Before you read further; if you are a teacher, there is a health warning. Some things here may rile. But please don't let this cloud your reaction to my views. I am teacher, a proper teacher, working every day in a proper, wonderful comprehensive. I work with wonderful colleagues who do amazing things every day. They go to the ends of the earth for our students and they deserve much more than they get for doing so. In this post I am not bashing teachers - at all. But I do think that we don't always paint ourselves in the best light with the public and I think we could have played the political game a lot better over the last twenty years.
On 9th December 2014 the Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, and the School's Minister, David Laws announced proposals for a (Royal?) College of Teaching. The plans for the college are in consultation at the moment and I urge all teachers to get involved in the debate. If you use Twitter follow #claimyourcollege. Why do I urge this? Well I think this could be a watershed moment for the development of the profession, but only if teachers recognise this and grab the opportunity. However, I think this is the crux of the issue because I am not convinced that as a body, teachers have fully grasped what it means to be professional and we may let this opportunity pass.
I don't mean to be controversial by this statement, I am a teacher and I do believe that teaching is a real profession, but stating that we are professionals is not enough.
Firstly I am not sure that the concept of being a profession is fully understood and the term at points is confused with a more colloquial use of the term. For example we refer to professional footballers, professional painter and decorators, but as important as these jobs are they are not professions, not in the sense that law or medicine are anyway! Furthermore teaching does not protect its sense of professionalism, nor does it have the structures to protect it in the ways that law and medicine do. And it is because of this that I believe we need a college of teaching.
Just as we confuse the definitions of professionalism we do the same with our Unions. Don't get me wrong, I think unions are important and they play a key role. But we often refer to unions as professional associations, they're not - the are unions and are different from professional associations such as the College of Teaching would be. Teachers are represented by a range of unions, they do at points coordinate but they do not speak with one voice and they do represent different aspects of the teaching family. Unions do not set and enforce the Teaching Standards; they were effectively imposed by government. The unions do not gatekeep membership to the profession. The unions do not oversee professional qualifications. This is not a criticism, it is simply not their role and neither should it be. For this we should have a College.
I know some might at this point reference the GTC, but it was never financially independent of government and therefore could not be recognised as being an independent body. We were too tight to put our hands in our pockets to fund the GTC and make it independent and as a result we never engaged with it and it did not reach its potential. It was a good idea, but it was implemented badly. If a College of Teaching is to be successful, we need to be a bit more generous, financially and intellectually and embrace the developments.
I will come clean here and admit that I do have an issue with the main teaching Unions. I was previously in the NUT but left because I felt we no longer shared the same values. I think the main Unions are too industrial in their model and that this impedes the professional development of teaching. The Unions are far too often reactionary in their response to developments, I agree there are many occasions when there is good cause to do so, but I think they need to rethink a more positive and proactive approach. This is particularly true when it comes to striking. I think we need to recognise that striking, no matter how important the issue, simply loses respect in the eyes of parents. Whether we like it or not, many people still think we are well paid with excellent pensions, that we work 9:00 a.m. -3:00 p.m. and get long holidays. Although a lot of people admit they would not want to teach, equally, they do not see all the work that goes on behind the scenes. Their impression is formed by having been taught and they believe we are the same as their teachers were. And here is a key problem, because most people went to school most people have a view on what works in schools. The problem is; this view is anecdotal and not widely informed. But everyone is an expert on education and teachers' expertise is undervalued. Therefore when we strike, I think the perception is more that we are behaving like spoiled teenagers rather than winning the argument. When other hard working people have lost their pension protections and have lost jobs during the recession there is little support for us protecting our benefits. It is winning the argument on persuading the public that we have a specialist and professional expertise that should be valued and rewarded a College would help with.
In teaching we are losing the ownership of our professionalism. Over the last few years the Government have opened up numerous routes into teaching, and academisation means that (as in the private sector) people can teach without a bona-fide qualification. They have also eroded the role of universities in teacher training and educational research. I think this is worrying. You could argue that this would have happened despite a College, but what is clear is our Unions have not defended our professionalism successfully, although they have tried valiantly. I think the fact that this Government is proposing a College suggests we can move into a new phase where teacher professionalism and expertise is recognised, but if this is going to be meaningful and long lasting it needs to be led by a politically neutral but expert body.
Teaching also has to recognise that if we are to be recognised as a profession it needs to have the trappings and behaviours of one. Therefore we should look at the other professions and see what structures and processes they have. They all have bodies such as Institutes or Royal Colleges that ensure, promote and protect professional standards. They have rigorous processeses of professional learning and qualifications and they also have,it dare I suggest it, re-registration to ensure that they continue to meet the required standards.
Finally, I think we need to be more open to the prospect of evidence informed practice and having a body that can oversee the management of this. Too much of the debate on the role of evidence in education and been polarised, or focussed on the merits or place of randomised control trials. The issue is this, if we are to be taken seriously as a profession we need a body of knowledge and evidence has a role in this. Evidence and research can take many forms, but we can not have a profession based on anecdote. Practice should be evidence informed, not evidence limited. The art of teaching is to use evidence to develop exciting and creative lessons that capture the imagination of our students and help them learn. Teachers by their very DNA will never be automatons and we must never worry about becoming so. So let's embrace evidence and use it on our tems. I believe a College can play a valuable role in helping us do this.
For a better and less rambling view it is worth reading Angela McFarlane in TES https://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6454246&utm_content=bufferc2e01&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer Or following her on Twitter @AEMcFarlane or @CollOfTeaching
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