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.
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