What are we calling it??

Teacher research? practitioner enquiry? professional enquiry?

This week’s thoughts are a reflection of a twitter conversation from this week initiated by  @anna_d_beck and contributed to by @PCampbell91, @Catriona_O, @kate_wall98, @psychohut, @mrs_leitch.

This was the starter of the conversation:

Personally, I prefer the term practitioner but understand that for others this sounds mechanical or technical and doesn’t capture the professional standpoint.

In research versus enquiry, I feel that research is very weighted and carries connotations of academic research and the rigour that entails. I prefer enquiry but understand that to some is considered a ‘safer’, less critical way of using literature and interrogating practice. I hold to the notion that I am a teacher who does research, not a researcher. I feel there is a distinction to be made and if we all become researchers does that change the status of academic research? For some enquiry is a theme of research and should not be considered ‘the way’ but ‘a way’ of improving practice, which I totally agree with. Perhaps this is linked to the issue that enquiry has been ‘appropriated by policymakers and gatekeepers’ and as such, has it become a product rather than ‘way of being’ due to the pressure of policy.

For me it is more important to be curious and use literature and enquiry to improve your practice, demonstrating an ‘enquiry as stance’. Most people agree that curiosity is a must, in fact it should be considered as a required disposition, but then this should be followed by engagement in a process of enquiry with outcomes.  So enquiry can be a ‘tool’ to support critical reflection to support teachers to identify and explain their own practice, underpinned by literature and research. There are stages that teachers need to be supported with, to confidently engage in, and lead, enquiry. The stages would include ‘deep personal [reflection] then collaborative thoughts and action planning on improvements, then research’, this would build capacity and support progression to an enquiring profession as espoused in policy.

An interesting debate, which left me with more questions than when I started, the sign of a good conversation. 

P.S. @mrs-leitch also recommended a book, and look what arrived this morning

Reflections on teacher leadership inspired by Carol Campbell (@CarolCampbell4)

At the excellent SCEL inaugural Teacher Leadership conference the keynote in the afternoon was given by Carol Campbell who hails all the way from Argyll and Bute via Canada. As Gillian Hamilton (@CEOScel) said in her introduction, it is good to break free from the well-kent faces and bring in new ones. Carol was fantastic and inspiring, her presentation really resonated with me, the messages being very similar to the messages from the PU evaluation, thoughts on practitioner enquiry from the PL network, from the ‘Kelly report’ and through talking with teachers across Scotland.

Although the focus of the conference was on teacher leadership, I thought that Carol widened the scope to teacher professionalism, how this is situated in policy and practice and what this means to teachers across the country in terms of their leadership and professionalism. The following discussion is based on the tweets I tweeted out during the keynote.

How do we keep people at the centre of our education system?

Carol argued that humanity should be at the heart of any education system, the reason for our existence is to support, develop, and educate young people to improve their life changes. Carole asked “What are you passionate about in and for education?” My own view resonates with hers, in that I believe education is a people industry and as such is built on relationships, how we interact with each other. Our purpose is to support teacher to be the best they can be, so kids get best chances. Within this, it is critical that we create the conditions for all to be learning, I love the tweet from @robfmac who tweeted that “Teachers working conditions are children’s learning conditions”. I know I am probably altering the original intention of the tweet but changing the word working to learning and then I think it becomes even more powerful, as we explicitly link professional learning to pupil learning.

Teacher leadership - go public with your teaching and learning

Although formal leaders are key to supporting and promoting teacher leadership, leadership can be defined as the exercise of influence. Influence is not a matter of formal position or status. Informal leader are those who can have influence without position, as it is more about professional learning and knowledge. Teacher leadership influences through professional learning; having a vision for your learning journey, reflecting on where you have been and what you have learned, sharing your experiences and knowledge, challenging and being challenged to improve you professional practice.

Teacher Leadership needs to be evidence enriched and supported by professional judgement

The next message that resonated with me was the positive response from teachers who engage in enquiry. Carol discussed how this model of professional learning, due to its impact, becomes a sustained model for teacher learning and can help building capability in teachers. Teacher focused on their own learning and students learning leads to “awesome teachers”. This raises the question as to what supports are in place to help experienced teacher to undertake self-directed professional learning, like enquiry. GTCS has lots of resources on the GTCS website and are supporting local authorities to engage all teachers, not just probationer teachers. Teacher leadership through enquiry can support professional capital and decision making. Professional judgement has been highlighted in the OECD report (2015) where it was discussed as “Effective professional judgment……..results from deliberate processes and structures of preparation, continuous learning, and collegial interaction in communities of learning. Professional judgement is established and improved through investing in teachers’ professional capital.” The report goes on to describe professional capital being composed of human capital, decisional capital and social capital (Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012).

Knowledge exchange - how can we share better, more often, make it meaningful?

Teacher agency is about using past experiences, envisaging future possibilities and is enacted through professional actions, professional learning and teacher leadership. Teacher agency matters if we are to re-conceptualise what it means to be a teacher in Scotland and move to a more research enriched, enquiry based profession. Carol discussed how this works best through professional networks and collaborative communities of learning, where teachers are supported to become both creator and consumer of research. Through collaboration practical things can be shared which improves teacher practice and has a positive impact on pupil outcomes.

There will always be the challenges of time/workload and other priorities, these things don’t go away but have to be managed to support teachers to develop leadership as part of their professional identify, it won’t be easy but is do-able or as Carol finished off by saying

“Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can”

Wise words indeed.

Evidence based practice - reflection on TEAN keynote

On day 2 of the TEAN conference the keynote was given by Carey Philpott, the title of the keynote was ‘Cultivating through evidence based teaching: possibilities and pitfalls’. I hope to give a flavour of this excellent key note as it discusses evidence based practice and in particular evidence based practice grounded in medical models of learning. 

What is evidence based practice?

When we discuss evidence based practice what do we really mean? And do we mean the same thing? Evidence based practice has been a much lauded mode of professional learning for the last few years in the guise of Learning Rounds (LR) or Teacher Learning Communities (TLC).

These approaches have been extensively rolled out across Scotland as 'good practice' to support teachers in collaborative professional learning.

In Scotland after Teacher Scotland Future called for a reculturing of professional learning, models of learning from other professions were brought to the fore, which raises the question: Why a medical model? What is the provenience of this model? Will this support the transformational change wished for to an evidence based teaching profession?

Models of medical practice 

There is obviously more than one type of medical practice and different aspects of medical practice, used evidence based learning in different ways. There is disagreement in the medical profession about the medical model yet teachers are being ask to adopt this. 

There are lots of different models of medical practice such as clinical practice, mental health, social health, public health to name a few. So why was a clinical model chosen above all others?

The clinical model diagnoses a problem then fixes it but cutting it out, manipulating it or defeating it with medication. How does this model fit with education? So for teachers, identify the problem and then find a solution to reduce or minimise the effects of the issue. This simplified model of clinical practice, does not try to understand the learning that needs to take place to support the change. This solution based approach does not interrogate the why but only asks about the what then gives the how to fix it.

Another limitation of this model is that it is a 'one size fits all' approach, when you go to the doctor with a problem everyone gets the same antibiotics, it does not recognise differences in time, place, knowledge, accessible and a plethora of other social factors.  Is this appropriate for education? 

What about other medical models? Perhaps we should be looking more towards a mental health model. This model starts with the needs of the patient and through developing a relationship of support and challenge, the individual is helped to learn new ways of thinking, the patient then has to commit to medical advice. This may be a model that more closely aligns with education, as we start with our students and try to find approaches that support and challenge them but it is not successful unless students commit to learning. 

Social Health may also give an approach which aligns better with education in the respect that it addresses society as a whole and the groups within society but is a social endeavour, like education. Teaching is a social process which depends on relationships.

Or are we more akin to Public Health in our aspiration to change or modify behaviour to reduce risk and improve outcomes for all members of society. However public health, in addressing behaviours, comes up against the same issues as education in using evidence based approaches as time, place and other social learnings has to be considered and it is not context free.

What about Community Health as a model for professional learning in education?

This would start with the needs of the community as defined by the community. This would lead to a number of different approaches across Scotland as a localised solutions are enacted. This would lead to a very different model of evidence based practice in the form of; this is what you asked for....evidence says....therefore we will do....

So why was a clinical model privileged over the others? And why are we adopting practice rather than adapt practice to fit with our needs and wishes to better the outcomes for our children?

Learning Rounds and Teacher Learning Communities

The Government developed and championed this approach in policy and it is a simple model that both head teachers and teachers liked. Unfortunately this model can lead to tunnel vision as we interrogate practice within our own limited context to make improvements, without questioning whether this practice has value. So it becomes an improvement outcome focused approach but does not question values or ideology. This adds to the technician model of teachers, delivering or finding ways to implement a curriculum without discussing what is worthy of implementation.

TLC's usually come with the title already in place and teachers are asked to sign for the PL opportunity that this will provide, but not doing so would possibly be misconstrued as unprofessional. The agenda for the TLC is 'controlled' by the HT with the aim of delivering the school improvement plan.

Teacher learning communities composed of individuals from across the school will be a mixed bunch with enthusiasts, pragmatists and conscripts. From the business sector evidence would suggest that the best learning comes from creative, innovative working groups who disagree and have differences. Schools tend to have a very strong social culture which can prevent professional learning from taking place as judgements and disagreements are seen as social criticism rather that professional critique. So we are all happier but are we learning?

There is also the long held and rarely challenged idea that collaboration is a good thing. Most people would agree it is a force for good but TLC's can become a form of enforced collaboration which does not support the learning of the individual or the group.

So is learning as part of a medical model a better way to learn or is it just a different way to learn? If an evidence based professional is desired then ministers would have to leave decisions to what the evidence says and not offer policy that produces conformity and tells teacher how to learn. Whatever way we choose to move forward into a more evidence based profession it is absolutely apparent that teachers will require more time, space and skills to develop this practice.

#WomedEd - Happy Birthday

This week I attended a first birthday party for #WomenEd at St Modan’s High School in Stirling. The birthday party was a national event organised by #WomenEd, our host was the lovely @MrsPert1.

To be honest I was a bit unsure as to what to expect. I was really pleased that #WomenEd is not about ‘girls together’ but is a grassroots movement which connects existing and aspiring leaders in education, who happen to be female. The partnership with Microsoft who's mission statement included a commitment to ‘support the empowerment of every person to realise their aspirations’ supports  #WomenEd in their aspiration for female leaders of the future in education.

The birthday party was pre-empted by a twitter chat on 21th April through #ScotEdChat.

I found myself feeling a bit unsure as the questions about the glass ceiling, leadership traits etc. which make me feel awkward, as I am a strong advocate of nurturing talent, whether that is found in a male or female, but perhaps this is more of a reflection of my own journey. I was interested in the slide from the presentation giving the % of female to male in the workforce and then leadership roles, see below.

Why is the percentage of the workforce not reflected in the percentage in promoted roles?

#WomenEd is based on eight values which are; clarity, communication, connection, confidence, collaboration, community, challenge and change, the 8C’s. For me personally, I are more interested in the #clarity element which raises lots of questions;

What are the issues? Why is there a gender bias (conscious or unconscious)? What about other bias? Is the issue greater for women (and men) of ethnic minority backgrounds? How can we make education more attractive to male graduates? What are the barriers for males coming into education? Why predominantly female? Why is there no partner organisation, MaleEd? What are the barriers? Is there a glass ceiling? (There are definitely differences in how male and female approach promotions and advancement in their career.) How can #WomenEd support and build capabilities, challenge impostor syndrome?

There is no quick fix, the challenges and barriers are complex and interconnected but #WomenEd is a good place to collaborate with like-minded individuals and build a community that can be the drivers of change.

If you want to find out more, the website site, here, has a load of information about the movement and is a good place to start. Both yammer and twitter are being used extensively to build the #WomenEd community. After 1 year there are now 4,500 twitter followers, 500 users on Yammer and 150+ blogs on StaffRm. Regional Leaders are being recruited to host small scale #Leadmeets and there is going to be an Unconference in August in Scotland.

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