Standards, Teaching and Teaching Education

1
Standards, Teaching and Teaching Education

• OAS seminar, Port of Spain, Trinidad, 2006
• Dr. Jean Murray, Brunel University, England

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Key questions

• How might standards be used to strengthen teacher
  professionalization?
• How can we learn from the experiences of other
  countries?
• How can the right resources be better allocated,
  utilized and sustained?
• Can the development of standards by professionals
  themselves contribute to professional
  development?

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The imposition of professional standards in
England

• Explicit government agenda to drive up
  educational standards in schooling high stakes
  testing in schools.
• Standards / competencies for trainee and
  experienced school teachers imposed nationally
  in top down initiatives.
• Government control of curriculum, pedagogy and
  teacher assessment.
• Rhetoric but no reality of consultation
• Standards with limited congruence with the values
  of teaching profession and teacher education?
• Teacher education and development becomes teacher
  training.
• High stakes accountability systems in teacher
  education.
• Radical changes but with major contestations
  about their long term benefits
• The re- or de-professionalization of teaching and
  teacher education debate.
• Atomisation and loss of holistic picture? Or
  training of a more efficient and focused teaching
  force?

4
The development of professional standards in the
Netherlands

• Explicit communal agenda promote teacher and
  teacher educator expertise and professionalization
  
• Started with professional consultation and
  development processes. Involvement of all
  stakeholders.
• Professional ownership of standards
• Agreed standards had value congruence with
  existing school and teacher education systems
• No radical changes to curricula, pedagogies and
  assessment
• Teacher education maintained as clear model for
  pre and in-service courses
• Atomisation of standards avoided by centring them
  around values for teaching
• Regulation of standards owned and monitored by
  the profession self and intra professional
  assessments become established part of practice
• Professionalization agenda carried forward
  without major contestations

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Can the development of standards by professionals
themselves contribute to professional
development?1

• Yes, if we-
• centre the underlying values and aspirations for
  teaching and teacher education (value congruence
  between the two)
• set high but realistic aspirations for the
  profession
• work from and with the reality of our starting
  points in the schooling and teacher education
  systems
• ensure that the initiative is a dynamic process
  owned by the practitioners (is a bottom up and
  never top down initiative).

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Can the development of standards by professionals
themselves contribute to professional
development?2

• Yes, if
• the professional standards do not become a strait
  jacket for professional practice are not
  reductive but productive.
• the standards are not hi-jacked by other groups
  in order to assert control over teachers and
  teacher education
• the standards avoid atomisation and are holistic
  enough to encompass the professional artistry of
  teachers and teacher educators practice
• the standards are flexible enough to encompass
  individual and communal innovations and
  excellence (permit paradigm shifts in teaching
  and teacher education)
• any end point is clearly acknowledged as only
  temporary

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Can the development of standards by professionals
themselves contribute to professional
development? 3

• In addition if the particularities of teaching
  and teacher education are acknowledged and the
  development is
• adapted to the various contextual factors
  operating in different countries, including the
  political context.
• grounded in the various ways in which the
  purposes of teacher education are understood and
  played out in teachers and teacher educators
  work (value congruence)
• grounded in the diversity of institutional
  contexts within which schooling and teacher
  education operates