Monday 28 March 2016

Teacher Professionalism - Professional responsibility and professionalism (Tara Fenwick, 2016)

In trying to understand the complexities of professionalism I have turned to the work of Tara Fenwick.  Tara delivered a keynote at the SERA conference in November which was very insightful and thought provoking. She discusses that being a professional requires that you have certain responsibilities to the profession, the client (students) and also the public (education is paid for by the public purse and as thus can be defined as public service). Given this public service status, there are four defining principles of public service, which according to McDermott (2011) are autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. So in the public interest teachers are expected as part of their professionalism to be;
·         autonomous; some form of personal control and responsibility,
·         beneficent; to act in the public good and cause no harm,
·         non –maleficent; not to act in ways that show malice or are intentionally harmful, and finally
·         promote justice; to promote equality, equity and moral rightness.

This is the foundation of ethical behaviour and is embodied in the professional values and personal commitment section of the Professional Standards set by GTC Scotland. Professionalism and ethics can be seen to be have commonality, this promotes a common sense approach by doing the right thing and is outlined in Code of Professionalism and Conduct (CoPAC). However, this overlap can also be troublesome. Through dispensing their role, teachers should not be expected to ‘fix’ bigger societal problems but there is an imperative to contribute. This is a creeping issue as governments try to tackle society problems by reaching out to young people, and the education system gives easy and manageable access.

For teachers though there is a balance point between CoPAC and doing the right thing, but this raises a question and highlights a troubled relationship between professional responsibility (professional judgement) and accountability (compliance with CoPAC and the suite of Standards). Responsibility in this way is demonstrated through more proactive activities compared with accountability which is demonstrated by more reactive behaviour. Fenwick sates that “professionalism is not a singular thing” (2016:32) but is in fact a social contract between the professional, the profession and the communities the professional serves. The tightrope of professional to unprofessional leads to teachers trying to find a balance between these concepts, where is the tipping point between ‘conscientious objection’ and ‘conduct unbecoming’?

Although professional responsibility can be considered as a personal matter described by an individual’s disposition, attitudes and behaviours, Fenwick cites an example of where the same professionalism is given different meaning on the responsibility and accountability spectrum “In the US for example, professionalism at least in the medical field is decree in abstract terms of idealism, while in Europe professionalism is framed in terms of observable behaviours” (2016:25). Fenwick cites Lewis (2006) who argues that there is a fundamental conflict between the ‘profession’, which is about institutionalised discipline, and professionalism, which is about values and responsibility.

So how can we supporting professionalism?

This is the section of the Standards (Professional Values and Personal Commitment) that is most difficult to evaluate due to its complex nature. Fenwick discusses the notion of ‘attunement’. Attunement is the belief that professional responsibility cannot be defined by professional action or agency but by a more intuitive behaviour that understands the climate of the classroom through multi-sensory observations. Highly attuned practitioners can avert problems by reading and interpreting climate to reframe and avert issues. This attunement could be called “knowing-in-practice” Fenwick (2016:10). Attuement is developed over time, through professional noticing, reflection of the classroom experience and a critical examination by the teacher of their values, attitudes and dispositions. Alongside developing attunement teacher also have to keep alive to their social responsibilities. Teachers have social responsibility to three different communities of learners, the student body, the school learning community and finally the teacher profession. The expectations for each community can be different and thus the teacher must navigate a path that satisfies all three, while developing themselves as professionals.

Professionalism and professional learning

Undertaking professional learning is a fundamental aspect of professional update but as teacher ‘learning is fluid, iterative and unpredictable’ then often this has to be considered over time and with a range of evaluation tools. Professional learning can also be understood as negotiating identity, managing transitions effectively, producing innovations or even critically questioning norms of practice Fenwick (2016:48). In a study by Aasen, Amundsen, Gressgard et al (2012), professional learning was found to be most effective when;
·         Leaders are involved to encourage practitioners and be part of the learning
·         The ethos of improvement is overtly linked to teacher learning
·         Using strategies that promote practitioner driven innovations

Fenwick states (2016:189) “experimentation is also critical in professional practice, which Mosler (2008) describes as continuous attunement and adjustment with what evolves, and Mol (2009) describes as tinkering”. But teachers must go beyond ‘tinkering’ and use research, reflection and evidence of impact to link their learning to improved outcomes for students.
Collaborative learning is often cited by teachers as being the most productive and enjoyable way of learning in their community. While synergy is created in collaborative working there has been little critical evaluation of the impact of collaborative working and indeed Fenwick (p113) states there is an “absence of clear empirical evidence that these arrangements actually improve service (Dunston 2014: Fenwick 2012a).

This can also be said of partnership working in which a third space must be created to allow partners from different organisations to collaborate. This sometimes becomes a highly desirable notion but the practice of which needs to consider issues of power, structure and professional identities have to be negotiated. This negotiation in partnership working has to begin by looking at the problem and recognising that professionals from different organisations address the same problem but can do so with diametrically opposed expected outcomes. Fenwick offered an excellent example of this with the question “why is palliative care almost never offered to patients with advanced heart disease (Lingard, McDougall, Shultz et al 2014)? The answer lies in the different ethical approaches, palliative care practitioners support patients to manage dying, whereas cardiac surgeon are focussed on saving the patient’s heart. This example demonstrated that collaboration between organisations requires more than just good communication, common purpose and clear goal, with negotiated ‘ways of working’ are of paramount importance and this can be difficult to negotiate.


The concepts of what is professional and what is professionalism, demands that teachers examine their own belief systems and deliver their role via the protocols and guidelines that describe ‘profession behaviours’ in the context of teaching in Scotland.

Sunday 20 March 2016

Teacher professionalism - A prespective from Hargreaves and Fullan

What is teacher professionalism?

I have been thinking about this question for the last three years and still have no satisfactory answer. My last three posts were looking through the lens of the teacher journey and what professionalism mean at each stage, I now turn my attention to the literature to find further meaning.. Hargreaves and Fullan make a distinction between ‘professional’ and ‘a professional’ in their book Professional Capital (2012) , with ‘professional’ being about behaviours and what you do, and ‘a professional’ defined as how you are perceived by others and how this affects your self-perception.
A classic definition of being a professional is one in which practitioners have;
  • specialised knowledge expertise
  • a shared professional language
  • shared standards of practice
  • a rigorous process of training and qualification to be part of the profession
  • an ethical element to the service
  • self-regulation
  • professional judgement built into the system
  • collaborative working
  • commitment to professional learning


Hargreaves and Fullan describe professional capital as the sum of human capital, social capital and decisional capital. These according to Hargreaves and Fullan are linked in an equation, shown below



Human capital can be defined as ‘economically valuable knowledge and skills’ which can be developed by practitioners especially through professional learning. In the OECD report (2015) human capital in new teachers was said to be ‘strong’ as teaching is seen as a desirable occupation in Scotland. Teaching in Scotland is premised on core values of social justice, integrity, trust and respect, and professional commitment through undertaking processes of professional enquiry. These core values underpin the suite of Standards held by GTC Scotland, to support all practitioners to embody and demonstrate the desired characteristics and qualities required of teachers in Scotland. The OECD report (2015) calls the suite of Standards ‘bold’ and goes on to state that they are “supportive of high quality individual professional judgment”. From evidence of Professional Update these standards are becoming embedded in the culture of professional learning for teachers across Scotland.
Social Capital is about “the quality of interaction and social relationships”, this is important in education as social interaction is the cornerstone on which relationships are built, and relationships are at the heart of education. If you have good relationships then you can increase your knowledge through the knowledge of others, which helps you to expand your influence and develop personal and professional resilience.
The final capital defined by Hargreaves and Fullan is decisional capital. This relies on practitioners having autonomy to make informed professional judgements. The ability to make informed professional judgements is built over time through expertise and experience, using your own and the reflections of colleagues to support decisions. The Standards for Career-Long Professional Learning is discussed in the OECD report (2015) as the standards which supports teachers so they can “develop and enhance their practice, expertise, knowledge, skills and professional values”. This is achieved through professional learning and is considered to be a decisional capital as it supports “deliberate development of judgment and expertise over time”. One of the main cornerstones of building decisional capital is “self–efficacy” which is defined in the OECD report (2015) as “a teacher’s belief that he or she can have a positive impact on pupils, even in adverse conditions and circumstances”. Self-efficacy can be developed through teacher leadership which supports teachers regardless of role and responsibility to take leadership roles as part of their professional learning. Teacher leadership support teachers to develop confidence and competence through professional learning choices and supports the improvement agenda of schools. It recognises collaborative and collegiate working to help teachers to develop professional capital.

So according to Hargreaves and Fullan, professionalism is a set of different capitals. These capitals embody professional knowledge and skills, professional relationship building and sustainment, and finally making informed professional judgements. So is teacher professionalism about what you know and how you engage with people and make decisions? This is a reductionist view of a very complex set of dispositions and attitudes. So the quest continues with the writing of Tara Fenwick the next stop.

References
Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (2012) Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in every school: Routledge

Improving Schools in Scotland: An OECD Perspective (2015)
http://www.oecd.org/edu/school/improving-schools-in-scotland.htm

Sunday 6 March 2016

Teacher Journey (Part 3) - Leaders need a telescope and a microscope

Leadership is a theme that is prevalent in the current discourse of education and teacher professionalism. Leaders can be defined as, by the Oxford Dictionary Online as “the person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country”. In education, leaders were considered to be individual who were promoted to a ‘leadership role’ such as Head of Department or Senior Leader. This view is changing as the notion of teacher leadership takes hold, but in this post I will consider the skills, attitudes and dispositions needed for more traditional leadership roles.

Leaders in promoted leadership roles will take account of the Standard for Leadership and Management, which includes both the Standard for Middle Leadership and the Standard for Headship. This standard lays the foundations for professionalism and challenges in promoted leadership roles, which is required by all middle leaders and head teachers, and supports leaders to consider continuous improvement for themselves and the whole school community. The Standard for Leadership and Management, as with the other standards, is underpinned by the themes of professional values, sustainability and leadership. Professional values are demonstrated through all of our professional relationships and practices and is at the core of professional leadership. 

Leaders must remember that policy is “both a product and process” Bell and Stevenson (2006), that helps guide the development of both curriculum and staff capacity to allow the school to deliver a quality experience for students. Policy development is a “product of compromise, negotiation, dispute and struggle” Bell and Stevenson (2006), and leaders have to maintain an overview of both the product in the curriculum provision, to allow pupils to achieve their potential and also the process to allow staff ownership of the curriculum they teach.

To be a successful school leader, leaders need to take into account opposing views on the purposes of education from all stakeholders and produce a coherent and workable solution. This involves developing, managing and interpreting policy for the school community and then supporting its implementation through colleagues.

School leaders are challenged to support their community to develop the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and practices needed to take decisions which are compatible with a sustainable future in a just and equitable world. Each pupil as an individual, should be given opportunities to enhance their talents and strengths, and to skill themselves for the global marketplace into which they will emerge. It is the leaders’ responsibility to make sure that there is a multi-agency approach to reaching this goal. Along with the autonomy within the local authority setting, leaders are accountable to the stakeholders, especially the students, for providing opportunities for excellent learning experiences leading to attainment and achievement.
Leaders are also challenged to engage in partnership working that benefits their learnings and their learning community. Head teachers and middle leaders supported through the Standard for Leadership and Management foster collegiate working and deploy coaching and mentoring as appropriate to develop leadership capacity in others.

Successful leaders need to continue to seek improvement in their own skills and abilities. A report entitled ‘Decoding leadership: What really matters’ suggests that there are some common leadership traits that correlate to successful leadership. These are;
Solving problems effectively – problem solving through gathering and analysing the impact of pieces of information leads then to decision making.
Operating with a strong results orientation:  in an education context this means keeping a focus on pupil attainment and achievement.
Seeking different perspectives – this means involving the community and then making informed decisions to achieve the best experiences for students. As Fullan (2001) states “Effective leaders listen attentively—you can almost hear them listening”.
Supporting others – by building trust and inspire others to improve student outcomes.

If all of this seems daunting them perhaps it can be simplified into the statement;
‘Leaders need a telescope and a microscope’
The telescope allows school leaders to see future opportunities and the microscope help to focus on the day to day needs of the community.

Bibliography

 Barton, A, Grant, A, & Horn M. (2012) Leading in the 21st century: Six global leaders confront the personal and professional challenges of a new era of uncertainty.

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/leading_in_the_21st_century/leading_in_the_21st_century

Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great. New York: Harper Collins.
Hendricks, C. Blog post: The role of the teacher should be privileged over any leadership role:http://chronotopeblog.com/2016/01/24/the-role-of-teacher-should-be-privileged-over-any-leadership-role/

Feser, C. Mayol, F & Srinivsan, R. (2105) Decoding leadership: What really matters

Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a Culture of Change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey–Bass.