In the current climate in Scottish education, where there is
considerable teacher frustration with the perception of continual changing of the
‘goal posts’, can teacher agency be a means of empowering and supporting
teachers to be more autonomous in managing their workload, to help them to continue
to support all children and young people to be the best they can be?
There are many teachers across Scotland who feel that they are not
empowered, indeed they feel powerless within their school environment, where
structure, policies and the lack of time seem to limit their autonomy. As their
autonomy is eroded and can lead to a negative strategic compliance stance of -
‘just tell me what to do’.
Learning communities offer an opportunity for teacher
empowerment by teachers leading, being involved, included and responsible for
their own and others learning. However, most when set up, neglect the
underlying structures and social dynamics that are required of learning
communities. The teambuilding work isn’t done before the teacher learning
community is asked to produce the desired change, result, policy, whatever the
focus is. This is usually due to time pressure, if you only have six meetings throughout
the session, spending the first couple team building, may not seem a good use
of time. There is also the inherent assumption that collegiate working is a
‘good thing’ but there is no clear evidence or even critical questions being
asked whether it actually has a positive effect.
So, if teachers are not empowered through teacher
learning communities how can they be empowered? The concept of teacher agency
defined by Biesta, Priestley, Robinson (2105) in their book “Teacher Agency –
An Ecological Approach” may go some way to an answer.
I have been slowly developing an understanding of this model of teacher
agency, to be honest it has taken me a while to step back and consider all the
elements which the authors believe are encompassed in this model. For me, I
held a psychological empowerment model of teacher agency, which could be
defined as a process of enhancing feelings of self-efficacy i.e. having high impact
and competence and feeling that what I did was meaningful. I was a strong
advocate of teacher agency through ‘individual effort’, through
self-determination of learning and perhaps paid less attention to the other
elements which Biesta, Priestley & Robinson discuss as essential for
teacher agency i.e. resources, structure, and context. These other elements were
only presented to me as barriers to overcome or navigate as I had never
experienced them as enablers. So, my view of teacher agency and an individual
effort was formed from cynical observations of ‘empowerment’ where ‘development
opportunities’ were merely delegation and became unfair expectations in a
crowded workload. However, having taken time to consider this I am fully on-board
with the notion that agency is not something some “people can have or possess”
but is in fact something that people “do or achieve” (Biesta & Pedder,
2006).
The much-used quote from the OECD’s, Schleicher “the quality of a nation’s education system cannot outstrip the
quality of its teachers” highlight the quality of the system that
supports and promotes teacher agency. Therefore, leadership is essential.
Leadership should create the culture and provide the structures and resources
to support teacher agency. It also needs to be trusting, inclusive and
supportive and enhance the collaborative aspects of professional learning.
Policy statements effect leadership and the enactment of leadership. Policy
can hinder teacher agency by restricting and trying to control teachers work through
regulation, inspection and the curriculum. This can create a ‘what works’ approach
to education where the learning becomes a ‘learner knows, understands and is
able to do’ but does not touch on the wider aspects of learning and raises a philosophical
question of “whether it is ethical in a democracy to predefine what people
should learn, and how they should be” (p155). Policy can also miss the moral
imperative of education through a performativity culture and bureaucratic approaches
to assessment. With a strong focus on attainment, we appear to have lost the achievement
dimension which gives a more child centred approach to education.
There is a balance to be achieved by leadership teams both at a local authority
level and school level. Leadership teams should not be the only source of
policy engagement for teachers, as their interpretations of policy can reduce
teacher professionalism as it diminishes teachers’ capacity to make professional
judgements. This has to be balanced with teachers lack the efficacy to engage
with, and decode the language of policy into meaningful practice. This can be
resolved to some extent if teachers engage in research and professional reading,
to broaden and deepen their educational perspectives.
Teacher agency gives a model for a more rounded education system where
the connections between levels, the macro, meso and micro, are all pointing in
the same direction. It has the power to support teachers to be more autonomous
within their workload but as ever, it is not as simple as that. The model of
teacher agency described by Biesta, Priestley & Robinson moves beyond
teachers ‘possessing agency’ to a more expansive model of teachers ‘achieving
agency’ through their own efforts, but also the culture of their work
environment and the structures and resources that support their efforts. Within
this model, leadership is key and the support from all levels of the education
system is a must. Policy needs to liberate teachers from a narrow view of education,
local authorities need to support teachers and be ‘less inspectorial’ and school
leaders need to create conditions for all teachers to thrive. If we can move
towards this model, then teacher agency can empower teachers and enhance their professionalism.
Reference
Biesta, G. Priestley, M. Robinson, S (2015) Teacher Agency – An ecological
Approach: Bloomsbury Publishing, London
