Teacher professionalism - A prespective from Sachs

More than ten years have passed since the publication of the ‘The Activist Teaching Profession’ Sachs (2003). In a new paper, Sachs “Teacher professionalism: why are we still talking about it?” reflects on the changes that the ten years have made to the teaching profession and I have chosen two themes to discuss which are accountability and professional judgment.

Professionalism is conceived ‘of its time’ through the political and accountability frameworks that either support or constrain it and it is multidimensional. There is evidence to support the fact that professionalism is not one thing but can be many different things. In using the terminology of a ‘mature profession’ Sachs take the view that professionalism is “no longer questioned or contested” (p422) and pulling on Mocker (2005) works, Sachs continues by saying that this tries to help teachers to develop as “creative designers of curriculum and innovative pedagogues”.  Within this ‘mature profession’ teachers will be both creators and consumers of research, individually and collectively, and need to establish a trusting relationship with various stakeholders to become less risk adverse in partnership working. Hargreaves (2000) however, has cautioned that ‘positive new partnerships’ both in and beyond schools as discussed as a way forward by the OECD report (2015) may lead to “the de-professionalization of teachers, as teachers begin to flounder under conditions of uncertainty, multiple pressures and intensified work demands”. However, Sachs also cites Guskey who is more of the mind that “jointly planned activities are consistently more effective and more efficient than those planned by either school-based or district educators working alone (Guskey, 1999)”. This challenge then becomes about how we create ‘third spaces’ where collaboration can develop and more importantly thrive.

Accountability

Accountability has become a key element of professionalism and as such is a driver of the discourse around professionalism. For Bovens, Schillemans, and T’Hart (2006, pp. 226–227) in practice, being accountable is seen as a virtue, as a positive quality of organizations or officials. (p416). So how do we balance this organisational accountability with professional autonomy? In a performance culture, accountability impacts on teacher autonomy and how teachers enact their professionalism. It is sometimes difficult to discuss accountability in a form other than that of ‘perfect information’, data that is easy to measure, which then becomes valued and is the bases of quality indicators, (organisational accountability) in preference to trying to measure the things we do value (professional autonomy). Sachs draws on the work of Bolan and McMahon who argue that the political context defines the direction of travel for the education system and thus does not always support teacher agency, as it narrows the definition of professional learning to a more technical approach of teaching.

However, accountability is a multifaceted, Halstead (1994) distinguishes between two forms of accountability, contractual accountability and responsive accountability.

v  Contractual accountability

Is enacted through Standards, outcomes and results and is based on an explicit and an implicit contract which tends to be measurement driven.  Student test results, literacy and numeracy rates are some examples. It is where the intent of government is compliance and control, and at its worst, leaves teachers little agency or self-regulation.

v  Responsive accountability,

Is enacted through decision-making by teachers and is more concerned with process than outcomes. It supports inclusion and the use of the collective wisdom of the profession to self-regulate practice.

In the current global climate of performativity, it is not surprising that contractual accountability is seen to be preferred over responsive accountability.

Accountability has, in some countries, been through the use of professional standards which have become a tool for managing and overseeing teacher accountability. I would argue that SFR is an accountability measure to ensure the high standards expected of teachers in Scotland, but CLPL is far more about the individual teachers learning journey.  It is not a tick box standard to be ‘got through’ but rather a measure of scope and remit for the individual and thus is less about accountability and more about professionalism. Sachs claims that “the opportunity for teacher professional standards to be a catalyst for authentic professional learning is not being realized” (p417)¸ I would argue that in Scotland this is not the case.

As previously stated accountability is multifaceted and thus “different forms of accountability circulate which in turn produce different outcomes and have different effects on the enactment of teacher professionalism” (p415). Both Sachs and Evetts hold common views of professionalism. Evetts ‘occupational professionalism’ aligns with Sachs ‘democratic professionalism’ and Evetts ‘organisational professionalism’ aligns with Sachs ‘managerial professionalism’. Both authors agree that occupations professionalism (Evetts) or democratic professionalism (Sachs) supports a transformative profession which leads to authentic professional learning. When teacher learning is the focus of professional learning and linked explicitly with student learning, then “teacher accountability is vindicated and at the same time teachers expand their personal and professional horizons” (p421).

Transformative learning can be achieved through teachers and school systems becoming research enriched by being both consumers and creators of research. Teachers can develop the skills required to undertake enquiry, becoming research literate, and by doing so would assume more responsibility for their own learning. Through being “reflective practitioners or inquirers who make decisions about how students learn, how to assess student learning and appropriate pedagogy for the students, s/he teaches based on evidence and experience” (p420), teachers could feel more ‘in control’ of their own learning and thus feel ‘more professional’ and be ready to ask questions of policy and management systems. Within Professional Learning and education systems it “takes courage to ask tough questions and have the skills to find honest answers”(p421). I would encourage teachers to be courageous and move beyond the ‘what works’ agenda to professional learning which meet the needs of the teacher and their students in their situation. So Professional Learning must serve many masters, it must support teachers to continue to ‘sharpen the saw’ (Covey) and also understand and respond to the social element of education and schooling.

Here I would add a note and caution strongly against going down the ‘what works’ route as this does not mention works for whom? Where? When? Or how? Or the social and cultural factors, Stoll states that schools are “situationally unique” and so critical appraisal of an intervention is crucial, we cannot adopt but we may be able to adapt.

Teacher professional judgement

As discussed in recent OECD report (2105), professional judgement is one aspect which can be improved upon in Scotland, Sachs cited Ravitch (2010, p. 163) who states that professional judgement is a measure of a “good accountability system”.

This begs the question, how do we help teachers to develop and have confidence in their professional judgement? Teacher confidence needs to be improved as until recently this not been a driver of accountability, where ‘hard data’, (I would argue easy to measure data) has not been considered more important. This lack of investment in teacher judgement has led to teachers becoming ‘risk adverse’ and ‘more timid in their judgement’ as Sachs states (p432).

When teachers’ judgement and decision-making is questioned, it diminishes teachers’ self-confidence, creativity and the moral purpose that sustain them in ambiguous and difficult situations. It also corrodes their ability to act with confidence and authority and weakens trust.

This works against the notion of the ‘professional’ with professional judgement being the heart of a professionalism and leads to a technician approach to teaching – doing teaching rather than thinking teacher. Changes in teacher attitudes or as Sachs puts it ‘attitudinal development’ can support to develop confidence in professional judgement as “it is intellectual and motivational and is concerned with improvement of individual practice” (p420).

There is a still a shift needed to move accountability from a managerial approach to a more teachers autonomous approach where professional learning in the form of enquiry into their own and others practice becomes a ‘way of being’ to support the attainment and achievement of young people. This shift into becoming more research enriched, being both creators and consumers of research would support teacher professionalism through active engagement in policy discourse and raised confidence in professional judgement, as a means of teacher agency.

Reference

Sachs , J. (2016) Teacher professionalism: why are we still talking about it? Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, VOL. 22, NO. 4, 413–425

http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=1fdb5940-559d-4266-888a-cdab9523f79d%40sessionmgr120&hid=123&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=113744261&db=eue

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.

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

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

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

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

Teacher Journey (part 2) - Career-Long Professional Learning through Practitioner Enquiry

The Career-Long Professional Learning standard is an aspirational standard that challenges practitioners to signpost their professional learning in a way that is unique to them. The CLPL, alongside the Standard for Registration and the Standard for Leadership and Management are all underpinned by the themes of values, sustainability and leadership, and can be used throughout a teachers’ career to support their professional learning.

The OECD (2105) report describes the CLPL standard as supporting practitioners to develop “decisional capital”, which is the “deliberate development of judgement and expertise over time” through a commitment to continual professional learning, informed by their own practice and research. Teachers make judgements on a minute by minute basis, these judgements have their basis in ‘new, unique and concrete situations’ and should be considered through the lens of impact on student outcomes. The appropriateness of what and how teachers teach and organise the learning is important, not only for the immediate impact but also the long term impact on learning. All of these pragmatic judgements brings into question the ‘what works’ agenda, where evidence based strategies ‘tell’ teachers what they should do but unless critically viewed, they can discount that situation of the student and their need to learn content with purpose but also this happens through the relationship between pupil and teacher.. ‘What works’ can be considered as a process and practice, rather than communication and encounter and does not take into consideration ‘what works’ for whom, where and when.

Through the application of the CLPL standard practitioners are challenged to reframe the agenda and shape the notion of what a ‘good teacher’ is in Scotland. As there is no consensus in the literature around what makes a ‘good teacher’, the GTCS Standards provide teachers with a framework to move towards an agreed definition in Scotland as to the values, knowledge, skills and abilities that we, as the teaching profession, think makes a ‘good teacher’. This evolving concept of what it is to be a ‘good teacher’ requires teachers to be “active agents in their own professional worlds” Sachs (2003). Being an ‘active agent’ or ‘activist’ a term coined by Sachs, (2003) requires teachers to work collaboratively and take risks. The professional learning undertaken by teachers as they evolve into enquiry practitioners must be part of a learning journey, where opportunities to work together and to ask questions of their own practice and indeed the practice of others, needs to be promoted and supported. This is high on the agenda for Scottish education and must remain so if we are to be true to the aspiration of a learning profession, but where so often as Sachs (2003) states “student learning is a goal, the continuing learning of teachers is often overlooked”.  Although there is not consensus, Sachs (2003) argues that undertaking practitioner enquiry can “act as an important source of teacher and academic professional renewal and development”. Practitioner enquiry as part of a teacher professional learning journey can be planned for and undertaken to support professional growth.

Practitioner enquiry is seen as a vehicle to promote research by supporting teachers to engage with theory, policy and practice within their own local environment and is congruent with the act of ‘becoming’. It should lead to deep transformative learning which significantly informs and influences a professionals’ understanding, practice and impact on pupil experiences. Hargreaves (1999) argues that schools and teachers should be knowledge creators, thus accepting teachers as researchers. This point is echoed by Darling-Hammond and Sykes (1999:256) who state that

“the classroom and the school occupy a crucial place in teachers’ professional growth. It matters how the school organises and promotes teacher’ work and teacher learning”. 

The purpose of any research activity should be related to increasing skills, knowledge or practice of the teacher but also linked to improved outcomes for learners. Linking teacher learning to student outcomes is a way to promote and engage educators in research through practitioner enquiry, Timperley et al (2009) states  “[if] teachers can gain an understanding of what it is they need to learn to improve outcomes for students and have a compelling reason to engage” in practitioner enquiry.

Practitioner enquiry as a form of professional learning, allows teachers the space to engage with research and create their own knowledge, which is very pertinent to their students in their situation. Even more powerful yet is being part of an enquiring community, where all data and evidence is given consideration and the reliance on test scores and ‘what works’ is included but critically reviewed to establish the best path for the establishment, at that time, to support student learning. When a community becomes an enquiring community it opens up the possibility to challenge assumptions, to articulate values, to ask questions of their practice and to form partnerships with academics to engage in theory and research to further enhance the life chances of their students.

So through practitioner enquiry as a means of professional learning, practitioners can address the needs of their own learning so than they can better support student attainment and achievement.

References

Darling-Hammond, L. Sykes, G. (eds) (1999) Teaching as the Learning Profession; Handbook of Policy and Practice. Jossey-Bass. San Fransisco

Hargreaves, D. (1999) The Knowledge-Creating School. British Journal; of educational Studies, 47(2), 122-144

Improving Schools in Scotland: An OECD Perspective (2015)

http://www.oecd.org/edu/Improving-Schools-in-Scotland-An-OECD-Perspective.pdf

Accessed last : 16 February 2016

Sachs, J. (2003) The Activist Teaching Profession. Open University Press

Timperley, H.S. Parra, J.M. Bertanees, C.  (2009)  Promoting professional inquiry for improved outcomes for students in New Zealand Professional Development in Education Volume 35, Issue 2 pp227-245)  

Teacher Journey (Part 1) -Teacher Professionalism

Teacher professionalism, being professional or being part of a profession are widely used in literature and policy statements in Scotland. However, have we as a ’profession’ ever stopped the think what does this means? Do we all have a similar definition? Or are there distinct and competing definitions? The discourse around professionalism is not helpful as there is also contention in the literature around the meaning of ‘profession’ and ‘professionalism’, it is acknowledged by Kennedy, Barlow & Macgregor that these concepts are “multifaceted”  and “contested” ( (2012:4).

Here are some definitions of professional.

From Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

The competence or skill expected of a professional or the practising of an activity, especially a sport, by professional rather than amateur players.

The Australian Council of Professionals 2004

A profession is a disciplined group of individuals who adhere to ethical standards and uphold themselves to, and are accepted by, the public as possessing special knowledge and skills in widely recognised body of learning derived from research, education and training at a high level and who are prepared to exercise this knowledge and these skills in the interest of others

Business Dictionary

Person formally certified by a professional body of belonging to a specific profession by virtue of having completed a required course of study and/or practice. A person whose competence can usually be measured against an established set of standards or a person who has achieved an acclaimed level of proficiency in a calling or trade.

So, “Is professionalism a ‘thing’ or is it a process? I would argue that it has meaning in both descriptions. The ‘thing’ as a static element for me would be the suite of standards held by GTCS for all practitioners in Scotland. In addition, the Code of Professionalism and Conduct which outlines the characteristics and code of conduct which the individual complies with, to uphold to the status of themselves as a credible professional and also the profession in holistic terms, in the sense of what ‘we’ stand for and this is how ‘we’ behave.

Next, a question asked by Kennedy, Barlow & Macgregor (2012:4) “Is professionalism owned by individual professionals or is it owned by the entire occupational group?” Again I would argue that this is a false dichotomy and the real answer lies within both the individual and the collective. Teachers have a responsibility to meet expected standards, set by themselves but this must also be within the realms of what is perceived to be acceptable within the ‘profession’ and the public as stated in the definition from the Australian Council of Professionals (above).

Finally, Kennedy, Barlow & Macgregor(2012:4)  also posed this question “Is professionalism something that provides strength, identity and a moral compass for an occupational group or is it something that can be used on or against the professional group as a means of exerting external influence and control?” The idea of a moral compass, is idealistic but does chime with the ideal of vocational purpose which is often aligned with teaching. The second part of the definition is more about a control mechanism, where the use of the term ‘professionalism’ has become a tool to shape education policy.

Models of professionalism

Sachs (2001) distinction of professionalism, which was then extended by Whitty (2008), discussed a “spectrum” of professionalism with the polar extremes being managerial and democratic. Whitty (2008) extended this to a four model structure;

TRADITIONAL

The traditional model is discussed as being more led by a list of characteristics and a code of conduct.

MANAGERIAL

The managerial model as discussed by Kennedy, Barlow & Macgregor involves professionalism being used as a means of “control over teacher behaviour” (2012:3) There is an expectation of “compliance”, and professionalism is measured using targets with business influenced criteria, led by “externally imposed concept and accountability” (Kennedy, Barlow & Macgregor, 2012).

DEMOCRATIC

Democratic professionalism is described as being the “enactment of principle of equality and social justice” (Kennedy, Barlow & Macgregor, 2012)an internal autonomy model which is “critical, politically engaged and [a] proactive attempt to promote social justice through professional actions”

Each model has its own strengths and issues dependant on whose lens you are using to scrutinise them.

COLLABORATIVE

The final model is the Collaborative model in which Whitty (2008) talks about “the growing emphasis on inter-professional working”.

The Scottish Context

The challenge for education profession is that teacher identity in Scotland is currently being re-conceptualized.  A new kind of professionalism is evolving which Evetts (2012) describes as a ‘hybrid professionalism’, encompassing the professional wish for empowerment, innovation and autonomy but recognizes the public interest need for quality assurance and accountability. This involves teachers as practitioners becoming more research enriched and engaging in enquiry, which can lead to transformative learning and is congruent with the act of ‘becoming’, Sachs (2003). By offering guidance on practitioner enquiry GTCS supports the Cochrane-Smith & Lyttle (2009) disposition of ‘enquiry as stance’ where GTCS challenges practitioners to question their practice and adopt an ‘critical habit of mind”.

From a presentation delivered at the ICSEI conference in Glasgow 2016, Finn discussed a good professional;

Delivers a good service to those who rely on their professionalism and....on their skills, knowledge and expertise being up to date and relevant to their need.

Professional practices involves more than just delivering what the ‘client’ thinks they want. It goes beyond delivery as the professional also influences and to some extent shapes the client expectation. The client/professional relationship creates a transactional basis to the relationship and becomes more accountability driven rather than values based. Biesta (2010) argues that we have moved into a bureaucratic rather than democratic culture of accountability systems where we come to value what we can easily measure, data, rather than measuring what we really value, learning.

Finally we can refer to a list of characteristics adapted from Burbules and Dennison (1991) by Finn & Hamilton (2012) to help us to identify what we may mean by a teaching professional in 2016.

A teaching professional will;

• o    have clearly defined practical and theoretical knowledge
• o    have professional autonomy and accountability
• o    prioritisation of service to others before economic benefits
• o    be commitment to keep learning and improving throughout a career
• o    have aspirations towards optimal learning performance
• o    collaborate with other professionals

 So I would say we that we haven’t got to an agreed working definition yet, but perhaps with Teacher Professionalism as a key driver within the National Improvement Framework, we as a ‘profession’ have an opportunity to define what we mean by professionalism and the values that underpin our contribution to young people’s lives in Scotland.

Bibliography

Biesta, G.J.J.  (2010) Good Education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy: Boulder and London: Paradigm

Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S.L. (2009) Inquiry as Stance: practitioner Research for the Next Generation, New York:Teachers College Press

Evetts, J. (2012) Professionalism in Turbulent time: Changes, Chellenges and opportunties Keynote Presentation to professional Practice and Learning (proPEL) Conference, University of Stirling 9 may 2012 http://www.propel.stir.ac.uk/downloads/JuliaEvetts-FullPaper.pdf

Kennedy, A. Barlow, W. MacGregor, J. (2012) ‘Advancing Professionalism in Teaching’? An exploration of the mobilisation of the concept of professionalism in the McCormac Report on the Review of Teacher Employment in Scotland, Scottish Education Review 44 (2) 3-13

Sachs, J. (2001) Teacher professional identity: competing discourses, competing outcomes. Journal of Education Policy, 16(2), 149-161.

Sachs, J. (2003) The Activist Teaching Profession, Buckingham : Open University Press.

Whitty, G. (2008) Changing modes of teacher professionalism: traditional, managerial, collaborative and democratic. In: B. Cunningham, ed. Exploring Professionalism: 28-49. London: Institute of Education, University of London.

Scottish Attainment Challenge – support for practitioners

The Education Scotland website has a range of support information to help practitioners to engage with the Scottish Attainment Challenge through the National Hub. The National Hub support practitioners with information, blogs and social media and through an online community. The research and evidence pages within the Scottish Attainment Challenge area of the website aims to help practitioner engage with current research by supporting the “effective translation of knowledge into action within the Scottish Education system”.

Two research briefing papers have been produced both focus on ‘closing the gap’. The first research briefing paper was published in November 2015 and is entitled “Differentiated Learning in Numeracy and Mathematics”, the second was published earlier this month and discusses “Early Reading”. The research briefings were created using current thinking and literature and are intended to be used as a useful starting point for further research by practitioners. Here, I will give a brief summary of each research briefing paper.

Differentiated Learning in Numeracy and Mathematics (November 2015)

Differentiation provides a means to try to ‘close the gap’ in numeracy and mathematics, however, practitioners need to take cognisance of social factors as well as academic attainment. The impact of socio-economic factors on students attainment and achievement is complex, but as an education system, we need to, “view children and families living in poverty in terms of their possibility and promise rather than their deficiencies” (Ciuffetelli Parker, 2015). Heacox (2002) described differentiated learning as “one dimension of equitable teaching” which can be used to alleviate disengagement and reduce barriers to education, thus helping to ‘close the gap’.

Differentiation is not a single approach but provides a foundation on which all teachers can develop multiple starting points and learning journeys for their learners. Effective teachers differentiate through a variety of different strategies to meet the needs of their learners and involves teachers adapting the learning and teaching, and assessment strategies. These strategies can include making changes to accommodate learners needs by differentiating learning through changes to content, modification of process, or adapting the learning environment to meet the needs of all students’. Differentiation, effective assessment and monitoring of students progress are paramount in supporting teachers make professional judgements about the learners’ progress and next steps in their learning journey.

The challenge for teachers and schools remain the same for every change in practice; time, skills and resources. It has been argued that the time spent on differentiation, supports student learning and thus alleviates the need for interventions later in the students’ school career. Teachers need to be supported through strong leadership and high quality professional learning, including collaborative working in order to make improvements to support student outcomes and ‘close the gap’.

Early Reading (February 2016)

In ‘closing the gap’ in reading, it is important to acknowledge that this is a complex issue. Research has consistently reported that children from more disadvantaged backgrounds find reading more difficult and that this gap can be identified in pre-school children (Buckingham et al., 2014). Further evidence suggests that parental education and the influences of home learning (Hartas, 2013) also have a substantial impact on the gap between the readiness of children to become readers.

In order to become a successful reader, children must learn a number of interconnected skills. Hattie (2007) offers the ‘five pillars’ of good reading to be phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. The Education Endowment Foundation (2015a) suggests that it is more important to match the strategy for learning phonics to the needs of the individual than having a blanket approach to teaching phonics. This research also suggests that for young readers a phonic based approach, as part of a balanced reading programme, gives the most effective learning experiences for children.

Ellis (2015) noted, that there are a number of factors that can support disadvantaged students to become better readers. These include challenging classroom environments and learning opportunities that promote literacy and match pupil’s needs. To help reduce the attainment gap, students’ need to have high quality learning and teaching experiences and to be supported by targeted programmes or one to one support as and when required.

In conclusion, ‘closing the gap’ is very challenging and complex. All learning relies on high quality learning and teaching but within the Scottish Attainment Challenge there is a particular focus on learners from more disadvantages backgrounds. Practitioners need to ensure that they are delivering high quality learning and teaching opportunities, that engage students and that they have the skills and resources to do so. Practitioners also have to undertake regular effective monitoring of individual progress and to make professional judgements about the support each pupil needs in order to help them be successful learners.

Both research briefing papers can be found here:

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/inclusionandequalities/sac/nationalhubforscottishattainmentchallenge/research/researchbriefings.asp