around common interests and objectives. However, as the authors quite appropriately point out, the strength of networks is also their vulnerability and weakness. For example, while networks may inspire teachers to try out new ideas, they do not offer opportunity for teachers to assess the quality of those notions and to indicate how such innovations can be improved. Also, the ownership question is often in doubt in a network structure because it is not always clear who controls the agenda. In Chapter 8, Szasbo argues for a rethinking of restructuring. She reiterates the common theme that most innovations do not bring about any fundamental change in classrooms and teaching. The restructuring movement has been no exception. It has become a reorganizing tool not a tool for change. What has been missing from the restructuring equation, according to Szasbo, is a culture of inquiry which, along with the restructuring process, will facilitate change in instructional practices. But this change requires a reculturing process with the aim of creating 'learning centered' schools. She provides examples to illustrate how such reculturing can occur and what policy changes are required to achieve it. In Chapter 9, which deals with teacher research, Cochran-Smith and Lytle argue that the voices of teachers themselves are missing from the knowledge base on teaching. What questions do they ask? How do they talk about
their lives? How do they understand the improvement of their own practice? These authors see teacher research from the voice of the teacher as a powerful means of professional development that will potentially contribute to the knowledge base about teaching. As they point out, no simple steps can be taken to achieve this re-orientation. In fact, the very isolation of teachers, their occupational socialization, the traditional knowledge base of teaching, and the reputation of education research all stand create barriers to engaging teacher in undertaking research and policy makers from supporting that work. These three chapters provide examples of how the teaching profession can be renewed through teacher agency and habits of inquiry. The common thread in these chapters finds teachers acting on their own to improve their practice, supported by policies that allow risk-taking and encourage what might be termed a 'wedge of progressive practice' in the schools. That could be the ultimate solution to school reform over time. Clearly, as these and other authors have pointed out, traditional forms of inservice have not worked. But, on the counter side, the ongoing and relentless pressure to reform and restructure through mandate continues. It is not clear from these authors how teachers are to engage in teacher research and habits of inquiry when state departments are continually issuing mandates that teachers are to follow.
New Wine in Old Bottles The fourth section of the book provides examples of how new roles for traditional structures can potentially provide new ways for teachers to learn. Kerchner, in Chapter 10, describes the use of trust agreements with teacher organizations as one means to move unions beyond a preoccupation with salary and protecting jobs. Trust agreements focus on the teaching-learning process as the central mission of schools, allowing teachers and administrators to manage the ambiguity that results from seeking change within a school. The type of changes that occurred in the pilot projects Kerchmer describes illustrate incremental change, an item that Kerchmer describes as the stealth weapon for change. Chapters 11 and 12, on the professional devel-
Negotiating the Traditions of School Reform opment of bilingual teachers and the preparation teachers for the multicultural inner city school, paint a picture of the new reality facing teachers, a reality that will undoubtedly change teaching regardless of what outsiders try to do. In the chapter on inner city schools, T+llex and Cohen make the point that teaching in inner city schools offers an entirely different challenge to teachers and to those who prepare them. For the children, schools often offer their only hope. Teachers from middle-class backgrounds have little sense of the cultural discontinuity they will experience in such schools. Dalton and Moir, in chapter 12, provide an example of how Santa Cruz County responded to the problem of preparing teachers for these situations. A teacher support program for the first two years was put in place to assist beginning teachers with the task of learning how to cope in such diverse and new cultures. Administrators have not been forgotten in thinking about how to reshape schools to facilitate a new type of learning among teachers. In Chapter 13, Bridges and Hallinger describe problem-base learning for school principals as an alternate approach to the professional development of principals. In contrast to the command-and-control stance traditionally taken, problem-based learning rests on the notion that knowledge and action are linked in such a way that administrators activate their knowledge, use it and revise that knowledge on the basis of its use. This approach reflects the principles of constructivism outlined in earlier chapters. The hope is that problem-based learning can prepare leaders who can facilitate rather than obstruct school reform. What I found unclear in this chapter is how problembased learning actually challenges the traditional views of administrators. It was refreshing to see attention paid in this work to teacher education as a vehicle for teacher learning. As Ken Howie (personal communication, Dec. 5, 1996) has noted on several occasions, when matters of school reform are considered, it is typical that educators and policy makers ignore initial teacher education. Yet it is through initial teacher that all beginning teachers experience their first glimpse of teaching from the teacher's side of the desk. Chapter 14 on school-university partnership by Miller and O'Shea describes a part-
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nership between Southern Maine University and several school districts. This partnership, now in its ninth year, aims to better prepare beginning teachers while concurrently providing a vehicle for professional development among teachers. Much has been gained by both partners in this high profile project. The question remains whether projects less well-funded that this one would have the same success. While this example is held up in fairly positive terms, it may not reflect real struggles that people encounter in undertaking such partnerships. Often they do not work.
Practices and Policies that Support Teacher Learning The final two chapters set out the new paradigm for teacher learning and identify its policy implications. In chapter 15, Lieberman draws together previous chapters under the theme of moving from traditional forms of inservice education to new types of continuous learning that occur within professional communities. The essential shift is from direct teaching, typical of traditional forms of inservice, to the understanding of practice and to direct involvement in deciding how it can be improved. But, as Lieberman points out, if such plans are to become a reality, reform efforts must focus on building new roles and new relationships, on creating new structures, on working on new tasks, and, most importantly, on creating a culture of inquiry. Teachers should begin by observing the learning of children and by seeking new pedagogical approaches to subject matter. Moving beyond this starting point will occur within school cultures where teacher isolation has given way to collaboration, she notes. Districts, networks, and other revitalized structures must provide support. This chapter provides an excellent summary of the earlier contributions to the book and, as such, sets out an ambitious agenda for school reform. It is indeed, as the editors noted in the opening chapter, "the most comprehensive reform agenda ever undertaken" (p. ix). In the final chapter, Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin identify that the policy problem extends beyond mere support for acquiring new skills and knowledge to the more difficult task of
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reflecting on those skills and knowledge in ways that lead to deeper understanding. Like other chapters in this work, the authors emphasize the shift that must occur from the old models of teacher training and inservice to new images of how and what teachers learn. This will involve new ways of preparing teachers and of supporting their ongoing professional growth. Current structures and policies are inadequate. The chapter ends with a series of "interview" questions that can be asked of policy makers. For example, do policies support reducing the isolated working conditions of teachers? Do policies focus on learner-centred outcomes that emphasize learning how and why? As a reader, I am left with the question of how to deal with those policy makers who fail this interview process. Who deals with the policy makers who issue quick-fix mandates? How do teachers respond to hostile parents who want a 'back-tobasics', drill-oriented education for their children? Do we need policies to protect teachers so that they can get on with the new agenda for reform?
Conclusion This work left me with several questions concerning school reform in the United States. They come not as criticisms, but as curiosities. I was curious about the context in which these proposals would be played out. For example, following Lieberman's profound vision for school reform, we are left to ask, how great is the gulf between what is envisioned and the situation with which we currently live? The task ahead would be clearer if the authors had revealed more about the discrepancy between the vision they propose and the schools as they now exist. The most salient issue to emerge from the book for me was the difficulty that lies ahead for teachers in negotiating the two traditions (each with their own perceptions of good teaching) that tend to drive their lives. Teachers have struggled historically with the perceptions that outsiders bring to discussions of school reform. At the same time they have their own perceptions as to what their students need and what they can do to serve those needs. Most frequently, those two sets of perceptions do not coincide. In fact, the perceptions of outsiders are conflicting and often unworkable.
This tension resurfaces again and again in this book. In the first section, which highlighted the constructivist approach, I was left with the impression that teachers must be free to construct their own meaning about teaching, to take risks, and to generate new ideas. But clearly, a set of parameters exist within which such meaning ought to be constructed. Would a teacher be seen to be constructing meaning if he/she decided that transmission teaching was the best approach given the needs of students? In the chapter by Cochran-Smith and Lytle, the knowledge base for teachers was identified as an obstacle for teacher research. They cited Pelligrin's (1976) call for a systematic codified technology about teaching that would make teaching a legitimate profession. It is difficult to imagine an educational world that does not have researchers and developers who believe that they have such a knowledge base. The only problem with the world they would argue is that teachers do not understand it and use it. Yet, much of this book is devoted to encouraging teachers to be part of developing their own knowledge base for teaching. It is reasonable to expect negotiation across these two traditions? With the changes to schools that we saw proposed in several chapters of this book, I doubt that teachers will have time to do much negotiation. What they can do is exercise their own agency and struggle to serve the needs of the children they teach. As for arguing this goal, this book makes a sterling contribution. References Cobb, P. 0994). Constructitivism in mathematics and science education. Educational Researcher, 23, 4. Goodlad, J., Von Steophasius, R. & Klein, M. (1974). Looking behind the classroom door. Worthington, ID: Charles A. Jones. Havelock, R.C. (1969). Planning for innovation through dissemination and utilization of knowledge. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Research on Utilization of Scientific Knowledge, University of Michigan. Hoetker, J. & Ahlbrand, W. P. Jr. (1969). The persistence of recitation. American Educational Research Journal, 6, 14546. Stenhouse, L. (1984). Artistry and teaching: The teacher as focus of research and development. In D. Hopkins and M. Wideen (Eds.), New perspectives on school improvement. London: Falmer Press. Wideen, M. F. (1994). The struggle for change." The story of one school. London: Falmer Press.