Developing the Expertise of Primary and Elementary Classroom Teachers: Professional Learning for a Changing World 9781350031890, 9781350031937, 9781350031906

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Developing the Expertise of Primary and Elementary Classroom Teachers

Also available from Bloomsbury Learning Teaching from Experience, edited by Viv Ellis and Janet Orchard New Perspectives on Young Children’s Moral Education, Tony Eaude Reflective Teaching in Schools, Andrew Pollard Teacher Agency, Mark Priestley, Gert Biesta and Sarah Robinson

Developing the Expertise of Primary and Elementary Classroom Teachers Professional Learning for a Changing World Tony Eaude

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2018 Paperback edition first published 2019 Copyright © Tony Eaude, 2018 Tony Eaude has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vi constitute an extension of this copyright page. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Eaude, Tony, author. Title: Developing the expertise of primary and elementary classroom teachers : professional learning for a changing world / Tony Eaude. Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017042707 (print) | LCCN 2018018665(ebook) | ISBN 9781350031906(PDF) | ISBN 9781350031920 (EPUB) | ISBN 781350031890 (hardback : alk.paper) Subjects: LCSH: Primary school teachers–In-service training. | Elementary schoolteachers–In-service training. Classification: LCC LB1731 (ebook) | LCC LB1731 .E1642018 (print) | DDC 370.71/1–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042707 ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-3189-0 PB: 978-1-3501-2257-4 ePDF: 978-1-3500-3190-6 ePub: 978-1-3500-3192-0 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents Acknowledgements

vi

Introduction

1

Part 1 Setting the Scene 1 The Context of Primary Education and Teacher Education 2 Rethinking the Primary Classroom Teacher’s Role 3 Understanding the Primary Classroom Teacher’s Expertise Part 2 Developing Expertise as a Primary Classroom Teacher 4 5 6 7

An Overview of the Development of Teacher Expertise Subject and Pedagogical Content Knowledge Craft and Case Knowledge Personal and Interpersonal Knowledge

11 13 31 49 69 71 91 109 127

Part 3 Developing Professional Identity as a Primary Classroom Teacher

145

8 Professional Identity as a Primary Classroom Teacher 9 Shaping Primary Classroom Teachers’ Professional Identities 10 Conclusions and Implications

147

Appendix Glossary Bibliography Index

201

165 183

203 205 217

Acknowledgements It is impossible to acknowledge adequately all the people who have influenced the writing of this book. I wish to recognize the contribution of many academics who have helped shape my thinking. Among those whom I do not know personally but whose work has been influential are Lee Shulman, Michael Fullan, Andy Hargreaves and Jennifer Nias and the late Philip Jackson and Jerome Bruner, whom I  did have the privilege of hearing. Among those whom I  know and admire, and who have been generous in their advice and support, are Richard Pring, Robin Alexander and Andrew Pollard. I wish to celebrate the many teachers, headteachers and teacher educators, too many to name, with whom I have worked, as colleagues in primary schools and in other contexts. In undertaking an ‘impossible profession’, and manifesting their expertises, often under very demanding conditions, such teachers’ contribution is often unsung and undervalued. However, it is their expertise, professionalism and commitment on which I have drawn, directly and otherwise, in trying to articulate how primary and elementary classroom teachers with a high level of expertise really work; and how such expertise is developed and refined over time. Such teachers, and I, have also learned a great deal from the children they have taught. More specifically, I am grateful to a group of colleagues, at different stages of their careers, who have discussed the ideas and read and commented on drafts of the chapters. This group consisted of Liz Burton, Clare Whyles, Geerthi Ahilan, Jane Godby, Chris Williams, Holly Welham, Simone Wilson and Betty Cranham. My thanks to them all. I wish to thank the following publishers for permission to use quotations as epigraphs at the start of various chapters: ●

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● ●

Open University Press for those from Andy Hargreaves in Chapter 1 and Christopher Day and his colleagues in Chapter 8; Wiley Blackwell for those from Lee Shulman in Chapter 2 and Julian Elliott and his colleagues in Chapter 7; Harvard University Press for that from Jerome Bruner in Chapter 5; Sage for that from Peter Grimmett and Allan Mackinnon in Chapter 6;

Acknowledgements ●

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vii

Teachers College Press for the one from Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan in Chapter 9; and Taylor and Francis for the one from Göran Fransson and Jan Grannäs in Chapter 10.

I am grateful to all those at Bloomsbury who have supported my work and helped to bring the book to publication. In particular, I wish to thank Camilla Erskine and Alison Baker for their thoughtful advice and guidance. Finally, and most importantly, I  wish to thank Jude Egan for her love and support for more than thirty years. Her quiet but persistent emphasis on how relationships and environments shape the manner in which children are nurtured and are central to how teachers should teach have been deeply influential; and her wise words and actions throughout the gestation of this book have been invaluable in helping me to keep going and in maintaining a sense of perspective. Tony Eaude Oxford [email protected] www.edperspectives.org.uk

Introduction

In How Do Expert Primary Classteachers Really Work? A  Critical Guide for Teachers, Headteachers and Teacher Educators (Eaude, 2012), I  drew on the research on expertise and teacher expertise – summarized in Chapter 21 of the Cambridge Primary Review (Alexander, 2010) – to try and describe how those who are really good at teaching a class of young children act and think. That book had three main aims, to: ●

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indicate that teaching a class of young children is immensely complicated and requires distinctive qualities, skills, types of knowledge and understanding of how young children learn; identify in some detail the features of the pedagogy involved, without falling into the trap of saying that there is any one model to emulate; and start to suggest how such expertise, both one’s own and other people’s, is, and can be, developed.

I have written further about the first two of these in Eaude (2014a, 2015) but not on the third. This book aims to fill this gap, but it is not: ●

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●

a manual for those learning to be teachers in Initial Teacher Education (ITE; pre-qualification) or for those who lead or tutor such courses; a primer to say how to get an outstanding grade at the end of a teaching practice or the next school inspection; or a response to the latest policy or government diktat.

Nor is it the result of a particular research project. Rather, what follows is a summary of, and reflection on, the implications of many disparate pieces of research and my own, and other teachers’, experiences. It is designed to enable readers to understand more about the task of teaching a class of young children, trying to distinguish what is specific about this, as opposed to teaching an early years or a

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Developing the Expertise of Primary and Elementary Classroom Teachers

secondary history or maths class; and to reflect, in the light of research and their own experience, on how the types of expertise involved can be developed. This book is intended to provoke thought and challenge assumptions for an international audience. It is written mainly for teacher educators and those who are teachers of young children, in whatever country or jurisdiction, and, to some extent, those studying to become such teachers. By teacher educators, I do not mean only people with a job in a Higher Education Institution or a programme leading to qualification. I include those in senior positions in, and those who support, primary schools. In fact, I  shall suggest that all teachers should see themselves increasingly as teacher educators. In the final chapter, I consider the implications for teacher educators working with teachers before and after qualification and for policymakers, though sadly I hold out little hope that the latter will manage, yet, to escape the current emphasis on measurable outcomes in a narrow range of the curriculum. The main focus is on teachers of children in the 5- to 11-year-old age group, although there are lessons to be learned from, and by, those who teach older and younger children. This age group covers roughly what psychoanalysts call the latency period, though, as Waddell (2002) points out, individuals can exhibit a latency mentality at any time. The latency period is a time of gathering resources between the turbulence of the early years and that of adolescence and is often characterized by children’s worry about new challenges but increasing ability to manage their world. I mostly use the term ‘young’ to describe these children and ‘primary’ for the schools they attend, equivalent to what in many countries are called ‘elementary’. However, at times, I  use the term ‘elementary schools’ to refer to those in England before the 1944 Education Act. Where I write of headteachers and local authorities, this equates roughly to principals and school boards. The term ‘special educational needs’ is similar to what is called ‘learning disabilities’ in some systems. My emphasis is on the classroom teacher working with young children for two main reasons: ●

●

a significant element of teaching a class involves managing a wide range of needs – academic, social and emotional – and expectations of a large, usually disparate, group of children, who all bring different types of experience, knowledge and interests; and the focus of most research about teacher development is on specific subjects, whereas a major challenge for most primary classroom teachers is how to cater for the whole range of children’s needs.

Introduction

3

However, Chapter 5 addresses the contested question of the advantages and disadvantages of children spending most of their time with one teacher, particularly towards the end of primary school. This book is written in the context, in England and many other countries, of unprecedented interference in how primary teachers work, from politicians and self-proclaimed experts, many of whom have little recent experience of the primary classroom. Such experts often have definite views on particular subjects or programmes that ‘work.’ But I shall suggest that such views misunderstand and underplay the challenges, and dilemmas, which primary classroom teachers face every day. I try to counter four, usually implicit, assumptions about teaching young children: 1. 2.

3.

4.

often from those who have not taught young children, that doing so is easy and does not require a great depth of knowledge or academic ability; usually from those who want quick results, that teachers should just follow someone else’s script rather than engage with the complexity of making professional judgements; that good teaching mainly involves the teacher speaking and children listening, as opposed to the latter being active and engaged participants in making sense of their experiences; and how one teaches is, or should be, based mainly on rational thinking rather than a mixture of emotion, intuition and deliberation.

In Eaude (2016a), I argued that primary education has not shaken off the legacy of elementary schools set up in the late nineteenth century, where a narrow curriculum was taught largely by teachers with few qualifications, if any, using a limited range of mostly didactic methods. Primary teaching still tends to be associated with a similar approach and students, teachers and teacher educators are encouraged to focus on subject knowledge and behaviour management. This book explores why such a view of the role is too limited and how the necessary expertise can be developed. I suggest that if primary classroom teachers are to convince others of what the task – which Bibby (2011) calls an ‘impossible profession’  – involves and develop their own and other colleagues’ expertises, the detail must be explored and articulated. Doing so is not easy. In 1981, Brian Simon published an article called ‘Why No Pedagogy in England?’. This was followed by Robin Alexander’s (2004) ‘Still No Pedagogy? Principle, Pragmatism and Compliance in Primary Education’. Both suggested that teachers in England are reluctant to discuss

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Developing the Expertise of Primary and Elementary Classroom Teachers

pedagogy, with Alexander arguing that they have become trapped in a culture of compliance. Many primary teachers  – at least in England  – are suspicious of theory and are reluctant, and find it hard, to discuss the detail of pedagogy, though perhaps they are now more prepared to do so, at least in some respects. In other countries, teachers may be more used to doing so, though policy tends to encourage teaching in particular ways. Many teachers of young children are self-effacing and even unaware of their strengths, but acutely aware of their shortcomings. Even those with a high level of expertise are often unsure, modest or reticent about saying how they act and think. This tends to lead to primary teachers, especially those who are perfectionists, focusing on their shortcomings rather than on their strengths. One result is that politicians have stepped into the arena of pedagogy and prescribed how teachers, especially those working with young children, should work, in ways inconceivable in professions such as medicine or architecture. The teaching profession shares some of the blame and the answer lies to a large extent in our hands. Unless what really good teaching involves can be articulated more clearly, informed by research on how young children learn and the profession’s collective wisdom, children and teachers will remain vulnerable to short-term, ill-informed solutions being imposed. One might argue – and many people do – that the complexity of the role and the need for greater consistency means that teaching must be simplified, using what Sawyer (2004:  13)  calls ‘scripted instruction’. However, Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: xiii) suggest that it is a false road, adopted in many countries, ‘to make teaching simpler; to diminish teachers’ judgement and professionalism so that less-qualified people can do it’, with a restricted curriculum, overreliance on technology, prescription of how teachers teach and little recognition of cultural and linguistic diversity. In supporting this, I shall argue that: ●

●

●

such an approach is particularly detrimental for young children and those who teach them; teacher education must help deepen teachers’ knowledge of how children learn and enable them to cope with the messy, confusing, paradoxical world of the classroom, without oversimplifying or limiting children’s learning; and how to teach young children is learned, as with other occupations which require rapid decision-making, mainly through practice, watching other teachers at work, experimentation and reflection, initially with close supervision and guidance and then with increasing independence.

Introduction

5

Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: 2) indicate that countries such as Finland and South Korea, widely seen as successful, adopt a ‘professional capital’ route which assumes that good teaching: ● ● ● ● ● ●

is technically sophisticated and difficult; requires a high level of education and long periods of training; is perfected through continuous improvement; involves wide judgement, informed by evidence and experience; is a collective accomplishment and responsibility; and maximizes, mediates and moderates online involvement.

Apart from the last of these being more relevant to older students, and the omission of learning relationships (see TLRP, 2006), this list provides a good foundation for understanding the complexity of the primary classroom teacher’s role and how the expertises required can be learned. Primary classroom teachers are unlikely to be equipped to meet the challenges they face day in and day out, with the confidence required to exercise professional judgement, unless they, and teacher educators, understand and address the complexity of the role. Rethinking how best to teach young children, and support teachers in doing so, is very hard in a culture which emphasizes ‘delivery’ of programmes and content knowledge, following the script and achieving measurable outcomes, in a climate of performativity and high-stakes accountability, and underplays professional judgement. This book encourages readers to rethink what the role entails and explores what individual teachers, mentors and teacher educators can do in such a climate. The conclusions are relatively simple to understand, however difficult they may be to implement, using an apprenticeship model, enriched by applying theoretical knowledge appropriately and underpinned by a robust identity as a professional, with a sense of agency and autonomy. Teachers themselves have to be active participants in this process, though they benefit from other people’s support, with teacher education a creative, and ideally a collective, process. Let me explain briefly the perspective from which I write. I was a classroom teacher for thirteen years, from 1976 to 1989, in two primary schools, before working as the headteacher of a multicultural first school for nine years. I then studied for a doctorate, looking at how teachers of young children understand spiritual development. Subsequently, I have worked independently, mostly supporting teachers and writing, though until three years ago I continued to do some teaching of young children. So, my experience has been mostly, though not exclusively, in England and related to schools, rather than in other countries or in ITE.

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Developing the Expertise of Primary and Elementary Classroom Teachers

I present unfamiliar, sometimes controversial, views of what being a primary classroom teacher entails and of how the elements of expertise are learned, and refined, over time, using case studies and stories to illustrate ideas and relate these to practical situations. I try to write about complex ideas in simple language where possible. Terms such as ‘expertise’, ‘pedagogy’ and ‘tacit knowledge’ may be somewhat daunting, but are helpful in challenging simplistic notions about learning and teaching, especially with a class of young children. This is comparable to how we expect doctors to be able to explain symptoms and diagnoses in simple terms, but have a professional language less easily understood by lay people. A glossary is included so that readers can check what less familiar terms mean. As we shall see, much of the language used in education is slippery, in the sense that many ideas accepted without question – such as standards, curriculum and professionalism – are more contestable than they may seem. I explore what commonly used terms, which can easily be clichés, actually entail when working with young children and how these are related to the complex web of skills and qualities required to fulfil the role. For instance, no one doubts that teacher expectations should be high, but when teaching a class of young children they must also be broad and realistic. A constant emphasis on reading, writing and arithmetic, rather than the humanities and the arts, let alone photography and astronomy, cooking and chess (and much more, including how to understand their own feelings and to relate to other people), easily limits our, and the children’s, hopes and expectations of what they can achieve. You may be suspicious of the terms ‘expert’ and ‘expertise.’ I am increasingly unsure about whether the idea of ‘being an expert’ is helpful, especially in a context where so many people (like me) claim to know more about teaching than teachers themselves. The term ‘expertise’ has connotations that technical competence is all that is needed but teaching young children also has a strong ethical dimension, related to the sort of people teachers hope that children will become and the type of society they can help to create. Expertise as a primary classroom teacher involves much more than teaching an outstanding lesson or applying ‘what works’, since the task is best understood over a longer time period and what works well in one context may not in another. Doing so requires qualities, such as enthusiasm and patience, as well as the ability to demonstrate, to explain, to listen – and much more. No teacher is an expert in every aspect or situation. The different types of expertise have to be learned, refined and regularly refreshed. Moreover, the task is so multifaceted that it may help to think of an individual manifesting varying levels of expertise in different aspects of the

Introduction

7

role. Therefore, I use ‘with a high level of expertise,’ rather than referring to individual teachers as experts. Perhaps teachers are wise to be wary of experts, especially those not actually engaged in the task. Despite this, the ideas associated with expertise help me to understand why teaching a class of young children looks so easy when done well and is so hard when one tries to do it. For me, these ideas, described in my previous work and summarized in Chapter 3, give a much more convincing picture of what teaching a class of young children is really like – messy, funny, infuriating, unpredictable, exhausting, fascinating – than the manuals which say what it should be like. Shulman (2005) uses the idea of ‘signature pedagogies’ to describe the main ways in which those new to a profession are taught and expected to learn three fundamental dimensions of professional work – to think, to perform and to act with integrity. Shulman suggests that signature pedagogies tell us much about how professionals are expected to act, not only those actions which are visible, but the deep, implicit structure and assumptions about what being a profession, and a professional, entails. For instance, doctors are expected to learn through observing more experienced colleagues, lawyers by discussing cases, engineers by working alongside those with more experience. It is not obvious to me that there is a distinctive signature pedagogy for learning to teach young children. Though there is a huge literature on primary education and teacher education, the detail of how those who teach classes of young children learn to do so with a high level of expertise and the implications for teacher educators remains relatively unresearched and articulated. For example, the BERA/RSA (2014) report argues for teaching as a profession, and ITE, to take more account of research evidence, but makes only a passing reference to primary education. Thomson and Hall (2015: 421) argue that signature pedagogies are: ●

● ●

epistemological, dealing with things that we have to know and know how to do; axiological, about ways of working; and ontological, about the way we are in the world and the ways in which we orient ourselves to being and making meaning in the world,

continuing that, while these elements cannot be separated in practice, this distinction provides a helpful way of advancing our understanding of what those new to the profession, and teacher educators, should concentrate on.

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Developing the Expertise of Primary and Elementary Classroom Teachers

This book tentatively explores what a signature pedagogy for primary teaching might look like, including the three elements highlighted above:  broadly speaking, types of knowledge, ways of working and professional identity. I argue for a career-long approach which enables classroom teachers to work skilfully, fluidly and reciprocally in a range of contexts, using a wide repertoire of teaching methods with confidence and a sense of agency, and supports them in doing so with increasing levels of expertise. Let me set out ten assumptions, supported in subsequent chapters: ●

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teachers have a vital role in enhancing the whole range of children’s learning, though the structures in which they work affect considerably how they teach; children, and their teachers, must be educated to cope with a world of change, for which they require qualities such as adaptability and resilience, and the disposition to manifest these, as well as knowledge and skills; there are many disparate elements involved in teaching a class of young children and to do so well is very difficult; teaching a class of young children makes strong emotional as well as cognitive demands and teachers must learn to deal with both; teaching a class of young children has similarities with teaching a class of older children, but many distinctive elements; not all primary classroom teachers can, or will, develop a high level of expertise but all can become more expert in some respects; how such expertise is learned remains something of a mystery, but takes a long time and considerable effort and commitment; teachers must recognize opportunities and constraints to have much chance of exploiting and overcoming these; teacher education should continue throughout every teacher’s professional life; and how teachers learn echoes, more than we imagine, how children learn.

Teaching a class of young children involves several parallel strands, simultaneously, with expertise in different aspects built up at different rates. Inevitably, the higher levels will be learned mostly after qualification. While the prequalification period lays vital foundations which determine to what extent this takes place, such courses are short. So, more emphasis on post-qualification, in-service learning and support is required. The latter is often described as continuous professional development (CPD) but too frequently formal opportunities consist of short, decontextualized courses on how to deliver particular

Introduction

9

programmes. The term ‘career long professional learning’ (CLPL), as adopted in Scotland (see Donaldson, 2010), captures the idea of a continuum from before embarking on a course, or other route, leading to qualification, into the induction, early-career period and throughout every teacher’s career. Teaching with a high level of expertise involves seeing teaching, and oneself as a teacher, in different ways from those which currently dominate our thinking; and re-examining many fundamental assumptions about the nature of knowledge and learning and teaching. Learning and refining the necessary expertises is not just about gathering tips and techniques, though most teachers are like jackdaws who love to collect new ideas from other people. It requires thinking through how best to engage and inspire a disparate group of children, not just in learning skills related to literacy and numeracy, but across the whole curriculum. As we shall see, considering aims and purposes, and aligning these with how one teaches, is an integral part of teacher expertise. So, as well as subject knowledge and technical skills, teacher education must be concerned with teacher identity and professionalism, as discussed in Chapters 8 and 9. Becoming a primary classroom teacher is a journey through uncertain terrain, from starting to think about becoming a teacher, through a course leading to qualification, then the early, demanding, years of teaching and into the (usually somewhat easier) time when a teacher has several years’ experience. The journey does not follow a straight, smooth path, but an often confusing, rocky route, with many unforeseen opportunities, distractions and hazards along the way, rather like the Pilgrim’s Progress. And one never quite arrives, because the complexity of the role means that one can always build up more expertise – and can easily lose expertise, or find that it has become blunted. The journey is an individual one, but companions, mentors and guides can help teachers to exploit the opportunities and overcome the hazards. Some of these people may have formal roles, like tutors on ITE courses or mentors in school, while others may be more informal such as colleagues in school or partners and friends outside teaching. For the journey, one needs a metaphorical backpack in which to store tools, techniques and directions. But teachers gradually come to rely less on these and more on their own qualities and abilities, with the support of others, as they internalize the types of knowledge and expertises involved. This book concentrates more on the processes of how teacher expertise is learned than programmes or structures. However, I touch on the latter, emphasizing the need for a culture where policy enables rather than restricts. Where appropriate, I highlight implications for those starting out in teaching and those who are more experienced and for those working with different age groups and specific contexts.

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Developing the Expertise of Primary and Elementary Classroom Teachers

The book is in three parts. Part One sets the scene. Chapter 1 outlines the context in which primary teachers and teacher educators work. Chapter 2 explores the complexity of the primary classroom teacher’s role, encouraging readers to rethink what it entails and recognize the opportunities and challenges. Chapter 3 summarizes key lessons about how primary classroom teachers with a high level of expertise act and think and the interlinked types of knowledge they use. Part Two explores how the many interlinked types of knowledge and expertises used by primary classroom teachers can be developed. Chapter 4 provides an overview, highlighting the processes involved. Chapter 5 considers the amount and types of subject, or disciplinary, knowledge required, given the expectation that primary classroom teachers will usually teach a wide range of subjects; and argues that pedagogical content knowledge matters more than subject knowledge, as such. Chapter 6 examines what is meant by craft and case knowledge in teaching young children, and how this is used and refined. Chapter 7 discusses why personal and interpersonal knowledge is so vital in teaching a class of young children and how teachers can build up and internalize the necessary qualities. Part Three explores professional identity as a primary classroom teacher and how this is shaped. Chapter 8 discusses teacher identity and contrasting conceptions of professionalism and why these matter, arguing that expertise is associated with a robust but flexible sense of identity and an extended professionality. Chapter 9 considers how these are formed and can be maintained, emphasizing the value of professional learning communities, and discusses opportunities and challenges during teachers’ careers. Chapter 10 ties the argument together, summarizing key issues for teachers and teacher educators in the pre- and postqualification periods, and for research and policy. The book deals with complex questions, to which there are no easy answers. I do not expect that you will agree with everything I write, but hope that you will be prompted to think deeply about what makes teaching a class of young children such a wonderful and creative, and at times such a tiring and exasperating, task. It may help to keep thinking about your own development, as a teacher (if you are one) and in some other practical activity, from dressmaking to dancing, from sport to singing, and try to recall how you felt when new to the task, how you learned the expertises required and critical influences on how this happened. I hope that by the end you will share my belief that a much broader, deeper and more nuanced understanding of the primary classroom teacher’s role is needed – and have greater insight into how the expertises involved can best be learned and applied.

Part One

Setting the Scene

1

The Context of Primary Education and Teacher Education

Chapter outline The historic status of primary teachers and teacher education Recent trends in primary education and teacher education The wider social and cultural context Opportunities, constraints and challenges

13 17 22 26

Teachers are not deliverers but developers of learning. Those who focus only on teaching techniques and curriculum standards . . . promote a diminished view of teaching and teacher professionalism that has no place in a sophisticated knowledge society. —Hargreaves, Teaching in the Knowledge Society, 161

The historic status of primary teachers and teacher education This chapter discusses the context in which primary classroom teachers and teacher educators work. It will show that, historically, the role’s complexity has been understated and teachers have been expected to deliver a narrow curriculum. Increasingly, in recent years, this view has been reinforced by an undue focus of measurable outcomes and teacher standards or competences. Subsequent chapters will suggest that the features of expertise provide a more nuanced and convincing way of understanding what the role entails, and therefore of what

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Developing the Expertise of Primary and Elementary Classroom Teachers

priorities for teacher educators should be, than the simplistic and reductionist view described here. The first section provides a brief overview of key themes in England and internationally. Inevitably, this discussion risks being somewhat anglocentric and results in generalizations which may not apply to particular countries, systems or schools. The aims of education and what, and how, teachers are expected to teach depend heavily on the social and cultural context. As Alexander (2000) shows in his detailed comparison of pedagogy in primary education in five systems, methods and expectations reflect, and vary according to, the traditions of different countries, though they also change over time. The opportunities and constraints vary significantly between cultures, systems and schools. However, unless one recognizes that current assumptions are not universal and have not always held sway, it is hard to realize that there are alternative ways of acting and thinking which may be more appropriate to enhance young children’s learning; and so try to develop these. Before the 1944 Education Act, young children in England were taught in elementary schools created in the nineteenth century to prepare them for a life of work which did not involve sophisticated skills and decision-making. There was a strong emphasis on what is often characterized as ‘the 3Rs’  – reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic  – ‘the basics’. Alexander (2010) calls this Curriculum 1, indicating that, though the detail may change, with science and technology sometimes included, such an emphasis has proved very persistent across time and cultures, with Curriculum 2 – the rest, including the humanities and the arts – regarded as mattering far less. The curriculum in elementary schools was narrow and taught largely by teachers, mostly women, with few qualifications, if any, and a low status. Teaching methods consisted of a limited range of mostly didactic pedagogy, based on the transmission of content knowledge. The Hadow Report of 1931, on young children’s education, stated that ‘the curriculum is to be thought of in terms of activity and experience rather than knowledge to be found and facts to be stored’ (see Alexander, 2010: 21, for a discussion of the implications). The years following the 1944 Act saw tentative moves towards a broader, more holistic view of the primary curriculum, with greater emphasis on Curriculum 2 and children learning through active experience. In the late 1950s and 1960s, primary teachers in England were increasingly encouraged to adopt an approach based on teaching mainly through topics rather than discrete subjects. The Plowden Report (CACE, 1967) advocated this approach which was characterized by language such as ‘progressive’, ‘childcentred’ and ‘good primary practice’. What these meant was always vague and,

The Context of Primary Education and Teacher Education

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as suggested in this book’s Introduction, most primary classroom teachers have been reluctant, or unable, to articulate the features of their pedagogy. As Galton et al. (1999) and others have shown, the approaches advocated by Plowden were never as widely adopted as was thought, or claimed, at the time. Headteachers and, to some extent, local authorities – the equivalent of school boards – exercised considerable control over the curriculum and teachers had substantial autonomy over what, and how, they taught. There was no national framework of inspection or testing and politicians did not see it as their role to interfere in the detail of pedagogy. From the middle 1970s, there was an increasing concern about standards of attainment and discussion of whether national politicians should take more control of the curriculum. In part, this was fuelled by a worry about whether children were being adequately prepared for the changing world of work, in part by concern about the lack of entitlement to an adequate education for many children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Such discussions paved the way for the reforms of the 1988 Education Reform Act, which introduced major changes affecting the curriculum, assessment and the governance of schools. However, in the years, after 1976, when I was a primary classroom teacher, very little legislation was enacted which affected primary teachers directly, except the 1981 Act which dealt with the identification of, and provision for, children with special educational needs. The language of standards, targets, delivery and levels of attainment was not heard. Though this may seem strange, and even complacent, in hindsight, those involved in English primary education, including me, were confident that they were leading the way internationally. The 1950s and 1960s saw moves to require primary teachers to have a higher level of academic training and qualification. New entrants had to undertake a course to qualify as a teacher and, increasingly, to complete a course which led to a degree-level qualification related to teaching or a one-year course following a degree in another subject discipline. Such courses were run in Higher Education Institutions, some in universities, some separate colleges of education, though the latter increasingly became part of universities. The number of routes into teaching was limited and, while school experience was an essential component of the course, some grounding in theory in child development, such as the ideas of Piaget, in particular, and Vygotsky was usual. While the requirements and structures associated with Initial Teacher Education changed considerably in the 1980s, the assumption that those becoming primary teachers required a mixture of theoretical and practical experience, organized mainly by Higher Education Institutions, remained largely unchallenged.

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Responsibility for professional development after qualification was mostly in the hands of local authorities, in terms of formal courses, and of schools for more informal, ongoing support. Local advisory services fulfilled a key role, especially in primary schools, in supporting newly qualified teachers, providing a range of support and courses and controlling the resources to enable teachers to attend these. However, the coherence of a structure for career-long professional learning was very variable. For instance, it never crossed my mind, nor was I encouraged, to study for a master’s level qualification as a young teacher, nor did I engage much with research, let alone undertake research, until I was a headteacher. But, when I applied successfully for a scholarship to visit the United States to study how science was taught, the request for a month off school was granted without difficulty; and I  was, later, encouraged and supported financially to complete a twenty-day course on ethnic diversity. Teachers were held in high regard, trusted and mostly treated with deference, by adults and children. There was little questioning of a view of professionalism which assumed that teachers know best how to teach. But, as Etzioni (1969) argued, teaching, like nursing and social work, was seen as a ‘semiprofession’, less prestigious than medicine or law. The length of the struggle for primary teaching to become a graduate profession reflects the view that teachers of young children do not really need a high level of education and qualification. Then, as now, teachers of young children had lower status, and levels of pay, than those who taught older students. However, the respect in which many primary teachers are held as individuals by parents/carers and children contrasts with the lack of respect with which they, as a profession, have been regarded by politicians. Darling-Hammond and Lieberman (2012) provide an overview of the situation in regard to teacher education in several industrialized countries, though their analysis is not specific to primary education. The articles in that volume emphasize how in systems widely regarded as successful, notably Finland and Singapore, teaching is a profession with a high status, with demanding entry requirements and an expectation that teachers will receive significant support in the induction (post-qualification) period and undertake further study to at least master’s level. In many European countries, teachers of young children have long been expected to undertake such study, reflecting strong traditions of pedagogy for young children, though there has been some suspicion to what extent primary teachers’ work needs a strong intellectual base. I am not suggesting that everything was perfect in the 1960s and 1970s in primary education or teacher education. It wasn’t, with many children, notably

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those from ethnic minorities and disadvantaged backgrounds, short-changed, and teacher autonomy frequently misused, with a lack of accountability (see Galton et  al., 1999). However, that period was characterized by a very different view of how primary classroom teachers were expected to teach and how they, and teacher educators, thought about, and carried out, their role from that which currently holds sway.

Recent trends in primary education and teacher education This section identifies trends in the past thirty years which have affected the work of primary classroom teachers and teacher educators internationally, and some underlying assumptions. While different systems vary and change has been frequent, some broad similarities can be detected. In identifying trends, one must recognize that the rhetoric of policy and the reality of how it is implemented often do not match and politicians have increasingly influenced teachers’ practice indirectly as well as directly. For instance, the government in England has in recent years given mixed messages about school and teacher autonomy. Budgets have been delegated to schools with the rationale that headteachers and school governors are best placed to decide on how resources are best used, but other levers have been used to influence such decisions, notably inspection and assessment. The 2010 Government White Paper criticized professional development as too often being about compliance with bureaucratic initiatives (see Winch, Oancea and Orchard, 2013:  2)  and argued for teachers to have greater autonomy. However, the same government soon afterwards made a particular approach to teaching reading – systematic, synthetic phonics – mandatory and introduced a phonics test for 6-year-olds, despite considerable concern from the profession that these were too restrictive and potentially counterproductive. One clear trend has been the greater control exerted by politicians over the curriculum and increasingly over how teachers should teach. In England, a National Curriculum was introduced in 1988 to create a greater consistency in what children were expected to learn, to ensure an entitlement for all. This was accompanied by national assessment and accountability mechanisms, especially inspection, which became increasingly ‘high-stakes’ from the middle 1990s. The publication of results and inspection reports, and competition between schools and systems, has led to schools increasingly concentrating their efforts on children achieving high scores in those aspects of Curriculum 1 which are tested.

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Accompanying these changes has been a focus on data and teachers being expected to meet targets based on outcomes in tests and to ensure that children achieve these. There has been a reduced focus on, and time given to, those areas of learning less easily measured – such as the humanities and the arts. However, a considerable amount of money has been spent on information technology, such as computers and interactive white boards, and on teaching assistants, though whether this has been money well-spent is open to question. For example, much of the expenditure on computers was not backed by training in how these should be used; and research into teaching assistants in supporting children’s learning highlights the need for them to be well qualified. Internationally, the idea that the primary curriculum should be organized and taught largely on the basis of separate subjects has remained fairly constant. Pepper’s (2008) study compared information for ten countries on curriculum changes just after 2005 and the policy rationale for these. It indicates that, despite a trend towards the application of knowledge using competences or skills, the basis for curriculum organization in primary schools continues to be discrete subjects or, in some cases, broader ‘areas of learning’, with the latter reflected in recent changes in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In contrast, the Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate, widely adopted internationally though often in private schools, arranges the curriculum with six subject areas: language, mathematics, science, social studies, arts and personal, social and physical education, as well as learning more than one language from the age of seven, but also six transdisciplinary themes to incorporate local and global issues, allowing students to move beyond the confines of subject areas. These are: ● ● ● ● ● ●

Who we are Where we are in place and time How we express ourselves How the world works How we organize ourselves Sharing the planet

with these addressed each year by all children, together with a strong emphasis on them learning to be open-minded and principled. Despite several subsequent reviews and changes to the primary curriculum in England, resulting in what is often called ‘initiative fatigue’, there has been no significant change to the emphasis on standards and outcomes in Curriculum 1. Recent reforms have increased the outcomes expected of primary children,

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especially in the technical aspects of English and mathematics, on the basis that this will help raise standards of attainment. The demand to cover a considerable amount of content has led to greater emphasis on pace, delivery and transmitting knowledge. The language used increasingly has been that of delivery, targets and of children needing to be ‘secondary-ready’ – language reminiscent of that of a production line. Such trends are common to many countries, through programmes such as No Child Left Behind and ideas like the ‘core curriculum’ in the United States. These changes have been accompanied by greater interference from politicians to try and control how teachers teach, even when their rhetoric suggests otherwise. From 1998, the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies introduced approaches which, while not statutory, were so strongly recommended that most heads and teachers adopted them. A particular view of what constituted an outstanding lesson, with different parts carefully timed, usually with children grouped according to (the teacher’s assessment of their) ability, became prevalent. Resources to support such approaches were made available through textbooks or internet-based plans. Behaviour management policies, usually based on rewards and graded sanctions, have been recommended and widely adopted. This level of prescription may be seen as manualization  – teachers being expected to follow a prescribed way of working closely – while those who are more sympathetic may see it as standardization. Such changes have led schools, including primary schools, to focus on what Ball (2003) calls ‘performativity’, where success is seen mainly in terms of children’s performance in tests and teachers are expected to focus on these. Performativity involves the tight control from outside of what and how teachers teach, rather than encouraging them to exercise judgement. Assessment, notably test results, and inspection mechanisms have been used to make teachers more compliant with external demands. A major factor affecting why, and how, governments have become more prescriptive is the perceived need to raise children’s scores in the home language and mathematics. For example, Pepper (2008) indicates that this provided the impetus for curriculum change in France, Germany and New Zealand. Policy changes have been formulated copying what is thought to work in other systems seen as more successful in international comparisons such as PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), despite this being based on testing 15year-olds, and similar tests such as PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study). The recommendation to adopt approaches to teaching mathematics based on those used in countries in South-East Asia is one example.

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Such changes have occurred despite warnings of the danger of policy borrowing, since so many system features work as they do because of the specific context. One consequence is a tendency for politicians to react immediately and introduce change, despite the evidence that policies need a long time to bed in. A second is greater levels of stress among children and teachers. A third is pressure to introduce young children to formal instruction at an increasingly early age, in the belief that learning is linear, like a race, and that otherwise children will be left behind and never catch up. Less obviously, teachers, and others, have increasingly come to believe that children will only learn what they are deliberately taught. The success of policy changes depends on much more than prescription. For instance, as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2011a: 149) suggests, ‘[R]ecruiting better teachers will not work very well if they flee schools that are oppressive to work in.’ These reforms have been accompanied by a redefinition of what professionalism entails, in teaching as in other professions such as medicine and the law. This has involved a change from a covenantal approach based on trust where teachers have considerable autonomy to a contractual one where teachers are expected to comply with externally set demands and are held to account if they do not. As a result, what is necessary to qualify, and improve, as a teacher has been defined by a list of competences, such as those set out in the Teachers’ Standards, intended ‘to set a clear baseline of expectations for the professional practice and conduct of teachers’ (DfE, 2012). Teachers are expected to adhere to these in their professional conduct and increasingly in their personal lives. Many would argue that these changes have resulted in teachers acting more professionally, avoiding some of the unevenness of quality evident previously. However, Furlong (2005) suggests that new teachers have, in England, increasingly seen their professionalism as externally defined and managed with greater demands for accountability and decreasing opportunities for autonomy. Chapter 8 argues for a view of what being a professional entails which is based more on the autonomy to exercise informed judgement and accountability to children and parents/carers rather than politicians. While the picture set out above refers to England, other industrialized countries, such as the United States and Australia, have seen similar trends, for example, a greater emphasis on the ‘core curriculum’ and national testing, reflecting worries about results in PISA. However, OECD (2011a) suggests that those systems which do well in PISA, such as Finland, Singapore and Ontario (Canada), place more trust in teachers and spend significantly more

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time and resources on professional development than those that do not (see also Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012: 80–3). Unsurprisingly, priorities in teacher education have reflected those of current national curriculum and assessment policies. There has been an increasing emphasis on teachers’ subject knowledge especially in literacy and numeracy and on behaviour management (see Carter, 2015), with less on other aspects of the curriculum and child development. The pattern of provision in Initial Teacher Education has become more fragmented, with students spending more time in schools and less in Higher Education Institutions. Hordern (2014: 231) highlights that countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden have extended school-based elements with substantially reduced input from Higher Education. Such moves are predicated on a view that teaching is best seen as a practical craft, learned by working alongside those who are currently teaching, rather than based on theory. Moreover, there have been frequent changes of structures and requirements in Initial Teacher Education, often leading to a greater variety of routes into teaching and programmes which are more school-based and shorter, such as Teach First, Teach for America and Teach for Australia. Teacher Standards have increasingly become a feature of many national education systems, for example, in Australia, United States and the Netherlands (Cajkler and Wood, 2016: 504) and Germany (Zeirer, 2015). In terms of post-qualification professional learning, the changed role of local authorities in England has opened up opportunities for a wide range of course providers, many of them commercial businesses. Darling-Hammond and Lieberman (2012: 164) argue that ‘around the world, more teachers are getting a better launch to their careers than a decade ago’, though this varies significantly between systems and schools, as does the amount of time dedicated to professional development. Most of the courses offered are brief and access to them is often dependent on the resources available to the school and whether they are linked to current, short-term priorities. As a result, the availability for sustained opportunities for career development is uneven, which, I shall argue, is particularly serious in the years immediately after qualification. The discourse of ‘driving up standards’ remains largely unchallenged, with no serious discussion of whether standards other than those reflected in test results matter. Such changes are underpinned by a belief that competition, whether between schools, teachers or children, is a key driver of improvement and that the expertise of teachers can be summed up in a list of competences. To see why this is a narrow and impoverished view, doomed to failure, we start by examining the changing contexts in which children are growing up.

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The wider social and cultural context This section discusses social and cultural changes, notably those associated with globalization, drawing on a more detailed discussion in Chapter 3 of New Perspectives on Young Children’s Moral Education – Developing Character through a Virtue Ethics Approach (Eaude, 2016b). While the extent of these, and the impact on children, varies between countries, communities and families, such changes seem certain increasingly to affect most children, as traditional structures and expectations alter. I  shall argue that children  – from an early age  – must be equipped for the changing world which they will experience, rather than the one in which their parents and grandparents grew up, and that this should lead to a greater emphasis – for children and their teachers – on qualities such as adaptability, resilience and teamwork. Among significant social and cultural changes in recent years which the Cambridge Primary Review (Alexander, 2010: 53–5) highlights are: ● ●

● ● ●

changing patterns in the immediate and extended family and communities; a much improved level of physical health, though greater concern about mental health; a higher level of disposable income and possessions for most but not all; a rapid change in types, and availability, of technology; and a less deferential approach to authority.

Far fewer children live with both their birth parents or close to their extended family, as a result of higher rates of family breakdown, different patterns of adult relationships and greater geographical mobility, because of migration between and within countries. So, most communities exhibit greater ethnic, cultural and religious diversity than even twenty years ago. And many children grow up in families and communities where there are fewer of the structures, such as extended families and settled communities, which can help to support children and avoid them becoming involved in activities which may lead to them getting into trouble. Most children in industrialized countries are physically healthier as a result of improved health care, living conditions and nutrition, despite recent concerns about obesity, attributed in part to a more sedentary lifestyle. However, as argued in reports such as UNICEF (2007), there is much greater concern about children’s mental health, happiness and well-being, associated with the pressures and expectations of the society in which they now grow up. While most children have access to, and take for granted, a far wider range of home

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comforts and possessions than was common in my childhood fifty years ago, many do not, largely as a result of lives blighted by poverty, racism and violence and disrupted or chaotic lives out of school. Many children experience insecurity and confusion in their lives and relationships, though the reasons vary. Most obviously, this refers to children from urban disadvantaged backgrounds, but by no means only these. As Bruner (1996: 8) presciently remarked, ‘[S]chool, more than we have realized, competes with myriad forms of “anti-school” as a provider of agency, identity and self-esteem – no less at the middle-class suburban mall than on the ghetto streets.’ Computers and mobile phones provide a level of access to information, music and games hard to foresee twenty years ago, yet now taken for granted. Such activities occupy an increasingly influential place in young children’s lives, where many spend several hours a day in front of a screen, usually on their own. Such changes have been accompanied by sophisticated advertising, often targeted at children, which equates success with superficial features of identity. The cultural messages transmitted in these ways are both widespread and increasingly influential on children at an age when they are often impressionable. The past thirty to forty years have seen a less deferential approach to authority, at least in most Western countries. In part, this results from social changes where traditional attitudes towards those respected because of age or status are no longer so prevalent; and in part, from the internet providing quick and easy access to information, enabling lay people to challenge what was previously seen as the preserve of professionals. In assessing the impact of these changes on young children, one must be wary of a nostalgic view and overestimating the effects. Globalization has brought benefits and challenges, but one result has been increasing inequality of wealth and opportunity (Dorling, 2015) and, as Pickett and Vanderbloemen (2015:  24)  indicate, ‘average levels of educational attainment and children’s engagement in education are better in more equal societies’. Globalization has tended to lead to fragmentation and a reduced sense of belonging to an immediate family and community (see Hargreaves, 2003: xix). In itself, this means that many children lack access to a range of people able to offer the care and different types of support that they need. And many may not have the experience of the secure, long-term relationships necessary for children to thrive. Mayall (2010:  61–2) describes children’s lives as increasingly scholarized, with more emphasis on school and school-related activities and less on leisure and play. When combined with other factors, notably the idea often promulgated in schools and the media that success depends mainly on, and is

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measured in terms of, individual effort, many children feel isolated and inadequate when they do not succeed. Creating and sustaining learning environments which are inclusive of all children has become more difficult, though no less important. One result has been a tendency to overprotect children. Young children are in some respects vulnerable, though less so than adults tend to assume. As Cunningham (2006: 45) writes, [C]hildren in the past have been assumed to have capabilities that we now rarely think that they have . . . So fixated are we on giving our children a long and happy childhood that we downplay their abilities and their resilience. To think of children as potential victims in need of protection is a very modern outlook, and it probably does no one a service.

While it is natural to wish to protect children from harm, anxiety about the perceived dangers, for instance of being hurt or abducted, leads adults to tend to overprotect children and avoid risk and challenge. Ecclestone and Hayes (2009) argue that what they call therapeutic education – an overemphasis on feelings and oneself accompanied by the belief that one’s own happiness is what matters most – often leads to – or reinforces – narcissism, brittleness and a sense of vulnerability. As a result, many children lack the resilience needed to cope with challenge and uncertainty. Children receive, from many sources, the message that possessions and looks are the most important sources of happiness and identity. For instance, not having the ‘right’ make of shoes or mobile phone may cause considerable distress, and there is very strong pressure on young girls to present themselves in ways which emphasize their sexuality. The strength and seductiveness of the messages on offer, and the emphasis in school on a narrow conception of what matters, makes helping children to question their own beliefs and to explore other possibilities a significant, but tricky, aspect of the primary classroom teacher’s role. Judging the long-term impact of new forms of technology on young children is difficult (see Burnett (2016) for a thoughtful discussion). It opens up possibilities undreamed of twenty years ago, for instance in accessing information, understanding people and places through different media and communicating rapidly. However, many parents and teachers worry about the reduced level of interaction and conversation with real people if children spend hours each day in front of a screen. And there is growing evidence (e.g. de Souza and McLean, 2012) that children and adults act with less empathy when using technology

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than face to face. Instant access to information seems likely to make assessing whether information is trustworthy and relevant increasingly important, and accumulating and memorizing facts less so. There seems little doubt that technology will continue to change and its impact to intensify in other ways which we struggle to imagine. The reduced deference to, and trust in, authority, among parents/carers and children, affects how teachers are viewed and how relationships are formed. Most teachers remain trusted as individuals, even though teachers as a group less so. However, more significant in this context is that, for better or worse, children are less likely to conform without question and more likely to challenge their teachers. Many teachers report young children’s difficulty with concentration and low-level disruption has become more common. When combined with the pressure on teachers to achieve quick results, this may encourage teachers to over-control what happens in the classroom. You may think that many of the issues outlined in this section relate more to adolescents than to younger children. However, those which result from external factors, such as changes in family structure and communities, influence everyone; and the impact of the media and technology means that the pressures associated with adolescence, often to do with identity, are affecting children at an increasingly early age. Therefore their teachers (and other adults) must respond appropriately. This chapter has described the context in which children grow up and teachers work, highlighting how policy has increasingly led to externally prescribed ways of teaching. Primary classroom teachers in most systems are currently expected to deliver the curriculum with a strong emphasis on standards in Curriculum 1 and high-stakes assessment and accountability mechanisms, and with less autonomy and flexibility than previously. However, Hargreaves (2003: xviii) argues that teaching for what he calls the ‘knowledge society’, where all involved learn to cope with uncertainty, involves cultivating these capacities in young people – developing deep cognitive learning, creativity and ingenuity among pupils; drawing on research, working in networks and teams, and pursuing continuous professional learning as teachers; and promoting problem-solving, risk-taking, trust in the collaborative process, ability to cope with change and commitment to continuous improvement as organizations.

We will return to Hargreaves’s themes, and how to cultivate such capacities – which I call ‘qualities’ – in teachers and children, throughout this book.

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Opportunities, constraints and challenges This section explores the opportunities, constraints and challenges which affect how primary classroom teachers work and develop as teachers. While these depend significantly on the schools in which teachers work, one must take account of the influence of the wider policy context. Since this book presents a view of what teacher expertise and professionalism should involve which contrasts with that which underlies most current policy, what follows inevitably concentrates more on constraints and challenges than opportunities; but let us start by considering the latter. Initial Teacher Education offers sustained opportunities for those preparing to become teachers, especially through providing a mixture of theoretical grounding and practical teaching in school. The support of a mentor offers feedback and encourages reflection. Involvement in the life of the school, and in one or more classrooms, enables students to understand, to some extent, the pleasures and the demands of teaching a class of young children. However, the time available in Initial Teacher Education has always been less than that in other, more prestigious professions; and recent changes have tended to shorten the time available and to focus on current policy priorities. After qualification, the support of a mentor and some non-contact time is usually available, especially in the first year, though teachers are often expected to take on a significant workload. Opportunities to attend courses exist, though such courses are often brief and focused on school priorities and how to deliver a particular programme. Moreover, financial pressures may restrict access to these, especially longer courses. This limits opportunities to learn to teach Curriculum 2, and acquire a broader understanding of learning and teaching, unless teachers undertake these in their own time and at their own expense. Since this picture varies substantially between schools, the ethos of, and support provided by, the school in which teachers work, notably in the years just after qualification, is a key factor in developing the sophisticated mixture of knowledge and skills associated with expertise and professional judgement. One distinctive aspect associated with being, and becoming, a primary classroom teacher is the amount of time which teachers spend with the class. This presents tremendous opportunities to build up close relationships with children and to get to know them, their parents/carers and their background and interests, in ways that are much harder for those who teach a single subject to older students. Such relationships are fundamental to how teachers understand and engage young children and influence their behaviour and motivation. The length of time spent over a whole year with the class also makes it easier for

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teachers to create links across the curriculum and with the knowledge which children bring from out of school. Some of the challenges and constraints on primary classroom teachers are inherent in the role, while others result from, or are exacerbated by, external expectations. The former are discussed in more detail in Chapter 2 indicating that the classroom is more like a jungle, and less like a garden, than outsiders tend to assume. Teaching a class of young children is tiring and demanding, physically and emotionally. The emotional intensity can be exhilarating but is at times exhausting and demoralizing. And the fear of loss of control tends to encourage teachers to over-control children’s activities and learning. Such challenges are common to learning to become, and be, a primary classroom teacher in all systems, though the nature of the demands vary between schools. They are exacerbated by external demands to cover a considerable range of curriculum content and to plan, assess and record children’ progress in detail, and when compliance with a particular approach is expected and monitored, whether internally within the school or through high-stakes inspection. Understandably, teachers often lack the energy and the courage to do other than comply with such demands. So, workload, stress and the perception of not having the time to do anything other than what is expected are significant constraints on experimenting with new ways of working. The rhetoric of policy emphasizes teachers’ autonomy. However, especially for primary classroom teachers, external prescription of methods, often backed by unspoken assumptions about what is deemed appropriate, restrict opportunities to exercise professional judgement. Associated with this may be lack of a sense of agency – being confident to do what as a professional one believes is appropriate. Consider the following story.

Inhibited by being expected to stick to the plan One newly qualified teacher recounted how when she was being observed teaching her class of 10-year-olds she mentioned that the paint on a picture was made of oil. One child asked if that meant that you could set it on fire, because oil burns. The teacher indicated that she did not follow this up, as this was a literacy lesson, even though her intuition suggested that this would be a fruitful line to explore, but that otherwise she would have done so. The danger is that children, if discouraged from asking such questions, making links across disciplinary boundaries, may stop asking them out loud; and in the longer term may cease from asking them at all.

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This incident illustrates how external expectations, notably high-stakes accountability, can affect how teachers teach. Teachers often experience a sense of powerlessness, rather than agency, because of external prescription and constant scrutiny. Even when teachers see a good opportunity, they may not take it, as in the example above. The current climate of performativity and high-stakes accountability tends to induce fear, undermine teachers’ confidence and inhibit innovation in its desire for conformity and standardization. These factors combine to encourage transmissive pedagogy and to make many teachers defensive and reluctant to try out new approaches. As Chapter 2 will consider, the primary classroom teacher’s role involves multiple aims, some of which may conflict with each other. However, the dominance of the standards agenda tends to make any discussion of aims superfluous, since short-term results are all that are deemed to matter. Although the standards agenda may lead to improved tests scores at the age of 11, and subsequently, the insistent emphasis on a narrow range of mainly linguistic and mathematical skills means that many young children do not find the curriculum engaging or motivating. While low-level disruption may be associated with lack of discipline or deference, it is for many children the result of a curriculum which is not meaningful to them and does not reflect what matters in their experience and culture. While observations by, feedback from and discussions with more experienced colleagues are vital ways of developing as a teacher, making such processes ‘highstakes’ in terms of teachers’ future employment or promotion militates against these being developmental. I shall argue for a clear distinction between monitoring to assess competence and developmental observation which encourages teachers to take risks and admit to, and learn from, mistakes. The challenges which the current policy context presents are not trivial. Fransson and Grannäs (2013:  6)  indicate how these associated with recent reforms, such as the emphasis on marketization, results and targets, create conflict with some aspects of teachers’ professional knowledge, values and beliefs. They argue that these ‘push teachers and head teachers to meet the expectations of pupils, parents, principals and boards without compromising (too much) professional knowledge, values and beliefs’ (ibid.: 6). Fransson and Grannäs discuss how, in the United States, the No Child Left Behind Act has changed teachers’ tasks and roles and created a crisis of identity. They cite Valli and Buese’s conclusion that ‘policy directives made teachers enact pedagogies that were at odds with their vision of best practice’ (ibid.:  6), and

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continue that this placed teachers in situations in which there was no right way of acting, but only acting for the best – where their professional judgement tells them one thing and policy directives something else. Teachers in the current climate frequently face an acute tension between covering the written curriculum and responding to children’s interests and comments, as in the incident described above; and, more seriously, between doing what they believe to be right for their class and what is expected or even demanded of them. The breadth of the primary classroom teacher’s role and the profession’s lack of a robust foundation for the pedagogy which best enhances young children’s learning may make these tensions particularly challenging for such teachers, especially when faced with constant pressure for short-term results. This chapter has outlined the context of primary education and teacher education and opportunities, constraints and challenges in fulfilling the role. Underlying the current approach to primary education is a set of assumptions which, though widely taken for granted, are open to question and which, in subsequent chapters, I shall challenge. Among these are that: ●

●

●

●

●

●

all that really matters is that young children learn to read, write and manipulate numbers accurately; learning is a largely linear and cognitive process, best assessed by testing outcomes; teachers should be judged mostly by their children’s ability to score highly in, and make the expected progress between, tests; teaching should be based mainly on ‘what works’ and the delivery of preplanned content knowledge; the best methods of teaching can be captured in a manual or programme with teachers trained how to deliver these efficiently; and unless teachers are kept under pressure and constant scrutiny, they are unlikely to do their best.

These assumptions reflect a view of young children’s education similar to that of the elementary schools in nineteenth-century England: an unrelenting emphasis on ‘the basics’ and far less on the humanities and the arts. The underlying assumptions are those of teacher input ensuring measurable outcomes in children. As argued in Eaude (2016a), primary education has never really escaped from this legacy. Initial Teacher Education courses are too short and formal opportunities after qualification often brief, decontextualized and based on delivering particular programmes. We must bear these considerations in

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mind as we explore the different dimensions of teacher knowledge and expertise when working with young children, and how teachers can refine these and be helped to do so. However, first, Chapter 2 encourages a rethinking of what the primary classroom teacher’s role entails to reveal its complexity, the dilemmas involved and why professional judgement is so important.

2

Rethinking the Primary Classroom Teacher’s Role

Chapter outline Dilemma, compromise and judgement – the challenges of multiple aims Garden or jungle? The dynamics of the primary classroom The emotional demands of teaching a class of young children Relationships within and beyond the primary classroom

32 36 40 44

The regular classroom teacher is confronted, not with a single patient, but with a classroom filled with 25 to 35 youngsters. The teacher’s goals are multiple . . . Even in the ubiquitous primary reading group, the teacher must simultaneously be concerned with the learning of decoding skills as well as comprehension, with motivation and love of reading as well as word-attack, and must . . . monitor the performance of the six to eight students in front of her while not losing touch with the other two dozen in the room . . . The only time a physician could possibly encounter a situation of comparable complexity would be in the emergency room of a hospital during or after a natural disaster. —Shulman, The Wisdom of Practice, 258

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Dilemma, compromise and judgement – the challenges of multiple aims Chapter 1 indicated that, historically, the primary classroom teacher’s task has been seen mainly as delivering a curriculum which focuses on children learning to read and write and becoming numerate. In recent years, success has increasingly been judged mainly in terms of children attaining high scores, and making progress, in tests of literacy and numeracy, so that they are ‘ready for secondary school’. Such a view may seem obvious, especially in a culture of performativity. However, as the quotation from Shulman, above, indicates, the role is far more complex and challenging than if just seen as involving delivery to meet standards in what can easily be tested and enabling children to be ‘secondary-ready’. This chapter encourages you to think about the role differently, suggesting that it is full of inherent and constant dilemmas, makes strong emotional as well as cognitive demands and involves an intricate web of relationships with many children and adults. Success consists in meeting a wide range of potentially conflicting aims over a long period of time. The teacher’s role is often compared to that of other performers and professionals. While any analogy must be treated with caution, Shulman (2004: 66) sees the teacher’s role as similar to that of the director of a play, who determines the onset and pace of the episodes, frequently in discussion with the actors. As with the conductor of an orchestra, a classroom teacher manages many different groups simultaneously. Like gardeners, they must establish a nurturing culture, in which children thrive and flourish; and, similar to architects, create environments with different types of space, with the whole structure requiring careful attention to detail. Bodman, Taylor and Morris’s (2012) characterization of teachers as alchemists emphasizes creative and flexible decision-making and the centrality of professional judgement, though how any teacher operates will vary according to the particular group and context in which they are working and what they are trying to achieve. The debate about whether teaching is an art, emphasizing intuition and improvisation, a science, relying heavily on data, or a craft, focusing on practical application, is a long, and for me an unhelpful, one. Ideally, a teacher analyses like a scientist, performs like an artist and creates like a craftsman. Shulman (2004: 158) sees teaching as a labour and a profession, as well as an art and a craft. As a labour, teaching involves hard, sustained work; and, as a profession, wider responsibilities than if just a craft.

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The primary classroom teacher’s role is wide-ranging, more like a GP than a psychiatrist or obstetrician, a decathlete than a sprinter. So, the skills and types of knowledge involved are different from, as opposed to less than, those of a subject specialist, even if the role is less prestigious. One would not judge a garden designer on only the quality of the rockery or the vegetable patch. Though teaching is made up of small episodes – lessons, activities, exchanges, conversations – the primary classroom teacher’s role involves maintaining a consistently high standard, usually over a year, not just putting on a good demonstration lesson or meeting short-term objectives, and is best understood and evaluated as a whole, over time. Berlak and Berlak (1981: 22–3) outline a range of dilemmas inherent in how any teacher acts. Some are to do with control, such as: ● ●

whether the child is considered ‘as student’ or as the ‘whole child’; and who (the child or adults) controls what happens, time and standards.

A second group relates to the curriculum, such as whether: ●

●

●

knowledge is seen as individual or shared, as related to content or process and as given or problematic; learning is understood as individual or social and as holistic or molecular (in small bits); and children are thought as having individual needs or a common entitlement and needing to be intrinsically or extrinsically motivated.

A third set are societal such as whether: ●

●

childhood is seen as continuous or in separate stages; and different cultural beliefs and practices are to be encouraged or not; and all children should be treated the same or allowances made for some, both in allocating resources and in applying rules.

Berlak and Berlak suggest that all teachers do, and have to, make what they call patterns of resolution to these dilemmas, sometimes consciously, sometimes not. This is manifested in practice by the emphasis given to ‘the basics’ or other subjects, to creativity or conformity, to freedom or structure – and many other dilemmas. Each teacher has to find a balance at some point on a spectrum for each dilemma. This might involve deciding how much time to allocate to particular children, or groups, and which ones; or how much to set definite expectations

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or allow children to make their own decisions. But teachers must also balance different dilemmas. For instance, in responding to a child who has misbehaved, an individual teacher makes judgements based not only on policies and procedures, but on factors such as his or her understanding of the child’s background, the impact on other children and the particular situation. Where it may be appropriate to deal with some incidents publicly, a quiet word may be better at other times; and how the teacher responds to the same individual in different situations may, rightly, vary. Such a view implies that teaching involves making judgements between often-conflicting demands to find the most appropriate patterns of resolution, depending on the situation. In Alexander’s (1995:  67)  words, ‘[T]eaching is essentially a series of compromises.’ Similarly, Kennedy (2006: 205) sees teachers as constantly trying to reconcile six competing concerns, namely: ● ● ● ● ● ●

covering desirable content; fostering student learning; increasing students’ willingness to participate; maintaining lesson momentum; creating a civil classroom community; and attending to their own cognitive and emotional needs.

Fransson and Grannäs (2013: 7) use the term ‘dilemmatic spaces’ to argue that dilemmas should not be regarded as specific events or situations, but as ever-present in classrooms. Teaching inherently involves multiple, sometimesconflicting aims, and dilemmas and compromises, though the nature of these will vary for different teachers and for individuals at different times. For instance, a wish to encourage children’s creativity and breadth of experience may be hampered by the demand to meet short-term targets in mathematics; and an emphasis on accurate decoding may inhibit children’s reading for pleasure. To itemize every aspect of what the primary classroom teacher’s role involves would be impossible, though Chapter 3 highlights common features of those who fulfil it with a high level of expertise. The role is pastoral as well as academic, helping children over time to build up and strengthen the skills, qualities and dispositions needed to thrive in different situations in a changing world. While trying to enhance children’s learning, teachers need to assess how they are learning and what they have learned. As well as cognitive challenge, teachers must provide emotional stability within which children can explore, and learn, how to regulate their emotions and act appropriately,

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without the environment being so protective or unchallenging that children become dependent or brittle. At times, teachers must be champions, or advocates, for children, while not overprotecting them. Since children need to be cared for and protected, and become more resilient by overcoming manageable challenges, teachers have to strike a balance between nurture and challenge. As well as valuing children’s culture and backgrounds, teachers must extend their cultural horizons, especially those children whose backgrounds mean that their range of experience is limited. Such a view of the role indicates the importance of promoting aspects such as emotional, aesthetic and what is called in England spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC), and providing a broad range of learning opportunities, including the humanities and the arts, and work beyond the confines of the classroom. Shulman (2004:  378–9) writes that ‘teachers not only represent the content of their disciplines; they model the processes of inquiry and analysis, the attitudes and dispositions of scholarship and criticism, and they purposively create communities of interaction and discourse within which ideas are created, exchanged and evaluated.’ This may sound rather grand when related to teaching young children. However, a significant part of the primary classroom teacher’s role is to exemplify, and so to help children, how to think and work like a scientist or an artist, a designer or a critic, rather than just accumulate factual knowledge and decontextualized skills in separate subject areas. Teachers must allow, and encourage, creativity, imagination and risk-taking; and, given the influence of adult example, manifest and model these qualities themselves. More profoundly, primary classroom teachers help to shape the identities of a disparate group of young children, not only as pupils, but beyond the classroom. The role involves encouraging children to question their own, and other people’s, beliefs, but should not entail the teacher imposing particular beliefs or values. Rather, it requires open-mindedness which, in Bruner’s (1990: 30) words, implies ‘a willingness to construe knowledge and values from multiple perspectives, without loss of commitment to one’s own values’. As Warnock (1996:  53)  writes, ‘[T]eaching is an essentially moral transaction,’ with Pring (2001) arguing that education must, and indeed can, not be value-free. In Eaude (2016b), I discuss the implications for young children, and those who educate them, suggesting that moral education does not just involve enabling children to understand what morality entails and to act appropriately, but also teaching in ways that promote, as far as possible, children’s overall

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well-being. Since values and beliefs, about learning and teaching, children and culture, permeate how teachers act and interact, teaching must be understood not only in terms of technical competence, or efficiency, but also in ethical terms: doing ‘the right thing’ rather than just ‘doing it right’. Becoming literate and numerate is essential and children who make good progress are usually happy. However, simply to want children to be happy is not enough. In Eaude (2016b: 36), I suggest that the Greek term eudaimonia helps to capture a more sustained idea of well-being or flourishing, independent of health, wealth or the ups and downs of everyday life, rather than the idea of happiness based on immediate gratification presented to children in modern culture, particularly through the media. Overall well-being includes physical and mental health, secure, trusting relationships and the qualities and dispositions which enable children to flourish – both in the present and in later life. Helping children to try to achieve this is a crucial element of the primary classroom teacher’s role, though some elements outside school cannot be changed and teachers must work in partnership with others, including parents/carers and those with more specific expertise. The range of these demands, especially the width of the curriculum, makes substantial demands of young children’s teachers. This raises the questions, discussed in Chapter 5, of the extent to which the types of knowledge required vary when teaching older and younger primary-age children and whether children at the older end of the primary school may benefit from being taught by specialists, at least in some subject areas. We shall return to the points raised in this section to consider how primary classroom teachers can learn and refine the types of knowledge and qualities required to exercise professional judgement. However, we first consider the dynamics of the primary classroom.

Garden or jungle? The dynamics of the primary classroom As Alexander (1995: 12) suggests, some of the confusions, paradoxes and contradictions which primary teachers encounter may be inherent in the role rather than the result of their own failings. He writes that professional development, as inseparable from personal maturation, is about coming to terms with the inner as well as the outer world, with resolving the tensions of the psyche as well as the dilemmas of the classroom. The jungle is in

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each of us. So too is the need and urge to make sense of, and impose order on, the outer world in order to achieve inner equilibrium, to turn the jungle into a garden. (1995: 41–2)

This quotation indicates that professional development, while different from personal maturation, depends to some extent on it, a point to which we return in Chapter 9. It also points out that, contrary to many people’s perceptions, the primary classroom is not always the gentle environment conjured up by the image of a garden, or the term ‘kindergarten’, where teachers and children interact with mutual enjoyment and pleasure, but more like a jungle where teachers and children often feel isolated and anxious, inadequate and uncertain. While recalling that a garden has order and authority imposed on it, Alexander (1995: 41) suggests jungle as ‘as an alternative metaphor for capturing the tensions, dilemmas, conflicts and paradoxes within primary education at both societal and classroom level’. He comments that while the jungle may appear initially exciting, it is increasingly impenetrable, with surprising diversity and myriad struggles for space and survival (ibid.: 15). The jungle is to some extent one of confusing messages from policy about what being a primary school teacher involves. But the jungle refers also to the emotional and psychological challenge of interacting with a group of young children, day in, day out, for a year. In Alexander’s (1995: 18) words, teachers have ‘to hack a path through (the jungle), to learn to accept and perhaps exploit its confusion and luxuriance, or be overwhelmed by it’, with the implication that being overwhelmed is a real danger. Jackson (1968) points out that teaching is characterized by ‘immediacy’, with things to be done, decisions to be made, children’s needs and demands to be met, the whole time. Immediacy is a particular feature of teaching young children as they tend to be more volatile and their ability to regulate their responses – executive function – is usually less well-developed than older children’s. Immediacy can be invigorating and enjoyable, but when linked to constant pressure can also sap teachers’ energy levels, especially if they do not feel in control. Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: 156) indicate how such pressure can ‘drain us dry’, creating a vicious cycle where there is no let-up or time to think. This helps to explain why teaching a class of young children is so tiring and requires resilience, and why those new to the role often find the emotional elements so wearing and difficult. Jackson (1968: 33–4) writes that crowds, praise and power ‘combine to give a distinctive flavour to classroom life collectively to form a hidden curriculum which each student (and teacher) must master if he [sic] is to make his way satisfactorily through school’. Teachers must take account of these three interlinked,

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underestimated, factors if they are to manage the primary classroom in ways that enhance children’s sense of agency and motivation, rather than just control children’s behaviour and ensure their compliance. One obvious feature of most primary classrooms is the number of children, all with different backgrounds, personalities and interests. Among the consequences for children are delay, denial (i.e. not being able to do what they want), interruption and social distraction (see Pollard, 1985: 41–2). For many young children, especially, joining and being part of a large group is hard, not least because they receive less attention from an adult than they are used to. Young children are almost always keen for adult approval, even though they may behave in ways that do not obviously suggest or achieve this. The desire to belong often leads to a wish to gain attention or to disappear into the crowd. And young children find it hard to regulate their responses. As a result, behaviour which seems funny or disrupts the class tends to encourage other children to copy it; and the risk of embarrassment leads many children to avoid taking risks. Managing such a range of demands equitably and without treating everyone the same is a significant challenge for teachers, and the ability to do so a signifier of expertise. Praise in this context does not relate to teacher feedback, to be discussed in Chapter 6. Rather, Jackson is highlighting that classrooms are inherently competitive places, where children are constantly evaluated and compared to others, by each other and by adults, even when individuals try consciously not to do so. Such comparison may provoke rivalry between some children, while others who cannot keep up may effectively give up. Competitiveness, and the consequences, operate even more strongly in a culture of performativity. Classrooms are places where issues of power, authority and control – between children and between teacher and children  – are always present, even if we imagine they are not. Foucault (see Ball, 2013) argues that power relationships are everywhere and that schools are, in themselves, institutions designed to control children and determine which types of knowledge and knower are deemed important. While teachers should not ignore this, I am, in this context, discussing the more interpersonal, less structural aspects of power. In any teaching environment there is always an asymmetry of power, especially when working with young children, because of the gap in age between the children and the teacher. The classroom teacher is, or at least is supposed to be, largely in control of what happens. Teachers exert considerable power over children, for instance in what material is taught and how children are rewarded and disciplined. They can control, to some extent, how tasks are carried out, for

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instance the amount of movement which children are allowed and how they are grouped, but teachers cannot, and should not, control what children think. Bibby’s (2011: 43) insight that ‘comments, judgements, are never neutral, they are always infused with extra meanings from the positions we occupy’ helps to explain why teachers’ comments about, and judgements of, children are so significant. One foolish action or thoughtless comment can have a profound influence, although how the classroom teacher acts and relates to children over a long period of time tends to matter even more. However, children, especially as a group, have more power than is usually recognized and can make life very hard for a teacher who does not maintain authority (see Pollard with Filer, 1996:  90). Even one or two disruptive children can make managing a class difficult. I remember vividly teaching a class of 9- to 11year-olds, which included two boys who were adept at irritating me and prompting a laugh from the rest of the class. Usually, this involved a comment which even if true was unwelcome or inappropriate at that moment. Both were fascinating and enjoyable to teach, but exasperating. Their attendance was almost perfect. Occasionally, one or the other was away and the class was more settled. On one day, both were absent. About halfway through the morning, one child remarked how calm the classroom was. I, and some other children, simply smiled. The immediacy and intensity of young children’s responses and uneven power relations mean that teachers must be careful not to restrict children’s sense of agency, while retaining control to allow children the space to flourish. Teachers’ power, while usually benign, is easily misused to over-control children, particularly when immediate outcomes are expected. The challenges of managing children’s behaviour are greater with children from backgrounds where the expectations, and the support given, at home are unpredictable. Such children need a continuity of such relationships and usually test out those adults with whom they have not built up a strong, trusting relationship. Teachers who are authoritarian restrict children’s opportunities for independence and creativity. Those who manifest expertise exert influence and exercise authority, but ensure that children, from an early age, gain a sense of agency. This is difficult for teachers who are inexperienced, especially when they feel inadequate and not supported. Although such issues of power may be less overt in primary classrooms than with adolescents, especially if children are more compliant, they always affect the types of relationship created. A teacher’s authority is more enabling when based on trust and respect than power or fear. Power relationships strongly affect children’s level of motivation, self-confidence and willingness to take risks.

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In Pollard with Filer’s (1996: 91) words, ‘[I]t is essential that (children) exercise a significant degree of control of the (learning) process so that they can build on intrinsic motivation where that exists.’ Otherwise, children are likely to become passive, dependent and disengaged. Wragg (2004) emphasizes the importance of rules and relationships in how any group operates. Relationships are discussed in the final section of this chapter and subsequently; and Chapter 6 considers the use of explicit rules. However, as Pollard (1985, 1996) indicates, many implicit rules operate in the primary classroom, which ensure that both children and teacher remain within their comfort zones and avoid the anxiety which accompanies challenges to their identities as learners and teachers. To summarize Pollard with Filer’s (1996: 90–1) argument, pupils and teachers interact together to produce taken-for-granted understandings and rules about behaviour in classrooms, a working consensus, the product of an often-implicit negotiation between teachers and children, though usually the teacher controls the explicit rules. Such a consensus determines, for instance who is in charge of the talk and the amount of work that is acceptable. Teachers with a high level of expertise manage to alter these patterns where teachers and children implicitly collude in children not being really challenged, in return for compliance. Subsequent chapters explore how they can do so, such as by modelling how they take risks and respond to their own, and other people’s, mistakes. However, one needs to understand the emotional demands of teaching young children to see why this is so difficult.

The emotional demands of teaching a class of young children Alexander (1995: 12) suggests that ‘despite our somewhat ritualistic use of the words “practice” and “practical” in ways which suggest that teaching is little more than a simple manual activity, the job does in fact require a high degree of cognitive engagement’. We shall return to the cognitive requirements, but here consider the emotional demands of the primary classroom teacher’s role. Given their significance, it is surprising how little these are considered in teacher education, or research. Drawing on a psychoanalytic understanding of teaching (and ourselves more broadly), Bibby (2011: 6) calls teaching an ‘impossible profession’ arguing that: ●

our actions are influenced by a dynamic unconscious which we can never access directly or know completely;

Rethinking the Primary Classroom Teacher’s Role ●

●

41

we are defended subjects in the sense that we all have to – and do – erect defences, often unconscious, to manage the anxieties we face; and society and culture help to shape our unconscious, that is, we are psychosocial beings.

This implies that conscious thought will never help us understand completely why we respond as we do, that such responses are often beyond our conscious control and that we are all more open than we think to a range of social and cultural influences which affect how we act and how we are expected to act. Changing how one acts and thinks as a teacher relies on much more than the conscious intention to do so. Bibby (2011:  85)  calls teaching ‘impossible’ because teachers cannot fully meet demands which are unbearable, even though these are often unconscious and so wield influence all the time. She suggests that teachers experience conflicting emotions, often unconsciously, and struggle to hold together the love and the hate, the desire and the fear they feel (ibid.: 2). This is exacerbated by the demand for teachers to be perfect or outstanding all the time, when it is more realistic – and achievable – to expect them to teach well (whatever that means) over time and be good enough rather than outstanding all the time. Nias (1996) highlights three main reasons why teaching evokes strong emotions in primary teachers: ● ●

●

the constant interaction with other people; the extent to which teaching provides the, or at least a, main site for teachers’ self-esteem and fulfilment; and their heavy investment in their work.

With young children, the first of these is often exacerbated by the physical closeness and the immediacy of children’s responses, though this depends to some extent on the type and level of control which the teacher exerts. In Chapter 8, I argue that the second and third of these affect primary classroom teachers particularly strongly, without suggesting that other teachers do not invest much of themselves in their work. Kimes Myers (1997:  7–11) indicates that our relationships with children are interactive and that children are not the only ones engaged in the developmental process. She argues that ‘when we engage with relationships with young children (or children of any age), the child within us – that child of a similar age – also has a developing edge’ (ibid.: 8). Kimes Myers uses Erikson’s term ‘cogwheeling’ to describe the process whereby the child’s emotional state affects the

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teacher’s, and vice versa. She suggests that this ‘gifts us with the ability to empathize with children, to play with them and to consider options for guiding and teaching them’ (ibid.: 9). However, cog-wheeling also leads to ‘irrational fears to be examined, confusing messages to be understood, as well as feelings of joy, anxiety, and puzzlement that we cannot name’ (ibid.). Teaching young children often evokes in the teacher strong, confusing emotional responses associated with the latency period of their own childhood. As Hart (2003:  146)  indicates, spending time with young children can trigger a memory or stir up our own childhood experiences and so prompt responses which bring out the ‘child in oneself ’. Those children most like the teacher-as-child may be those who trigger the strongest emotional responses. I have found that children, usually boys, who were cleverly but quietly provocative, able to complete work without working very hard, were those who irritated me most as a teacher. I suspect that this was how I acted as a child towards my teachers. Standing in front of a class of young children for the first time may be less daunting than doing so with a class of adolescents, but few teachers forget how scary it was. The nature of the emotions evoked by teaching young children, and teachers’ responses, will vary according to many factors, making generalization hazardous. Some are positive and life-enhancing, such as excitement and joy. All teachers will be familiar with the excitement and pleasure of children achieving or understanding something new. Longer-term feelings like the joy of seeing the progress, individual or as a class, over the year, whether academic, such as learning to read fluently or researching a topic, or to do with attitudes and relationships, are often particularly gratifying with those children who find school life and learning difficult. However, being a primary classroom teacher also prompts emotions such as frustration, anxiety, anger and guilt, which is unsurprising, given the intensity of the relationship between the teacher and the class. Some of these emotions are short term, reflecting the immediacy of classroom life, and teachers, at whatever point in their career, have to learn ways of dealing with these while providing emotional stability. However, some are longer term, stronger, more confusing and corrosive and harder to cope with. Take the example of guilt. While guilt can act as a short-term motivator, I am here referring to the guilt at not achieving all that one had hoped, or expected, resulting from not meeting demands which may seem, and be, impossible to achieve. Such a response may not be rational but affects teachers nevertheless and is often intense and hard

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to manage, especially in a culture of performativity. Idealists and perfectionists may be more prone to guilt, with those who are pragmatic more prepared to ‘play the game’ and so less affected by guilt at what they have done or not managed to do. Teachers of young children must offer emotional stability, while retaining some emotional distance and setting an example to children of how to regulate one’s emotions, and so must learn to regulate how they respond to their emotions, at least in the children’s presence. Responding appropriately in the heat of the moment is not just a matter of knowing what to do, but of actually doing so. I remember one occasion when, as an experienced teacher, I was teaching an unfamiliar class of 8- and 9-year-olds, which included a boy who frequently drew attention to himself with provocative comments. I knew not to respond, and so pay attention, to these, yet before I had time to think I had done so. My response immediately drew attention to him, so that my authority was undermined and he was in control, a situation which is hard to alter. More seriously, anger can lead to making threats and acting in ways which one comes to regret. When I  had been teaching for about seven years, a 10year-old repeatedly carried on reading a magazine during a lesson. Foolishly I threatened to take it and tear it up if he did not put it away, and having backed myself into a corner did so when he carried on. Unsurprisingly, after school, the boy and his father returned, with the latter demanding to know why I had done so. Fortunately, he accepted my apology and told his son to show more respect. I learned, to some extent, not to say that I would do something I might regret, and so to dig myself into a hole. Young children’s greater dependence on emotional than cognitive processes means that their teachers must be attuned to the children’s feelings and responses – and to their own – and operate more on an emotional level than those unused to working with young children may recognize. This suggests that there should a greater emphasis than at present on teachers of young children noticing, being attuned to and taking account of children’s – and their own – emotions and responses. However, ‘adult filters’ easily become barriers to adults seeing the world through the lens of childhood and so understanding how children are feeling and thinking (see Adams, 2010: 147). The dynamics of a large group and external expectations – for results, pace and delivery  – conspire to make it very hard for the teacher to be attuned to children and to respond appropriately. For instance, the pressure to cover what

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is planned in a lesson often leads teachers to overlook children’s responses and press on regardless, as illustrated by the incident described in Chapter 1 where the teacher did not follow up an insightful comment. More generally, anxiety and the fear of loss of control tend to encourage didactic instruction at considerable pace and a narrow, restrictive curriculum. Teachers require a wide range of skills and qualities, such as self-awareness and patience, resilience and confidence, to manage their emotions without limiting children’s opportunities for active learning, and so create and sustain inclusive learning environments with space for children’s imagination and creativity to flourish. Chapter 7 discusses how such qualities can be developed. How teachers learn to respond to stress and threat, and the anxiety which accompanies these, influences how, and how well, they cope with the emotional demands of the classroom. All teachers find their own ways of responding to different emotions, though greater maturity and experience of previous, similar situations tends to help them towards a more insightful understanding of their own responses, and what triggers these, as long as these are explored rather than denied or repressed. However, in Waddell’s (2002:  196–7) words, ‘[W]isdom would seem to be more to do with living and feeling than with acquiring knowledge. It is not a case of believing oneself to have grown out of infantile impulses and longings but rather of knowing and understanding those undeveloped aspects of self and – as a consequence – being alert to their potential effects, particularly their destructiveness.’

Relationships within and beyond the primary classroom Losing one’s touch When I became a headteacher, I found within a few months that many of the teachers were far better at actually teaching than I was. This was not just related to keeping up with the most recent requirements, but to do with the long-term grind of the classroom and the sorts of relationships the teachers built with the children. More recently, when I led sessions on ‘Philosophy for Children’ with a class, several children found my approach unsettling and did not conform to collective expectations on turn taking. The behaviours that I expected for the sessions to work smoothly did not come automatically. The necessary relationships had not been established.

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The Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP, 2006) emphasizes how much learning relationships matter in all phases. As Donaldson’s (1982, 1992) research shows, young children’s level of engagement and attainment varies significantly depending on whether the child see the task as meaningful, the context and the child’s relationships with the person setting the task. In Salzberger-Wittenberg et al.’s (1996: ix) words, ‘[O]ur learning, in infancy and for a considerable period, takes place within a dependent relationship to another human being. It is the quality of this relationship which deeply influences the hopefulness required to remain curious and open to new experiences, the capacity to perceive connections and to discover their meaning.’ Very young children, in particular, may see the teacher as like a substitute parent. This helps in part to explain why primary classroom teachers matter so much for all children, especially those who do not experience trusting, caring relationships consistently elsewhere and who are anxious or unsure. However, the teacher has a less intimate, more formal and transient, role, though still an important one to enhance lifelong and lifewide learning. To fulfil this, teachers must create and sustain an inclusive learning environment which engages and motivates all children and enables them to have a sense of agency and voice. In Claxton and Carr’s (2004: 87) words, children must be ‘ready, willing and able to engage profitably with learning’ (emphases in the original), and so do not just need knowledge and skills, but must be able and motivated to apply these. As well as a wide repertoire of pedagogies, this requires relationships of mutual trust and care between the teacher and individual children – and with the whole class. Teachers must be able to interact appropriately with a range of personalities from the quiet and compliant to the cheeky and disruptive and the many children who are keen, enthusiastic and thoughtful. Chapter 6 discusses in more detail what an inclusive learning environment entails. This discussion raises two dilemmas for those who teach young children. One is how to provide the right level of structure and support without creating a sense of dependency, and so reducing or undermining children’s resilience, recognizing that some children will benefit from tighter structures, some from looser ones. The second is how to influence children – many of whom place a great deal of trust in teachers – without disrespecting their culture, background and individual preferences. Since young children may be overtrusting of adults, their teachers must encourage them to question what they are told and be careful of adults they do not know. There is no easy answer to such dilemmas, but

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they illustrate the difficulty of the task and reinforce the importance of professional judgement. Although the focus of much of the research and teacher education related to primary teachers is, understandably, on what happens as they teach, this is only one element of what primary classroom teachers do. Others include: ●

● ●

work to support their teaching such as planning and preparation, setting targets and marking; organization of materials and resources; and liaison with a wide range of adults.

The first of these is considered in Chapter 6, but the next few paragraphs consider the other two briefly, recognizing that what is involved may vary considerably depending on the system, the school and the children’s age. Much of any primary classroom teacher’s work is organizational, apparently mundane and often tedious, such as ensuring that resources are available, checking children’s attendance, dealing with lost bookbags or lunchboxes and making arrangements for trips. However, small details, as we shall see in Chapters 6 and 7, such as how furniture is arranged and children are grouped, matter more than one may think. Having resources in the right place and ensuring that they are accessible and properly looked after enables children to become more independent and helps to free up time and energy so that teachers can concentrate on what matters most: teaching. Primary classroom teachers need to establish, from the start, structures and routines to enable young children to resolve such problems for themselves and so to reduce the low level, but time consuming, demands which contribute to teacher stress. An increasingly important aspect of the primary classroom teacher’s role, at least in English schools, is to work with, and advise or manage, other colleagues including support staff, some of whom may be older and more experienced than the teacher. Primary classroom teachers have a key role in helping identify children’s difficulties, both academic and emotional, such as special educational needs or the possibility of abuse, so that other professionals, with more specific expertise, can provide appropriate support. And classroom teachers are expected to take on additional responsibilities across the whole school, or one part of it, often soon after qualification. Such demands mean that teachers need to be able to liaise with other adults with specific responsibilities or experience in these areas and, sometimes, with external agencies. While these provide useful opportunities to enhance teachers’ experience and skills, liaising with, and managing, older and more experienced colleagues

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can be daunting, so inexperienced teachers will usually need guidance and support. Primary classroom teachers benefit from building relationships, both formally and informally, with parents and carers, including some who are keen, at times too keen, to discuss their child and some who are reluctant to do so. Formal consultations are often informative and illuminating but may be difficult especially for inexperienced teachers. The challenges are likely to vary depending on the catchment and parental expectations, partly because of the lack of time, partly because teachers have to decide how honest to be about children’s progress and difficulties. It is too easy to say that teachers should be open about such issues, since doing so may reinforce parental worries or build up unrealistic expectations. Teachers of young children, rightly, seek to establish informal relationships with many parents and carers, but this can make it hard when either the parent or the teacher disapproves of what the other has done. Similarly, when writing reports, summarizing key aspects of achievement and progress, both academic and in other respects, finding the correct balance between honesty and encouragement is not easy, or quickly learned. To fulfil the role successfully, teachers must build and sustain relationships with many ‘clients’  – children, colleagues and parents/carers  – with a wide variety of backgrounds, hopes and needs. This calls for qualities such as tact, discretion and teamwork, to interact confidently and professionally with colleagues and parents/carers, as well as those required to teach a class of young children. This chapter has argued that the primary classroom teacher’s role involves constant dilemmas and professional judgements, seeking to achieve multiple aims, such as: ●

●

●

●

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catering for a wide range of needs, academic and pastoral, usually over a whole year; creating and sustaining an inclusive learning environment to engage, inspire and motivate all children, where children have a sense of agency and voice; assessing and identifying the strengths and difficulties of the whole group and of individuals; responding appropriately to the children’s distinctive needs, individually and as a group, using a wide range of pedagogies; enabling and encouraging children increasingly to regulate how they respond;

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helping to shape a disparate group of young children’s identities, with broad and realistic expectations; enabling children to build up the qualities necessary for a life of unknown and exciting possibilities and challenges, and to flourish in the present; managing the emotional and cognitive demands, and the power dynamics, of the primary classroom; liaising with many other adults to try and meet these aims

and much more besides, to ensure that the classroom is more like a garden than a jungle, for children and teachers alike and where they become partners in each other’s learning. We shall explore how teachers can develop the types of knowledge, skills and qualities and a robust but flexible sense of identity and professionalism to enable them to fulfil this role which is, paradoxically, impossible and one which thousands of teachers manage to do, albeit with varying degrees of success. But, first, Chapter 3 considers how those with a high level of expertise do so.

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Chapter outline How those with a high level of expertise act and think Interlinked types of teacher knowledge How teachers with a high level of expertise act and think How teachers with a high level of expertise act and interact with young children

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How those with a high level of expertise act and think

To understand expertise, it is worth observing someone who is very skilled in an activity where you are not. Recently, I went birdwatching – at which I am a novice – with an experienced ornithologist who noticed, and could identify, birds of which I was not even aware. He had a good pair of binoculars and looked and listened very carefully – but his expertise consisted of much more than that. He knew the sorts of habitat to look out for, how to scan a wide area to see the types of sound and movement to notice or ignore. And he had a great deal of experience in interpreting what he saw and heard so that he could name, and give information about, particular birds and recognize what distinguished different species.

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This chapter draws on research on expertise and teacher expertise to identify key features of primary classroom teachers’ expertise (see Eaude (2012, 2014a, 2015) for more detailed discussions). Sternberg and Horvath (1995) propose that the best way to understand expertise is as a ‘prototype’ where there are broad similarities – family resemblances  – between experts in the same field but where each individual may demonstrate different behaviours and qualities. While there are some generic features of expertise in any domain, expertise is highly context-dependent and involves knowing and managing the context as well as carrying out specific tasks. Understanding expertise requires careful, in-depth analysis of how those involved act and think and take account of the context in which the role is performed. For example, riding a bicycle with increasing proficiency is not just about staying on and steering accurately, though this is necessary, but skills such as scanning, signalling and being aware of, and reacting to, what is happening around one. Teachers’ expertise has some common features, applicable across the profession, but the detail varies according to the age group, subject and setting. Much of the knowledge manifested by experts is tacit and hard to identify. Argyris and Schon (1974: 10) write that ‘tacit knowledge is what we display when we recognise one face from thousands without being able to say how we do so, when we demonstrate a skill for which we cannot state an explicit program or when we experience the intimation of a discovery we cannot put into words’. Tacit knowledge helps one to respond rapidly without conscious deliberation and is expressed and understood through embodied practices more than explicit intellectual articulations (see Polanyi, 1967). Think about an activity which you do really well and you will realize that you do not have to focus so much as when you were a novice. An experienced driver knows when to change gear and does so with little conscious thought, largely automatically. Engineers and musicians talk of ‘feel’, for their materials or for rhythms and melodies respectively. Moreover, how tacit knowledge is used is intricately bound up with one’s goals. While people may be instructed on procedures to adopt in a given situation, any individual’s own circumstances, dispositions and personality may lead him or her to take a different approach to meet these goals. To summarize, expertise is: ●

prototypical, that is, within broad, fluid boundaries to take account of individual difference and not manifested in the same way by everyone or by the same person in every situation;

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situated, that is specific to the context in which it is exercised; and mostly tacit and intuitive, so that its features are often not easily articulated either by the expert or by an observer – and become evident only with detailed thought and observation, over time.

Research on expertise, in general (e.g. Sternberg and Horvath, 1995; Glaser, 1999), identifies common features of how experts in any domain – from musicians to mountaineers, athletes to accountants – act and think. However, it tends to describe what expertise looks like rather than prescribe how it should be exercised or developed – since expertise takes many forms and there is no one route by which it is developed. Glaser (1999: 89) writes that ‘the central underlying properties or meaningful deep structure of the situation is key to experts’ perceptions, whereas the surface features and structural properties organise the less-than-expert individuals’ perceptions.’ He highlights four key areas: ● ● ● ●

the nature of practice; self-monitoring skills; principled performance; and the social context of learning. (1999: 96–100)

We shall return to these, but it is worth remembering that expertise is manifested in actions, involving the ability to recognize and change how one is acting, on the basis of principle and taking account of the context. Berliner (2001:  463–4) summarizes several propositions about expertise which Glaser believes to be defensible. Slightly shortened, these are that: ●

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expertise is specific to a domain, developed over hundreds and thousands of hours, and continues to develop; development of expertise is not linear, with plateaux occurring, indicating shifts of understanding; expert knowledge is structured better for use in performance than is novice knowledge; experts represent problems in qualitatively different – deeper and richer – ways than novices; experts recognize meaningful patterns faster than novices; experts are more flexible and more opportunistic planners and can change representations faster, when appropriate, than novices; experts impose meaning on, and are less easily misled by, ambiguous stimuli;

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experts may start to solve a problem slower than novices but overall they are faster problem-solvers; experts are usually more constrained by task requirements and the social constraints of the situation than novices (though I shall suggest that teachers with a high level of expertise take account of the task requirements and social constraints rather being constrained by them); experts develop automaticity to allow conscious processing of more complex information; and experts have developed self-regulatory processes as they engage in their activities.

Other points highlighted in Eaude (2012) are that: ● ●

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expertise is best recognized by others with similar expertise; those with a high level of expertise do (apparently) simple things well and economically; expertise is expressed and developed in ordinary, everyday actions more than extraordinary, all-singing-and-dancing displays of brilliance; experts manage to routinize aspects of what they do, without oversimplifying the task, and work flexibly, responding to events; experts are always on the lookout for new, imaginative ways to solve complex problems, while not overlooking tried and tested ones; expertise, in fluid situations, entails quick and accurate judgement which depends on a sense of agency and confidence; while experts may have natural talent, expertise still has to be learned; and the sharpness of expertise may become blunted through lack of use, though the expertises involved are not lost entirely, once internalized.

Berliner (2001: 466) emphasizes that expertise is not just a characteristic of the person, but of the interaction of the person and the environment in which they operate. The context affects how the expert can, and does, act and what works in one context may not in another. Shulman (2004) indicates that, in most professions, experts work in teams with those who have different specific skills or expertise. For instance, a surgeon relies on a whole team, including anaesthetists and specialist nurses, and an architect works with engineers, quantity surveyors and others. Different types of expertise are – or should be – mutually reinforcing, so that responsibility is collective rather than residing with one individual. This helps to reduce the sense of isolation which tends to make one more anxious and cautious when faced with uncertainty. However, teachers rarely work

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in teams, when actually teaching, and so often feel isolated in the very situation where they most need the support of others. Such considerations emphasize the importance of professional learning communities, as discussed in Chapter 9. The qualities required to manifest expertise depend on the nature of the task – and how static or fluid the situation is. Expertise operates differently in static situations, such as writing, chess or architecture, and fluid ones, such as teaching, playing sport or fighting a battle. This distinction is vital as one can, in static situations, rely on slow, careful deliberation but must, in fluid ones, make instant decisions which rely mainly on intuitive processes. In such situations, experts usually make complex decisions quickly and well, though they recognize when more deliberation is required. A sportswoman will often have to make inthe-moment decisions with little time to think of possible alternatives and their consequences. In contrast, a chess player usually has a long time to deliberate on his next move and is more likely to make mistakes when under time pressure. Teachers can deliberate about many decisions but often have to make them with little or no conscious thought, emphasizing tacit knowledge and intuition. As Mintz (2016: 287) points out, ‘[T]eachers do not have the luxury of taking 10 seconds in the midst of a classroom exchange to think about what they will say or do. Often they need to make decisions and react to events instantaneously, “in the moment” . . . (t)heir knowledge about teaching does not disappear, it is made use of unconsciously as a pre-conception.’ Chapter  7 explores the question of how teachers can learn to use informed intuition reasonably reliably. Expertise in complex situations involves balancing different considerations. For instance, contract bridge involves bidding, playing one’s hand to make a contract and defending to stop the other pair doing so. Designing a house requires the ability to meet the client’s requirements, in terms of function and looks, understand, and work within, the constraints of the local environment, planning laws and costs and balance structural, technical and aesthetic considerations. As discussed in Chapter 2, the primary classroom teacher has multiple, oftenconflicting aims and a range of dilemmas to resolve. Expertise is manifested mainly in one’s actions, rather than what one says. Many people can ‘talk a good game’ but it is much harder to act in accordance with this. While teachers may be suspicious of theory, we all have theories in the sense of a rationale for how we act, but are not always conscious of these. Theories help to explain what has happened, predict might happen and control what will happen if certain conditions are met. Argyris and Schon (1974) distinguish between espoused theories and theories-in-use. The former are what one says that one does, or should do. Theories-in-use govern how we actually

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operate and are manifest in how we act; moreover, they are protective, tending to maintain a constancy in the face of complexity. Espoused theories and theoriesin-use are often not well-matched, especially in situations where what one is supposed, or expected, to do is in conflict with one’s own beliefs and values. So, people when faced with complexity tend to adopt default positions, as a defence, making it hard to change how they act. As a result, to change theories-in-use other than temporarily requires a change of understanding, rather than only behaviour (see Argyris and Schon, 1974). We shall return to how the features of expertise highlighted in this section apply to teaching, especially with young children, but, first, consider different types of teacher knowledge.

Interlinked types of teacher knowledge Extending children’s procedural knowledge in science The teacher wants a class of 7-year-olds to work more scientifically, hypothesizing, experimenting, observing, recording and interpreting in small groups and discussing the results as a class. The first week, there is much enthusiasm, but little focus. In later weeks, children are encouraged to concentrate on one new aspect, without ignoring others. Gradually, but unevenly, over several weeks, the teacher helps to articulate what he expects and so to shape the children’s understanding of what scientific method involves.

This anecdote illustrates how a classroom teacher works over a long period, although no one incident offers more than a tiny window into the complexity of how well a teacher fulfils the role. Expertise unfolds over time, with the teacher gradually helping to shape children’s ways of working and understanding by making tasks manageable, while leaving new opportunities open. However, the story also indicates that knowledge, for children and teachers, has several types. Teacher expertise involves a wide range of interlinked types of knowledge. In Eaude (2012), I  distinguished between three main types – propositional, procedural and personal/interpersonal – arguing that there has been too much emphasis, in primary education, on the first of these, for both children and teachers.

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Let’s look at what these terms mean. We tend to equate knowledge with information. Such knowledge – the capital of France, the sum of the angles in a triangle, the name of the author of Pride and Prejudice – is propositional (factual or content) knowledge – what Polanyi (1967) calls ‘know-that’. On its own, this is of limited value. Much of our most useful knowledge is procedural, ways of working, like riding a bicycle, cooking a meal or using a mobile phone. While this may require some propositional knowledge, procedural knowledge is practical, what Polanyi calls ‘know-how’. Noddings (2013: 3) writes that ‘[t]he hand that steadied us as we learned to ride our first bicycle did not provide propositional knowledge but it guided and supported us all the same and we finished up “knowing how”’. In all areas of learning, children – and their teachers – require procedural as well as propositional knowledge, as illustrated, in relation to science, by the anecdote above. Procedural knowledge encompasses knowing both facts and which facts and skills are applicable in a particular context (see Galton et al., 1999: 185) and so is valuable particularly in performing practical activities. Personal/interpersonal knowledge relates to understanding one’s own and other people’s feelings and actions and how these interact and affect each other. Such knowledge is essential in any interactive situation, such as teaching. Because of the complexity of the primary classroom, and the emotional demands which teaching makes, knowledge of oneself, of other people and how these two interact is necessary to perform the role with a high level of expertise. Teacher knowledge is often categorized as domain and craft knowledge. In Chapter 5, I suggest that domain should not be equated with subject knowledge and that it is more helpful to think of disciplinary than subject knowledge. Craft knowledge is a distillation of practical wisdom drawn mainly from experience, supported by case knowledge. Case knowledge is based on having been in a similar situation before, informed by reflection – and usually theory – to identify the salient features and know how best to respond and avoid previous errors. Berliner (2001: 476–7) argues that ‘case knowledge is a key part of expert knowledge’, continuing that ‘problems can be classified and solution strategies proposed on the basis of previous experience . . . (and) when confronted with a new problem, an expert goes through their case knowledge and searches for what Herb Simon has called an “an old friend”, a case like the one now before them’. Alexander (2010:  417)  emphasizes that the extent to which ‘outstanding teachers draw on craft knowledge which is tacit and grounded in their unique experience rather than public and codified’ makes such knowledge hard to articulate and to learn. Teachers’ craft knowledge is the often-tacit detail

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of pedagogy to create the conditions in which young children learn, such as trusting relationships, appropriate expectations and inclusive environments; and to enable teachers to respond rapidly and appropriately, frequently using case knowledge. Case knowledge helps teachers to draw on previous experience, often unconsciously, to choose appropriate courses of action and avoid inappropriate ones. Craft and case knowledge are difficult for observers to identify and practitioners to describe because they have become unconscious and internalized; but they are particularly valuable in the constantly changing world of the primary classroom. As Atkinson (2000; and see Eraut, 2000: 260) argues, teachers need both: ●

●

the analytic and objective thinking necessary to plan what is to be learned and how it is to be taught; and the reflective thinking that is crucial to monitoring and learning from experience, emphasizing intuitive skills or attributes such as seeing patterns, fluency, flexibility, coping with complexity and being holistic and self-aware.

Therefore, teachers must plan flexibly, be aware of children’s responses, selfregulate and, where necessary, adapt how they teach. Schon’s (1987) distinction between knowing-in-action, reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action is helpful in considering the nature of teaching and how much, and when, teachers can be reflective. Knowing-in-action is automatic, bypassing conscious thought. Reflection-in-action refers to the intuitive ways of responding to a fluid situation immediately and appropriately, is one indicator of those who teach young children with a high level of expertise and is closely related to craft and case knowledge. As Brookfield (1986: 247) writes, ‘[T]he process of reflection-in-action is essentially artistic, that is the practitioners makes judgements and exercises skills for which no explicit rationale has been articulated but in which she nevertheless feels an intuitive sense of confidence.’ Reflection-on-action is a slower and more deliberate way of considering what one has done and might do differently and is useful in making decisions, when faced with a puzzling problem. We shall return to explore when these types of reflection are most useful. Elliott et al. (2011) emphasize personal and interpersonal knowledge as an essential feature of teacher expertise. Qualities such as versatility and resilience enable teachers to cope with the uncertainties of the classroom, and those such as enthusiasm and warmth to motivate and inspire children. The complexity and

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unpredictability of the primary classroom and the need to respond sensitively to children with a wide variety of backgrounds, interests and aptitudes means that personal/interpersonal knowledge matters particularly with young children and those who find learning – and life – difficult. Attunement to the emotional state of individual children and assessment of the mood of a class are among the key aspects of teacher knowledge. This book’s argument is based on the belief that teachers’ knowledge must be that of professionals, not just technicians. Winch, Oancea and Orchard (2013: 3) argue that teachers’ professional knowledge involves three linked elements, drawing on terms used in Ancient Greece, highlighted in italics: ● ● ●

situated understanding (phronesis), technical knowledge (techne), and critical reflection (episteme).

Phronesis is hard to translate but is, broadly speaking, practical wisdom, including tacit knowledge, routinized procedures and intuitive decision-making. Technical knowledge combines an ability to grasp and pursue an end, knowing both why and how to achieve this, enabling the practitioner to plan and control the learning process and explain and predict its success. Critical reflection, in Winch, Oancea and Orchard’s (2013: 4) words, ‘implies that the teachers review seriously what they have done . . . with a view to sustaining or improving their practice in the future’. Let me point out the adjectives. Understanding must be situated  – related to real contexts  – and knowledge technical, though the ethical dimension of teaching means that the knowledge required is not only technical. And reflection must be critical, both of oneself and externally set expectations, to try and ensure the well-being of those whom professionals serve, in this case the children. However, teachers require not only one or two of these types of knowledge, but a subtle combination of all three – and much else besides, including a sense of professional identity, underpinned by beliefs and values, as discussed in Chapter 8. These types of teacher knowledge are all interrelated, like gears; and teachers with a high level of expertise use them with great skill and fluency. The issue is more one of how teachers make use of different types of knowledge in how they act and how these mesh and inform each other rather than which one matters most. Subsequent chapters examine how different aspects of knowledge relevant to teaching young children can be used and developed, considering issues such as:

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the example which the teacher sets; the place, and types, of teacher expectations; and teacher beliefs and values;

all of which are more complex than may seem at first sight. However, the next section reflects on the research on how teachers with a high level of expertise act and think.

How teachers with a high level of expertise act and think Since expertise is prototypical and situated, the nature of teacher expertise differs to some extent depending on factors such as the children’s age and background and external expectations. How teacher expertise is manifested, as Elliott et al. (2011) indicate, depends on each teacher’s own circumstances, disposition and personality. Teachers, whatever age group or subject they teach, vary considerably according to temperament and style and must exercise judgement and use a wide range of methods. So, no one template of how individual teachers should act and think is appropriate, but some common features of those who fulfil the role with great skill can be identified. Bond et  al.’s research (see Berliner, 2001:  469)  identifies thirteen areas of teacher expertise, reordered and grouped in Table  3.1, under five headings. Alexander (2010: 418) indicates that these were ‘correlated with measures such as students’ higher levels of achievement, deep rather than surface understanding of subject matter, higher motivation to learn and feelings of self-efficacy’, especially with younger and low-income pupils. Table 3.1 indicates that teaching is about much more than imparting subject knowledge. While identifying broad areas of teacher expertise, it provides little guidance about what ‘better’ use of knowledge or decision-making means in teaching young children and how this can be developed. To explore this, we shall consider how teachers with a high level of expertise working with young children act, or manifest their expertise; and, so far as we can, how they think. While there is considerable overlap between the different areas, we shall discuss: ● ●

●

subject and pedagogical content knowledge in Chapter 5; setting objectives and providing feedback, understanding and responding to events and creating and sustaining an inclusive climate for learning in Chapter 6; and attitudes and beliefs in Chapter 7.

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Table 3.1 Key areas of teacher expertise Teacher knowledge • better use of knowledge • extensive pedagogical content knowledge, including deep representations of subject matter Setting objectives and providing feedback • more challenging objectives • better monitoring of learning and providing feedback to students • better adaptation and modifications of goals for diverse learners, including better skills for improvisation Understanding and responding to events • better perception of classroom events including a better ability to read cues from students • better problem-solving strategies • more frequent testing of hypotheses • better decision-making Climate and context • better classroom climate • greater sensitivity to context Attitudes and beliefs • greater respect for students • display of more passion for teaching

Shulman (2004: 396) writes that ‘most of the embarrassments of pedagogy that I encounter are not the inability of teachers to teach well, for an hour or even a day. Rather they flow from an inability to sustain episodes of teaching and learning over time that unfold, accumulate, into meaningful understanding in students’. It is not possible for anyone to be at the top of their game the whole time, but expertise resides in a longer, more subtle process. Teacher expertise, especially with a class over a year, does not consist in teaching one outstanding single lesson, but weaving together a coherent set of experiences which enhance children’s learning, in depth and over time. This accords with Cooper and McIntyre’s (1996: 78–82) insight that the skilled teachers whom they studied balanced long-term aims, over an extended time scale, with short-term objectives. While such teachers may focus their own and their children’s efforts, on a particular skill or activity, they see, and work towards, the big picture, laying the foundations for the future, rather than aiming only for short-term results.

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Expertise in complex situations such as teaching involves not just achieving externally set aims but deciding how to keep changing what one does to meet multiple, often-conflicting aims. Argyris and Schon (1974: 16–19) explain this using the idea of single- and double-loop feedback. In a heating system, the former operates when a thermostat opens or closes in response to a change of temperature. The latter takes place when the householder alters settings on the thermostat and changes the governing variables. In relation to teaching, singleloop feedback involves adopting strategies to achieve predetermined aims, perhaps using a particular approach to help children decode words to help them to pass a test designed to measure their ability to do this. Double-loop feedback might entail encouraging and enabling children to work more independently, or more collaboratively, so changing the aims as well as how to achieve existing aims. Teaching with a high level of expertise involves constant consideration of both aims and methods, not just using what works – or is claimed to – without taking account of broader, less immediate aims. Sternberg and Horvath (1995: 12) suggest that expert teachers are proficient at ‘working the system’ to obtain needed services for their students, adding that ‘such practical ability or “savvy” is a nontrivial component of teaching effectiveness’. If so, such teachers do not just comply with what they are told, when this is not in the children’s best interests, but may bend the rules and exercise their autonomy. This may entail complying with external expectations when necessary, but not, or only to some extent, when the teacher’s informed judgement suggests that doing so does not contribute to the children’s long-term needs and overall well-being. So, teachers with a high level of expertise recognize the requirements of the task and possible constraints but are not always constrained by them. As Day (1999: 53) suggests, ‘[A]n expert can be defined as one who works on the leading edge of his or her knowledge and skill. Thus an expert seeks progressively to complicate the model of the problem to be solved whereas an experienced non-expert seeks to reduce the problem to fit available methods.’ Therefore, expertise is not manifested, or developed, by avoiding difficulties, by a musician leaving out the tricky sections of a piece, a gymnast restricting himself to simple exercises or a doctor ignoring puzzling symptoms. Teachers are always tinkering and tweaking what they do. Those with a high level of expertise constantly adjust how they present tasks or material, taking account of children’s responses and their own case knowledge. As Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: 54) point out, ‘[E]xpert teachers are always consolidating what they know to be effective, testing it and continually adding to it.’ Rather than merely complying,

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teachers must experiment, and feel able to do so without the fear of severe consequences if things go wrong. This emphasizes the importance of the context in which teachers work, and the extent to which they are trusted and enabled to take risks, or expected to comply with a particular pedagogy or way of working. Elliott et al. (2011: 98), discussing their research, suggest that [p]erhaps most surprising is the finding that experienced teachers and novices do not differ significantly in terms of the capacity to identify good solutions to situational problems, but rather they differ significantly in their skills at identifying poor solutions to these same problems. This finding suggests that tacit knowledge in this particular domain is not so much a matter of learning how best to approach a problem so much as it is about learning how to avoid making a really bad decision.

In other words, teacher expertise involves committing fewer bad mistakes rather than doing something out of the ordinary or teaching an outstanding lesson. Teachers with a high level of expertise steer with great skill the tricky course between ensuring that the learning environment and tasks are manageable, for themselves and the children, and responding to the unpredictability of learning and helping children to do so. In balancing these, they avoid what Sawyer (2004:  13)  calls ‘scripted instruction’, but rather exercise ‘disciplined improvisation’, making judgements which often rely strongly on intuition. Doing so requires a wide repertoire of pedagogies and the ability to select from these as appropriate, not only in advance, but on the hoof, rather like an actor learning his lines but then working out practically how to portray the character (see Heilbronn, 2008: 96–7). Alexander (2008: 36) highlights two main styles of teaching:  didactic where the teacher is largely in control, and exploratory which places the learner centrestage. Some tasks require more direction, others less, but teachers with a high level of expertise look to follow children’s interests and lines of thought and relinquish some control, where possible. Teaching with a high level of expertise is more about engaging children in learning, and enabling them to self-regulate, than seeking to control their behaviour. This entails a move from adults always determining what happens towards children’s greater participation and agency, so that children’s voices are really heard and they can exercise genuine choice. The teacher remains in control, but without being controlling, and tends to use styles of teaching where children increasingly become ‘co-agents’ in their own learning, actively involved in the planning of activities and how these are carried out.

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Teachers have to make learning manageable and comprehensible for a particular child or group. A vital aspect of teacher expertise is pitching tasks so that they are challenging but not too demanding, ensuring that activities are in what Vygotsky (1978) called the child’s Zone of Proximal Development, the area just beyond the individual’s current abilities, where s/he is not quite able to manage the task independently, but can do so with support. Scaffolding learning (see Eaude, 2011: 125–8) involves a more experienced learner providing temporary support, but without reducing the level of cognitive challenge. This avoids two dangers – one of the teacher doing too much and the children too little, the other of learners being expected to cope with tasks which are too hard or too many things at once. The first tends towards spoon-feeding and dependence, the latter towards confusion. Routine is paradoxical in relation to teaching. In the face of complexity, teachers with a high level of expertise make the situation manageable for themselves operating in ways such as adopting routinized patterns of working so that they are not overwhelmed by the difficulty of the task. As a result, they do not have to concentrate on mundane issues, such as finding pencils or dealing constantly with low-level misbehaviour, and so can pay attention to the subtler aspects of pedagogy, such as noticing and interpreting children’s responses. But such teachers do not oversimplify or place undue restrictions on what, and how, children learn, and they remain open to some disruption of their current patterns of acting and thinking. Rather than limiting opportunities for divergence and creativity by being too controlling, teachers with a high level of expertise keep options open, both for themselves and for the children.

How teachers with a high level of expertise act and interact with young children Alexander (2000) provides a detailed discussion of considerable differences between what counted as good primary-age teaching in five different systems. For instance, teachers in Russia mostly employed whole-class discussions, those in India relied mainly on a didactic approach and those in (parts of) the United States allowed and encouraged more independent exploration, at that time. Primary classroom teachers with a high level of expertise all work differently, depending on the culture and traditions of systems and schools in which they work, as well their own personalities and styles; and they may be hard pressed to explain why they acted as they did, or what they were thinking. However, this

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section identifies some common features of how they act and think, drawing on the previous discussion, as a foundation for the consideration in Part Two of how the expertises are developed. One important element of expertise is being able to deal with unexpected challenges and difficulties and create and exploit opportunities. So, in considering how those with a high level of expertise in teaching young children act and think we must bear in mind how young children learn, the nature of the role and the dynamics of the primary classroom and external expectations. All of these affect profoundly how teachers are enabled, or otherwise, to manifest their expertise. In Shulman’s (2004:  444)  words, ‘[T]he essential aspect of teaching is its uncertainty and unpredictability.’ Teachers, especially in primary schools, are often expected to make the complex task of teaching simple. In many respects, this is sensible, even necessary, but, as we have seen, there are strong pressures to oversimplify – and narrow – young children’s learning, some because of how classrooms work, some as a result of external expectations. Teachers can respond by simplifying how they teach, but the danger is this reduces the excitement and the depth of children’s learning. Or they can live with complexity, but this risks causing confusion and possibly chaos, for children and teachers alike. As indicated, displaying greater respect for students and passion for teaching are two key aspects of teacher expertise. When teaching young children, greater respect involves: ●

●

● ●

recognizing the difficulties children face as inexperienced learners, without dismissing them as incapable; showing sensitivity about children’s lives and the significant difficulties which many of them face out of school; valuing children’s culture and background; and taking account of, and drawing on, children’s ‘funds of knowledge’, including those not traditionally associated with school learning and often not regarded as important in schools (see Gonzales, Moll and Amanti, 2005).

Many young children who are active learners before going to school, and outside school, become disengaged from the type of learning they encounter at school. Understanding the context and culture in which individual children grow up is a vital component of teacher expertise. For teachers to draw on children’s funds of knowledge and help them to make connections between what they know already and new ideas implies that teachers must know about their

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lives and interests outside as well as within school. While children’s background should not be an excuse for low expectations or levels of achievement, their teachers must take account of factors affecting how they learn and the cultural capital they bring (see Eaude, 2011: 85–8). This matters particularly with children for whom school is a place where they do not easily understand the (often implicit) rules of how school operates. Teaching with a high level of expertise does not entail following someone else’s rules slavishly. Learning to teach may require the application of set rules, particularly at first, but increasing expertise involves a gradual move towards working in line with more general maxims to be adapted and applied to one’s own context. For instance, while all children rightly expect to be treated fairly, this does not mean treating everyone the same; and, just as it may often be appropriate to set different groups more or less challenging tasks, it may often be reasonable to treat different groups differently, as long as this is not based on factors such as gender, ethnicity or attainment, and is not discriminatory, over time. The complexity of the primary classroom teacher’s role and the multiple aims involved mean that teachers require a wide repertoire of pedagogies – a toolkit from which one can select the appropriate tools depending on what one wants to achieve in any lesson or with a particular individual or group. Teachers with a high level of expertise choose which are appropriate and use these, moving between them, with little apparent effort, even when under pressure. Acting in this way requires teachers to draw fluidly and confidently on a wide repertoire of pedagogies, exercising professional judgement and the freedom to exercise such judgement, based on sensitivity to culture and context. Primary classroom teachers with a high level of expertise have a deep knowledge of child development and how young children learn. They recognize that education extends beyond what is learned at school and that what teachers intend to teach is not always what children learn, with much learning occurring indirectly. While talk is a vital element in how young children learn, they learn through activity, image and perception much more, and this continues for longer than adults tend to realize. Active experience and re-presentation of experience through their actions, drawings and speech, rather than listening, is essential to help young children, especially those who find learning difficult, to learn more deeply. Moreover, in Vygotsky’s words (cited in Derry, 2008: 54) ‘[D]irect instruction in concepts is impossible . . . The teacher who attempts to use the approach achieves nothing but a mindless learning of words.’ As Gipps and

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MacGilchrist (1999: 47) write, ‘[I]solated facts, if learnt, quickly disappear from the memory because they have no meaning and do not fit into the learners’ conceptual map. Knowledge learnt in this way is of limited use because it is difficult for it to be applied, generalized or retrieved.’ Concepts and skills are learned and refined by applying them, rather than in isolation; and activity, imagination and children’s talk are crucial in enabling this. This echoes the prescient, but now overlooked, warning in the 1985 Government White Paper ‘Better Schools’ (cited in Alexander, 2010: 243) that many children are still given too little opportunity for work in practical, scientific and aesthetic areas of the curriculum which increases not only their understanding in these areas but also their literacy and numeracy . . . Over-concentration on the practice of the basic skills in literacy and numeracy unrelated to a context in which they are needed means that those skills are insufficiently extended and applied.

Therefore, teachers must be allowed and encouraged to help children to apply skills in different contexts, and deviate from the written curriculum, rather than be confined by a straitjacket of having to deliver content and teach in a particular way. In an early draft of this book, I tried to list what primary classroom teachers with a high level of expertise do, but this proved impossible because they do so many and varied things. As we shall see, the detail of how such teachers act and interact really matters, rather than just what they do. I suggested, tentatively, in Eaude (2012: 56), twelve propositions about how teachers with a high level of expertise in working with young children act and think. Slightly amended, these are that they: 1. are more concerned with a broad range of pedagogical content knowledge and ways of working and thinking within disciplines than just with subject knowledge; 2. seek to match activities and experiences to children’s current level of understanding, but allow scope for individuals and groups to adapt these; 3. regard assessment, especially in-the-moment, and disciplined improvisation, rather than planning with predetermined outcomes, as integral to teaching; 4. adopt a range of pedagogies, depending on what is to be learned, but with a strong element of apprenticeship, enabling children to be active and take increasing control of their learning;

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5. are attuned to the emotional and cognitive needs, both of individuals and of the whole class, to inform both planning and methods of feedback; 6. create and sustain, over time, an inclusive learning environment sensitive to, and respectful of, children’s culture and background, but helping to expand their cultural horizons; 7. provide a broad and challenging range of activities, experiences and opportunities to sustain children’s interest and to broaden, strengthen and deepen, the skills, qualities and dispositions associated with lifelong learning; 8. encourage risk-taking and creativity, both independently and in groups, but protect children, especially the least resilient, from the emotional cost of failure; 9. seek to understand and influence, rather than control, children’s behaviour, recognizing the many factors which affect this and the importance of caring relationships; 10. recognize that education involves multiple, and often conflicting, aims and maintain an emphasis on children’s long-term needs, helping to encourage intrinsic motivation; 11. believe that every child can achieve more than s/he thinks they can, and encourage and support them in having and meeting broad as well as high aspirations; 12. have the confidence to make their own professional, and informed, judgements, both long term and in-the-moment, in response to the group’s needs, rather than simply to comply. I would now add that such teachers: ●

●

●

value children’s ‘funds of knowledge’ – those types of knowledge which all children bring from their lives outside school; relinquish some control, exerting authority but without over-controlling; and question received wisdom about fundamental ideas such as ability and intelligence.

In Eaude (2014a), I drew on this list to devise a more detailed typology, highlighting links between elements of teacher knowledge, why these matter and the teacher qualities to be developed. This is included as an Appendix, which may be useful for some readers.

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While you may think that little in the list above and the typology distinguishes teaching a class of primary-age children from other age groups, whether older or younger, I believe that these provide clues as to the subtle aspects of how primary classroom teachers with a high level of expertise act and think. They structure their subject knowledge skilfully, depending on the children’s age, prior knowledge and interests, and use a complex mixture of craft and case knowledge, much of it tacit, to engage and motivate children. Such teachers manifest not only technical competence and knowledge of the subject matter, but also knowledge of how young children learn and of themselves and their strengths and weaknesses and what energizes and provokes them. In Part Two, I elaborate on these points and suggest how teachers, especially those relatively new to the profession, can be helped increasingly to manifest and refine these interlinked types of knowledge.

Part Two

Developing Expertise as a Primary Classroom Teacher

Part One has considered the context in which primary classroom teachers work, what the role entails and how those with a high level of expertise act and think. The next four chapters discuss in more detail the types of knowledge involved and how these can be developed. Before this, I highlight two somewhat uncomfortable implications and offer a cautionary note. The first implication results from expertise as a primary classroom teacher being learned over a long period, with many different strands which, inevitably, develop at different rates. Any individual will have greater skill in some aspects of pedagogy – such as explaining an idea, enabling a discussion or responding to disruptive behaviour – than others; and will teach some subjects and children better than others. Different people will vary in how easy they find it to learn these aspects, though some are temperamentally more suited to teaching a class of young children. It does not follow that some are ‘naturals’ and do not have to work at refining their expertise; or that others are not and cannot improve. Relatively few people, if any, are going to acquire a high level of expertise in every respect. But everyone can, and should, strive to increase their level of expertise in different aspects of the role – practising their strengths and trying to improve in other areas. The second implication is that, in teaching, as with playing a musical instrument, or a sport, expertise can become blunted through lack of use. The expertises involved, once internalized, are not lost entirely and can usually be resharpened fairly quickly. However, they have to be constantly refined and refreshed, especially when applied in new contexts. For primary classroom teachers, this involves working at the detail of pedagogy, including classroom

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management, while considering the bigger picture of enhancing children’s overall, long-term well-being, rather than just focusing on academic attainment and immediate results. The journey is an individual and mysterious one, with many elements which cannot be anticipated. In some respects, we do not really know how the subtle combination of expertises required to teach young children are acquired. While one may wonder about the extent to which these can be learned, or taught, many apparently ordinary people somehow manage to acquire and exercise them without necessarily knowing how they do so. How this is best done depends on, and involves, a subtle interweaving of many processes, including practice, experience, example, observation of others, instruction, experimenting, making mistakes, responding to feedback, reflection, reading, questioning, articulating and discussing, and on the environments and relationships which set the conditions for these processes. The next four chapters consider these and suggest how the dilemmas and challenges involved can be resolved and opportunities taken.

4

An Overview of the Development of Teacher Expertise

Chapter outline How expertise in fluid situations is learned How teacher expertise is learned and embedded over time The role of research and data Processes to support the development of teacher expertise

71 76 80 84

One must learn by doing the thing, for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try. —Sophocles

How expertise in fluid situations is learned In thinking how the expertises to operate skilfully in fluid situations, like teaching, are learned, and refined, let us remember that: ●

●

expertise is specific to a domain, developed over hundreds and thousands of hours, and continues to develop; and development of expertise is not linear, with plateaux occurring, indicating shifts of understanding.

Research such as Berliner (2001) indicates that expertise takes a long time to learn and requires constant updating. However much some people seem to

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be ‘born’ athletes, musicians or teachers, acquiring expertise involves sustained hard work. For sportspeople and musicians, the figure of 10,000 hours of high quality, focused practice is often used, so that responses become automatic (or embedded in ‘muscle memory’). And Berliner (2004:  201)  cites research that radiologists were estimated to have looked at 100,000 X-rays before becoming expert at interpreting them. Berliner (2004: 204–205) summarizes Glaser’s theory that the development of expertise involves a change of agency over time, through three broad stages: ●

●

●

externally supported, where the novice learns primarily from others in a structured environment; transitional, where there is guided practice to enable more self-monitoring and self-regulation, adopting an apprenticeship approach; self-regulatory, where those developing expertise increasingly control their own learning environments, choose their own challenges and receive appropriate feedback.

Glaser’s emphasis on agency indicates the importance of teachers retaining some control over how they operate. Those with little experience are likely to need, and rely more on, the structure and support provided by rules, policies and other colleagues. But rules and policies become constraining as expertise grows and those who just follow the rules will not move beyond a restricted level of expertise. The terminology of novice and expert tends to imply that any individual falls into just one category at any one time, whereas any complex activity involves several different strands. However good one’s overall performance, levels of expertise vary between these strands. Even in those areas where one operates skilfully most of the time performance may fluctuate depending on the specific task and other factors. A footballer may be better at marking or tackling than at distribution or scoring goals – or vice versa – and one teacher may be skilled at explaining or assessing, another at exploiting unexpected opportunities or planning. Everyone has ‘off-days’ whether because they are ill or upset or just not at the top of their game. Inevitably, these strands are learned at different rates and no individual can work consciously on all simultaneously. Table 4.1 provides another, five-stage, summary of the types of strategy, approach and characteristic involved in developing expertise, which the Cambridge Primary Review relates to teaching. One key insight of the Cambridge Primary Review (2010: 416–18), indicated by Table 4.1, is that teachers with a high level of expertise seem to act and think

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Table 4.1 Strategies, approaches and characteristics in developing expertise Stage

Strategies

Novice

Context-free rules and guidelines Advanced Practical case beginner knowledge Competent Discrimination of what matters or not Proficient

Expert

Accumulated case knowledge enabling key points to be noticed Deep reserves of tacit knowledge

Overall approach

Characteristic

Relatively inflexible, limited skill Use of rules qualified by greater understanding of conditions Conscious choices, but not yet fast, fluid or flexible Degree of intuition based on prediction of pupil response

Deliberate

Apparently effortless, fluid, instinctive, though able to fall back on deliberate, analytical approach

Insightful

Rational

Intuitive

Arational

Adapted from Alexander (2010: 416–17).

in subtly different ways from novices, rather than just doing the same things better, or quicker. Table 4.1 illustrates the elusiveness of expertise, notably in terms of the characteristics, from acting deliberately (and by implication more slowly) through to intuitive and even arational responses. Simple techniques and maxims may be – and often are – useful reminders, but teaching with a high level of expertise requires a deeper understanding of the role of pedagogy and the contexts in which different children live and learn. And the various, interlinked types of knowledge must be internalized so that these can be used in practice with little or no conscious effort. Expertise is not learned in a linear way. Plateaux and troughs are inevitable. So, any model of professional learning based closely on distinct stages is too simple and unlikely to be successful in a policy context where pedagogy is highly regulated and support for newly qualified teachers often patchy. But Glaser’s three stages and Table 4.1 provide convenient ways of thinking about broad areas on which teachers and teacher educators should focus. Bodman, Taylor and Morris (2012) call for conceptual rather than linear models of professional learning, emphasizing understanding, applying and so internalizing key ideas rather than accumulating propositional knowledge and techniques. If teacher education is to enable teachers to adapt to changing

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circumstances, teachers must be helped to internalize concepts – and develop qualities – by articulating, and reconstructing, their own understanding of how to enhance children’s learning, drawing on their own experience and that of others, with opportunities for consolidation as well as challenge. We have seen that much of the knowledge associated with expertise is tacit. The emphasis on how an activity is carried out is vital in understanding how tacit knowledge is learned. Applying tacit knowledge involves making judgements according to the context rather than just following rules. Polanyi’s (1967) metaphor of tacit knowledge as the space between rules and performance indicates how an undue emphasis on rules or performance (or both) restricts the opportunities to use, and reduces the need to refine, professional judgement. As Elliott et  al. (2011:  85)  indicate, summarizing Sternberg’s work, tacit knowledge is acquired without a high degree of direct input from others, from the individual’s experience of operating within a given context, rather than direct instruction. While experience is necessary, such learning depends on the individual’s capacity and willingness to learn from that experience. To internalize learning more deliberately, and embed it in long-term memory, experience must be re-presented by, rather than just presented to, the learner. Bruner (2006, vol. 1: 69) categorizes three main modes of re-presenting experience: ● ● ●

enactive, through actions; iconic, through visual means; and symbolic, through using symbols, especially language.

Kolb (1984) indicates that learning must integrate different modes, including sensory experiences. Underpinning information and theory is necessary, but deep learning is not solely, or even mainly, a matter of cognition. The gap between knowing and doing is far greater than that between knowing and notknowing. While adults are more experienced, and usually better, than children at using language, much of the learning associated with expertise requires enactment, not just thinking or discussing, though both are valuable. Expertise in practical, fluid activities like teaching is learned mainly through practice, and adaptation, doing the task repeatedly and skilfully, to make actions habitual, while remaining able to respond to unexpected events. In Bateson’s words, ‘[P]ractice . . . enables you to put the pieces of instruction together to form patterns’ (see Bateson and Bateson, 1988: 63). Practice is essential, but only if one practices the right things, skilfully, and experiments, without being afraid of making, and learning from, mistakes or being punished for failure.

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Bransford et  al. (2005:  69), citing Thorndike, write that ‘practice does not make perfect unless there is opportunity for feedback to improve’, with such feedback coming initially from others and increasingly from oneself. However, Bateson (see Bateson and Bateson 1988: 42–6) discusses two different types of action and how they are learned, contrasting how to shoot at a fixed target and a moving one such as a bird. When shooting at a fixed target, one can adjust one’s aim deliberately on the basis of feedback about the accuracy of a previous shot, having time to adjust one’s aim. This does not work with a moving target, where the movement of aiming and firing must be a whole, single action, based on intuition, experience and practice to form good habits. When aiming at a fixed target, one can use information, as feedback, to correct one’s aim after the event. But, with a moving target, concentrating on every small action may stop one from acting fluently. One has no time to correct one’s aim consciously and so has to rely on habit and internal response mechanisms. Bateson calls this calibration, indicating how skills and knowledge must be learned and applied fluently in context if they are to become embedded, highlighting the value of experience and case knowledge (see Bateson and Bateson 1988: 44–6). Paradoxically, one must break teaching down into its constituent parts to know what to work at, but practice teaching as a whole activity. Teaching a class of young children is a very fluid situation, when done with a high level of expertise, more like aiming at a moving target than a fixed one. Since many of the decisions involved have to be taken rapidly, teachers must search for fluency and automaticity. However, while much of the learning involves calibration rather than deliberation, these distinctions are not clearcut as teaching often requires rapid and accurate deliberation about what to do next. Some types of knowledge are learned, or picked up through involvement in a culture, as if by osmosis, rather than individual and deliberate effort. In Argyris and Schon’s (1974: 14) words, ‘[M]uch learning takes places through imitation, without any verbal intervention’, where less experienced people learn from – and with – others, particularly those with greater experience and/or expertise. However, as Edwards (2015: 50) points out, ‘[W]e do learn by example, but what we learn will depend on what we are capable of recognising in the example we are observing and we will need help with drawing new connections from what we have observed.’ Complex, practical activities are usually best learned by what Rogoff (1990) calls guided participation or an apprenticeship model. The relationships implicit in an apprenticeship model help to make explicit, and so to develop, tacit knowledge, with less skilled and experienced people

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learning from a more skilled and experienced one, mainly through observation and imitation. The more skilled person models the activity, the other observes and tries it out, adapting what is seen where appropriate. In Rogoff ’s (1990: 39) words, ‘[S]killed partners may . . . help novices with difficult problems by structuring subgoals of problem solving to focus the novice on a manageable aspect of the problem,’ with other features of guided participation routine activities, tacit as well as explicit communication, supportive structuring of novices’ effort and transfer of responsibility. An apprenticeship model is a key way of teachers learning to act and think with growing expertise. One feature of apprenticeship is that the novice is treated ‘as if capable’, though requiring support. A second is the change of agency and control, over a long period of time, from master to novice, as the latter gradually gains more skill and confidence. A third is that apprenticeship does not necessarily involve only one expert and one novice. As Rogoff (1990: 39) suggests, ‘[T]he apprenticeship system often involves a group of novices . . . who serve as resources for one another in exploring the new domain and aiding and challenging one another.’

How teacher expertise is learned and embedded over time This section explores the ways in which the considerations above apply to how teacher expertise is learned, drawing on an apprenticeship model. The strategies, approaches and characteristics highlighted in Table 4.1 are elements of an emerging, continually shifting, narrative which helps to describe teacher expertise and to shape their professional identities. Chapter 8 emphasizes how the beliefs and values associated with teacher identity provide a foundation for how teachers act and think with a sense of agency, in uncertain times and changing situations. For now, it is worth noting Bransford, Darling-Hammond and LePage’s (2005: 21) conclusion that ‘it is the combination of several kinds of knowledge with practical skills that sets professionals apart and that makes the influence of narrow elements of professional knowledge difficult to study.’ And, as Kennedy (2005: 247) indicates, the key characteristic of a transformative model of professional learning may be the effective integration of different models and processes together with an awareness of issues of power. Just as there is no one template of being a teacher with a high level of expertise, there is no single or simple route to becoming one.

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Berliner (2001: 477) suggests that becoming an expert teacher takes at least four and a half years, though this, inevitably, depends on how expertise is defined and tends to see expertise as a fixed state, rather than on a range of spectra, along which teachers are constantly moving, often unevenly and not always in the right direction. The length of time spent teaching matters less than how long teachers spend actively practicing teaching with a high level of expertise and thereby learning to do so. Teacher expertise must be developed, refined and regularly refreshed on a continuum over time. However, the complexity of the teacher’s role and its multiple aims mean that how to use items in the toolbox of pedagogies will be learned, and refined, at different speeds, in varying ways, over time. For teachers to be expected to continue to act and think in the same way whatever their level of experience and expertise is a recipe for stagnation and disillusionment. Clark (2015:  108)  highlights teachers’ preference for prescriptive and precise instructions on how to implement new classroom practices as a significant source of conceptual challenge associated with the process of change. Such a preference may, in part, be associated with teachers’ lack of confidence in their own professionalism, but it presents a serious problem. Teachers may prefer simple, technique-based courses, but benefit more from longer, more sustained and challenging opportunities. But teacher education must focus on what teachers need, not just what they prefer. Hammerness et al. (2005) outline, and discuss, three main problems for those learning how to teach, especially at first: 1. 2. 3.

learning to think about teaching in ways different from what they experienced as students; enactment, that is not just understanding cerebrally what to do but actually doing it; and complexity, highlighting teachers’ need to develop metacognitive habits of mind and to learn to feedback to themselves and self-regulate, which requires an ability to observe oneself as a teacher.

Overcoming these is demanding for any teacher. However, the first is particularly hard for those working with young children, given the length of time since they were at primary school. As Hammerness et al. (2005: 368–9) suggest, drawing on Kennedy’s work, many of the ideas and concepts involved already seem familiar to students, making a more nuanced understanding difficult for those preparing to become teachers. This may be no less tricky, possibly more

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so, for teachers already in service if they have become used to one particular way of teaching. Embedding new procedural knowledge such as that used in teaching reciprocally involves enactment, rather than just a change of cognitive understanding. It requires the imagination to see what might happen differently and opportunities, with guidance and support, to experiment and establish new, more appropriate ‘habits of mind’, rather than the ‘mindless habits’ of teachers who have become set in their ways. This is hard without an alternative vision of what teaching a class of young children might entail, particularly if one style of teaching is expected. Although the complexity of the primary classroom tends to encourage those new to teaching to focus on pre-planned activities, teachers must learn increasingly to observe themselves and to adapt their teaching accordingly. As Hammerness et al. (2005: 374) suggest, citing Schon, much of what is useful in terms of teachers’ learning emerges in the context of practice (see also Macbeath, 2012). But Hordern (2014:  236)  highlights, citing Bernstein, that teachers, especially when inexperienced, need both ●

●

recognition rules, to know what good teaching looks like and what to aim for; and realization rules, to know the steps necessary to achieve this.

Relatively new teachers find it hard to recognize what to concentrate on, one reason why the guidance and advice of colleagues is invaluable in knowing what to practice, recalling Edwards’s point, above, that this may have to be made explicit. Even harder is actually enacting new ideas, though regular practice in doing so with increasing expertise helps embed this. Habituation helps teachers to avoid cognitive overload and concentrate on what matters most, but habits, both good and bad, become embedded by repetition. Like any other group, teachers must be challenged if they are not to be dominated by habit or even complacency. External challenge may be necessary to alter incompetent or lazy behaviour, but challenges which are self-generated, or willingly taken on, are more likely to enhance the subtler aspects of teaching than those externally imposed. Constant challenge is exhausting, leads to defensiveness and does not enable new ideas to be internalized, practices consolidated and confidence built. So, challenge should be periodic rather than constant. Shulman (2004: 258–64) indicates how difficult it is for teachers to change their habits and behaviours, such as pausing after asking a question, even when they try to. It is the subliminal, only partly conscious, and habitual nature of how teachers work which makes it so difficult to alter how they teach. As discussed

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in Chapter 3, theories-in-use are constructed, often unconsciously, to help one to explain, predict and control; and so protect one from change. Theories are constructs, which are convenient and economical, but to understand what they entail in practice and so enable change, theories-in-use must be taken apart and examined and reassembled and tested out through practical application. In Bransford et al.’s (2005: 41) words, ‘[B]y making tacit theories explicit, people can think more critically about them.’ To do so, and identify the strands of teacher knowledge to be developed, one must move beyond and beneath generalities and clichés often evident in espoused theories and articulate the detail of how teachers with a high level of expertise act and think. For a teacher to articulate what she, or other teachers, do and why, helps to make tacit knowledge visible and to internalize her expertise, in both senses of ‘articulate’:  making explicit and breaking into segments. Embedding new learning takes time. Recently, a teacher in a school where I had led sessions over several years commented how her understanding of spirituality had gradually shifted without her quite noticing it. Even so, I  do not know how much this had changed her practice. No short course of training will equip anyone fully, however talented academically or good at relating to children, to teach with a high level of expertise. So, the idea of student teachers being ‘outstanding’ (except in the sense of being outstanding considering an individual’s level of experience) is nonsense. Particularly significant, given the brevity of most Initial Teacher Education courses, is the induction, early-career phase, in the first few years after qualification, roughly encompassing Glaser’s transitional stage. Supported practice in this phase is regarded as vital in professions such as medicine and the law. Frequently, newly qualified teachers lack sufficient support for the apprenticeship model to work as it should. When combined with other factors such as stress and lack of agency, it is no surprise that so many leave the profession in the first few years after qualification. Collins and Evans (2007) argue that acquiring expertise is a social process, which happens best in a community of practitioners. Teachers can refine the types of knowledge associated with expertise and professional judgement as individuals, but involvement in a supportive professional learning community, with guidance, makes doing so easier and its effect more lasting. Chapter 9 discusses professional learning communities and how mentors can provide such guidance. Opportunities to develop expertise can be formal or informal. Formal opportunities include attending courses, but these are more influential when part of a sustained programme relating theory to practice, rather than just one-off,

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decontextualized events focused on meeting current requirements. Joint planning and discussions of children’s work, such as moderating assessments, provide valuable chances to learn from each other, particularly when focused on learning and teaching processes rather than just outcomes. Professional development days and staff meetings are more valuable when they involve discussion of pedagogy rather than just administration. While such structured, formal opportunities are important, one should not underestimate informal interactions, such as when someone offers a supportive comment or a word of advice, often during a conversation in the corridor or the staffroom. Heilbronn (2008: 114–15) is dismissive of the idea of teachers as apprentices if this just involves copying someone else, preferring a reflective practitioner model. As Hordern (2014: 243) suggests, ‘[P]rofessional judgement is surely limited if it relies solely on imitating others, without a full examination of the reasoning behind the practice.’ One should be wary of an apprenticeship model if this implies just copying other teachers, without theoretical knowledge to provide wider and deeper foundations. However, as Maynard and Furlong (1995: 17) argue, different models – apprenticeship, competency and reflective practitioner – are not mutually exclusive. I describe the model of how teacher expertise and the associated professional knowledge are best learned as one of enriched apprenticeship. To explore what this means, the next section considers how research and data should inform teaching and teacher education.

The role of research and data The BERA/RSA (2014:  10)  report argues that teachers as professionals must build the capacity to integrate knowledge from different sources, and apply and adopt these in practice, linking subject and pedagogical knowledge, practical experience and what the report calls ‘research literacy’ – familiarity with a range of research methods, the latest research findings and the implications for their day-to-day teaching. The report calls for preparation for teaching to be more research-rich, recommending a clinical practice approach, as in medical training. Broadly, this is the approach advocated in this book, as applied to primary classroom teachers. However, this section explores why the use of research and data is more problematic than it seems. One long-standing debate relates to how teachers, who are practical and busy people, should relate to research. There seems to me no question that

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teachers should engage with, and take account of, research by reading, and learning to critique, research, and thinking how this should inform their teaching. Who would trust a doctor unfamiliar with up to date research on disease prevention or drugs? Or a lawyer whose knowledge of the law was out of date? Winch, Oancea and Orchard (2013: 2) suggest that ‘research can contribute to teachers’ technical knowledge by offering them warrants for action, reference points for decisions and practical toolboxes’. But, as Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: 29) point out, ‘[I]ndependent evidence is important in teaching, as in any other profession, but the role of evidence can be exaggerated, failing to acknowledge the role that experience and intuition play in decision making, usually in combination with external evidence but sometimes in ways that challenge this.’ They go on to outline several pitfalls with approaches which claim to be research-based (2012: 47–8) and add that professional expertise is not just about being aware of evidence, but knowing how to judge the evidence and what to do with it (54). Students in Initial Teacher Education are usually introduced to theorists such as Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner, though there is little scope for detailed discussion of psychology, or the history, philosophy or sociology of education. However, most primary classroom teachers, once they are in-service, find it difficult, or are unwilling, to engage in depth with research, and read few books or articles. Therefore, many have little more than a passing knowledge of recent research and may misinterpret its findings, especially if these are reduced to ‘tips for teachers’, and are often wary of research itself. Let us think why, apart from workload and external prescription, both of which are powerful influences, and the tendency for research to be written in inaccessible language. Teaching is a practical activity and teachers understandably want to know ‘what works’ and the direct implications for planning and teaching, but research findings are rarely clear-cut as to what teachers should do. The process is a longer, more circuitous one, dependent on how teachers internalize and use ideas. Practical problems are specific, whereas theory is general and has to be related to the particular context. What works for one teacher in one situation may not for others in other contexts – or even for the same teacher with another group. Moreover, ‘what works’ in the short term may have an adverse consequence not only for children but for developing teacher expertise. For instance, managing behaviour by fear or punishment, however understandable – and all teachers have done it on occasions  – does not help teachers to practice other ways of engaging

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and motivating children; and spending a long time preparing children for tests inhibits children’s deeper learning and teachers exploring how best to enable this. So, the idea of ‘what works’ in teaching, however appealing, is problematic. The difficulty of using theoretical evidence are illustrated by my efforts to understand how best to teach young bilingual children. As headteacher of a school where this really mattered, I became very interested in, and learned a great deal about, children with English as an additional language, and how to teach them, at least in theory. I understood the difference between functional and technical language  – basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP)  – and how the latter takes much longer to acquire. I knew the value of teachers presenting material in several different ways and giving opportunities for emerging bilinguals to rehearse what they might say before expecting them to speak in public. But because I did not teach regularly enough, I never enacted and internalized these ideas so that I actually became skilled at teaching a class with many children in the early stages of learning English. In contrast, many teachers, although they knew less of the theory, were far better at actually doing so, though their teaching was enriched by a greater understanding of theory and how this could be applied. Engaging in research, for instance by studying at masters’ level or involvement in action research, offers the time and structure for sustained enquiry to examine in some depth how theory can inform the teacher’s own and colleagues’ practice. Taking part in classroom-based research is likely to help a teacher gain insight into how children’s learning can be enabled for a particular group of children and so to develop expertise, as long as the links between the theoretical and the practical implications are made. Undertaking research would seem more beneficial when studying a topic with which the teacher has familiarity and interest, usually based on their own experience. While I am an advocate of teachers undertaking further study, I am not convinced that all teachers should necessarily engage in research. However, teachers do need to engage with research and be what BERA/RSA (2014: 40) call ‘research-literate’: ‘to understand why (research) is important and what might be learnt from it, and to maintain a sense of critical appreciation and healthy scepticism.’ Much of the research most likely to help build teachers’ expertise in the classroom is related to children’s learning and how teachers think and teach, though the history, philosophy and sociology of education help one to gain a broader

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perspective. Recent examples of research in relation to young children and their teachers include that on: ● ● ● ● ● ●

●

multiple intelligences (e.g. Gardner, 1993); mindsets (e.g. Dweck, 2000); children’s talk and dialogue (e.g. Mercer, 2000; Alexander, 2006); children’s voice (e.g. Robinson, 2014); formative assessment (e.g. Black and Wiliam, 1998); strengthening children’s learning qualities and dispositions (e.g. Claxton and Carr, 2004); and neuroeducational research (e.g. TLRP/ESRC, 2007; Goswami, 2015).

Some implications of these will be considered in subsequent chapters. But such ideas are often difficult to implement, because they usually require a significant change of teacher habits, so that teachers can use them appropriately in their own context and adapt their pedagogy. One can easily draw simplistic, even damaging, lessons from research. Let us take the example of neuroscience. Many teachers have adopted ideas such as left/right brain, visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners (VAK) and that children need to drink frequently. Though different parts of the brain have separate functions, Goswami (2015) indicates that learning relies on many parts of the brain interacting. Individuals may have a preference for visual, auditory or kinaesthetic approaches, but children learn best through a combination of different approaches. And, though the brain must be properly hydrated, there is no robust evidence that children’s learning is affected adversely if they do not drink frequently even when not thirsty. This said, neuroeducational research does suggest that: ●

● ● ●

●

●

how the brain is structured and functions changes over time, that is the idea of neuroplasticity; emotion and cognition are closely linked; exercise and activity enhance mental as well as physical health; multiple ways of representing experience help to imprint these in long-term memory; children’s ability to self-regulate and use metacognition and the efficiency of working memory (see Cowan, 2012) usually increase in middle childhood, as brain structure and cognitive function develops; and learning some elements of music and foreign languages, in particular, is easier before adolescence than later on (Geake, 2009: 52).

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While neuroeducational research provides some new insights relevant to classroom practice, it tends to support relatively well-known ideas such as the biological need to feel safe before attempting more risky tasks (Maslow, 1998) and of the benefits of metacognition and material being presented and represented in a variety of ways. In recent years, teachers have been judged on the results which children achieve in tests, with data increasingly dominating how they teach. With young children, such data relates mainly to reading, writing and computation, rather than those aspects which are harder to assess. Such a policy emphasis has, almost inevitably, focused teachers’ attention on literacy and numeracy. As Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: 44) argue, ‘[D]ata can inform improvement, guide instruction, and prompt earlier intervention . . . But data can replace professional judgement instead of enhancing it, directing teachers’ attention only toward the tested basis and driving them to distraction.’ Moreover, data is not neutral, in that what is measured affects teachers’ and children’s perceptions about what matters and their priorities. An over-reliance on data easily skews the balance of the curriculum as achieving short-term results becomes the main basis for how teachers plan and teach. More seriously, Hargreaves (2013: xvii–xviii) warns that ‘data-driven and hyper-rational environments produce consequences of a highly adverse nature. These include destructions of innovation and creativity, distractions of participants’ energy towards producing the appearance of numerical results and degradations of people’s essential humanity through machine-like environments that assault people’s emotional and moral integrity’. Teachers with a high level of expertise use data to identify children’s strengths and misconceptions – both individual and collective – to ask further questions and to inform their judgement rather than to find definitive answers. They consider a wide range of evidence about their children’s progress, rather than relying on, or being dominated by, measurable data; and assess using multiple methods and viewpoints, especially with young children and when puzzled. In particular, as discussed in Chapter 6, such teachers recognize that assessment is a much subtler process than testing and must be integral to how one teaches.

Processes to support the development of teacher expertise The meta-review published by the Teacher Development Trust (TDT, 2015) provides a good starting point to consider the key features of career-long

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professional learning and processes which enhance teachers’ ability and willingness to exercise professional judgement. It argues that ‘effective professional development should be underpinned by a number of “key building blocks”: ● ● ● ●

subject knowledge; subject-specific pedagogy; clarity around learner progression, starting points and next steps; content and activities dedicated to helping teachers understand how pupils learn, both generally and in specific subject areas;

and that programmes should put forward: ● ●

alternative pedagogies for pupils with different needs; a focus on formative assessment, to allow teachers to see the impact of their learning and work on their pupils.’ (2015: 20)

The report advocates that teachers should be encouraged to engage with ideas and reflect on the implications for their own practice and that input should allow for consideration of participants’ existing theories, beliefs and practice, and for opportunities to challenge these in a non-threatening way (TDT, 2015:  31). Other aspects highlighted include participants: ●

● ●

receiving support to understand the rationale that underpins the practices being advocated and critically engaging with course content; having room to exercise professional discretion; and having repeated opportunities to encounter, understand, respond to and reflect on new approaches and related practices.

Such considerations emphasize the limitations of didactic approaches to teacher education. TDT (2015: 11–15) argues that, to have a lasting impact, professional learning opportunities must: ●

●

●

be of appropriate duration, over at least two terms, more usually a year (or longer); have rhythm, with follow up, consolidation and support, so that participants grasp the rationale and use their understanding to refine practices and support implementation; be designed for participants’ needs, so that there is overt relevance to teachers’ day-to-day experiences and their aspirations for their pupils, while allowing for differences to be revealed and discussed;

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create a shared sense of purpose, so that teachers can collaborate and engage in peer learning and support; and be aligned across various activities, so that the focus is not just on specific activities but consistent with the principles of student learning.

While all of these are valid, I suggest that some opportunities, at least, should be tailored to teachers of specific age groups and contexts, and question, in subsequent chapters, the report’s argument that pedagogic and subject knowledge are of equal importance (TDT, 2015: 20). In Shulman’s (2004: 174) words, ‘[T]heoretical generalizations must be deliberated upon in the light of local conditions and the practical experiences of individual teachers before their applicability can be discerned.’ Reflection-on-action is a valuable way for teachers to recognize how theory and practice can be linked and realize this, in two senses: ●

●

incorporating theoretical ideas into practice, recognizing the dilemmas and difficulties in doing so; and knowing to what extent this has been achieved.

Reflection-on-action entails looking back on one’s teaching and how this affected children’s learning and considering what one might do differently in a similar situation; and involves affective and cognitive processes, feeling as well as rationality. It is helpful to try and identify what went well, rather than concentrating on mistakes. The latter are usually fairly easy to work out, the former less so, given the elusiveness of tacit knowledge. However, in Atkinson’s (2000:  71)  words, ‘[R]eflection on practice may lead to better understanding but not necessarily to better practice.’ So, reflection-on-action must make connections between what a teacher has done, the impact of this and what she or he might do differently in future, to have much chance of influencing pedagogy significantly in the long term. Reflection-on-action is more valuable in a group such as a whole staff or department or with those from other schools, enabling teachers to learn from each other and breaking down isolation. Sharing of ideas ideally becomes part of one’s way of thinking, rather than taking place only on formal occasions. Reflection-on-action may take place informally, as a teacher contemplates why a particular episode or series of lessons went well or badly or assesses children’s progress. Keeping a journal may help to record significant moments, prompt more considered deliberation and build up case knowledge. However, reflective models offer a more structured approach to help teachers to explore, articulate

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Concrete Experience (doing/having an experience) Active Experimentation (planning/trying out what you have learned)

Reflective Observation (reviewing/reflecting on the experience)

Abstract Conceptualisation (concluding/learning from the experience)

Figure 4.1 Kolb’s experiential learning cycle their own practice, classroom processes and children’s responses in ways that may not be obvious; and so refine their own knowledge. One well-known model is Kolb’s (1984) cycle, shown in Figure  4.1. One strength of Kolb’s model is the relationship between innovation, reflection, planning and adapting one’s teaching, so that the process is cyclical and continuous. As with other reflective models, it is most useful when there is a specific focus, such as teacher feedback or how children work in groups. But it may be hard, especially for inexperienced teachers, to see the link between the teacher’s actions and children’s learning, though exploring these helps to create a greater awareness of how teaching is enhancing, or inhibiting, children’s learning. A second model is Brookfield’s (1995) which involves examining teaching episodes through four ‘lenses’ to illuminate what is happening and challenge one’s preconceptions. These lenses are: ● ● ● ●

the self, where the focus is on one’s own experiences as a teacher; the student’s view of the learning environment and experience; the peer group, that is other colleagues; and the theoretical literature.

The first helps to make explicit the teacher’s own responses and pedagogy that may need to be addressed, altered or simply noted, and is relatively simple to carry out, but difficult until one has learned to observe one’s own practice and its impact on learning. The student lens is useful in trying to recognize how the situation feels from the child’s perspective and enabling the teacher to be attuned to, and gain insight into, the difficulties children may be encountering, and why,

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and to decide what to do differently. This may involve quite a leap of the imagination and interpreting puzzling clues, especially when teaching young children. The lens of the peer group can help identify habits and behaviours of which teachers themselves are often unaware. While difficult initially, this starts to embed the habit of observing the detail of one’s teaching, an essential precursor to learning to self-regulate and change direction rapidly when necessary. The lens of theoretical literature provides a vocabulary for discussing teaching, but this does not obviate the need to decide how theoretical ideas can best be applied in one’s own situation. A third reflective model is that of Tripp (1993) which encourages teachers to examine teaching by identifying ‘critical incidents’. Critical incidents can be those which, in hindsight, led to significant changes of teachers’ views. Mostly, these are drawn from one’s own practice and may seem quite ordinary, but why they are critical often becomes evident only as they are examined and analysed, over time, considering feelings and processes rather than just outcomes. The process of deciding what makes an incident critical helps to make explicit patterns of interaction and response which may otherwise remain hidden. Tripp’s model has similarities to Shulman’s emphasis on case studies, drawn from reallife situations, discussed below. Each of these models has strengths in exploring classroom processes and the teacher’s understanding of these, but require thought and imagination to decide how one might act differently. With experience, teachers become better at internalizing their thinking processes but externalizing these helps both the teacher and others to examine the detail of pedagogy. While mostly used by students in training, often on their own, these models can be valuable throughout teachers’ careers, particularly when related to real dilemmas and difficulties. When used in a supportive group, the resulting discussion can provide support, inspiration and innovative solutions. However, this is hard  – and resource-intensive  – to arrange if it involves observation, as ideally it does. The prototypical nature of primary teaching, implying that there are many ways of doing it well, suggests that those trying to develop their expertise should see many different approaches. Observing other teachers and being observed by, and receiving constructive feedback from, someone more experienced can be very constructive. If any observation or discussion is ‘high-stakes’, this is likely to reduce its developmental value, particularly if the focus does not emerge from, or clashes with, the teacher’s own priorities and practice. To be developmental, such observations and discussions must encourage honest and self-critical thinking. Since differences of power affect this significantly, senior colleagues

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must be sympathetic rather than punitive, while encouraging all concerned to challenge their own practice and to be challenged. Similar considerations apply to case studies and scenarios, especially when looking at, and discussing, real situations and making links between theory and practice. These help to expose the detail of teaching and, as Shulman (2004: 564) suggests, are valuable because ‘participants are urged to elaborate on . . . what actually happened, what was said and done, how all that occurred made them feel . . . to dig deep into the particularity of the context because it is in the devilish details that practice differs dramatically from theory’. Thinking together about questions such as: ● ● ●

what is happening in the classroom at the moment? what might the teacher do, and why? and what was the result, and how was this influenced by the teacher?

enhances teachers’ abilities to interpret events, imagine alternative courses of action and assess the effect of these. All are vital elements of the craft knowledge involved in teaching responsively, and help to internalize case knowledge. Written scenarios and case studies can be useful, but visual ones are even more powerful, especially when these are real situations, fraught with dilemma and full of judgements, rather than exemplary lessons. Given the difficulty, and expense, of groups of teachers watching actual lessons, videos of real-life situations and dilemmas seem the most economical way of encouraging observation, reflection and discussion about how teachers actually work in the classroom. This chapter has highlighted the amount, and type, of experience and practice involved in acquiring a high level of expertise, without being specific about the phase or subject taught. The next three explore how the interlinked types of knowledge and qualities which primary classroom teachers require can be learned and refined.

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Subject and Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Chapter outline Structuring teachers’ subject knowledge for use in practice Exploring the place of subject knowledge in the primary classroom teacher’s repertoire Using subject knowledge with children of different ages, aptitudes and backgrounds Developing pedagogical content knowledge across the curriculum

91 96 100 104

We teach a subject not to produce little living libraries . . . but rather to get a student to think mathematically . . . to consider matters as a historian does, to take part in the process of knowledge-getting. —Bruner, Toward a Theory of Instruction, 72

Structuring teachers’ subject knowledge for use in practice This chapter questions the often-expressed call for a greater emphasis on primary teachers’ subject knowledge (e.g. Carter, 2015), especially if this is interpreted to mean propositional knowledge. It argues that what teachers’ subject knowledge consists of is not obvious and only one element, albeit an important one, of the types of knowledge they require.

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The discussion will elaborate the points from p. 51 that: ●

●

expert knowledge is structured better for use in performance than is novice knowledge; and experts represent problems in qualitatively different – deeper and richer – ways than novices;

and from p. 59 that teacher expertise involves: ● ●

better use of knowledge; and extensive pedagogical content knowledge, including deep representations of subject matter.

A lesson in history – and much more A visitor watches a history lesson with a class of 11-year-olds about the aftermath of the Second World War in Germany as a part of a topic on the impact of war on societies. The children are encouraged to talk and write in relatively short bursts, to keep those with a low attention span involved. At one point, the class is divided by a rope representing the Berlin Wall to help them understand what it might feel like to be separated from friends. The children debate, roleplay, write, draw and think. The visitor is impressed and asks the teacher how she planned and decided when to change activities. She is unsure, saying that this is largely based on hunch and her knowledge of the class.

I wonder what this incident suggests to you about the teacher’s expertise. For me, the salient messages are that she: ● ●

●

●

does not oversimplify the activity; uses a wide range of teaching styles and strategies depending on what she hopes to achieve, the nature of the class and how the children respond; manages the subject matter and the time skilfully to retain the interest of that class; and is not quite sure of the basis on which she made key decisions.

Whatever one selects, the success of the lesson depended on much more than the teacher’s knowledge of history. As indicated in Chapter 3, teacher knowledge is often divided into domain and craft knowledge, which is discussed in Chapter 6. In Edwards’s (2010: 10) words,

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‘[T]he key to adaptive expertise is the ability to invent new procedures based on knowledge and deep understanding in the domain.’ To do this, teachers require procedural and personal/interpersonal, as well as propositional, knowledge. Rather than being equated with subject knowledge, domain knowledge is best seen as referring to knowledge of the whole context, social and cultural, in which children learn and teachers teach. Subject knowledge tends to be equated with propositional knowledge, whereas teachers of young children need to be familiar with the skills, concepts and procedures – ways of working – associated with a wide range of disciplines. Thinking in terms of disciplinary knowledge helps to emphasize these, rather than just facts (see Alexander (2010:  247–51) for a useful discussion of these issues and how the language used exposes and determines assumptions, and shapes thinking, about children, learning and teaching). What children, in any phase, are expected to learn is usually summarized in a written curriculum or, more accurately, a syllabus. The detail of this varies considerably between different systems, and often between different subjects, or areas of learning. A written curriculum provides at most an outline of what children should learn, leaving open how this should be learned or taught. The written curriculum can, as we saw in Chapter 1, be organized in different ways, but how it is organized, and taught, should always depend on what one seeks to achieve. For instance, Matthew Arnold’s widely used definition of ‘culture’ as the ‘the best which has been thought and said’ is used to advocate a subject-based curriculum. However, Arnold continued that the subject matter is a means to an end, which he saw as to create thinking individuals by developing all parts of society and all parts of our humanity (see Galton et al., 1999: 196). Berliner (2001: 477) writes that ‘learning to teach . . . is primarily about learning to codify knowledge in order to draw on it again’. Such codified, or structured, knowledge is often called ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ (PCK) which Shulman (2004: 203) defines as: [A] particular form of content knowledge that embodies the aspect of content most germane to its teachability . . . the most useful forms of representation . . . the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations and demonstrations – in a word, the ways of formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others.

We can surely all recall one or more teachers who had considerable subject knowledge but could not explain ideas or concepts successfully – often because they could not see that what was obvious to them was a mystery to other people.

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Teachers’ knowledge of a subject or discipline is valuable not so much to pass on factual information directly to children through instruction – much of this can be found in textbooks or on the internet – as to ask penetrating questions and to identify, and correct, misconceptions. Teachers’ knowledge is of value only insofar as it is used to enhance children’s learning and must be brought to life if children are to be engaged, motivated and inspired. Without this, knowledge remains what Whitehead (1929) calls inert, in that it does not guide the learner’s thinking and actions in new settings. Such an approach involves the teacher making ideas and concepts accessible, engaging and meaningful to a particular group of children; and encouraging them to use varying means of representation and increasingly to select the most appropriate ones. Teachers with a high level of expertise are more concerned with how securely children learn – with quality and depth than quantity and coverage. To do this, teachers need content knowledge, but to suggest that this is the main type of knowledge required is to misunderstand the complexity and reciprocal nature of teaching young children. As suggested in Chapter 2, the primary classroom teacher’s role is not just about creating ‘little libraries’, in Bruner’s words above, but equipping children for lifelong and lifewide learning. For example, teaching mathematics is about enabling children to apply what they know to practical situations and think like mathematicians, not just compute accurately. Similar considerations apply across the curriculum, to encourage and enable each child to think and work like a scientist or an artist, a designer or a critic with increasing sophistication and insight, to compare and contrast, to observe and to interpret, rather than just accumulate propositional knowledge and decontextualized skills. Making ‘deep representations of subject matter’ implies that teachers must have an adequate grasp of the key concepts, where young children’s understanding will be partial or inexact, and of the ways of working associated with different disciplines. In any subject area, or discipline, young children benefit from being able to see and practice how to approach a problem, to apply a skill or to interpret evidence, rather than just being told, given how much children learn through watching and participating. The ability to demonstrate such skills, or identify a child who can, while requiring some theoretical knowledge, is usually founded on the teacher’s own experience of that way of working; and thinking how best to present the task to a particular child, or group. Young children need teachers to structure and use their knowledge to represent a problem, explain an idea or demonstrate a procedure, often in

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several ways, so that each child or group can learn how to carry out an action successfully or refine their understanding of a concept. Teaching with a high level of expertise requires the imagination to think of multiple ways of structuring and presenting material to enhance children’s learning. The quality of the pedagogy matters more than the teacher’s knowledge of the subject, as such. In practical activities, especially, too much direction may inhibit children’s creativity, while too little is likely to lead to frustration or ideas not being carried to completion. An understanding of how children – in general and the particular group and individuals – learn best enables the teacher to pitch tasks to provide the appropriate levels of challenge. Too difficult and the children may easily become confused or disengaged. Too easy and they will be bored and unchallenged. To try and ensure that tasks are within an individual’s Zone of Proximal Development, the teacher must assess the children’s current level of understanding and ability to carry out a task. This involves being aware of, and drawing on, children’s existing knowledge, including the funds of knowledge they bring from their lives outside school. For teachers of young children to understand children’s aptitudes and what they find difficult matters more than having a great depth of subject knowledge. If a teacher does not recognize why some children find it difficult to spell, draw inferences from a written text, or pitch a note when singing, she is unlikely to present material in ways that make these more accessible, or extend the children’s learning. If children are learning how to write in a genre such as story, it helps for the teacher to know, explain or demonstrate the different elements of a story and how stories can be structured and written. Teachers require an extensive repertoire of pedagogies, as in the lesson about the Berlin Wall, rather than relying on transmissive (or any other type of) pedagogy most of the time. However, no less important is recognizing  – and finding out  – what children do and do not understand, to provide guidance applicable to the individual or group. Doing so with young children is not easy. Detailed observation, probing questioning and careful listening are essential so that the teacher can try to understand, to some extent, how a child is trying to make sense of the world. I am not suggesting that factual knowledge does not matter when teaching young children, but that on its own it is insufficient. Conceptual and procedural knowledge are also necessary, but none are of much use without pedagogical content knowledge.

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Exploring the place of subject knowledge in the primary classroom teacher’s repertoire Rather than trying to consider each subject and the knowledge which primary classroom teachers need to teach it successfully – a task beyond my level of expertise and impossible in the space available – this section considers the extent to which the knowledge and pedagogies required are generic and crosscurricular, or specific to particular subjects or disciplines. This question is complex and debatable, with no easy answers. However, let us remember that the primary classroom teacher’s role relates to ‘the whole child’, across and beyond the formal curriculum, not just one or two subjects; and catering for a diverse range of different needs, not just delivering the same for everyone. One significant challenge, often overlooked by those who consider only single subjects, is how teachers can make connections between areas of learning so that children are enabled to do so and apply skills in a range of contexts. Another is that many significant areas of learning such as global citizenship, environmental awareness, critical thinking, using technology, social studies and what in England is called spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC) straddle subject boundaries. Many of the teacher’s most valuable tools are common to, and transferable between, different disciplines. The most obvious is spoken language, though young children learn more deeply through other ways of re-presenting experience. Children’s talk is a key way of how they articulate their current understanding and create new understandings, both individually and in groups. Research such as Mercer (2000) and Alexander (2006, 2008, especially chapter 5) emphasizes children having opportunities for talk and dialogue to enable what Sylva et al. (2010) call ‘sustained shared thinking’. Enabling dialogue and discussion, in groups of various sizes, is a part of the primary classroom teacher’s repertoire across the curriculum. As Alexander (2008) points out, one may teach about writing or mathematics with some success without being a good writer or mathematician, but talk and dialogue need, inherently, to be modelled and demonstrated. Enabling children to become confident users of spoken language, in terms of vocabulary, genre and audience, and thoughtful but critical listeners relies less on the teacher’s own technical knowledge of language than in helping children to understand through example and practice how messages are received and interpreted. Part of the teacher’s expertise is to encourage children’s questions and to ask authentic, challenging

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questions to prompt new lines of enquiry and to reveal children’s misconceptions. To encourage sustained, interactive discussion, teacher talk should model such patterns of discourse, rather than the teacher simply repeating, and approving of, what children say. A reciprocal approach does not entail just interrogating what children do, or do not, know, though, as Alexander (2000) indicates, a teacherdominated recitation approach tends to be the default style of teacher-child talk in the United Kingdom and the United States, as in many other systems. Hattie (2012:  72–4) suggests that most teachers would do well to ‘shut up’, or at least talk far less and engage in more dialogic talk about learning. Such an approach is more likely to create the space for a child’s insightful comment or imaginative idea than closed questions or lengthy periods when adults talk and children are expected to listen. To learn to do so, teachers must consciously practice talking less, and listening and watching more, though this is hard to sustain. A teacher who spends many hours not listening to children, but talking at them, will become proficient at ignoring their views, however insightful or indicative of misconceptions their responses may be. Children need to learn to talk confidently and listen carefully, to read a range of types of text and to write in a range of genres and for different audiences. However, these are learned through use not just within lessons called English or literacy, but across the whole curriculum. Similarly, techniques associated with drama, such as role play or hot-seating, can be valuable in any curriculum area, particularly to help children understand a situation from a perspective other than their own. As discussed in Eaude (2016b:  151–4), stories are essential in how we all, especially children, make sense of the world, quite apart from how they excite children’s imagination and help to introduce and explore ideas in accessible and enjoyable ways. Teachers’ stories are often more influential than explicit explanations. Similarly, analogies help to illustrate ideas which children find hard to understand and so help gradually make the link between specific experiences and abstract concepts. Therefore, stories and analogies form an essential part of any teacher’s repertoire across the curriculum, particularly when working with young children. Burnett (2016) provides a detailed discussion of the use of digital technologies in primary schools. This is another area which is, or should be, inherently crosscurricular and can transform how children learn, by motivating some otherwise disengaged children, promoting new types of literacy and encouraging children to make imaginative links between areas of learning. The widespread availability of technological devices, and the facility with which most children, from a

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very young age, have become accustomed to these, means that most children do not need to learn low-level skills. Teachers should concentrate more on how to code, how children can find and assess information and how they should use the internet safely. However, as with any tool, how technology is used is what matters. For instance, interactive white boards provide wonderful opportunities for reciprocal teaching, but are often used to reinforce a teacher-dominated pedagogy, rather than interactively. It is usually assumed that teachers require a considerable depth of knowledge of mathematics and science to teach them well. I am not convinced that this is so with very young children, though disciplinary knowledge matters more with older primary children. I do not have a great depth of knowledge of either subject, but think that I taught them better, especially to children who found them difficult, than those areas, such as reading and spelling, where I  am more proficient personally. For instance, I  was better at helping such children to understand, and use, fractions or area, because I understood their difficulties more. I was less skilled at teaching mathematics to children with a good grasp of mathematics, particularly older children and high attainers, in part due to my lack of confidence in the more complex conceptual aspects of mathematics and inability to establish appropriate expectations. In science, I encouraged the children to experiment, record and interpret, often in groups, which gave more scope for children to take control. My role was more that of setting the parameters of how experiments should be conducted and of posing questions, sometimes in areas where my own understanding was a bit shaky. The idea that there is a direct correlation between a teacher’s knowledge of maths or science and an ability to teach these subjects well to a class of young children is too simple. Propositional, factual knowledge is not neutral, although it is often presented as such. Policymakers and teachers make decisions about whose history, which literature and what scientific concepts are considered – and therefore which are ignored or excluded, usually that of those who are least powerful and most marginalized. Given the diversity of the world, children from a young age should be helped to recognize that there are different ways of interpreting, and understanding, what they see and hear. However, accurate propositional knowledge is particularly important when teaching controversial and sensitive issues, if teachers are actively to challenge, and not reinforce, stereotypes and prejudice. Such situations may occur in any curriculum area, though they are more likely in those related to history, religion and culture. A lack of accurate information may lead to children misunderstanding unfamiliar beliefs and practices, and thereby

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reinforce stereotypes. Rowley et al. (2007) suggest that stereotypes are becoming embedded by the age of 9 or 10. So, attempts to promote thoughtful attitudes towards those who are different and to challenge stereotypes are particularly important by this age. The interlinked nature of emotion and cognition suggests that doing so requires accurate factual information and a range of experiences to help children see, and start to understand, the world from perspectives other than their own. Teachers with a high level of expertise enable children to discover, analyse and interpret evidence, often through field work. Much of the knowledge which children require is procedural and conceptual. Therefore, in subjects like history and geography, an emphasis on memorizing propositional knowledge such as famous people and dates and the names of cities and rivers is too limiting. Children need to understand such information as part of a bigger picture; and increasingly relate it to concepts such as time, change and causation, place, space and identity. Similarly, in disciplines such as art and design, and physical education, much of the knowledge needed is conceptual and procedural, so that children learn to apply the skills involved with an increasing level of sophistication. With young children, knowledge about art or structures arguably matters less than their ability to create images or design and build artefacts. The children’s need for kinaesthetic and iconic modes of re-presenting experience emphasizes their being able to use with growing skill and confidence different media and equipment – paint and clay, cogs and batteries, cameras and computers, and much more besides. Moreover, teaching any subject is about developing qualities, dispositions and values, not just learning facts and skills. So, for instance aesthetic development is integral to art and music education; and physical education should encourage children to be active, with benefits in terms of physical and mental health, and strengthen qualities and dispositions such as teamwork and perseverance. While primary classroom teachers can help provide a broad foundation in most disciplines, some seem to require a depth of knowledge which generalists are unlikely to have, or be able to acquire. Music and foreign languages are two disciplines where teachers need considerable knowledge and experience, even with young children, partly because identifying and correcting failures of technique and misconceptions relies on a depth of procedural, rather than propositional, knowledge. It is hard to see how anyone could teach a musical instrument or a foreign language at anything beyond a rudimentary level without demonstrating how to play the instrument or speak the language.

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This discussion indicates that much of young children’s learning does not fit neatly into a curriculum organized by discrete subjects. This does not mean that teachers’ disciplinary knowledge is unimportant, but that such knowledge must be of the procedures and concepts associated with a range of disciplines rather than just factual information. Primary classroom teachers need generic skills such as storytelling, or leading a discussion, which traverse subject boundaries, as well as the types of knowledge associated with many different disciplines and the ability to engage and motivate children. While this seems daunting, for teachers to try to memorize large amounts of factual information may be unnecessary. Relevant patterns, and chunks, of information have to be recognized, organized and stored rather than separate facts memorized. Lawyers cannot remember every piece of legislation or precedent, but they have a breadth of knowledge and experience which enables them to understand the overall domain and the principles and procedures involved – and can where necessary discover detailed information. Similar considerations apply to teachers. The teacher’s own knowledge of a subject, or discipline, while necessary, is only valuable when converted into pedagogical content knowledge; and the level required varies between subject areas and on the children being taught, as discussed in the next section.

Using subject knowledge with children of different ages, aptitudes and backgrounds This section explores how much the level of subject, or disciplinary, knowledge required to teach older, say 9- to 10-year-old, and younger, say 6- to 7-year-old, children, and those of different aptitudes, backgrounds and levels of fluency in English vary. This leads into a consideration of whether classroom teachers can, or should be expected to, have the necessary range and depth of knowledge to teach the whole curriculum, especially at the older end of the primary school, and whether some subjects should be taught by specialist teachers. It may seem obvious that teaching any subject to a class of 10-year-olds requires a greater level of subject knowledge than doing so to 4- or 7-yearolds, and that it is desirable to have teachers with specialist subject knowledge. However, I suggest that this is far from obvious and that the knowledge teachers require depends on the subject or area of learning, the class and what they hope, or are expected, to achieve. Teaching with a high level of expertise involves making deep representations of subject matter, for which a considerable level of disciplinary knowledge may

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be helpful, but not sufficient. Doing so with young children depends on teachers with enough knowledge in a wide range of disciplines, but also knowledge of how young children learn and of the children in a particular class. Primary classroom teachers need a wider repertoire than teachers of older children, to teach different curriculum areas and to enable children to make the links between subjects and with their – often naïve – understandings, both within and beyond the formal curriculum. As generalists, they cannot be expected to have the same level of knowledge in every subject as those who teach just one or two subjects to older students, any more than one expects a GP to know as much as a consultant in his or her specialism. Expecting this is unrealistic and a recipe for a sense of inadequacy. The issue is not whether teachers should try to accumulate a store of knowledge in every subject, but how much is ‘enough’ and how teachers use different types of knowledge to meet the demands of particular groups and classes. The range of needs which primary classroom teachers may encounter is so great that generalizations are liable to be inaccurate or platitudes. For instance, they must maintain high expectations of behaviour and outcomes while adapting teaching to enable all children to access the curriculum. However, what this entails for an autistic child, one with a physical disability or one with emotional and behaviour difficulties will differ; and may vary for any individual even within the same lesson. Therefore, how teachers’ subject knowledge is used within and between classes alters, depending on his or her knowledge of the children. Moreover, individual teachers may have to draw on the expertise of colleagues and outside people with more specific expertise, even though the classroom teacher will usually retain overall responsibility for how such children are taught. Some specific strategies are appropriate for particular groups of children. Those who have a hearing loss or visual impairment should sit where they can hear and see clearly. And those who are easily distracted, or disruptive, are likely to benefit from being kept away from what distracts them. However, much of what helps specific groups, such as a range of visual and auditory prompts and active participation, enhances all children’s learning. Some teachers and researchers involved in gifted and talented education believe that acceleration, in subjects such as mathematics, music and science, is appropriate, particularly for adolescents. However, Eyre (2009) and others argue that for young children a broad and balanced range of opportunities enables gifts and talents to be identified and developed; and that young children benefit more from applying their gifts and deepening their understanding by applying skills to solve problems than by racing on to new, more complex ideas. Such an approach, with benefits in terms of children’s social and emotional development,

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seems more inclusive than one based on acceleration for children who are highattaining or deemed to have exceptional talents. To support emerging bilinguals, a large body of research emphasizes the value of presenting the task in a variety of ways and scaffolding the children’s language, without reducing the cognitive demands. The teacher must identify the information, skills and concepts that he or she wants the children to learn, but how these are presented is what distinguishes teachers with a high level of expertise. For example, such teachers give children time to listen and to rehearse what they want to say, and model patterns of speech and where necessary offer prompts and encouragement, rather than expecting perfect pronunciation or full sentences straightaway. But they also ensure that children learn the technical language associated with separate disciplines, which bilingual children may not understand without such support. Subject specialists may be well positioned to enhance children’s learning – both propositional and procedural – in some respects. For instance, there is little doubt that a specialist art teacher may be able to demonstrate how to draw or use different media, or a science specialist to explain complex ideas, better than a generalist. However, those teaching separate subjects are likely to find it harder to create cross-curricular opportunities and to make links with children’s existing knowledge and interests. Using specialists may help to raise attainment and motivation, but possibly to the detriment of other aspects of the whole child’s development, especially if their specialism relates only to the subject rather than pedagogy. For example, a sports coach may prove motivating, at least for some children, but may concentrate on skills and competition and not help children learn the fundamentals of movement. Inevitably, each primary classroom teacher will have more knowledge of, and experience, interest and confidence in teaching, some subjects than others. As generalists, they are unlikely to have a depth of knowledge in any one discipline but will probably have greater knowledge of the children and be better placed to make links across disciplinary boundaries. Relying on generalists especially at the older end of the primary school may not stretch some children, especially in the more complex aspects of a discipline, but may help the classroom to be more inclusive. Experiencing different teachers and teaching styles may be beneficial for some children, especially those who are older and more confident. However, a continuity of relationships matters especially for younger and less confident learners, so that there are significant benefits in the classroom teacher remaining responsible for teaching most of the curriculum.

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Those with a high level of expertise know the limits of their expertise and make use of other people’s. In many primary schools, there are opportunities for teachers to swap classes regularly, so that those who are not skilled or confident in teaching a particular subject do not have to. This seems appropriate in areas such as music and foreign languages where generalists are unlikely to have the technical knowledge or practical know-how to teach this at anything other than a basic level. However, such arrangements depend on factors such as size of school and the expertise within it, or whether suitable expertise from elsewhere can be accessed reasonably easily. In brief, the arguments for and against subject specialists, and how they should be used, are not clear-cut (see Alexander, 2010); and different children may benefit, or be adversely affected, by any arrangement. The best solution in any situation may be a compromise, sometimes a less than ideal one, depending on what a school seeks to achieve and the adults available. Philpott (2014: 20–1) points out that much of the research on PCK relates to mathematics and science rather than the humanities and the arts, suggesting that this is because children’s difficulties in the latter two areas relate more to attitude, affect and personal factors rather than cognition. This makes it harder to identify what PCK involves. Similar considerations apply to other areas of learning which cross subject boundaries. For example, as discussed in Eaude (2008), appropriate provision for spiritual, moral, social and cultural development relies less on teachers’ subject knowledge and more on a secure but challenging environment which enables children to explore questions related to identity, meaning and purpose. Such provision emphasizes relationships, dialogue and open-ended opportunities within and beyond the formal curriculum far more than propositional knowledge, teacher talk and curriculum coverage. The knowledge which teachers require is more that of children and their lives than subject knowledge, so that personal and interpersonal knowledge can be integrated with disciplinary and craft knowledge to provide the foundation for PCK. This discussion goes to the heart of how primary education is understood and what constitutes success in teaching young children. The current emphasis on teachers’ subject knowledge is associated with the primary curriculum in England, and many other systems, being seen largely in terms of separate subjects, rather than as a whole. Too great an emphasis in teacher education on teachers’ subject knowledge may lead to an undue focus on children learning factual knowledge rather than the underlying concepts, the procedural knowledge and the qualities needed to apply such knowledge. This may reinforce a view of the teacher as the source of knowledge, rather than as a facilitator who

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enables children to learn, individually or as a group, with increasing independence. Moreover, if the knowledge necessary is seen as largely propositional, this institutionalizes low expectations of teachers as well as children. The lesson about the Berlin Wall involved the teacher balancing different considerations and subtly controlling the activities and the time children spent on them, so illustrating the complexity of what primary classroom teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge involves. The next section explores how PCK can be developed for use across the curriculum, though this relies on the craft, case and personal/interpersonal knowledge discussed in Chapters 6 and 7.

Developing pedagogical content knowledge across the curriculum Van Driel and Berry (2012: 27) cite research showing that the development of PCK is never a linear process and suggest that ‘teacher knowledge development precedes changes in teacher behaviour, which is then implemented in practice, and finally leads to certain student outcomes’. I am not convinced that the process is as simple as this, seeing it as more circuitous and individual (see Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012: especially 154–63). However, given the complexity of the primary classroom teacher’s role, the rate at which different aspects of PCK develop is bound to be uneven. Van Driel and Berry (2012: 27) go on to argue that ‘programs aiming at the development of PCK . . . should be based on constructivist and situative theories rather than on behavioural approaches’. Such a view seems to be correct if teachers are to become thoughtful professionals, able to adapt to different contexts, rather than just implement externally devised programmes or follow a script. Deep learning as a teacher does not happen quickly or easily. While there is a cognitive element, this involves trying to alter teachers’ schemata – patterns of thought or behaviour that organize categories of information and the relationships among them. In Chapter 7, we explore how this can take place. Developing PCK requires understanding of the material to be taught and careful thought on how activities, ideas and concepts can best be introduced to a specific group. Such planning must take account of factors such as the teacher’s knowledge of the subject matter, theory and the particular group; and of what one aims to achieve, recalling that experts sometimes subtly alter aims rather than just meeting external requirements. PCK is learned to some extent by

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thinking how to structure material, actually teaching it and reflecting on the success, or otherwise, of the approach adopted. PCK may be enhanced to some extent by reading about, and attending courses on, particular subjects and programmes and how to teach them. Textbooks and internet-based resources may be useful as supports in terms of content, but they may tend to reduce the idea of children’s learning to gathering information and the task of the teacher to a deliverer of content. Too great a reliance on such resources inhibits the development of PCK and expertise. A more nuanced level of PCK tends to come with experience but requires other learning processes. Some are deliberative and separate from teaching such as receiving feedback from other adults and reflecting on what enhances children’s learning, or otherwise. Others are – or should be – integral to teaching, such as questioning, observing and regulating oneself and receiving feedback from children to show how they understand (and misunderstand) concepts and procedures. For instance, my own PCK in teaching science was enhanced by the children conducting simple experiments designed to help them understand concepts such as forces or friction, and then by my reflecting on the children’s responses and how my actions and questions had helped or hindered their learning. As we have seen, performing any activity, from riding a horse to singing, helps one to internalize the necessary skills, but only if practice is regular and of the right kind, so that inappropriate habits do not become embedded. An apprenticeship model involves seeing other teachers in action, preferably in similar contexts to one’s own and reflecting (ideally with others) on what they did, or might have done, and by extension what one might do oneself. Such observation and reflection helps teachers to see, in principle, how their disciplinary knowledge can best be structured. But teachers have to apply such ideas in practice, and receive feedback – from children, other adults and increasingly themselves – to see how well the approach adopted helped to meet their aims. Initially at least, this requires considerable guidance and support, though with experience, teachers usually become more able to observe themselves at work and reflect on their successes and failures – and decide what to do differently. Primary classroom teachers’ PCK is enhanced by thinking creatively how best to structure activities and experiences to introduce the propositional, conceptual and procedural knowledge within, and across, subjects, bearing in mind how young children learn best. Young children benefit from material being presented in a range of engaging ways, to extend their procedural knowledge and illustrate what concepts mean. Therefore, their teachers must improve their own

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ability to demonstrate ways of working and their knowledge of the conceptual structure of disciplines. Those learning to become teachers should be encouraged to reflect on, and learn, the various types of knowledge associated with different curriculum areas with a view to how these can be applied in the classroom. For instance they need not only to understand, and know how to use, fractions themselves but be able to identify children’s misconceptions and misapplications and how these can be remedied. And, in learning how to teach writing, teachers have to know not only the mechanics of spelling and constructing a narrative, but be able to present different ways in which children can be helped to apply these. Primary classroom teachers’ PCK tends to be enriched by providing a broad range of opportunities and enabling children to make links between curriculum areas and with their existing knowledge. Though teachers are often expected to focus on a relatively narrow curriculum, they need to teach all, or most, subjects to develop pedagogical content knowledge across the whole, or most, of the curriculum. The phrase ‘or most’ is significant. It is not sensible for teachers to teach areas in which their knowledge base is very weak. In my case, my attempts to teach music were largely pointless, and my ability to teach information technology very limited. In such cases, swapping classes or using specialists, where possible, is likely to be appropriate. However, a curriculum which is taught in several discrete subject areas may not only be too fragmented for many children, but also impose limits on how classroom teachers’ PCK, and with it their expertise, is extended and refined. One valuable way for teachers to refine and deepen their PCK is to teach the same material in different contexts. In a sense, the context is never the same, because classes are always different. However, teaching a topic, a concept, or a procedure to different classes of similar ages helps teachers recognize how children understand, and misunderstand, what is being taught. Moreover, teaching a similar idea or topic to an older, and particularly a younger, group helps the teacher to be aware of the trajectory of children’s learning – what most children of that age can, and cannot, do or understand and how this relates to the conceptual structure or procedure associated with the disciplines involved. So, PCK – and case knowledge – is usually enhanced in part by teaching similar topics on several occasions, just as evidence suggests that a surgeon who has completed an operation many times is more to be trusted than a novice, or indeed one who has done it so frequently that s/he may become careless.

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Primary classroom teachers, as they become more experienced, usually need, and wish, to extend and deepen their knowledge within a subject or discipline, or groups of subjects, both to enhance their own teaching and that of other colleagues. However, their focus should be on how such knowledge can be used by other teachers, usually with less interest and confidence in that area, to enhance children’s learning across and beyond the formal curriculum. Since primary classroom teachers usually teach a wide range of subjects, I suggest that teacher education should give more emphasis to: ●

●

pedagogical content knowledge in, and across, several areas of learning (including some not traditionally seen as curriculum subjects) rather than a depth of knowledge in only one or just a few subjects; and issues such as enhancing children’s procedural knowledge in different disciplines, using multiple ways of presenting material, making links with children’s existing knowledge across subject boundaries and identifying common misconceptions rather than on subject knowledge, as such.

More research from subject specialists and those who understand the challenges of the generalist’s role is needed on: ●

●

the link between primary classroom teachers’ knowledge and how their PCK is best developed to help young children make the links across disciplinary boundaries; and how generalist classroom teachers can be enabled to develop the necessary PCK across most of the curriculum without limiting children’s opportunities or lowering teachers’ expectations.

In my view, this is likely to suggest more use of cross-curricular topics and projects and work with groups of different sizes, and will require sustained opportunities for teachers to teach with others with a variety of skills and experience, to observe each other  – in their own schools and ideally those in similar contexts – and discuss the implications in an atmosphere of innovation and support. However, such an approach will be expensive and require a change of existing priorities throughout the system. This chapter has suggested that there is no direct correlation between a teacher’s knowledge of a subject or discipline and how well s/he teaches this to young children, in line with Hattie’s (2009: 127) conclusion that, in relation to student outcomes, ‘it is difficult to find evidence that teachers’ knowledge of subject matter is important’. I have emphasized the ways of working and conceptual knowledge associated with a wide range of disciplines. Without knowledge

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of how young children develop and learn, and of the particular group, primary classroom teachers will be poorly equipped to structure and present material appropriately. Chapter 6 explores how craft and case knowledge are integral to teaching and how teachers acquire and refine the pedagogical content knowledge needed to teach with a high level of expertise.

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Chapter outline Craft and case knowledge in the primary classroom Interpreting cues and responding to events Creating and sustaining an inclusive environment and climate for learning Planning for uncertainty and assessing the whole child

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Craft knowledge is vastly different from the packaged and glossy maxims that govern ‘the science of education’ . . . Craft knowledge has a different sort of rigour, one that places more confidence in the judgement of teachers, their feel for the work, their love for students and learning. —Grimmett and Mackinnon, ‘Craft Knowledge and the Education of Teachers’, 437

Craft and case knowledge in the primary classroom Do you remember the birdwatcher mentioned at the start of Chapter 3 and the detailed knowledge of birds, their habits and habitats which he manifested? These abilities and types of knowledge are elements of the craft and case knowledge associated with expertise. Teachers’ craft knowledge, supported by case knowledge, is the often-tacit detail of pedagogy, which can transform a well-planned

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lesson into an episode where a child or class reaches a deeper understanding of a task or a concept. Let us recall six key points from pp. 51–2 that experts: ● ● ●

●

●

●

recognize meaningful patterns faster than novices; impose meaning on, and are less easily misled by, ambiguous stimuli; are more flexible and more opportunistic planners and can change representations faster, when appropriate, than novices; may start to solve a problem slower than novices but overall they are faster problem-solvers; develop automaticity to allow conscious processing of more complex information; and have developed self-regulatory processes as they engage in their activities.

Sternberg and Horvath (1995: 16) argue that an expert ‘neither jumps into solution attempts prematurely nor follows a solution path blindly . . . and is able selectively to encode, combine and compare information to arrive at insightful solutions’. Recognizing meaningful patterns involves noticing what is going on and filtering and working out from a confusing set of stimuli what matters and what doesn’t, which is hard in the busy world of the classroom. Teachers cannot – and should not try to – respond to everything that happens, but must identify what is most significant, whether an argument brewing or a remark which may lead to a new approach or reveal a misunderstanding. To enable this, they must notice, and interpret, events, in the light of their knowledge of the group and individual children, formulating initial hypotheses but not jumping too quickly to definite conclusions and being prepared to change course, often rapidly, when their judgement calls for this. As Eraut (2000) points out, some of the skills necessary for teaching are proactive, some reactive. Many problems which teachers face are best solved by deliberate thought, often with colleagues. However, since most decisions are more immediate, teachers must rely heavily on intuition. So, classroom teachers have to plan ahead, thinking about what they hope to achieve and how to do so, but also to react quickly and appropriately in the heat of the moment. I suspect that the teacher in the lesson about the Berlin Wall described in Chapter 5 relied significantly on case knowledge to back her intuition. How intuition can be informed so that it is more reliable is discussed in Chapter 7, and planning in the final section of this chapter. Experts do not stop and think consciously what to do most of the time. As with driving a car, teachers with a high level of expertise act automatically

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without much conscious thought, while being broadly aware of what is happening in their wider field of vision – and responding rapidly when need be. Automaticity, in this context, does not mean teaching without thinking, but ensuring that working memory does not become cluttered. Teachers must learn, increasingly, to trust their own judgement but keep checking what is going on. This is rather like climbing a difficult path, or following a complex knitting pattern, where much of the time one acts on auto-pilot, but every so often checks that one has not taken the wrong route or made an error. Experts rely on self-regulatory processes as they engage in their activities, constantly considering and reassessing how they are acting and its impact. However, teachers are less likely to learn to self-regulate if constantly relying on external monitoring and regulation, or to feel empowered if aims and methods are closely determined by someone else. A sense of agency and the ability to exercise professional judgement are necessary if teachers are to feel empowered. Craft and case knowledge enable teachers to respond appropriately to situations in the light of their, and others’, wider experience and to be more confident and able to adapt how material is presented in the light of children’s responses. Much of teachers’ craft knowledge in the primary classroom is to do with managing, and responding skilfully to, what happens in the immediacy and the intensity of the classroom. John (2000: 98–101) highlights five aspects of how student teachers demonstrate their level of expertise: ● ● ● ● ●

problem avoidance; opportunity creation; interpretation of pupil cues; improvisation; and mood assessment.

Elliott et al. (2011: 99) indicate that skilled teachers can often prevent problems from occurring in the first place by: ●

● ● ● ●

‘withitness’ (the ability to demonstrate awareness of events taking place in the immediate environment); overlapping (the capacity to manage multiple events concurrently); the skilful use and regulation of voice; sensitivity in the control of spoken communication patterns; the subtle deployment of non-verbal behaviour.

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Eyes in the back of one’s head One incident I observed occurred when a teacher, apparently engaged in marking and discussing a child’s work, called out to ask Martin, who was behind her and about to throw a wooden block at another child, to come and distribute new materials. Straightaway he agreed to do so and the crisis was averted.

Dreyfus and Dreyfus (2005) identify peripheral vision as a key aspect of how experts operate. Since teaching reciprocally involves some risk, one feature of teacher expertise is the ability to anticipate and so avoid, or pre-empt, problems, drawing on case knowledge, so that they do not have to be resolved subsequently. To act in this way, classroom teachers need peripheral vision – ‘eyes in the back of their heads’ – the ability, while focused on the task in hand, to be aware of what is going on around them. This helps in predicting what may happen and being aware of potential opportunities and difficulties, and so exploiting or avoiding them. I  do not know how the teacher described above knew what was happening behind her. Presumably it involved an ability to observe and notice patterns of behaviour in several areas of the room at once, but familiarity with the class and how she had organized the classroom must have been significant factors. Teachers must be curious about, and attend to, what is going on around them and attuned to how children are feeling and responding. This is comparable to how a sports player or a driver notices what is going on around while concentrating (enough) on the match or the road ahead. This ability seems to be associated with regular practice in scanning the classroom to notice what is out of the ordinary and interpreting what is significant, so that this becomes ‘second nature’. However, being able to do so depends on an environment where teachers are not under pressure to perform all the time, just as sports players have to practice skills repeatedly and accurately in training so that they can then apply them without much conscious thought when under pressure. As in all fluid situations, timing is a key aspect of teachers’ craft knowledge, not so much in keeping to a set plan as to avoid missing opportunities for enhancing children’s learning. Small difficulties which easily grow in scale are often exacerbated by the teacher’s response or failure to intervene immediately. Expertise often involves finding the right moment to pose an insightful question or to wait – and not intervene – so that children have time to think, imagine

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and formulate appropriate responses. For instance, saying to a reticent child ‘I’m going to ask you in a minute’ enables him to prepare and rehearse an answer. And opportunities to follow up an interesting comment or question are easily lost if not grasped straightaway. Using one’s voice, for instance in ensuring that all children can hear or exerting quiet authority, is one obvious part of the teacher’s toolkit. Sensitivity in the control of spoken communication patterns may involve rephrasing or reframing a child’s statement to elaborate or correct a point the child is trying to make, by repeating a statement but correcting the child’s grammar or using a more accurate word. This can help the child who is struggling to explain his ideas or actions to do so. For example, an adult who says to a child in trouble ‘tell me what happened’, as opposed to ‘why did you do that?’, gives a subtly different and less punitive message. Even something as apparently trivial as when information is given can alter how children respond. So, a teacher who tells the class what to look for in a text or a picture may encourage them to explore more closely, but how this is done may limit what they search for. The subtle deployment of non-verbal behaviour may entail simple actions such as getting down to the child’s level or encouraging or discouraging particular behaviours without interrupting the flow of what one is concentrating on. A smile of reassurance, the wag of a finger, the nod of approval or the raised eyebrow is often far more effective than using one’s voice. These are just some of the thousands of small skills that classroom teachers use to demonstrate expertise and exert authority in their interactions with young children.

Interpreting cues and responding to events This section considers the pre-emptive and reactive elements associated with managing the busy world of the primary classroom. Teachers with a high level of expertise often act without much rational deliberation at the time, though they can usually justify in hindsight (to some extent) why they acted as they did. Knowing how to act in these ways may be based on reflection-on-action; and those with a high level of expertise are able to pause and reflect rapidly and accurately. However, frequently, a teacher does not have time to ponder the best course of action, and doing so could lead to chaos or to opportunities being missed. Rather, this involves an instant, intuitive response: reflection-in-action. Judgement-in-the-moment requires rapid reading of the situation to choose a course of action without much conscious thought or deliberation, often based

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on intuition and drawing, sometimes unconsciously, on knowledge of what has worked before in similar situations (see Eraut, 2000: 258). However, intuition may be mistaken, especially when working with an unfamiliar child or group. Teachers must be prepared to challenge their own preconceptions, those based on a particular incident or comment and the more deep-rooted and harder-touncover expectations, assumptions and prejudices related to factors such as ethnicity, gender, ability and class. We return to these issues in Chapter 7. Teachers with a high level of expertise focus on children’s responses, not just on predetermined objectives. Interpreting children’s responses provide useful feedback to the teacher, such as suggesting that one should follow an interesting line of enquiry or setting off a metaphorical alarm, prompting the teacher to be cautious or change direction. The interpretation of pupil cues involves noticing what is going on and trying to identify and make sense of this, particularly patterns of response. For instance, when listening to a child read, the teacher has, in order to suggest alternative strategies, to try and discover why the child has made an error; and when several children make similar mistakes this should prompt the teacher to revisit the topic, probably with a different approach. Noticing a child’s inability to retain much information in working (short-term) memory may encourage the teacher to simplify the instructions given; and perhaps to arrange additional support or games to help improve the child’s working memory. When a question or a piece of work demonstrates an insight or a technique well used, teachers with a high level of expertise follow these up; not necessarily immediately, but fairly soon if the impact is not to be lost. And a child’s comment may reveal a misconception and prompt the teacher to correct this, as in this incident.

An illuminating question The class of 9-year-olds had been discussing volcanoes, where the lava came from, why volcanoes erupted, even the theory of tectonic plates, with me drawing out from the children what they knew, by careful questioning and illustrating the process with pictures and analogies. It really seemed that the children’s understanding had been enriched. Just before hometime, I asked if anyone had a final question. Tentatively, Jessica, a quiet child, raised her hand and, looking puzzled, said, ‘But what I don’t understand is why people make volcanoes in the first place.’ Some other children started to laugh, but I stopped them, said how good it was that she had asked and explained that volcanoes were natural. Her question punctured my naïve belief that the lesson had been successful and pitched at the right level.

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How to interpret cues to try and understand what children are thinking and feeling may be far from obvious for someone unused to working with young children. At one level, doing so is easy. When children start to yawn, or lose concentration, it is a fair bet that they are bored; and a child who makes an insightful remark has probably made some connection with another aspect of her knowledge and experience. However, interpretation of cues is a more subtle process. The ability to do so requires awareness both of how children in general and how particular groups and individuals tend to respond – and what is happening at the time. For instance, children who look as if they are learning may not be – and vice versa – and interpreting children’s body language may require an understanding of differing cultural norms as well as individual mannerisms. A child who laughs when reprimanded may be nervous rather than insolent; and one who does not make eye contact may come from a culture where this is regarded as rude. Learning to interpret cues accurately tends to come with practice, as long as the teacher notices and takes account of children’s responses, rather than seeing teaching as a one-way conveyor belt. The teacher’s ability to attend to what matters most depends on sensitivity to, and familiarity with, the children as well as with the subject matter. What this involves will vary according to the children’s age and background. This emphasizes being attuned to children’s responses, so that the teacher notices and can make sense of what is happening, and the intimate link between pedagogy and formative assessment. Assessing the mood of a class is an essential element of expertise when working with young children, because their responses and behaviour can change so quickly. Teachers with a high level of expertise are keenly aware of the emotional climate and temperature of a class, and very good at altering it, and changing course rapidly, just before things start to go wrong, for instance by gathering the children together or starting a different activity. Such teachers assess – and regularly reassess – the mood of the class to know how the children are feeling and responding and to decide what to do. Doing so helps to pre-empt situations becoming more volatile, thereby avoiding stress and upset for all concerned. Craft and case knowledge can be developed to some extent by reading and attending courses, but far more by practice and reflection on experience. Selfregulatory processes are improved mainly by practice and reflection on the impact, not so much on measurable outcomes as on one’s own teaching and children’s immediate responses. Learning to interpret what is happening may initially require largely cognitive and deliberate decisions, but gradually, with attunement and practice, this becomes more intuitive, with little conscious

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thought. Collecting stories and ideas, especially those which teachers or children have found useful, helps in building a bank of case knowledge. Insights from specific incidents must be generalized by identifying the key points so that they become useful case knowledge. Getting to know a class intimately enables the teacher to know the individuals in it and to build up case knowledge. Extensive case knowledge usually implies a breadth of experience of different age groups and types of class but is also acquired through reflection on one’s experience, and discussion with other teachers, preferably in the light of theory rather than anecdote. Case studies and observing, and being observed, where necessary using video, are particularly valuable in identifying and discussing key aspects of craft knowledge, but this must be in a supportive, not a punitive, context. This reinforces the benefit of an apprenticeship approach where teachers watch other teachers at work and articulate what they do and why; and then use the results to inform each other’s practice. Craft knowledge must be incorporated into how the teacher teaches. Take the analogy with learning to drive. This involves becoming more capable using a set of discrete skills – changing gear, accelerating smoothly, using the brakes, indicating to other road users – but these must be combined into a fluent whole. When learning to drive, most people concentrate so hard on what they are doing that they easily lose sight of what is going on around and find it hard to coordinate different skills, such as using the clutch and accelerator together to move off smoothly. Other difficulties are more individual. I found positioning the car correctly on the road and using the brakes to slow down rather than only to stop did not come easily. Gradually, one becomes more able to relax and to regulate one’s own actions, anticipating what is likely to happen and combining separate skills without much conscious effort. This analogy reaffirms the importance, discussed on p. 75, of calibration, where teachers develop procedural knowledge by practice and habit, with little conscious thought, at least at the time, completing an action as a whole rather than responding, usually too late, to every little piece of feedback. Too much conscious thought or trying deliberately to correct every action can get in the way, as when trying to improve one’s golf swing, or pitch a new note if one is not a confident singer. Acting in this way depends on a bank of experiences in, and memories of, similar situations (see Bateson and Bateson, 1988: 26). Therefore case knowledge enables teachers to act more fluently and holistically, rather than constantly adjusting their teaching in response to every event or comment; and learning to act in this way in turn tends to enhance craft knowledge and confidence.

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Creating and sustaining an inclusive environment and climate for learning Responding to what excites and engages children Bibby (2011:  66), in describing the (quietly expressed but obvious) excitement of two Somali girls at hearing a greeting in Somali during a song, and how the teacher told them off, comments that ‘we just need to notice the ease with which moments of potential recognition and joining can be missed and devalued’. This example indicates how teachers must not only take account of children’s culture and interests, but have the ability and sensitivity to do so unexpectedly and quickly.

Watkins (2005: 5) states that teachers identify different features of what matters most in classroom life but three are regularly mentioned: ● ●

●

the creation of an overall climate; the social relations between groups of pupils, and how to help them get on; and managing the multiple dimensions of classroom activity.

As indicated, one key feature of primary classroom teachers’ expertise is the ability to create and sustain the classroom as an inclusive learning community, so that all children can thrive, regardless of their background or prior experience. Watkins (2005: 5) suggests that in classrooms which are learning communities: ●

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teachers are more focused on children’s learning than on managing behaviour; children develop abilities and qualities which are transferable to non-school contexts; and everyone experiences a good model for a better future life;

and that these features are associated with children’s better performance, behaviour and social/moral development. Creating and sustaining a genuinely inclusive learning community involves changes to many of the assumptions which teachers and children make about teaching and learning. Inclusion does not just involve having children with disabilities working alongside other children. As Graham and Slee (2008: 278) write, ‘[T]o include is not necessarily to be inclusive’ (emphasis in the original). Many

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forms of exclusion are subtle, and possibly unintended, by teachers and other children. The key is whether inclusion is understood as trying to adapt children to forms of schooling and teaching which have typically served some children better than others, or as changing these (see Thomson and Hall, 2015: 420). The discussion in Chapter 2 emphasized children’s engagement and meaningful activity to enhance how they learn and how relationships and power affect this. In Pollard with Filer’s (1996: 91) words, [I]f the power context . . . is very prominent and a child feels vulnerable, then he or she is likely to minimize exposure and ‘play safe’ by opting for a tried, tested and defensive range of strategies. A more secure environment, in which a child feels at ease with the expectations and rules which frame behaviour, is likely to make experimentation possible and to encourage the risk-taking which is a necessary part of engaging with new learning challenges.

One underrated aspect of expertise when working with young children is managing transitions, from home to school, from one school to another, from class to class. Novelty prompts paradoxical emotions of hope and dread (see Salzberger-Wittenberg, Henry and Osborne, 1996). At such times, everyone – children and teachers – feels more anxious, scared and vulnerable, as well as excited. Those who feel threatened are unlikely to take risks (see Maslow, 1998). Attachment theory, as discussed briefly in Eaude (2016b: 79–81), helps to explain why some children are more able to cope with anxiety than others and respond in different ways. Anxiety makes people respond in inappropriate ways, usually with aggression or withdrawal. Such emotions affect young children very strongly, especially those who are less secure emotionally. So, their emotions must be contained if they are not to feel threatened. Children – and indeed teachers – must feel safe in order to be creative and adventurous, as when one stays in an unfamiliar place and ventures out a little further each time having learned some familiar landmarks. Teachers must provide emotional stability and contain children’s anxiety without making the classroom too unchallenging; and exert authority without disempowering children, so that they learn to cope with risk, ambiguity and uncertainty. As always, there is a balance to be struck; and classroom teachers need to establish not only the overall climate, but constantly fine-tune how it operates. An inclusive learning environment implies that children and adults all interact thoughtfully, so that no one feels excluded, and offers children protection and a sense of agency, with a gradual change of the locus of control so that children increasingly take charge of their learning. Classroom teachers have a key

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role in this. In Steer’s words (DfES, 2005: 2), ‘[T]he quality of learning, teaching and behaviour are inseparable issues and the responsibility of all staff.’ In most primary schools, standards of behaviour are good, with problems mainly related to low-level disruption. Teachers with a high level of expertise encourage thoughtful and kind behaviour, and intrinsic motivation, by: ● ● ● ●

helping create relationships of mutual trust; modelling appropriate behaviour; maintaining children’s agency, engagement and motivation; and matching tasks to children’s interests and abilities,

rather than by compulsion and control. Creating an inclusive environment involves teachers establishing expectations and relationships which help all involved know what to expect of each other; not just in terms of outcomes, but how children should regulate their emotions and interact with, and respond to, each other and adults. Expectations must be broad and realistic, as well as high. Since the expectations which adults create are evident more in the example they provide than in what they say, an important part of what classroom teacher do is how they demonstrate, and model, how to respond to different situations, including occasions when they are angry or unsure. Explicit rules can help to ensure fairness, but how these are applied must not simply be to ensure children’s compliance. Since young children benefit from clearly understood expectations and boundaries, a teacher starting in a new situation, especially if inexperienced, will usually find it helpful to establish clear rules and apply them with little flexibility, at first. But boundaries can, and should, gradually become less sharp and rules applied more flexibly if teachers are not to be over-controlling. However, as Jackson et al. (1993) indicate, teachers’ expectations and beliefs about children and ideas such as ability are often manifested at an unconscious level, such as through how children are grouped or whose responses are most valued. Such expectations easily become selffulfilling and are hard to change. For young children, an inclusive learning environment implies a broad range of opportunities and experiences. This is not simply a question of how the timetable is designed. In Alexander’s (1992: 141) words, ‘[C]urriculum breadth and balance are less about time allocation than the diversity of challenge of what the child encounters.’ Teachers with a high level of expertise find many ways of engaging and motivating children, thus supporting their willingness to learn as well as their ability to do so. This involves concentrating more on children’s

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qualities and dispositions and ways of strengthening these, and less on children just completing tasks and achieving short-term results. Young children need activity and reflectiveness, challenge and security, structure and freedom, but individual children’s needs differ. So, an inclusive environment involves teachers constantly balancing differing, possibly conflicting, priorities. Teachers need constantly to adapt what they do, and expect children to do, to suit a particular class’s needs rather than expecting children to conform with what is on offer. Those with a high level of expertise take account of factors such as gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background and prior experience and respond accordingly, rather than seeing all children as the same or equally able to access school learning. This entails drawing on children’s funds of knowledge, being sensitive to their culture and background and encouraging their sense of agency and voice, for instance by providing plenty of opportunities for children to make suggestions and decisions. Primary classroom teachers must create spaces – physical, emotional and psychological – in which children can flourish individually and collectively. In Eaude (2014b), I explored the idea of hospitable space, where all are welcomed, regardless of background, but highlighted the difficulty of creating this in a highly competitive culture. A hospitable learning environment implies that all children are engaged and motivated. The types of success celebrated are not only those related to academic attainment. But many teachers in a system dominated by performativity find little space to listen and show the warmth and the adult attention on which young children thrive. Hospitable space is created by relationships of mutual trust and establishing expectations of how adults and children talk and listen to, and interact with, each other so that children understand and internalize these and teachers exert authority rather than control children through rewards and sanctions. Trusting relationships are created and sustained by many small and repeated interactions, between adult and children, demonstrating trustworthiness, slowly and incrementally. In teaching young children, this occurs both by individual attention and comment and more collectively by routines and rituals, such as the welcome at the start of the day, times when stories are read or told and discussions and circle times. Such routines and rituals give children a sense of security, belonging and being valued. Most of these are normal, even mundane, aspects of classroom organization. In this, the care, warmth, and attunement which teachers manifest matters more than applying particular techniques. The groups to which children belong – and perceive themselves to belong – matters profoundly in terms of attainment, identity and moral development

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(see Eaude, 2016b). How children are grouped is an important aspect of primary classroom teachers’ craft knowledge. The most appropriate grouping and use of physical space depends on the teacher’s aims, the type of task and the children’s prior experience. Teachers with a high level of expertise group children depending on the activity and its aims, whether to practise a skill, refine concepts or reinforce a particular quality. Children may sometimes be grouped as a whole class or in smaller groups, by friendship or prior attainment, randomly or by gender, depending on what is to be achieved. For example, partner work enables immediate discussion, small groups encourage cooperation and teamwork and are best for experiments and larger groups are fine for listening to a story or hearing instructions which apply to the whole class. However, problems arise when teachers are not aware of the possible implications of particular groupings, especially as these affect children’s beliefs about themselves. How children are grouped may have significant, often unintended, consequences in terms of implicit, but strong, messages about ability, for example, if teachers think of differentiation only in terms of groups based on ability or, to be more precise, teachers’ perceptions of ability on the basis of prior attainment. In supporting children who find learning difficult teachers should try to provide adequate scaffolding rather than reduce the level of cognitive challenge or create a sense of dependency. Often this can be achieved through work in a small group, but the danger is that children can be overprotected and/or de facto excluded from parts of the curriculum, and to some extent the whole class, if frequently taken out of the class for additional support, especially if they miss activities which they find motivating and enjoyable. An inclusive learning environment is created and sustained by the small, detailed actions which are the fabric of teachers’ craft knowledge. These help to transform teachers’ disciplinary knowledge into pedagogical content knowledge. However, no less important is the personal and interpersonal knowledge, discussed in Chapter 7.

Planning for uncertainty and assessing the whole child Having considered primary classroom teachers’ subject, craft and case knowledge, this section summarizes some implications for planning and assessment. It does not discuss, let alone recommend, any particular model of planning, but highlights some general principles. Plans may be written but not necessarily so;

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and when written down are likely to vary in detail and type. Planning, assessment and pedagogy must be linked, not only in thinking, from the outset, about what is to be learned, and how it is to be assessed, but in planning flexibly so that the teacher can assess what is happening and respond accordingly. Remember that experts are skilled at linking short- and long-term objectives and planning opportunistically. The complex task of teaching a class requires careful planning, both of individual lessons and longer sequences and topics, trying to ensure that short-term planning is congruent with longer-term aims. Planning does not just involve working out what to teach, but resolving dilemmas such as how to group children, use space and find ways to maintain children’s motivation and engagement. The teacher, individually or with colleagues, has to decide what he or she intends that children should learn and how to set up opportunities likely to enable this. An inclusive learning environment implies that planning takes account of children’s prior knowledge and interests and what they want to learn, rather than relying too closely on a predetermined syllabus or scheme of work. An old army saying states that ‘no plan of action ever survives first contact with the enemy’. In other words, events disrupt the working of the most carefully laid plans. As any teacher of young children will attest, external factors such as events at home, a dispute between friends or what happened at lunchtime affect how individuals and groups respond. Teachers with a high level of expertise look out for, anticipate and take account of external distractions. For instance, the weather, particularly wind and snow, affects significantly how young children respond as a group, however ridiculous this may seem. This does not mean that planning is unnecessary but that teachers should try to anticipate what might happen to allow for the unexpected and be prepared to deviate from their plan depending on what happens. Teachers vary in relation to the anticipated level of control of content and pedagogy to include in their planning. Some, especially those who are inexperienced, wish to know as far as possible what is going to happen. But, with greater confidence and experience, most teachers feel comfortable planning in less detail. Teachers with a high level of expertise are not too rigid about their plans on what children are expected to learn in any one lesson. Rather than sticking to what they had planned, such teachers change course when a particular approach is not working as intended. The ability to do this depends on self-regulation during teaching but is made easier by considering, in advance, alternative possible courses of action.

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Creating opportunities can be planned for to some extent, especially through the types of activity set up. But planning in minute detail exactly what one is going to do leaves little room for the unexpected. Teachers, especially with young children, should plan carefully but flexibly to enable ‘disciplined improvisation’ rather than rely on ‘scripted instruction.’ Simple, flexible planning leaves space for the teacher to improvise. Assessment and testing should not be equated. Assessment is sometimes thought of only as summative, based on testing, data and outcomes. Summative assessment enables teachers to see the impact of their teaching on some aspects of children’s learning, mainly propositional knowledge, but only rarely does data reveal children’s thinking processes. Nor should academic attainment and progress be the only areas assessed. To teach the whole child, one must assess the whole child. As Black and Wiliam (1998) suggest, the emphasis in assessment has often been on input, such as requirements and demands, and output, especially results, but with little interest in what happens in the classroom. Clark (2015: 93 ff ), in discussing adaptive expertise, highlights using assessment formatively and that primary-aged children often require sufficient time to demonstrate progress (96). Teachers must assess what children can do, not just what they can’t, using oral, visual and practical as well as written methods, portfolios of work rather than just one-off tests and group as well as individual assessments. Classroom teachers have a long time in which to make, and adapt, their assessments which can then inform the more immediate, intuitive actions which are the fabric of pedagogy. Teachers with a high level of expertise use all forms of assessment formatively, where possible, to discover misconceptions and diagnose next steps. They assess process and understanding as well as outcomes, not least because the most useful teacher feedback relates to learning processes. Since pedagogical content knowledge requires an understanding of how children, in general, and specific individuals and classes, learn, teachers with a high level of expertise are constantly assessing children’s current level of understanding to decide how to provide appropriate challenge. In particular, such teachers use divergent assessment to establish the range of what children know, more than convergent assessment to see if they know what the curriculum, or the teacher, demands (see Olovsson, 2015: 742–3). To illustrate what formative assessment looks like, think what happens when one goes to the doctor. As Shulman (2004: 100–29) indicates, doctors rely a great deal on processes such as forming hypotheses and interpretation of

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cues when making a diagnosis, drawing both on theoretical knowledge from research and case knowledge from personal experience. The doctor makes hypotheses, often unconsciously, and gradually eliminates these, sometimes on the basis of data, such as temperature or blood pressure, but usually drawing on case knowledge. Over time, or in more complex cases, further diagnostic tests may be required, but this does not eliminate the need for professional judgement. Black and Wiliam (1998: 7–8), recognizing that formative assessment does not have a tightly defined and widely accepted definition, suggest that it encompasses ‘all those activities undertaken by teachers and/or by their students, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged’. Among key features which Black and Wiliam highlight are: ●

●

●

involving pupils in their learning to decide on next steps and identify who or what can help; sharing criteria about what is to be learned and what success looks like; and giving children timely feedback about the quality of their work and how they can make it better. (Ibid.)

Using such strategies is hard, especially for those starting out as teachers, not least because these run counter to many of the habits about learning and teaching which are deeply ingrained in how children and teachers think and interact. However, they have echoes with the five classroom practices with the most significant effect sizes on student outcomes which Hattie identifies: ● ● ● ● ●

reciprocal teaching; feedback; children’s self-verbalisation and self-questioning; children’s metacognitive strategies; problem-solving teaching. (See Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012: 52)

For children to assess the strengths of their own, and other children’s, work helps them to understand and internalize what good work looks like. Moreover, children are likely to find this more engaging, as long as comments are constructive, and help identify who or what can help. While very young children may find this difficult, practice in what to look for, both as a class and initially in a small group, with adult support, and increasingly as pairs, or threes, enables them to do this successfully.

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In Gipps’s (1999:  383)  words, ‘[P]assing responsibility for assessment to the student is crucial as it helps them to develop as self-monitoring learners.’ Feedback about learning processes, especially when children use this to selfmonitor and evaluate their own learning, enables them to internalize the success of existing strategies and decide on new ones. With young children, teacher feedback ideally occurs as soon as possible and is about how they have approached the task rather than just outcomes. Hattie and Timperley (2007: 86) suggest that teacher feedback is more effective when it does not carry high threats to children’s self-esteem and addresses achievable goals. Take the example of reprimanding a child, without humiliating him or her, or creating a confrontation. Usually, it is more helpful and compassionate to frame criticism positively rather than negatively and to reprimand in private rather than in public. As Dweck argues, high self-esteem is much more potent when it is ‘won through striving wholeheartedly for worthwhile ends, rather than derived from praise, especially praise that may be only loosely related to actual achievement’ (see Claxton, 2005: 17). So, teachers should avoid giving constant praise regardless of how hard a child has tried; and feedback should be related to the task and how to improve. Hattie (2009) recommends transparency and shared criteria, so that teachers and children know what they are trying to achieve. Teachers must know what they hope to achieve in a particular lesson, but not be too constrained by this. While explicit learning objectives and targets make clear what teachers expect, and can be valuable, they can easily become limiting, since for the teacher to emphasize some aspects may lead children to overlook others, and so discourage lateral thinking. In particular, objectives must not be restricted to low level skills associated with completing tasks. As Dweck (2000) indicates, there is nothing wrong with objectives based on performance and outcome, as long as they do not shut out those related to learning qualities and processes. For instance, encouraging children to manifest qualities such as teamwork or imagination can help them, especially those who work slowly, forever having to complete, on their own, low-level tasks. Hattie (2009) emphasizes that feedback should operate in both directions. While feedback from the teacher has long been recognized as essential in correcting misconceptions and suggesting ‘next steps’, Hattie’s insight that feedback to the teacher is even more important is often overlooked. One should not underestimate the extent to which teachers can learn from children, if they are attuned to them and prepared to listen and take their views seriously. For instance, listening to children’s talk helps teachers to assess their level of understanding, to identify misconceptions and adapt their pedagogy accordingly. For

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teachers to ask open questions and encourage – and really listen to – responses from those who are less sure as well as those who volunteer their ideas are vital ways of establishing to what extent children understand, or otherwise, what is being taught. This chapter has suggested that teachers’ craft and case knowledge are closely linked and often developed together. But to teach reciprocally also requires teachers to be attuned to each individual child and the class and attend to their responses, involving personal and interpersonal knowledge, as discussed in Chapter 7.

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Personal and Interpersonal Knowledge

Chapter outline Exploring what personal and interpersonal knowledge entails and why it matters Developing the qualities to cope with the uncertainty of the primary classroom Learning to teach with intuition, confidence and resilience Challenging and changing teachers’ deep-seated assumptions and beliefs

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It is conceivable that, in addition to selecting a good course of action and avoiding a crass strategy, what most characterises the expert teacher is the ability to undertake a selected course of action with a high level of interpersonal competence, and to adjust one’s own behaviour in accordance with the unfolding nature of the situation. —Elliott et al., ‘The Socially Skilled Teacher and the Development of Tacit Knowledge’, 99

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Exploring what personal and interpersonal knowledge entails and why it matters Day and Gu (2010: 5) conclude that, to manage their lives as teachers successfully, teachers need: ●

●

● ● ●

a combination of technical and personal competences, deep subject knowledge, empathy and passion; a strong sense of moral purpose and positive emotional and professional identity and agency; the ability to understand and manage emotions within themselves and others; commitment; and resilience.

The previous two chapters have explored the technical aspects of teaching a class of young children, including subject knowledge. This chapter considers the rest of Day and Gu’s list, apart from the second point. It explores, especially, the personal and interpersonal qualities which enable primary classroom teachers to use pedagogical content, craft and case knowledge to teach reciprocally, meeting the needs of a particular class; and so help to create classrooms which are – for teachers and children – more like gardens than jungles, where teachers exert control and authority without being controlling and authoritarian. Elliott et al. (2011: 99) suggest that skilled interpersonal performance requires not only the selection of an appropriate strategy but also, once determined, the capacity to carry this out effectively. Thus, two teachers may both decide to confront a student who is acting inappropriately in class, even to the extent of choosing to adopt exactly the same approach; yet one may be far more skilled in actually carrying out this set of behaviours (e.g. in the use of authoritative, non-inflammatory, nonverbal communication, the choice of words, and the tone in which the teacher expresses his or her perspective).

Therefore, personal and interpersonal knowledge is a prerequisite for a responsive and relational approach to teaching. Teachers, like doctors, require a sound evidential basis for their judgements, but must be able to relate and respond appropriately to children and adults. Just as doctors need a good ‘bedside manner’, as well as technical knowledge, rapport with children (and adults) is essential for teachers to teach sensitively and reciprocally. Knowledge of their own strengths and weaknesses, and how they interact with, and are seen by, other people, helps teachers of young children to understand and manage their own emotions and provide emotional stability. Such

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knowledge enables them to cope successfully with the uncertainty of the classroom, the anxiety – their own and children’s – which often accompanies this and the difficulties which teachers inevitably encounter. Personal and interpersonal knowledge helps teachers to create and sustain a secure and calm, but exciting and challenging, learning environment and have the confidence to manifest their expertise and try new ideas and enable children to do so. Doing so, particularly when teaching young children, involves much more than just applying a set of rules and techniques, but knowing which ones, when and how they should be applied, and doing so appropriately, depending on the situation and one’s knowledge of the children. This depends on an awareness of one’s own actions and how these affect, and are affected by, other people’s responses. But to act on this awareness requires the confidence to exercise professional judgement, often on the basis of intuition, and the resilience to keep doing so when times are tough. Teachers with a high level of expertise are skilled at making tasks, and the learning environment, manageable, both emotionally and cognitively, for the class and for themselves. The emotional intensity – for teachers and children – depends to some extent on the style of teaching adopted. Less interaction and movement tends to reduce this, while more, to allow and encourage children’s creativity, increases the risk of teachers losing control. But whatever the approach, the ability to self-regulate helps the teacher to avoid panic responses. Skilled teachers are constantly adjusting what they do, often without conscious thought, based on attunement to the mood of the class and self-regulation, so that they can change direction and thereby manage the level of intensity and risk. They recognize, and do not misuse, the power which they can exert, as an adult and as a teacher, and are aware of their own emotional state, and emotional triggers, so that they can respond appropriately in-the-moment. In Hargreaves’ words (2013: xviii–xix), [E]motion always enters into judgement by narrowing down the otherwise infinite range of variables that underpin the choices we make. . . . emotion is integral to all judgement, and especially integral to the complex judgements that characterize professional practice . . ..when emotional understanding is accurate, it enhances professional judgment. When it is inaccurate, it undermines that judgment . . . Emotional understanding flourishes in deep and sustained relationships, where we learn to grasp, read and even anticipate one another’s expressions and reactions.

Accurate personal and interpersonal knowledge depends on one’s ability to respond to one’s emotions and form appropriate relationships. We have seen the importance of relationships in how young children learn and are empowered. The difference of age, intellect, interests and power makes it hard for

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teachers to form appropriate relationships with young children. As a young teacher, I was too keen on children liking me, so that at times there was not enough distance between us. While teachers may be friendly towards children, the relationship is not one of equality, but should be one of mutual trust and respect. Please note the word ‘mutual’. It is widely recognized that children should trust and respect teachers, but less so, in practice, that teachers should trust children; and too often teachers demonstrate little respect for children as inexperienced learners. As Shulman (2004: 413) advises, ‘[Y]ou must respect the intelligence and understanding of students especially when they misunderstand’ (emphasis in the original). What teachers must not do is humiliate or put down children who ask questions and take risks, however foolish or naïve their comments. If teachers are to respond appropriately to their own, and children’s, emotions, it helps to identify which qualities teachers most need. These, inevitably, depend on what teachers hope to achieve and the context in which they work. The extent to which teachers should manifest particular qualities has to be tempered by judgement of the context. For instance, while presenting material in imaginative ways may be motivating, exactly how best to do so will depend on the teacher’s knowledge of that particular class. However, let us try to identify some of the qualities which help primary classroom teachers cope with the complexity and uncertainty of the role, and which teachers and teacher educators should try to develop. Most are relatively unremarkable, or least unsurprising. For example, since emotional stability is necessary for young children, predictability, warmth and patience are among the qualities which primary classroom teachers must demonstrate. Some enable teachers to understand children, some to ensure children are safe but challenged and some to encourage their creativity. Others help teachers to protect or motivate themselves. For instance, Hargreaves (2003: 23) argues that teachers require creativity, flexibility and ingenuity if they are, in a world of change, to be catalysts of children’s learning and counterpoints to what inhibits this, rather than casualties of a system which narrows and limits children’s learning (see Eaude, 2011: 175–6). Since example and role modelling exerts a strong influence on how young children learn, how teachers act – and the sort of people they are – is an essential element of how they manifest their expertise. Though this may sound rather daunting, Jackson et al. (1993: 286–7) write that the teachers with whom they worked did not use the term ‘role model’ much, suggesting that perhaps it seems too ‘heroic’. They spoke of ‘humbler virtues’ such as:

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showing respect for others; demonstrating what it means to be intellectually absorbed; paying close attention to what is being said; being a ‘good sport’; and even showing that it is okay to make mistakes and to be confused.

One should be careful of imagining that children know exactly what makes a good teacher, as one would of thinking that a patient knows what being a skilled surgeon entails. However, given the relational aspect of teaching, their views provide a useful perspective. Alexander (2010: 408) writes that ‘a clear and simple message which emerged from the (Cambridge Primary) Review’s soundings and submissions was that teachers need to be qualified and knowledgeable but also caring. Children, in particular, had little doubt about the qualities they wanted teachers to possess . . . (summarised as) equity, empathy and expertise’. Inevitably, no list of the qualities required will be comprehensive and those deemed most important may vary between schools and classes. However, Table 7.1 highlights qualities associated with expertise as a primary classroom teacher. Some may be seen as intrapersonal, some as interpersonal. Many are, disparagingly, referred to as soft skills, but this does not mean that they are unimportant or easy to develop. Indeed, the opposite is true. Most people becoming a primary classroom teacher probably have the qualities outlined in Table 7.1 to a certain extent, though usually not in the context of working with a class of young children. One may learn about, and become more attuned to, young children – and about oneself in relation to them – in many different ways, for instance by watching, playing with and listening to children. The qualities which teachers bring to the classroom depend in part on temperament, prior experience and culture. But even someone who is resilient or versatile in some respects will still have to hone and refine these in working with a class; and some qualities are harder to build up or change than others, even assuming that the individual wishes to do so. So, how different teachers develop, and Table 7.1 Qualities associated with primary classroom teacher expertise Resilience Patience Warmth Confidence Tact Optimism

Respect Equity/fairness Predictability Humour Discretion Ingenuity

Flexibility Passion Enthusiasm Intuition Open-mindedness Imagination

Empathy Kindness Commitment Humility Versatility Creativity

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strengthen, these qualities varies, but there are some common threads, explored in the next two sections.

Developing the qualities to cope with the uncertainty of the primary classroom In considering how personal and professional development occurs, Alexander (1995:  18)  writes of the ‘randomness of experience’  – that we are all affected by different experiences, over many of which we have little control – and that ‘learning from experience requires receptivity, predisposition and effort on the part of the learner’ (ibid.: 19). He discusses learning from ‘being oneself a parent and seeing in the children one teaches resonances of the anxieties, foibles and pleasures of one’s own offspring’ (ibid.:  20). But he qualifies this by saying that this did not seem empirically to be so for some teachers. Teachers may gain a greater understanding of themselves and their strengths and weaknesses, through their own education, experience and interests and working with other people. But they may not. Developing teachers’ personal/interpersonal knowledge is not a smooth or gradual process, partly because of the context-specific nature of such knowledge. As indicated, the research suggests that plateaux and troughs occur. Personal circumstances affect how much time and effort a teacher can put into professional development; and a difficult class may make a capable teacher doubt her ability to cope and undermine her confidence. Particular moments, or tipping points, may be significant, though these are likely to be relatively few and far between. The main way in which qualities are strengthened and refined is by practising them. As Aristotle argued, one becomes brave by acting courageously and generous by the exercise of generosity – at least to some extent. Qualities are usually developed incrementally, bit by bit, though they can be undermined by a single event or comment. For instance, critical and unsupportive feedback may easily make any teacher more reluctant to take risks or to innovate – or even to continue teaching. Personal and interpersonal knowledge for use in teaching can, to some extent, be developed from theory but more by watching oneself or other teachers in action and how children respond. Observing the interactions implicit in teaching in a reciprocal way helps to identify the personal and interpersonal knowledge associated with expertise. Understanding the impact of the dynamics of the primary classroom and its impact on oneself can help in recognizing the qualities necessary to counter the

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pressures, both internal to the classroom and from outside. Knowing one’s vulnerabilities and the types of situation which trigger strong emotional responses is essential and can help one to avoid such situations. But controlling how one responds in a specific situation is much harder. For example, though I am usually patient as a man and a classroom teacher, sometimes too much so, some children’s responses, especially rudeness, tended to make me, quite suddenly, start to lose my temper and I had to work hard to control this. Reflection on one’s own responses, and advice from others, can help but these are conscious processes; and changes in behaviour occur less through cognitive processes than repeated enactment. Space does not permit a detailed discussion of how all the qualities identified above can be developed, but the rest of this section looks briefly at six: empathy, fairness, patience, humour, enthusiasm and optimism. This highlights how intricately such qualities are associated with craft and case knowledge. Baron-Cohen (2011: 11) identifies two aspects of empathy, recognition and response, writing that ‘empathy is our ability to identify what someone else is thinking or feeling, and to respond to their thoughts and feeling with an appropriate emotion’. Rather than just sympathizing with how someone else is feeling, empathy involves being able to see and understand the situation from someone else’s perspective insofar as one can, and respond accordingly. To recognize, to some extent, how young children see and make sense of the world, especially their difficulties, and respond accordingly, requires imagination and attunement to children’s feelings, both over time and in the moment. When teaching many classes each week, acquiring such knowledge is enormously demanding. When working with one class most of the week, for a year, it remains a challenge but a more manageable one. To empathize with young children who are struggling to learn something new is very hard in the busy world of the classroom, given the difference in age and understanding between teacher and child. A knowledge of child development, and individual children’s prior experience and background, provides a good basis. However, empathy is enhanced by listening to, and watching, children, taking account not just of what they say but seeing and sharing their pleasures and their interests, their concerns and their struggles. It helps for teachers – and those learning to be teachers – to be in the position of the learner and to feel what this is like. When I started my Initial Teacher Education course, I was told to draw a vegetable from life, something that I had not, in an academic education, done for many years. This helped me to feel – and understand to some extent – the inadequacy of not-feeling-able-to. To be regularly in such situations,

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outside teaching, where one is trying to learn but feels unsure how to proceed – the situation often faced by young children – helps teachers to understand the vulnerabilities of inexperienced learners and which sorts of support are useful and which are not. The importance ascribed to fairness has led to the mantra that teachers should always be consistent in how they apply rules or offer praise or admonishment. However, this is more problematic than it may seem. Life is often not fair; and children must learn to cope with what is unexpected or may seem unfair. Some children need more support or encouragement than others. And there is some evidence that engagement and the motivation to succeed is higher when the frequency and type of reward is not known in advance. Children’s pleas for fairness are often an expression of a wish for themselves, individually or as a group, not to be short-changed. While teachers should not be erratic or deliberately unfair, acting predictably, and explaining why when one does not, is more respectful than acting like an automaton. A class will usually recognize that decisions which may seem unfair are reasonable if someone trusted explains why. As discussed in Eaude (2016b: 79–82), predictability seems more important than consistency, if teaching is to be responsive and reciprocal. The ability to know when to act in ways that are unexpected, and may seem unfair, is one indicator of teacher expertise and tends to be based on case knowledge. Much more corrosive is unfairness based on factors such as gender, ethnicity or class. We return in the final section of this chapter to how teachers’ assumptions based on these can be challenged and changed, even though they are often unconscious. To teach young children requires patience, given the immediacy of their responses and the frustrations inherent in the role. How teachers deal patiently with their own anger and frustrations provides an example to children of how to do so. Patience is associated with the teacher’s ability to regulate his or her emotions to provide emotional stability and predictability, while being firm enough to stop children being upset or time being wasted by children’s disruptions and thoughtlessness. Patience is developed, to some extent, by knowing which sorts of situation and individual children trigger strong emotional responses, avoiding such situations, where possible, and learning to pause when provoked. This is helped by knowledge of, and sensitivity to, particular children, and how circumstances may have affected their responses. However, like many other qualities, patience is developed mainly by being patient. Jackson et  al. (1993) indicate that humour is a quality which teachers and children in all phases believe to be important. Classrooms must be spaces where

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joys and laughter, jokes and misunderstandings, both children’s and adults’, are shared if they are not to become boring and soulless. Classrooms are places where amusing things happen and children have opportunities to be playful and creative, or should be if learning is to be enjoyable. Teachers should not be frivolous or try to be entertaining all the time, but neither should they be humourless or over-serious. Some teachers may not wish to use humour much, but there is a place for material to be presented in eccentric or funny ways, not least because this may help to engage young children’s interests. However, teachers must be careful about how they use humour, especially with young children. There is no place for sarcasm because this is an exercise of power which may damage children’s confidence and self-esteem. It is not obvious how teachers can learn to use humour appropriately. However, with a class of young children, funny moments occur naturally; and some classes are more able to enjoy these without the situation getting out of hand. So, it may be that teachers should relax and enjoy such moments, while remaining able to reassert their authority. But doing so depends heavily on knowledge of the children and the relationship forged with them. As indicated, passion is an important element of teacher expertise, especially with young children. A  teacher’s passion for learning helps motivate children and enthusiasm is infectious. For instance, my enduring interest in history was fuelled by a teacher with considerable passion and enthusiasm for history when I  was about 10  years old. Unless teachers are interested in what they are teaching, it is hard to see how they will engage the children. Primary classroom teachers cannot display passion in every subject area, but being enthusiastic and curious about children’s ideas and learning is possible. Presenting experiences and ideas in ways that excite and engage children helps motivate teachers as well as children. So, for teachers to enjoy teaching, despite all its frustrations and difficulties, is important. Maybe, lateral thinking about how to present material for a particular class, group or individual matters more than we tend to believe; and being expected to provide, or learn, an endless diet of facts and skills, out of context, is boring and disengaging for teachers as well as children. In writing this book, I have kept thinking of the need for teachers of young children to be optimistic and hopeful. With young children, especially those whose lives outside school are harsh or unloving, teachers must create and exude a sense of optimism, without suggesting that everyone should be happy, even when they are not, or that everything will be alright, even when it is not. As with many of the other qualities highlighted, I am not sure how teachers do, and

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can, develop and maintain optimism, given the challenges they face. However, I suspect that teaching a class of young children provides a source of optimism, given the infectious enthusiasm, excitement and energy that children bring to learning, unless these are suppressed by a curriculum and environment that fails to engage them.

Learning to teach with intuition, confidence and resilience Acting on a hunch Early in my second year of teaching, my class included a 7-year old boy on the autistic spectrum who completed his work very quickly but whom previous teachers had been unwilling to challenge. After about three weeks, I said to him, on a hunch, that his writing – which he regarded as finished – was a good start but that perhaps he should go and write more. He looked at me, puzzled, waited and said nothing. I was worried that I had upset him, but he went off and wrote a much longer piece; and continued to write at length throughout the year.

Previous chapters have emphasized acting rapidly and appropriately on the basis of intuition as one important feature of expertise, if teaching is to be responsive and reciprocal; and suggested that intuition must be informed by theory and case knowledge, if intuition is not to depend on whatever an individual thinks might work. Intuition is hard to define and has several forms (see Eraut, 2000). As Furlong (2000:  28)  indicates, intuition relates to ways of knowing, such as feelings, hunches and ways of recognizing complex patterns, but Claxton (2000: 34) sees it as ‘immediate apprehension without the intervention of any reasoning process’, contrasting this with deliberative, analytical thought. Claxton highlights processes such as rumination and incubation, which are slow, deliberative processes requiring close attention to particular children and reflecting on the consequences of previous actions in similar situations (see Claxton 2000:  40). In this context, I  am referring to situations where a teacher decides with no (or very rapid) deliberation whether or not to act on an (intuitive) hunch, as in the incident described above.

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Intuition depends more on feeling than cognition, when immediate decisions are to be made. As Nussbaum (2001: 365) argues, ‘[F]requently feeling guides attention and discloses to vision what would otherwise have remained concealed.’ She adds that ‘emotions can sometimes mislead and distort judgement; . . . but they can also . . . give us access to a truer and deeper level of ourselves, to values and commitments that have been concealed beneath defensive ambition and rationalization’ (2001:  390). This suggests that teachers should learn to trust more in feeling and intuition, while remaining cautious about relying on this. Teachers must be flexible and prepared to innovate and act intuitively. But innovation must have a sound theoretical base and understanding of how young children learn. Those new to the profession should be more cautious and not deviate too much from what is planned. So, inexperienced teachers may have to be careful when teaching controversial issues, where difficulties can intensify very quickly. Just as it is best to start cooking a simple dish before trying a more complicated one, it is wise to be cautious initially. But teachers must increasingly act innovatively and intuitively if they are to create an exciting and reciprocal learning environment. One must recognize that: ●

●

hunches can easily be mistaken, so that, while teachers may have to act without deliberation in the moment, they can afford to, and should, be more reflective on long-term, and more difficult, decisions; and the greater the potential risk – to the child or the teacher – the more cautious teachers, especially inexperienced ones, should be.

This does not mean that teachers should avoid trusting their intuition, but that they should be careful about when and how they do so. Teachers with a high level of expertise double check their hunches and intuitions when they have time, though sometimes this is not possible. While intuition may be mistaken, teachers will have little idea of when to trust their intuition unless they use it and reflect on when and where it is appropriate to do so. If discouraged from exercising intuition, teachers will remain wary of acting other than ‘by the book’. The ability to exercise intuition successfully is strongly context-related. Intuition as a therapist or a trombonist will not transfer to teaching, and vice versa, and only to some extent between teaching one age group or class and another. So, let us consider how those teaching young children can learn to use informed intuition and to form, and act on, more reliable hunches – and to know which are less reliable and thereby avoid foolish mistakes.

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Intuition is developed through regular practice, on the basis of ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it’, though as Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: 97) point out a second opinion often helps, especially when one is not very experienced. This is particularly so for hunches gathered over time. One example is the hunch that a child may have a specific, undiagnosed learning difficulty. Another is whether a child may be at risk of, or suffering, emotional abuse. Such intuition should not be relied on without evidence and reflection, but neither should it be ignored. The ability to exercise informed intuition does not appear out of nowhere, but is based on knowledge of the individual or group concerned and a reading of the situation. Exercising this depends to a considerable extent on accurate interpretation of cues and prediction of what is likely to happen, supported by previous experience – one’s own and other people’s – of similar situations. For primary classroom teachers, the length of time spent with the class, and the extent to which the teacher gets to know the children, provides a good basis for intuition being more likely to be accurate. However, each time when starting out with a new class, the teacher has to build up her bank of case knowledge specific to that class, though s/he is likely to have gained a broader general repertoire. McMahon (2000:  146), in thinking about how intuition can be developed, emphasizes that teachers must not be under too much pressure – or at least not be afraid. To translate hunch into action requires confidence and a sense of selfefficacy. Teachers must be confident and relaxed if they are to act in creative, innovative and experimental ways. Confidence depends on knowing what to do, but much more than that. When I tried to learn to sing, at the age of 40, I was very anxious. I knew that I needed to relax, but anxiety stopped me from doing so. Classrooms are places of uncertainty, but teachers must feel confident to act in ways associated with expertise. Disciplinary knowledge tends to give teachers confidence, but it can distract them from addressing the child’s wider needs. Case knowledge helps to provide confidence in one’s judgements. However, confidence can be misplaced, so teachers with a high level of expertise are slightly suspicious of their own certainty. Teaching without appearing too certain helps children to be creative and critical rather than compliant. This matters particularly when teaching young children, who may tend to assume that the teacher is always right. For a teacher to say that she doesn’t know something helps prevent the children from seeing him or her as the fount of all knowledge and encourages them to think and find out for themselves. As Macbeath (2012: 77) suggests, ‘[T]he bravest (teachers) model for their students what they don’t know as well as what they do know . . . and exhibit what Guy Claxton calls “confident uncertainty”.’

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McMahon (2000:  146)  highlights the need for a personal disposition ‘to tolerate uncertainty, to have confidence that answers to problems will emerge, to let questions and problems stew around in the unconscious mind rather than rush to solutions’. Mintz (2014: 3–4) argues that ‘it is through grappling with . . . uncertainty that the teacher comes to know the child more fully’, adding subsequently that ‘the premature desire for certainty is unproductive’ (2016:  292). However, such uncertainty must be productive, as opposed to paralysing. What makes uncertainty productive is the curiosity and questioning it can provoke in the teacher. What makes it paralysing is a feeling of inadequacy, especially when linked to criticism and a loss of a sense of agency and control. If teachers are to maintain a long-lasting sense of agency and commitment, they must be emotionally and physically resilient. Resilience involves the ability to cope with difficulties without giving up. Teachers need resilience to deal with longer-term external demands such as initiative fatigue and criticism from whatever source – and the stress which accompanies these. Those who are brittle lose (or never gain) the confidence to overcome the challenges inherent in the role. How resilience is built is complicated and multifaceted. One learns to be resilient through overcoming, rather than avoiding, challenges; but challenges must be manageable rather than overwhelming, periodic rather than constant. Teaching tough classes tends to build resilience, as long as teachers do not lose confidence or – understandably – become obsessed with controlling children. Feeling good about oneself as a teacher and the esteem of those whom one respects, by receiving supportive and affirmative feedback, may help to build and maintain resilience. But becoming more resilient also entails recognizing and addressing, rather than denying, one’s fears and vulnerabilities. As Dweck (2000) argues, resilience is associated with a growth mindset, where one believes that ability is not fixed, but that one should try again, with a different approach or more support. Confidence and resilience are built up incrementally, but easily dented by particular events or remarks which undermine self-esteem. I  recall one calm, thoughtful teacher in her thirties. Yet, she recounted how she was still recovering from being told, when she was 10, that she did not have the ability to be a teacher. While this should provide a salutary warning to teachers about what they say to children, similar comments can also undermine teachers’ confidence. Moreover, it suggests that some individuals may find it harder to build up their confidence because of their gender, ethnicity or background, especially in contexts where

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such factors affect how they are seen by other people. For instance, my sense is that many men may find the emotional challenges of working with young children particularly demanding, because men are usually socialized to take less account of their emotions than women are and may be less comfortable with the physical closeness involved in teaching young children. This may be exacerbated in some cases by worries about being perceived, however implicitly, as a potential child abuser. A robust but flexible identity as teachers and as professionals is a vital element of how teachers’ confidence and resilience are created and sustained. We return to this in Chapters 8 and 9, but for now I emphasize that beliefs and values are what tend to maintain teachers’ commitment and keep them wanting to teach and improve as teachers. The extent to which the qualities highlighted in the previous two sections are manifested and so developed is strongly influenced by the context, culture and environment in which individuals work. As a result, far more empirical research on how such qualities are developed, and the conditions which enable this, is required.

Challenging and changing teachers’ deep-seated assumptions and beliefs This section explores how teachers’ fundamental beliefs and assumptions  – about learning, teaching, children and ideas such as ability and intelligence – can be challenged and changed. In doing so, we touch on some sensitive areas which are rarely discussed, or even taboo. Remember, from Chapter 2, that teachers are defended subjects and erect barriers, often unconsciously, to avoid change. The motivation to change one’s practice must be strong, and even more so one’s fundamental beliefs. Mezirow’s concept of transformative learning involves taken-for-granted and often-unexamined assumptions and beliefs being challenged and changed to make them more inclusive (see Illeris, 2007:  46–7). If such changes are to be more than temporary, teachers’ beliefs and assumptions about teaching, learning and children and fundamental ideas such as knowledge and intelligence have to change; but new habits need gradually to be practiced and embedded. This helps explain why change is so hard and why it takes so long for external prescription to alter teachers’ practices. It is easier to change how teachers act than how they think, but altering teachers’ behaviours in the long term requires

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changing their schemata, their deep-seated patterns of understanding, assumptions and beliefs, over time. Evans (2008: 31) distinguishes between functional and attitudinal development. The former is the process whereby people’s performance is considered to have improved, the latter how people’s attitudes to their work are modified. She writes that ‘external introduction (deliberate or inadvertent) of new service level requirements . . . is likely to target and focus much more on functional development than on attitudinal development’ (ibid.) but that ‘as a factor influencing change (attitudinal development) is much more potent than functional development since it reflects, to varying degrees, acceptance of and commitment to the change’ (2008: 33). The language and metaphors used to describe children, learning and teaching reflect – and help to shape – teachers’ perceptions. Altering the language teachers use is an important, though not a sufficient, tool in helping shape – and reshape – such perceptions. For example, how disabled children and those with English as an additional language are described has in the past thirty years become more respectful and positive. This has helped to reduce, though not eliminate, the number of ‘casual’ but destructive comments about such children and alter, for the better, perceptions of what such children can achieve. Gardner’s (1993) view of multiple intelligence can help children and teachers to recognize that there are several ways – such as musical, spatial, intrapersonal and interpersonal – of understanding intelligence (and therefore what is thought to matter) other than the more familiar idea that it is only analytical and measurable. Describing children as higher- or lower-attaining, rather than bright or low-ability, can start to alter teachers’ and children’s ideas of ability as fixed. Dweck’s (2000) work on fixed and growth mindsets shows how teachers’, and children’s, beliefs about whether ability or intelligence is fixed, or whether performance can be improved by trying again, possibly with more support or experience, influence how children respond to difficulty and failure. A belief in ability as fluid matters if teachers are to believe in the possibility of children doing what may seem to be impossible – and so encourage children in such a belief. How this can operate in practice is discussed in the book Creating Learning without Limits (Swann et al., 2012). To consider how classrooms can become genuinely inclusive, we must enter uncomfortable territory, in relation to issues such as ethnicity, gender, physical ability and socio-economic background, the effects of which often combine to exacerbate disadvantage. We all make immediate assumptions about individual children based on factors such as gender, ethnicity and background and teachers

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must work consciously against these, for instance in how we ask questions, and of whom, and the quality of work expected. Teachers’ preconceptions about issues such as the influence of such factors on children’s abilities and potential must be brought out, not buried, if they are to be examined and challenged.

A very disturbing afternoon An incident which affected me deeply occurred on the last afternoon of a 20-day course on cultural diversity. It had been planned as a fairly relaxed celebration. One speaker started, to everyone’s surprise, to say that we all, white-skinned liberals, were not doing anything to challenge the deeply embedded and structural racism within the system. Whatever responses the audience made were dismissed as excuses. It was a very uncomfortable and unsettling afternoon, but helped me to recognize some of my unconscious assumptions and the impact on people from black and ethnic minority background of the structures within which I was working.

This incident illustrates how deeply many assumptions are embedded in our culture and educational system and how hard it is for individuals to work alone against these. It was only when we, as a school, looked at the children’s, parents’ and our own attitudes in detail that we started to realize the depth of the problem and to work out how we might address these. Teachers as a group still tend to expect children to conform to gender stereotypes, accepting behaviour from boys that one would not from girls and encouraging (or otherwise) gender-related interests and ambitions. Research has consistently indicated that teachers almost always ask more questions of boys than of girls. Despite the evidence that children from many, though not all, minority ethnic groups are now achieving high levels of attainment, racism, structurally and among individual teachers, remains widespread. Although young bilinguals often make rapid progress after a slow start, such children are often seen as a problem. Thankfully, the statement that they have no language is less common than previously, but young children with English as an additional language are still sometimes grouped with those with learning difficulties. While teacher attitudes to physical ability have altered significantly, for the better, in recent years, many teachers still have low expectations of, and overprotect, children with physical disabilities.

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Similar considerations apply to children from disadvantaged backgrounds, many of whom find it difficult to escape a pattern of replicating what their parents achieved. Teacher expectations play a part in enabling this, though such issues are complicated. Low expectations tend to be self-fulfilling. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds must be introduced to – and acquire – the ‘language of learning’ expected in schools (and beyond) to have much chance of succeeding in formal education. However, such children should not be expected to cast off their home language or heritage. Many of these assumptions are unconscious and unintentional and may reinforce each other. For example, expectations in terms of gender and culture may combine to make many teachers more accepting of girls from some ethnic minority backgrounds being quiet and compliant. While I am ashamed to write this, I  have little doubt that my, and our, expectations of the children in one school which served a disadvantaged community were lower than they would have been in a more affluent area – at least in terms of academic attainment. To counter such unconscious bias, teachers must try to step back, be aware of which children they pay too much, or too little, attention to, by noting this and consciously operating against it; for instance by constantly noticing which children they talk to most, and how they respond to different answers, rather than paying most attention to the most articulate or loudest children. For teachers to address such complex and entangled questions and to challenge their own assumptions and unconscious bias, they must re-examine much that is taken for granted, both by individuals and schools, to expose often-unspoken assumptions. However, many teachers are unwilling to do this, especially if they do not see any benefit for their children, or feel threatened. Evidence from research and other teachers’ practice can help teachers to challenge their own, and each other’s, practice. Evidence is always mediated through one’s interpretative framework. In other words, we have a tendency to notice and take account of what backs up our beliefs and to ignore, or underplay, evidence which runs counter to our existing beliefs. Other people may notice a teacher’s strengths and weaknesses, and their implicit assumptions, more clearly than they do themselves. Even so, changing deep-rooted beliefs and behaviours is hard and slow, given the power of habituation and the strength of teachers’ psychological defences. Unless teachers are encouraged to explore their unconscious assumptions which lead to low expectations and to try and counter those, change is very unlikely. Observing themselves and how they teach, and using the reflective models described in Chapter  4, can help one to recognize, and challenge,

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one’s deep-seated assumptions and practices and so to develop self-awareness. However, the attitudinal changes associated with deep learning cannot be forced from outside, but must be internalized, usually with support from those whom the teacher trusts. Embedding such changes into one’s practice takes a long time. Because assumptions and expectations are taken for granted, challenging and changing these is much easier in a supportive professional learning community than on one’s own. The behaviours to be changed must be enacted repeatedly and routines established to encourage and support teachers in monitoring their own practice. Otherwise, teachers are likely soon to revert to their more habitual ways of working. This chapter has emphasized how knowledge of oneself and other people must be tied in with the other types of teacher knowledge and discussed, all too briefly, the qualities associated with expertise as a primary classroom teacher and how these can be developed. However, to manifest and sustain their expertise over time, primary classroom teachers require a robust, but flexible, sense of extended professionality. What this involves and how it is shaped is discussed in Part Three.

Part Three

Developing Professional Identity as a Primary Classroom Teacher

As discussed in Chapter  1, teaching has historically been considered a ‘semiprofession’ and those who teach young children, especially, have been expected in recent years to act more like what Winch, Oancea and Orchard (2013: 1) call ‘executive technicians’ than to exercise professional judgement. The last three chapters have shown that teachers working with young children require far more than subject knowledge and technical competence; and explored the interlinked types of teacher knowledge needed and how these are learned and refined for use in the classroom. However, just as a house does not consist only of its constituent parts, those with a high level of expertise in teaching young children have something more elusive. A robust, but flexible, sense of personal and professional identity enables such teachers to keep going, and teach with a high level of expertise, especially when times are tough. The Donaldson Report (2010) calls for teachers to become ‘reflective, accomplished and enquiring professionals’. Part Three considers what this entails for teachers of young children and how such a sense of personal and professional identity can be shaped and maintained. Chapter 8 explores teacher identity and professionalism. The first half argues that identity is a complex and constantly shifting narrative but has some enduring elements, which change only slowly over time, and examines different conceptions of what being a professional entails. The second half tries to identify what is distinctive about primary classroom teachers’ identity and argues that an extended, as opposed to restricted, professionality shares many of the features of expertise. Extended professionality is manifested, and informed, by beliefs

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and values which draw on a sophisticated understanding of how young children learn best and the conditions which enable this. Chapter 9 considers how an extended sense of professional identity can be shaped and sustained, bearing in mind the opportunities and challenges identified near the start of, and explored throughout, the book. This reaffirms the place of an apprenticeship model, enriched and informed by theory and case knowledge, and the influence of professional learning communities, and discusses the opportunities and challenges at different phases of teachers’ professional lives.

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Chapter outline Teacher identity and why it matters Contrasting views of teacher professionalism Distinctive aspects of primary classroom teachers’ professional identity Primary classroom teachers as extended professionals

147 152 156 160

Teachers’ sense of wellbeing is deeply connected with how they define themselves as professionals, and how they see their professionalism being defined by others. —Day et al., Teachers Matter, 244

Teacher identity and why it matters Although what teacher identity entails is hard to pin down, Olsen (2014: 79–80) suggests that the idea is useful because it: ●

●

allows rich, context-sensitive examination of, and support for, the complexity of teachers and teaching; bridges the intricacies of teaching with the need to codify and teach it in standardised ways to novices;

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acknowledges the personal facets of effective teaching without neglecting teaching’s professional foundations; integrates a view of teachers’ learning both from their own individualized, situated experience and from generalizable professional training; centralizes attention on holism and interdependency, attempting to integrate abstract reason with lived experience; reminds (one) that teaching is dynamic, multi-dimensional, intellectually deep work – and should be supported as such.

The first two reflect my emphasis on examining the detail of pedagogy when trying to understand or describe expertise in teaching young children. The third and fourth indicate that how one teaches, and learns to teach, is an individual matter but must be understood, and carried out, taking account of the context and expectations of particular schools, policies and professional standards. The fifth and sixth reaffirm how complex the role is and that it should be understood as a whole, rather than just as a set of competences. Concepts such as identity and professionalism are constructs related to, and affecting, how teachers act and think, how they see themselves and, crucially, aims: that is who they are and what they hope to achieve. As a result, these concepts are used and understood in different ways. This is not a trivial problem of language, but reflects often-contrasting views of what matters most in fulfilling the teacher’s role. How people, individually or as a group, understand such ideas – and relate these to themselves – depends on a range of personal, organizational and cultural beliefs and assumptions, although individuals may be unaware of some of these. Individuals’ beliefs about teaching and about themselves as teachers usually, and rightly, change over time and are affected by how their role is perceived; but many, often unconscious, assumptions are embedded in one’s sense of identity and so are hard to change. Identity – the sort of person one is and is perceived by others to be – is multifaceted and operates at many levels. It involves a mixture of intra- and interpersonal qualities affecting, and affected by, how one sees oneself and is seen by others. Some aspects, such as one’s ethnicity and age, may be important but cannot be altered. How one presents oneself, such as in social media or how one dresses or looks, matters but these can be changed relatively simply. Others, including many of the qualities discussed in Chapter  7, can be changed only slowly and with some difficulty. We all have multiple, linked identities, so that how we present ourselves and are perceived shifts according to the role we are filling and the context in which

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we are operating. Most people have a range of different personae, depending on what they are doing at any one time. Therefore, how people act and present themselves as a parent, spouse or a child, at work or at home, when singing in a choir or entertaining friends will vary. It strikes me forcefully when thinking about, and trying to describe, teachers how much qualities such as strictness, fairness and humour, rather than knowledge or skills, come to mind. However, many academic texts on teacher identity give little sense of the texture of teachers’ lives and how individual teachers teach and respond to their own, and other people’s, emotions. The qualities explored in Chapter 7 tend to capture the emotional aspect of how teaching is experienced by young children, and their teachers, more accurately than any list of competences or what teachers know. While being careful not to assume that what one sees explains what a teacher is really like, seeing how such qualities are manifested in practice helps in understanding the link between primary classroom teachers’ personal beliefs and their professional lives and identity. Such an approach may seem somewhat subjective. However, as Alexander (1995: 12) writes, ‘[P]erhaps there is something about teaching in general, and primary teaching in particular, which makes precision and neutrality in professional discourse difficult to achieve.’ I broadly adopt Woods and Jeffrey’s (2002: 83) distinction between: ● ● ●

social identities; personal identities; and self-concept.

Social identities are attributed or imputed by others, based mainly on information about appearance, behaviour and the location and time of action and often on what is desired or prescribed. Personal identities, in contrast, refer to self-designations and self-attributions, which may be consistent with social identities, or not. One’s self-concept is an overarching view of oneself and is a kind of working compromise between idealized images – ‘the self as I want to be’ – and imputed social identities from the groups to which one belongs. As Giddens (1991: 68) argues, ‘[T]he ideal self is a key part of self-identity, because it forms a channel of positive aspirations in terms of which the narrative of selfidentity is worked out.’ Giddens emphasizes the importance of a sense of agency and highlights the possibility that identity may become increasingly integrated or disintegrated. In this context, different elements of identity as a person, as a teacher and as a professional may be in conflict. Taylor (1989: 47) writes that ‘(one) basic condition of making sense of ourselves (is) that we grasp our lives as a narrative.’ He continues that ‘making sense

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of one’s life is . . . not an optional extra; . . . our lives exist . . . in this space of questions, which only a coherent narrative can answer. In order to have a sense of who we are, we have to have a notion of how we have become, and of where we are going’. As Doyle and Carter (1993: 130) suggest, ‘[A] story captures nuance, indeterminacy and interconnectedness in ways that defy formalistic expression and expand the possibilities for interpretation and understanding,’ carrying information about how things are perceived to work and the meanings ascribed to events. So, creating a coherent narrative which reflects personal beliefs and values helps teachers to make sense of the confusion and complexity of the classroom and to feel motivated and energized, rather than insecure and uncertain, however provisional any such narrative must inevitably be. However, one’s personal narrative is influenced by the broader narratives of how teachers are perceived and expected to act in particular contexts. Woods and Jeffrey (2002) distinguish between substantial and situational identities. The former are more enduring, the latter more transient, though they often strongly affect one’s sense of identity and actions, unless one’s substantial identity is firmly rooted. Day et al. (2006) theorize teacher identity in terms of stability and instability, arguing that identity may be more, or less, stable or fragmented at different times and in different ways according to life, career and situational factors. A reasonably stable sense of identity is an essential, though elusive, aspect of what any teacher requires to teach confidently and fluently, especially with a class of young children, given the role’s multiple aims and demands. However, teachers’ identity must retain some flexibility if they are to respond creatively to new challenges. Any teacher’s sense of identity – and with it their sense of agency and level of confidence – will vary depending on factors such as the area of learning or particular class being taught. Some underlying elements remain constant, or at least change only slowly, while others vary depending on the situation. But a teacher’s personal identity – for instance, as a parent, a member of a faith community, someone keen on art or sport, or not very confident in maths or music – cannot, and should not, be left behind at the classroom door and separated entirely from professional identity. As Olsen (2014: 87) indicates, teachers are often distressed at the difference between what they hoped and expected to become (their ideal self-as-teacher) and what they realized that they have to do, and to be. Any teacher may at times find it hard to be expected to teach in a way which does not accord with their substantial identity. There may be a tension between teachers’ individual, substantial and a collective, situational identity, especially when the latter is imposed

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and not in accord with an individual’s beliefs. External expectations which conflict with their beliefs and values, by determining how they teach, affect teachers with a strong sense of commitment and idealism particularly strongly, and may undermine their confidence and morale. So, the current emphasis on teachers being judged mainly on children’s performance in tests poses significant problems for many teachers’ identities, especially when such judgements influence status, pay and employment. Professional identity is based to a considerable extent on skills and status, in one’s own eyes and those of others. The high status of doctors and lawyers results largely from how they are seen by others, though this has diminished with the reduction in deference referred to in Chapter 1. Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: 80–3) indicate that in high-performing systems such as Finland, Singapore and Ontario (Canada), teachers have high status and autonomy and are trusted and able to make informed judgements. However, as Chapter 1 indicated, this is not so in many other systems. The historic low status in many systems of those who teach young children remains prevalent. Most teachers, like other people, want recognition for what they do well but many who teach young children are self-effacing. Too often one still hears people, even primary teachers themselves, understating the range of skills involved by talking of ‘only a primary school teacher.’ So, those who are teachers of young children have a vital role in ‘talking up’, and describing the complexity of, the role and the expertises involved. Teachers’ professional identity involves elements of how they: ●

● ●

are perceived by other people, including colleagues, parents/carers and children; feel about the role; and act in fulfilling the role.

Professional identity is not some aspect of being a teacher like a skill which can be learned rapidly, as one might learn about art or behaviour management and how to teach art or manage a class. Rather, it is integral to how a teacher acts and thinks and is best seen as a dynamic narrative, constantly but subtly shifting over time – and often between contexts. For those with a high level of expertise, it is not something which shifts with passing fads, but involves longer-term commitment, though how this is manifested may change over time. Primary classroom teachers’ identities are evident in how they use different types of knowledge, but at the heart of professional identity are deep-rooted values and beliefs about children, teaching and the aims of education. Values and beliefs are only general guides to specific courses of action and must be related to specific situations.

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They are not just vague statements of intent, but are shown in how they are lived out in practice; and so are closely linked to theories-in-use, manifested in the qualities discussed in Chapter 7. Such values and beliefs are not changed lightly, without considerable thought. This includes a view, however tacit or explicit, of what acting and thinking as a professional entails, which helps in coping confidently and appropriately with the dilemmas and paradoxes of teaching.

Contrasting views of teacher professionalism Since professionalism, like identity, is a construct, there is no common understanding of what being a professional entails. Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: 80) make the distinction between being professional – how teachers act – and being a professional – related more to status and how other people regard teachers, though this inevitably affects how teachers feel and see themselves. How an individual teacher understands what it means to be a professional is to some extent dependent on how teachers, individually and as a group, see themselves and act – and so associated with teacher identity – but this is affected by how others, within and outside the profession, perceive them. Professional identity as a teacher matters for several interlinked reasons. First, the example which teachers set, and who they are, has a profound, direct influence on children, especially in terms of passion and enthusiasm. For teachers to see themselves, and act, just as deliverers of knowledge encourages superficial learning for children and teachers alike. Second, a robust but flexible sense of identity and an extended sense of professionality – described below – helps teachers to avoid acting just as technicians, and so unlikely to exercise, and develop, a high level of expertise and judgement. The more one moves away from viewing teachers as technicians and purveyors of information, the more a nuanced view of professional identity matters. Third, as Bransford et  al. (2005:  83)  argue, ‘[D]eveloping an identity as a teacher is an important part of securing teachers’ commitment to their work and adherence to professional norms of practice.’ How teachers see themselves, and how they are seen, affects their morale and resilience and to what extent they wish to continue as teachers. How teachers understand, and feel about, their role and what it entails, in terms of professionalism and aims, is integral to how, and how well, they teach. Fourth, a lack of status and confidence, individually and collectively, means that teachers’ identity may not be sufficiently stable, and robust, to resist the imposition of inappropriate methods of teaching. So, how

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professionalism is understood affects to what extent the profession, collectively, can try and ensure that how young children are taught is not left to those with little understanding of how children learn, but definite views of how teachers should teach. In Helsby’s (2000: 93) words, ‘[T]here is nothing simple or static about the concept of teacher professionalism in England:  it is constantly changing and constantly being redefined in different ways and at different times to serve different interests.’ But, as Evans (2008: 29) observes, ‘[A] meaningful conception of professionalism must reflect the reality of daily practices’ (emphasis in the original), continuing that one that is required or even demanded ‘is bound to dissipate into impracticable rhetoric’ (ibid.) as it is translated into practice. This accords with Hargreaves and Goodson’s (1996:  22)  view that ‘what passes for professionalism and professionalization is very different in the experienced lives and work of teachers than in the official discourses of policy.’ Let us consider how being a member of a profession has traditionally been conceived. Shulman (2004: 530) proposes that all professions are characterized by: ● ● ● ● ● ●

service to others; understanding of a scholarly or theoretical kind; skilled performance or practice; the exercise of judgement under conditions of considerable uncertainty; learning from experience as theory and practice interact; a professional community to monitor quality and aggregate knowledge.

John (2008: 12) highlights as characteristics typical of all professions: ● ● ● ● ●

mastery of a knowledge base requiring a long period of training; tasks that are inherently valuable to society; a desire to prioritise the client’s welfare; a high level of autonomy; a code of ethics to guide practice.

These characteristics are the foundation of what was described in Chapter 1 as a covenantal approach, with a significant level of autonomy and trust. In contrast, professionalism has in recent years been redefined to reflect a contractual approach, based on measurable performance and compliance with external requirements, restricting individual teachers’ autonomy and sense of agency. Such a view sees professionalism as based on meeting a set of standards and competences which are relatively easy to observe and assess. While this may provide greater consistency, and make teaching less haphazard, it represents a

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move away from, and may undermine, a view of professionalism which prioritizes children’s well-being and the teacher’s responsibility to promote this. All teachers are, rightly, expected to adhere to broad norms of conduct associated with acting as a professional, often articulated as a set of standards, and to act within the broad parameters and expectations set by the school, usually reflecting the school’s ethos and values. But such expectations must offer chances for individuals to experiment and to establish their own teaching styles and identities, avoiding the situation where all teachers act according to a single template, as clones or ‘identikit’ teachers. Lists of competences and standards to define what being a teacher entails may be useful initially. However, they take little account of social, emotional and personal qualities, and so do not capture what matters most in teaching young children and can soon become limiting. A  competence-based model simplifies the aims of education by defining success largely in terms of a narrow range of measurable outcomes, so creating dissonances for those teachers who see their role more broadly. Primary classroom teachers, like other professionals, perhaps more than most, have to compromise when faced with dilemmas, but the underlying principle in how they make decisions should be the children’s long-term well-being. Unless being a professional involves the characteristics identified by Shulman and John, above, nothing substantial distinguishes teachers from technicians. Hammerness et  al. (2005:  383)  highlight five interlinked dimensions of teacher identity: ● ● ● ● ●

as professional; as scholar and practitioner within their subject area; as change agents; as nurturers and child advocates; and as moral agents.

The relative importance of these depends on the teacher’s role. As generalists, primary classroom teachers usually lack the foundation in an academic subject, making it hard for them to see themselves, or be considered, as scholars. However, their abilities as practitioners across several subject areas may help to compensate. Their role as nurturers and child advocates is particularly significant, given the children’s age, although teachers must try to avoid the dangers of overprotecting children and of speaking and acting on their behalf without consulting and involving them. The dimensions as professionals and as change and moral agents matter particularly for teachers of young children because these children are often

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impressionable and less well equipped to make decisions for themselves than older students; and because of the breadth of the role and the vulnerability of primary education to outside interference. The moral dimension of teaching – ‘doing the right thing’ rather than just ‘doing things right’ – is central to acting as a professional (see Eaude, 2016b), though the word ‘ethical’ may help to avoid any suggestion that this entails indoctrination or moralizing. Chapter 3 highlighted Glaser’s emphasis on principled performance as one key area associated with expertise. As suggested on p. 60, those with a high level of expertise do not always follow external requirements when these conflict with their own beliefs, though they take account of such requirements. Similarly, professionals who prioritize their clients’ needs are prepared to subvert policy unobtrusively from within. I see the conception of being a professional as meaning that compliance with external directives overrides professional judgement as impoverished and limiting, and argue for teachers to have substantial autonomy, backed by mastery of a deep and wide knowledge base. While affecting most professions, a contractual view of professionalism is associated, for teaching, with the belief that teacher autonomy has historically not been used to create entitlement and high standards for all children, especially those disadvantaged by factors such as socio-economic background, ethnicity or low aspirations. Put somewhat crudely, policy based on external prescription of how to teach reflects a view that most teachers, especially in primary schools, are not up to it – and must be told or shown how to teach. In Eraut’s (2000: 263) words, ‘[A] key feature of professional work is being able to trust in one’s judgement, not blindly but with sufficient confidence to act upon it rather than avoid the responsibility.’ While policymakers and senior leaders rightly establish the overall parameters within which teachers work, they must leave scope for such judgement and for teachers to have a sense of agency and control of how they teach, if teaching is to be responsive to a particular group. Like other professionals, teachers should be accountable for what they do and recognize when another approach or decision might have had a more beneficial outcome. They should be prepared to explain and to justify their decisions where need be, but not be expected constantly to do so. Frequent monitoring to check whether teachers are complying with a particular way of working is likely to inhibit the qualities associated with teaching with a high level of expertise, though it may help identify those who are poor teachers. Recovering a covenantal professionalism can help teachers to see that professionals are not just accountable in terms of measurable outcomes to their line managers, but to society, parents/carers and above all children.

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The contrasting views of professionalism outlined above raise the question of who is, or should be, in control of what happens in the classroom, the teacher or someone outside. Simply complying with external expectations is a restricted form of professionality, where teachers are seen, and treated, as technicians rather than professionals. The final section of this chapter compares restricted and extended professionality and considers what the latter entails for primary classroom teachers.

Distinctive aspects of primary classroom teachers’ professional identity On p. 7, I  cited Thomson and Hall’s characterization of signature pedagogies as concerned with ontology – the way professionals are and orient themselves to being and making meaning in the world – as well as what they know and how they work. In this section, I suggest that the ontological dimension matters particularly when teaching a class of young children, given the power of adult example and the intensity of the teacher’s relationship with a class over time. A sense of identity as a generalist classroom teacher with skills and expertises which are different from, but not inferior to, those of a subject specialist helps build the confidence to act in accordance with professional judgement when other pressures militate against one doing so. This can help teachers to resist the constraints associated with performativity and to counter the attractive but often-simplistic solutions which may appeal to parents/carers, politicians and even, sadly, some in the profession. A robust, but flexible, sense of identity and a view of professionalism based on trying to ensure children’s overall well-being are essential, and interlinked, components of, and supports for, teachers’ expertise with young children. For subject specialists, professional identity is based to a considerable extent on knowledge in their subject or discipline, as well as the ability to manage a class or achieve good exam results. This may be rooted in their ability as a musician or a historian, a linguist or a mathematician. Such a source of identity is less open to primary classroom teachers, for whom the basis of identity is more fragile, because of the broader results to be achieved and the status accorded to teaching young children. However, an ability to teach across most of the curriculum and to meet a wide range of children’s needs – pastoral as well as academic – has the potential to provide a significant source of primary classroom teachers’ professional identity.

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Primary classroom teachers have to adopt multiple identities, both within the classroom and beyond, since their role is so varied. In the classroom, they may adopt different personae depending on what, and how, they are teaching. For instance, they may pretend to be shocked at particular types of behaviour or delighted at a child’s achievement, however modest. They may be more directive when conducting a physical education lesson with a somewhat unwilling class, and more facilitating when encouraging children to conduct an investigation in maths; and often have to move between personae fluently and rapidly. When not actually teaching, a teacher may be creative in planning with others, patient in assisting a less experienced member of staff, diplomatic in dealing with an angry parent, forceful when trying to access additional support for a particular child. To some extent, such considerations are true of all teachers, but the breadth of the role makes these particularly salient for primary classroom teachers. I can think, as most of us probably can, of at least one teacher who was extremely efficient and achieved good results academically, but I would not have wanted my child to be in her class for a whole year. Put simply, when teaching the whole child, who the teacher is matters even more than if teaching only music, science or another subject. While it may be a cliché that many people become primary teachers because they want to teach the whole child rather than just one subject, there is some truth in this. I did not wish to teach history in a secondary school, as was expected if I became a teacher, but to try and meet the diverse needs of a class of young children. How primary classroom teachers understand their role is vital in manifesting expertise and integrally linked with their identity and underlying aims, beliefs and values. In her study of primary school teachers, Nias (1989: 196–7) suggests that the very nature of teaching, as (these teachers) experience it, is contradictory. Teachers must nurture the whole while attending to the parts, liberate their pupils to grow in some directions by checking growth in others, foster and encourage progress by controlling it and show love and interest by curbing and chastising . . . My claim is . . . that to adopt the identity of an English primary school teacher is to accept the paradoxical nature of the task and inexorably to live with tension.

Woods and Jeffrey (2002) suggest that primary teachers have historically had a strong sense of vocation, and are often idealistic, especially at first. Nias (1989) argues that the primary teachers she studied were strongly influenced by their beliefs about the aims of education and young children. She emphasizes

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the extent to which they spent much of their time out of school as well within it seeing themselves as teachers and investing their personal identity in their work. As a result, primary teachers’ professional and personal identities are closely interwoven, often resulting in their identity being fragile rather than robust. This fragility is exacerbated by the lack of a strong collective sense of professional identity, tending to affect adversely individuals’ sense of identity and confidence. Primary classroom teachers’ idealism – and with it passion and enthusiasm – make a significant contribution to their teaching but also makes them vulnerable to feelings of doubt, inadequacy or being overwhelmed. Ball (2003) argues that what he calls the ‘terror of performativity’ requires teachers to organize themselves in response to externally imposed targets, indicators and evaluations and to set aside personal beliefs and commitments. If so, the current emphasis on performativity has serious, adverse implications for primary classroom teachers not only as it tends to narrow the curriculum, but because it undermines teachers’ beliefs about what is best for children. Similarly, an imposed view of what counts as ‘standards’ forces many primary teachers to narrow the curriculum, even when they recognize that children benefit from a broader and richer diet of experiences. Short-term success often comes at a cost in terms of teachers’ principles and beliefs. Woods and Jeffrey (2002) and Nias (1989) argue that changes from a view of professionalism based on autonomy and trust to one based on compliance and performance against external expectations seem to have affected primary teachers’ sense of professional identity even more strongly than other teachers’. This supports Osborn et al.’s (2000) hypothesis that the movement from a covenantal, trust-based professionalism, linked to intrinsic satisfaction, to a contractual, performance-based one would lead to a decline in primary teachers’ sense of moral, self-imposed accountability and commitment. Since much of the research cited was undertaken many years ago, and in England, the situation may have changed with the prolonged culture of performativity and compliance and may be different in other systems. However, my sense is that primary classroom teachers retain a strong sense of vocation and idealism, even where this is tempered by the reality of what is demanded of them and an acceptance that their professional autonomy is severely constrained. How teachers think about their role matters, for instance in whether they see themselves as delivering or creating a curriculum and in whether they comply with, or challenge, what does not accord with their beliefs about what is in the children’s best interests. In recent years, the curriculum has been increasingly seen as a body of (content) knowledge, to be delivered. However, such a

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curriculum is more like a syllabus, into which life has to be breathed. As Bruner (2006, vol. 2: 141) wrote, [W]e have learned that there is no such thing as the curriculum, there is only a curriculum; it is very specific to a particular situation and a particular student, and it will vary. For, in effect, it’s an animated three-way conversation between a learner, someone who is somewhat more expert in an area of study and a body of knowledge that is difficult to define but that exists in the culture. (Emphasis in the original)

Twiselton’s (2006) research into primary student teachers characterizes: ● ●

●

some as ‘task managers’, with little emphasis on children’s learning; some as ‘curriculum deliverers’ where the focus is more on learning but largely based on external demands; and some as ‘concept/skill builders’ where they understand and encourage patterns of learning beyond the immediate task.

Any teacher may, at times, have to act as a task manager or a curriculum deliverer, but increasing expertise involves enabling children to refine and extend their skills and conceptual knowledge, rather than just completing tasks or covering the content of the written curriculum. Primary classroom teachers with a high level of expertise are concept/skill builders and curriculum creators, planning and teaching flexibly across the curriculum and strengthening children’s learning qualities; and creators of environments, encouraging in the children an interest in, and enthusiasm for, lifewide and lifelong learning. Such teachers see young children as human beings with varying backgrounds, aspirations and potentials, not just vessels to be filled or blank scoresheets to be completed. They enliven the written curriculum for that particular group and the individuals in it with an emphasis on a broad and balanced curriculum, in which the arts and the humanities have a strong place and where the cognitive and affective dimensions of learning are linked. In doing so, such teachers make learning enjoyable and active, meaningful and challenging – not all the time, but as a whole. Similarly, if children are to become intrinsically motivated, their teachers must increasingly see themselves as strengthening the qualities and dispositions associated with character (see Eaude, 2016b), rather than just controllers of learning or managers of behaviour. One underemphasized feature of how primary classroom teachers with a high level of expertise act and think is how they constantly try to imagine how young children feel in the position of not-knowing or only partly knowing.

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Being regularly in situations where one, as an adult, is struggling to learn helps in understanding learning through the child’s lens. Maintaining, and recalling, their own identity as learners helps teachers to understand how it feels to be a learner and so to model to children how best to approach and overcome the emotional challenges they face. Aspects of teachers’ identity, such as their gender, ethnicity and interests, and how individuals manifest and draw on these, affect how teachers are perceived by different children. Some children may find it motivating to be taught by a young teacher with great enthusiasm for science and technology, and others by a calm teacher who tries to share a love of music or art. Some may enjoy and benefit from being taught by a man or by a woman, or by someone from a particular ethnicity or background. Other children may respond less positively, illustrating the relational nature of teaching young children. While any individual teacher may not be able to do much about this, being aware of this may make it easier to understand why it can be difficult to build up, with some children, the trusting relationships on which children’s engagement with learning – and motivation and behaviour – depends.

Primary classroom teachers as extended professionals I have argued that being a professional must involve exercising the judgement to act appropriately in situations of uncertainty. Although all teachers work in different ways, making generalization hazardous, some overall features which link professionalism, identity and expertise can be identified. These are captured in Hoyle’s distinction between restricted and extended professionality, summarized in Table 8.1. We have seen that expertise in fluid situations involves a considerable level of intuition and that experts often act without rational deliberation in their immediate decision-making. So, while disagreeing with the downplaying of intuition, I suggest that expertise as a primary classroom teacher involves the other features of extended professionality, though the specific knowledge and skills used inevitably depends on what, and who, is being taught. While primary classroom teachers may be somewhat suspicious of theory, relying on their own experience is insufficient. Those who are extended professionals take account of research and regularly think, usually with other colleagues, how theory can best inform practice. Moreover, they recognize that the

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Table 8.1 The features of restricted and extended professionality Restricted professionality

Extended professionality

Skills derived from experience

Skills derived from a mediation between experience and theory

A perspective limited to the here-and-now and classroom events being perceived in isolation Introspection about methodology

Having a perspective beyond the classroom embracing the broader social context

Individual autonomy Limited involvement in professional activities outside teaching, reading professional literature and attending training other than practical courses Teaching being seen as largely intuitive

Developing one’s teaching methodology by comparing it to others Collective autonomy Placing a high value on professional activities and literature and training which combines theoretical and practical elements Seeing teaching as a rational rather than an intuitive activity

Adapted from Hargreaves and Goodson (1996: 14).

context of children’s lives affects profoundly how, and how well, children learn, not as an excuse for low aspirations and attainment, but to identify, and use, people and opportunities, including those out of school, to extend all children’s learning and particularly to engage and motivate those who are not keen on school learning. Extended professionals look beyond their own immediate context, in time and place, to recognize that how things are now is not how they have always been or will be. Though they are prepared for their assumptions and practices to be challenged, and to challenge their own, their practice reflects beliefs and values which have been tested and refined by experience. A sense of professional identity based mainly on personal beliefs is increasingly informed by more nuanced understandings about teaching, children and knowledge and by theory from psychology and the sociology and history of education. This must be mediated by experience, one’s own and other people’s, without losing sight of beliefs and values in the scramble for short-term results. Primary classroom teachers who are extended professionals recognize the need for rational reflection, but also how emotional and cognitive processes are intertwined; and so they are increasingly prepared and able to trust their intuitive processes in the immediacy of the classroom. In Clarke’s (2015: 98) words, ‘[P]rofessional identity implies both a cognitive psychological and sociological perspective; through the interaction with other

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cultures and systems there is (an) opportunity to develop that perception of who you are and what you want to become.’ Such a view does not just involve reading how maths is taught in Singapore or South Korea or very young children are educated in Denmark or Reggio Emilia (in Italy), though such insights may help. Nor does it just mean visiting other schools or attending courses to compare notes or gather ideas. It is more like a mindset where teachers are prepared, and get in to the habit, of sharing their ideas and their successes and failures with colleagues, especially in their own schools, not only at training days and in staff meetings, but also informally and regularly. Put simply, primary classroom teachers who are extended professionals constantly compare, and reflect on, how they and other teachers teach, to improve their own, and each other’s, teaching. Extended professionals have a broad, though realistic, vision of what being a teacher involves, of how children think and aims which reach beyond immediate concerns. Extended professionality is not just about being effective and efficient in terms of someone else’s agenda, or teaching to the test. Rather, it involves basing one’s actions on one’s informed beliefs about the overall well-being of a particular child or group and being prepared to accept that others have more experience or expertise and to draw on that. Simple examples include where a classroom teacher who does not speak a child’s home language makes use of those who do in assessing a child’s progress; or seeks the advice and support of those with greater knowledge or experience which helps in making specific provision. Let us think what extended professionality looks like in how primary classroom teachers manage the dynamics of the classroom. As we have seen, expertise involves being more concerned with facilitating, and less with controlling, children’s learning and trying to engage, inspire and motivate children by providing a broad range of opportunities. Teachers with a high level of expertise with a class of young children tend to manifest a sense of enthusiasm and authority, although not too great a certainty. For this, teachers require a sense of agency to enable them to exercise professional judgement, given the complexity of the role and the dilemmas implicit in meeting conflicting demands; but they encourage all children to have a voice and enable them to make decisions. Therefore, teachers must, right from the start, be encouraged to exercise professional judgement, with guidance and support where necessary, and to create relationships of mutual trust, where children retain some control over what and how they learn.

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Recognizing commitment as an important aspect of teacher professionalism, it is worth asking ‘commitment to what?’: to teaching as a profession, to one school or class, to a particular approach? People are usually more committed to groups they know well than to grand principles. So, teachers tend to be strongly committed to what they believe is best for their own class and school, as long as the latter is supportive, because of the immediate relationships involved, and to have looser commitments to broader groups. Extended professionals are concerned not just with the well-being of individual children, but with that of the whole class, school and community. And expertise as a primary classroom teacher is usually associated with commitment to ideas such as the development of the whole child and social justice, rather than to just one approach, a particular subject or their own particular class. Ideally, teachers will become, and remain, committed to teaching as a profession; but they should be wary of remaining too committed to any one approach if this runs counter to new evidence from research or from their own, or colleagues’, experience. This helps to explain why identity must be flexible as well as robust. To what extent the commitment of teachers of young children has been reduced is hard to establish because of their widespread determination to do the best for their children – and so make the best of the constraints imposed by performativity. However, as suggested, this may have been, in many cases, at the cost of teachers’ own beliefs about how young children learn best; and there is substantial evidence of primary teachers’ frustration, and anger, at being expected to act in ways they do not believe are in the children’s, or their own, best interests. Returning to the metaphor of the teacher’s toolkit, extended professionality does not entail simply acquiring new tools and learning how to use them skilfully. Extended professionals maintain their existing ones ready for use and practice using them in new ways. They may keep some for occasional use, or even discard a few. But they constantly refine how they use the tools at their disposal to achieve their aims. As extended professionals, teachers continually re-examine aims and how such tools can best be used to meet these, in the light of their values and beliefs and of the changing context. In the case of primary classroom teachers, this involves the pedagogical content knowledge and craft and case knowledge – and all the thousands of small, often tacit, skills these categories embrace – and attunement to the needs and responses of the children to try and ensure their overall, and long-term, well-being. Moreover, it entails the recognition that teachers’ own well-being helps to ensure the children’s, however

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much many teachers may endanger this, and sometimes their health, by working unnecessarily long hours. This chapter has suggested that an approach based on extended professionality enables primary classroom teachers to teach with a high level of expertise; and that a robust but flexible sense of identity helps them to maintain such an approach in the face of the dilemmas and uncertainties integral to teaching young children. An extended professional identity does not depend just on subject knowledge or particular techniques, important as these may be, but on how teachers see their role, reflecting beliefs and values related to children’s overall well-being and on teachers’ creativity in how to meet these aims. To be robust, and more than skin-deep, professional identity must be internalized, rather than just conforming unthinkingly with other people’s expectations. To be flexible, teachers must be open to new ideas and to change, while remaining somewhat skeptical about the latest fads. Chapter 9 explores how such a sense of identity is shaped.

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Chapter outline Moving towards extended professionality Supporting and mentoring other teachers as professionals Belonging to professional learning communities Keeping going: the continuum of career-long professional learning

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Professionals acquire and accumulate – through structured and unstructured experience, practice and reflection  – capital that enables them to make wise judgements in circumstances where there is no fixed rule or piece of incontrovertible evidence to guide them. Decisional capital is enhanced by drawing on the insights and experiences of colleagues in forming judgements over many occasions. —Hargreaves and Fullan, Professional Capital, 93–4

Moving towards extended professionality This chapter explores the processes and conditions which help primary classroom teachers to develop a robust but flexible sense of identity and move towards an extended professionality. Such an identity must be internalized if it is to be robust enough to cope with difficult situations and dilemmas without compromising too much, where professional judgement is needed. As the quotation above

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indicates, this involves a range of diverse experiences and processes, including several mentioned in Chapter 4, takes place over time and is not just an individual enterprise. Alexander (1995:  38)  argues that professional development as a primary teacher should be seen more as a personal journey than a formal sequence of events and activities, and emphasizes the power, but randomness, of experience, the varying influence of teachers on each other and the inseparability of personal growth and professional development. No one path is applicable to everyone. Identity both shapes and is shaped by how we act and think. In Edwards’s (2010: 13) words, ‘[I]dentity is accomplished within activities but it is the organising principle for action.’ And, as Salmon (1995:  63)  suggests, ‘[I]dentity . . . is forged out of interaction with others. Who we are is inextricably bound up with who we are known to be.’ Although Salmon was writing about children, her words hold good throughout the lifespan. The responses of other people – children, parents/carers and colleagues – help to shape how individual teachers understand teaching and how they teach. Opportunities for learning to act and think as an extended professional: ●

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take account of, but are not restricted to, the context in which teachers teach, linking theoretical considerations and the demands of the specific situation; occur over time, encouraging, and allowing, space and time for regular opportunities, both formal and informal, for innovation, reflection and enactment; and are usually collective, not just individual.

Day and Gu (2010) identify four critical influences – personal, pupil, workplace and policy  – on teachers’ commitment, resilience and professional identities, highlighting that it is ‘not only the influences themselves but their combinations and relative intensity that matter’. Individual narratives are strongly influenced by the culture – both local and national – within which teachers live and work. Teacher identities are shaped, and influenced, by a complex mixture of factors, over many of which individuals may have limited control (see Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009: 178). Each individual narrative is shaped, and constantly reshaped, for better or worse, by events and one’s own experiences, and how one makes sense of these, with some helping to provide a sense of integration, others undermining this.

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As Bruner (1996: 42) writes, ‘[A] system of education must help those growing up in a culture to find an identity in that culture. Without it they stumble in their effort for meaning. It is only in the narrative mode that one can construct an identity and find a place in one’s culture. Schools must cultivate it, nurture it, cease taking it for granted.’ This is true for teachers no less than for children. Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) advocate an approach to teaching based on professional capital, as described briefly in the Introduction. This integrates three kinds of capital – human, social, and decisional (2012: 14). The emphasis on decisional capital highlights the importance of teachers being enabled and encouraged to exercise professional judgement right from the start. Hargreaves and Fullan argue that ‘in teaching and other professions, social capital is actually an integrated part of decisional capital, as well as an addition to it’ (2012: 93–4), and that human capital is of little use without social capital and decisional capital is dependent on both (2012: 89). Developing professional capital is hard and complex, because it is not onedimensional but has multiple, often-conflicting aims and demands. Individuals have to invest time and effort but also be guided and supported in groups, teams and communities. Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: 3) cite research that, in relation to teaching, ‘social capital was measured in terms of the frequency of conversations and interactions with peers that centered on instruction, and was based on feelings of trust and closeness between teachers’. A robust, but flexible, professional identity as a primary classroom teacher depends, at least in part, on confidence and sense of agency, because these enhance motivation and encourage innovation and help to maintain commitment and enthusiasm. Constructing and sustaining such a sense of identity is a holistic process which happens gradually, though unevenly, over time, helped by addressing the whole range of children’s learning needs and manifesting and articulating one’s expertise. As discussed in relation to the development of expertise, teachers should increasingly set their own challenges, rather than have them imposed, if they are to develop a sense of agency and extended professionality. The insistent drive for perfection all the time and being expected, or even forced, to use only a narrow range of pedagogies militate against the development of teacher expertise and an extended professionality. Therefore, teacher educators and senior leaders must avoid trying to impose a particular identity if teachers are to be more than compliant technicians. Professional identity as a teacher is influenced strongly by personal beliefs and circumstances and consolidated through increasing breadth of experience

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and continuing support, both in Initial Teacher Education and the early-career period. Each individual preparing to become a primary classroom teacher has a view of what the role involves, albeit often an idealized, even an inaccurate, one. Most, though not all, students are influenced strongly by tutors and school placements in Initial Teacher Education courses, not only in how to teach but in recognizing what being a teacher involves and articulating their own beliefs and values. Experience in school often challenges such beliefs about what the role should be like by the realization of what it does entail in practice. In such situations, many teachers need help to find ways of working which accord with their beliefs, while taking account of external expectations which may challenge these. Primary classroom teachers benefit from articulating their craft knowledge, generalizing from the specific, and drawing specific lessons from the general. They need to tell their own stories, and hear other teachers talk about teaching, if they are not to be isolated or inward-looking. The process of telling one’s story as a teacher, and seeing oneself as part of a wider tradition of primary education, has a developmental function. Celebrating successes and recognizing that everyone encounters problems and makes mistakes can help to create a more secure identity as a teacher, as long as the teacher identifies what led to the successes and learns from the mistakes. However, remembering the idea of calibration, teachers must gain the feel of what skilled performance is like, as a whole. They must experience what teaching with fluency and confidence feels like, and keep enacting this, if their practice is to change and become embedded. Even when their focus is on a discrete aspect of teaching – ways of managing the class, a particular subject, or assessing children’s learning – this should always be practiced with a view to how this fits in, and can be integrated into, the classroom teacher’s wider repertoire. Individual development, for teachers as for children, occurs partly by immersion within a culture. Extended professionality involves reaching beyond the microculture of any particular school or system and understanding the broader context, to move from simply using other people’s techniques and plans to adapting these and devising one’s own strategies. While primary classroom teachers can develop a high level of practical expertise without knowing much about psychology, sociology, philosophy and history of education, these help broaden their perspective, by indicating that one’s assumptions about children, learning and teaching are not universal, something that took me many years to realize.

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There is no one template for how primary classroom teachers move from a restricted towards an extended professionality. I  suggest that they should increasingly: ●

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understand their role in relation to how young children learn and to long-term aims; build up, and use, a repertoire of different types of teacher knowledge and pedagogies to meet these aims, emphasizing curricular breadth and balance to strengthen children’s learning qualities and dispositions; look for, and exploit, opportunities which enable children to make connections across and beyond the formal curriculum, so that, for instance children apply literacy and mathematical skills in many different situations and areas of learning; articulate, and so help refine, their craft knowledge and build their case knowledge; try to observe themselves in action to understand how their teaching influences children’s responses, to think how to improve their own selfregulatory processes; and practice, constantly, teaching in such ways.

However, since extended professionality is very hard to achieve on one’s own, teachers need also to: ●

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innovate, improvise and reflect, where possible in structured ways, working with, guiding and being guided by others; and be prepared, and encouraged, whatever their level of experience, to ask for help from others who are more knowledgeable in some respect.

Supporting and mentoring other teachers as professionals Taylor (1989: 36) suggests that identity involves ‘not only a stand on moral and spiritual matters but some reference to a defining community’. Who we are – and are seen to be – depends to a considerable extent on the groups we belong to. Most teachers need the help and support of others to survive, improve and flourish. Trying to develop a robust but flexible professional identity is easier and has a more profound impact when done collectively. As Wenger (1998) emphasizes, learning depends on participation in practice rather than (just) the acquisition of separate chunks of knowledge. He suggests that ‘learning as social

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participation . . . shapes not only what we do, but also who we are and how we interpret what we do’ (ibid.:  4). Therefore, the school and the class in which they teach is an influential source of how teachers perceive themselves and are perceived by others. As Evans (2010: 201) writes, ‘[F]or teachers to shape and define the parameters of best classroom practice, the teaching occupation overall needs to be selfand not other-controlled and teacher preparation needs to be educator- and not state-controlled.’ Alexander (1995: 19) argues for primary teachers to be ‘agents of one another’s development’, so that, ideally, every teacher becomes to some extent a teacher educator. However, primary teachers work, in the classroom, mostly in isolation from other professionals, and sometimes at variance with the professional culture in and beyond the school. Such isolation must be avoided. Given the complex relationship between substantial and situational identities, professional learning communities, discussed in the next section, are vital to reinforce teachers’ confidence and sense of agency and reduce their isolation. It is worth considering Hargreaves’ (2013:  xix) words about what he calls emotional geographies of excessive distance that make these relationships hard to establish, highlighting: geographies of cultural difference where emotions are expressed and interpreted differently; of moral differences of purpose and vision and no means to reconcile these; of power differences that inhibit or suppress honest and accurate emotional expression; of professional distance of the traditional kind that places professionals on inaccessible pedestals above their clients; and of physical distances of time and space in brief or infrequent interactions that make mutual understanding unlikely.

Therefore, career-long professional learning, paradoxically, involves listening to, learning from and building relationships with those who have not always in the past benefitted from how teachers have worked, as well as those with the wisdom acquired by experience; and being able to articulate what expertise involves, while being more open and breaking down hierarchies which have tended to maintain teachers’ knowledge and expertise as somewhat inaccessible. In learning to teach, there is a great deal of information to remember and internalize, but the deep learning associated with extended professionality is internalized by repeated enactment over time, linking practice and theory. Observation and case studies enable teachers to identify the detail of pedagogy and to link practice and theory and consider possible alternatives. But expertise in teaching is learned and refined mostly by fulfilling the role in a reflective

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way in an inclusive and supportive environment. This helps build the qualities and dispositions necessary to embed long-term changes of practice based on principle rather than unthinking compliance. But to internalize these qualities, primary classroom teachers must teach most of the curriculum, including the humanities and the arts. Extended professionality is hard, if not impossible, to achieve, with a restricted curriculum. The type of environment in which teachers teach – and learn to teach – is vital in how they are encouraged and enabled to develop their expertise. Just as children benefit from an environment where they feel safe but not too safe, teachers, even those who appear to be resilient, need a climate which balances support and challenge. Teachers’ own anxiety must be contained, if they are to act regularly with the confidence which usually accompanies expertise. As Fransson and Grannäs (2013: 8) suggest, mutual trust in relation to pupils, colleagues, other professionals and parents/carers is important in the shaping of professional identity. Where there is an atmosphere of mistrust and criticism, there is little incentive to take risks. Where the culture is one of support, teachers are more likely to open up and explore the dilemmas they face, and so find ways to improve their ability to deal with these successfully. Such support is essential, given the fear which permeates the system. The shaping of professional identity can involve challenging and painful experiences. Finding a route which reflects the teacher’s own hopes and aspirations, while meeting external expectations and demands, may at times be unsettling and dispiriting, especially for those whose personal and professional identities are closely linked. Teachers are, understandably, resistant to changing their practice without good reason. Alexander (1995: 92), discussing how teachers erect defensive shields in the face of scrutiny, advice and new ideas, writes, ‘[T]he paradox . . . is that to explore a classteacher’s practice is to make him or her vulnerable. But not to do so is to compound that vulnerability, particularly at a time . . . when teachers are under extreme pressures to change the way they work.’ So, teachers’ practice must be observed and scrutinized sensitively in a safe space, where the consequences of mistakes are not too severe and such scrutiny does threaten one’s career, or undermine one’s sense of identity as a teacher. Affirmation by those whom one respects – including children – is a powerful means of reinforcing and embedding what a teacher does well, and helps remind teachers of their expertises and why the role can be so fulfilling. Primary classroom teachers need affirmation from those whom they really respect, rather than constant challenge, and occasional affirmation, from those who do not understand the specific difficulties they face. So, to build

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greater expertise and resilience, challenge should be periodic and largely self-generated, or generated with colleagues, and feedback must be genuinely supportive. One of six key principles which the Sutton Trust (2015: 8) concludes are most likely to result in sustained professional learning is when ‘feedback is mediated by a mentor in an environment of trust and support’. While I share Megginson et al.’s (2006: 5) view that the debate about distinctions between mentoring and coaching has been largely sterile, the guidance of supportive colleagues, usually with greater experience, is immensely valuable. Advice and support from such people and peers often carry at least as much weight as that from so-called ‘experts’, because such colleagues understand the context and the challenges teachers face. Mentors are well placed to provide useful advice because they know the context and are able to watch, and be watched by, those being mentored. Although there are many definitions of mentoring, it involves aspects such as listening carefully and empathically, sharing experience, professional friendship, developing insight through reflection, being a sounding board, advising and encouraging. These emphasize the sustained and supportive nature of the relationship, where a more experienced teacher guides someone with less experience, as opposed to assessing or monitoring competence. Mentoring can bring a double benefit: to the person mentored and the mentor. While the less experienced partner gains by acting as an apprentice, mentors also gain because the task helps to bring to consciousness often tacit knowledge, as they are encouraged to reflect on their teaching and articulate their thinking. Mentors must allow those being mentored to make mistakes, to experience what this feels like and so to make it more likely that learning will be internalized. However, there is a place for mentors to be more directive, sharing their own case knowledge, highlighting what may be far from obvious to the person being mentored. For example, pointing out something as (apparently) simple as the teacher sitting up straight to indicate that s/he expects everyone to be ready may be something a newly qualified teacher has not considered, or forgotten. Mentors and teacher educators in Initial Teacher Education and after qualification must be aware of power relationships and status, especially in observing and providing feedback to less experienced teachers. Rogoff (1990:  148)  cites Vygotsky’s view that ‘ideal partners are not equals but the inequality is in skills and understanding rather than in power’. This is well illustrated by the benefits of co-coaching, where one teacher observes another and offers feedback and then the roles are reversed at a later date. Situations where each person is open to the scrutiny of another results in a more developmental and fruitful relationship

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than where one person is monitoring performance and the other being judged. My experience suggests that the teacher observing was far more interested in what I did to enable learning than the shortcomings and mistakes of which I was only too conscious; and that this was also true for the other teachers involved. Although a formal mentoring relationship is in place during Initial Teacher Education, and usually during the first year of teaching, teachers are often subsequently to a large extent expected ‘just to get on with it’, with observation more for monitoring than for professional development and few chances to observe other teachers at work. While mentors are ideally identified formally to ensure a long-term relationship, with clear responsibilities and boundaries, those leading or coordinating a subject, phase or department may act as mentors more informally. Either way, it is vital that teachers receive appropriate support and guidance, especially in the first few years after qualification. The need for professionals to be mentored and supported never ends. Junior doctors work alongside more experienced colleagues for several years and even when experienced work in teams far more than teachers do. And social workers receive regular clinical supervision – or should do so. While this does not happen for most teachers, extended professionals usually find ways of supporting each other, whether through peer-support individually or in more formal groups, particularly when times are tough. Such chances offer teachers space to escape from the often-toxic and debilitating emotional demands of a situation and to reflect. In this way, they can be reminded of alternative strategies or helped to explore how they can build, or rebuild, relationships and live out their beliefs and values, rather than be drawn into blaming the children or unreasonable external demands. This discussion reaffirms the importance of well-led schools where sustained opportunities for professional learning and interaction are created and supported, whether for a newly qualified teacher seeking guidance on everyday matters or a more experienced one faced with the demanding challenges of reviewing existing practices.

Belonging to professional learning communities Hargreaves and Fullan (2012:  chapter  7, especially 150–1) argue that building professional capital must be a collective endeavour. Sustained professional learning occurs most lastingly in well-led communities of practice where such learning is expected and supported and autonomy is collective rather than individual. Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or

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a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly, requiring mutual engagement (see Wenger, 1998). In Lieberman’s (2007:  199)  words, ‘[F]or (Wenger), learning communities become arenas for professional learning because the people imbue activities with shared meanings, develop a sense of belonging, and create new identities based, in part, on their relationships with one another.’ For teachers, communities of practice may operate at the level of a school (or part of a school), across different schools or online. While cross-school, online ones or teacher unions and professional associations may be helpful in certain respects, the school is likely to be the most influential, if close, regular and supportive relationships are created, given that communities of practice are built, and depend, on the trust which enables mutual support (Macbeath, 2012: 77). Communities of practice become professional learning communities insofar as they help those within them to move towards an extended sense of professionality, providing and encouraging opportunities for innovation, challenge, feedback, reflection and discussion. A school being, or becoming, a professional learning community is not as simple as it appears at first sight. Stoll and Louis (2007:  7–8) highlight as endemic challenges: ●

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school size, with very large schools making it hard to work at a whole-school level; the nurturing of social capital, especially when extended beyond classroom teachers; sustainability.

Four potential pitfalls must be avoided. The first is that many so-called professional learning communities encourage ‘contrived collegiality’, as opposed to a genuinely collaborative culture, often as a result of poor leadership (see Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012: 117–226). Contrived collegiality is administratively regulated, compulsory, implementation-oriented and predictable. Collaboration among teachers in schools with these characteristics generally does not result in meaningful or sustainable change. The second, linked, pitfall is a demand for conformity. Any school, other than the smallest, is likely to incorporate several groups of differing types and sizes rather than just one supposedly homogeneous professional learning community. Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: xv) highlight the need to avoid group-think where everyone is expected to think and act in the same way. Among the possible results which impair the group’s ability to problem-solve and grow are: dependency, fight-flight and pairing or spinning into subgroups. While statements such

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as ‘the whole school has a shared vision’ are common, even the most coherent staff will have slightly different visions and values, certainly in how these are lived. Indeed, some diversity of culture and approach, within limits, is desirable, if the school is to provide for a wide range of children. So, any shared vision may operate at a high level but individuals will act in different ways to live out the values and make the vision visible. Third, one should not imagine that close and friendly social relationships necessarily result in a professional learning community, not least because of an understandable reluctance to challenge those whom one knows well and likes. Because of their size, it is usually much easier to work at a whole-school level and create a sense of belonging in primary than in secondary schools. The small size of primary schools make creating close relationships across the whole staff easier and they are often remarkably good at bonding, but can easily become too inward-looking and complacent. There is a danger of confusing warm, social relationships with creative, professional ones. The latter are challenging as well as supportive, so that at times the relationships may be uncomfortable, but sometimes this is necessary if one is to avoid complacency. Fourth, Hargreaves and Goodson (1996: 11) highlight the danger of a local, limited view of what counts as high quality learning and teaching, for both children and teachers. While understanding one’s own context matters, making comparisons with, and learning from, other contexts helps build greater collective expertise. Doing so with schools which succeed in similar catchments helps teachers, especially in disadvantaged communities, to avoid an often unconscious complacency. Internal, within-school collaboration is enhanced by external collaboration with other schools and partners such as businesses and museums. So, those who lead primary schools, especially, should look to create and cultivate cross-school, as well as in-school, partnerships and collaborations, either locally or with schools facing similar challenges elsewhere. Many primary schools operate well as professional learning communities, though they easily slip into the pitfalls highlighted above. Creating them is harder than it may seem, especially in a climate of performativity, defensiveness and compliance. All schools have a distinctive culture, made up of different individuals, with varying beliefs, interests and abilities. While each can, and should, become distinctive and there is no one model of what a school as a professional learning community looks like, there are some common features. First, professional learning communities ideally include all staff, not just teachers (see Bolam et al., 2007). Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) argue that they

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manifest strong collaboration and distinctive individuality (111) with informal as well as formal opportunities (113), and all adults learn from each other and build up social capital. Second, professional learning communities are places which welcome diverse views, where everyone values the different skills and ideas that people bring, even if they are naïve, and treats each other with respect. Third, since learning takes place within everyday situations, as well as formal opportunities, many of the most significant elements of support and advice occur outside formal structures. So, there are regular and sustained, even if relatively brief, discussions about pedagogy, with regular slots at staff meetings; but much of the valuable support occurs more informally. This accords with Hargreaves and Fullan’s (2012: 131–2) emphasis on the importance of relatively small things such as ‘nudging’ and mutual pressure and support in improving teaching. Fourth, most challenges are set by individuals or groups, rather than imposed. Staff are permitted, indeed encouraged, to experiment and to make, and learn from, mistakes and time is allowed for both innovation and consolidation. Professional learning communities are not static, in two senses. First, any staff group changes more than one thinks. Staff turnover, and the number of staff who work part-time, means that the staff group is constantly changing as new people join and others leave. More importantly, there is a sense of restlessness, inquisitiveness, of slight dissatisfaction, rather than of complacency. Professional learning communities are genuinely collaborative and supportive, without colluding in poor practice. There is a willingness to challenge and be challenged. Opportunities are created, and taken, to learn from each other. All teachers have regular chances to see other teachers at work and to think, with others, about how best to relate with, and engage, children. Opportunities to work in the classroom with other adults, whether in team teaching or more informally, enable teachers to see and comment on each others’ work. Mentoring and critical friendship help to provide regular support and periodic challenge. More experienced and senior teachers may take a lead but the skills and enthusiasm that less experienced members of staff bring are respected and used. The hierarchies of power common in many schools are flattened in professional learning communities. In Hargreaves’ words (2007:  191–2), ‘[S]trong and sustainable professional learning communities acknowledge (though they do not automatically) endorse the wisdom, memory, accumulated knowledge and resulting intuition of the school’s most senior teachers. They do not privilege more formal and objective evidence over existing intuition, but devise ways for evidence and intuition to inform another – as in the very best medical practice.’

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Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: 171) argue that, in professional learning communities, teachers explore loosely connected types of data and look together for areas where they can quickly make a difference and others where slower, longer-term changes are required. In other words, data is not ignored, but used intelligently, along with other evidence, rather than being treated simplistically. Professional learning communities enable the exploration of different approaches, informed by a range of evidence, and so encourage teachers to innovate and take risks without the fear of repercussions if things go wrong and to share their practice with others. Importantly, difficulties and mistakes are normalized and discussed. All teachers, particularly those new to teaching, or in a new school, feel a sense of inadequacy, at times, especially when faced with a difficult class. As Little and Horn (2007) suggest, normalizing difficulties provides much needed reassurance, but can also lead to collective attention to a problem which others face. At best, such conversations move between specific accounts of events and general lessons from experience. In these ways, professional learning communities maintain teachers’ agency, motivation and the disposition to keep teaching creatively and the confidence to experiment. Successful, and sustainable, professional learning communities grow organically from within, over time and are built on, and help to create, relationships of mutual trust. Trust is built up by many small and repeated interactions and is hard-earned, but it is easily dissipated by a thoughtless comment or action. Among the types of activity which help to create and hold learning communities together are working groups, collective planning, problem-solving teams and shared professional development activities. Such structures and activities do not in themselves create a professional learning community, but help if related to tasks which staff think are worthwhile. If so, they encourage the relationships which promote professional learning, though such relationships can also be, and often are, developed informally. Mahwinney, Hass and Wood (2005) suggest that collective efficacy preceded professional learning communities. However, my hunch is that the process is an untidier one, where changes of practice breed success and confidence and these encourage further changes.

Keeping going: the continuum of career-long professional learning This section explores how primary classroom teachers can sustain the expertises, qualities and commitment to cope confidently with the complexity of the role over the fluctuations and changes inevitable throughout their careers.

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Many theoretical models of professional development are based on how long teachers have been teaching (see Levin (2003: 233–83) for a useful summary). For instance, Berliner (2001) suggests that expert teachers have usually, by their fifth year, developed the necessary intuition and know-how. Huberman posits a relatively brief stabilization phase after four to six years of teaching, which ‘may lead initially to a plateauing of knowledge, skill and commitment, but, ultimately, to stagnation and thus decline’ (Day, 1999: 61; emphasis in the original). Such models may be useful as broad generalizations in the early-career phase but, given the diversity of individual experience, become less so subsequently, for instance in suggesting that after the age of 50 most teachers lose motivation and commitment. As Day (1999: 64–8) suggests, these one-dimensional models are somewhat simplistic, not least because they are not based on a ‘teacher-as person’ perspective. More convincing is Nias’ (1989) argument that the trajectory of careerlong learning for primary classroom teachers is strongly related to sense of self, affected by an interaction of internal, personal factors and external forces. Levin (2003: 248) identifies five linked themes in the personal and professional influences which impact on teachers’ pedagogical understandings over time: ● ● ● ● ●

prior beliefs and personal values; professional experiences; the context in which teachers teach; the personal relationships built up in and out of school; and other life circumstances.

All of these interact, over time, to affect teachers’ sense of self, including their identity as a teacher, whether positively or negatively. For instance, my experience, as a 17-year-old from a privileged background, of visiting the home of a child I was looking after, and seeing the squalor in which he and his family lived, made a profound impact on me. This may account, in part, for my interest in teaching children from disadvantaged backgrounds and education as a vehicle of social justice. However, such an interest has also been reinforced by the schools in which I have worked and colleagues within them; and the manner in which policy has been formulated has frequently made it hard to see how to achieve these ends. As Evans (2010: 85) argues, ‘[T]he preliminary induction into an occupation, through preparation programs, can shape the work identity of practitioners and influence their future understandings of work.’ The type of preparation and support those learning to become teachers receive, especially in thinking about, and

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maybe experiencing, different approaches to what teaching young children can entail, rather than just meeting current requirements, is crucial. While a list of standards, or competences, may provide a reasonable starting point by identifying areas on which to concentrate, the danger is to focus only on these, and current priorities, rather than helping prepare those learning to be teachers to work in different contexts. They need to explore the detail of what such broad categories involve in practice by: ●

●

●

recognizing that teaching young children need not just involve delivery of a limited curriculum; reflecting on the complexities of pedagogy, such as how to structure subject knowledge, identify children’s misconceptions and be attuned to children, even if students are not yet able to enact these very skilfully; and having opportunities to articulate values, beliefs and aspirations and consider how these can be aligned with the realities of the classroom.

How, and where, such processes happen provides a foundation for individuals’ understanding of themselves as teachers and how to develop their abilities. Furlong and Maynard (1995:  73–97) identify five main stages in Initial Teacher Education: ● ● ● ● ●

early idealism; personal survival; dealing with difficulties; hitting a plateau; moving on.

The most pressing issue is how to survive in a role which is very demanding, physically and emotionally. While this is hard for all teachers, the close link between personal and professional identity may make this particularly demanding for many primary teachers. The main challenge is usually related to children’s behaviour and retaining control while lacking the authority that being the regular classroom teacher tends to bring. Even when this is overcome, student teachers are likely to hit a plateau where they feel they are not making much progress. This may happen especially if the task is strongly linked to performativity. Therefore, while students should not just follow the script, strong pressures to meet the school’s expectations often operate to encourage such an approach. At the point of qualification, those becoming teachers are bound to have a limited toolkit and a restricted professionality. The next five years, approximately, are the main time when teachers broaden their repertoire of pedagogies

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and case knowledge and their understanding of what being a teacher entails. As in the situation when one has only just passed one’s driving test, recently qualified teachers must recognize that there is much more to learn and maintain a desire and disposition to keep learning; being willing and able to innovate, adapt and practise a reciprocal approach, where possible across the whole curriculum. While students and early-career teachers may be sensible, or required, to focus mainly on literacy and numeracy, they should, as they become more experienced, increasingly extend their range to other subject areas and the types of knowledge and expertise discussed in Chapters  5–7. Ideally, this will involve regular opportunities to observe other teachers and for mentoring and guidance. Yet, after qualification, many teachers receive little support and time to reflect, in a structured and formative way. However, reflection on longer-term progress and priorities may be prompted by sympathetic appraisals and applying for, and taking on, new posts of responsibility and jobs. Hargreaves and Fullan (2012:  68)  suggest that teachers’ commitment and effectiveness are vulnerable at the start of their career, pointing out how many leave the profession within a few years. However, the problem seems less one of initial commitment than of maintaining that commitment in the face of remorseless pressures of the job and constant change. The first school in which a teacher teaches after qualification is likely to influence profoundly how she sees teaching, and the roles and challenges she takes on. Energy and enthusiasm tend to be infectious, but some schools seem to drain energy and enthusiasm and some to create it. If primary classroom teachers are expected just to focus on achieving high test scores in the subject areas tested, they are likely to see the role in this way and may find their idealism undermined. If encouraged to innovate and experiment with new approaches without being afraid of failure, they have more chance of seeing teaching as a creative activity and refining and extending their repertoire. Teachers who keep learning seem to maintain a restless equilibrium between a wish to consolidate and a willingness to innovate. The extent to which primary classroom teachers can sustain this is likely to depend on the individual’s confidence and resilience and the level of pressure exerted by the school leadership and external expectations. We have seen the importance of teachers building trusting relationships over time in managing the dynamics of a class and motivating and engaging children. Early-career teachers, therefore, benefit from spending long enough with one class to experience this, but also need to change age group, role and school if they are to broaden their horizons, encounter new challenges and extend their case knowledge.

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Changing schools, meeting new challenges When I moved from a suburban school to a large and challenging one in a new town, after four years of teaching, many of my assumptions were challenged and I needed, rapidly, to acquire new skills. I could no longer assume that most children were able and willing to write and read reasonably fluently and independently, or that they would do as they were asked straightaway. I had to plan for more practical activities and be more explicit in my expectations. Changing after a further two years to teaching younger children helped me to understand more about learning to read and why some children found it so hard. During nine years at that school, my expertise grew significantly, though it did not always feel like it, because of frequent feelings of inadequacy.

As in any demanding activity, primary classroom teachers must be prepared for the long haul, the marathon rather than a sprint. Throughout one’s career, the importance of being a teacher in relation to other parts of one’s life, and the commitment and energy one gives to the role, is sure to fluctuate. Hargreaves and Fullan (2012: 71–3) suggest that teachers in mid-career, after about eight years, become ‘confident but not complacent, open but not innocent, questioning without being cranky’ and are able to maintain a high level of commitment over time. This seems to be related to taking a longer view which enables them to step back from the pressures of initiative fatigue without becoming cynical or trying to do everything. Maintaining interests outside teaching helps to reduce the danger of becoming jaded or dull, which can easily happen without one noticing. After several years, many primary classroom teachers are likely to see their career path as leading towards a senior leadership or advisory post. Those whose main role remains in the classroom need chances to set their own challenges and broaden their horizons. This may involve becoming more of a specialist, in a particular subject or an area such as special educational needs. Such roles should involve exploring how other teachers approach the task with a view to one’s own development and considering how other teachers, with less experience, can be helped to learn appropriate pedagogies. Ideally, this will involve opportunities for further study or to visit other schools or systems. The benefits may be directly related to teaching, or possibly less obvious. When, after about ten years of teaching, I visited the United States for a month to study how science was taught in elementary schools, I am not sure how much I learned about

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science teaching. I did not see a programme which could be applied directly to my own context, but the experience enabled me to see teachers within a very different system at work, broadening my view and challenging my rather insular, anglocentric assumptions. Development as a primary classroom teacher does not follow a steady gradient. One may encounter plateaux, and indeed troughs, when levels of confidence and expertise stall or goes into reverse. This may result from changes in one’s personal circumstances, such as having a baby, being ill or suffering a bereavement; or in one’s professional life, such as taking on a new job or role, so that one’s focus alters or external expectations change. A change of school may be invigorating or demoralizing and even the most committed teacher may be affected by a difficult time personally or a period of illness. These are often times when teachers particularly need the support of colleagues and friends. However, plateaux may also occur because of teachers’ shifts of understanding and the need to consolidate; and, as Hammerness et al. (2005: 363) suggest, questioning and restructuring of core practices and ideas may reduce teachers’ efficiency in the short run, but make them more flexible and skilled in the long run. A considerable challenge for primary classroom teachers in the later stages of their career is to maintain the level of energy required and avoid cynicism. Taking on new challenges, such as subject leadership and mentoring roles and involvement in action research, can help, working with, and listening to, other teachers with new ideas and approaches. However, the chance to enjoy the role’s variety and the children’s company, while retaining a sense of agency and the opportunity to live out one’s beliefs and values, is what helps maintain many primary classroom teachers’ commitment and enthusiasm. This chapter has only touched on the complexities of how primary classroom teachers can acquire and maintain the robust, but flexible, professional identity associated with expertise. The final chapter summarizes the implications for those on the demanding journey of actually doing so and manifesting extended professionality in teaching a class of young children.

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Conclusions and Implications

Chapter outline Overall conclusions Implications for pre-qualification teacher education Implications for in-service teacher education Implications for research and policy

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If . . . teachers are trusted as professionals, have a high autonomy with regard to politicians and the educational system has a low frequency of external accountability systems, it is more likely that teachers will develop a strong sense of professional identity and a high-status self-image than . . . in an educational system in which they are not trusted and where there is a high frequency of external accountability systems. —Fransson and Grannäs, ‘Dilemmatic Spaces in Educational Contexts’, 8

Overall conclusions The Introduction referred to the lack of a distinctive ‘signature pedagogy’ for teachers of young children. I have suggested features of what such a signature pedagogy should involve, arguing for more emphasis on axiological and ontological dimensions  – ways of working and being – and teachers’ judgement and professional identity than the epistemological dimension – what teachers

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know. In brief, who teachers are, and become, matters rather more than what they know. I have argued that the primary classroom teacher’s role: ● ● ●

is complex and should be seen as a whole over a long period of time; should be understood in ethical as well as technical terms; and requires a wide and interlinked range of different types of knowledge, practical and theoretical, emotional and cognitive;

and that: ●

●

●

teachers who manifest a high level of expertise working with young children act and think in distinctive ways; such expertise is manifested in many different ways and must be learned and constantly refreshed; and while few people will acquire a high level of expertise in every aspect of the role, all teachers can gain greater expertise in some respects and should be encouraged to do so.

This highlights the importance of teacher education helping prepare teachers to enhance young children’s long-term mental and physical well-being, focusing on enduring qualities and dispositions, rather than only on short-term attainment. Teacher education must be seen as a continuum, extending the range of teachers’ experiences and understanding, in an informed way, throughout their career, so that they can adapt to changing contexts, rather than just training in skills and techniques. While young children require propositional knowledge and skills, focusing mainly on these will not prepare them adequately for life in a rapidly changing world. Their teachers must address the whole range of their needs, recognizing that aims are multifaceted and may conflict with each other. The complexity of the teacher’s role, and the dilemmas and compromises involved, makes exercising professional judgement, often in-the-moment, essential. Doing so requires sensitivity to culture and context and the ability to draw fluidly and confidently on a wide repertoire of pedagogies, contrasting with an approach based on preplanned delivery. A robust, but flexible, sense of identity, based on beliefs and values, but not naïve about how these are implemented, helps to maintain teachers’ commitment and enthusiasm. The types of teacher knowledge involved are internalized and embedded by practice, articulating what one has done and having success reinforced by feedback to oneself and from other people. While positive affirmation is helpful,

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constructively critical feedback may, at times, be needed to avoid complacency. The years soon after qualification are especially significant in building the pedagogical content knowledge and the craft, case and personal and interpersonal knowledge which characterize those with a high level of expertise in teaching young children. The context in which teachers work, at school level and in terms of local and national policy, affects profoundly whether, and how, they are encouraged to refine their expertise. A policy climate which emphasizes coverage of content tends to encourage teaching at great pace, based on instruction and delivery. Teaching with a high level of expertise depends on encouraging and enabling children to work in a variety of ways and to develop qualities and dispositions to cope with uncertainty rather than just to memorize information or be compliant. For this, young children – and not only they – require space and facilitation. An emphasis on delivery and on compliance with external diktat may help to avoid poor teaching, but restricts the opportunities for innovation. Primary classroom teachers must see themselves increasingly as concept/skill builders and curriculum creators, planning flexibly and improvising thoughtfully. This requires a deep understanding of how young children learn, a wide repertoire of pedagogies and a fluid, intuitive and reciprocal approach to planning and teaching. Teachers must contain children’s anxiety and have their own anxiety contained if they are to act with the confidence which usually accompanies and encourages expertise. Self-awareness and the ability to manage their own emotional responses without losing control or over-controlling are essential aspects of primary classroom teachers’ expertise. Paradoxically, teachers have to relinquish some control while maintaining authority, and cope with uncertainty without over-controlling what the children do and how they learn. Teachers with a high level of expertise understand the importance of context and relationships and of children’s engagement with learning and can apply such understanding of how all children are enabled and encouraged to learn in specific situations. In creating an inclusive learning environment, such teachers balance nurture and challenge, pace and space, structure and freedom. The right balance depends on what teachers are trying to achieve and their knowledge of the particular class and context as well as their command of subject matter. The amount of time spent with a class of young children provides considerable opportunities for their teachers to get to know individuals and the class, but also presents distinctive and daunting challenges in meeting the full range of the children’s needs. While meeting such challenges is possible as an individual, it

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is much easier when teachers work in, and increasingly help to create, a professional learning community. Many of the most important opportunities for professional learning are informal, such as asking advice from, or listening to, more experienced teachers. But this process works both ways in that more experienced teachers can learn from less experienced ones. This suggests that the definition of ‘teacher educator’ should be widened from someone teaching in a university or with a senior post in a school, to include, to some extent, all teachers. Perhaps this book’s most controversial aspect relates to teachers’ subject and disciplinary knowledge. Subject knowledge is only one type of teacher knowledge, to be combined with craft and case knowledge, and qualities such as versatility and sensitivity to children’s strengths and difficulties. Primary classroom teachers cannot have the same level of knowledge in every discipline as a subject specialist. Teachers’ subject knowledge is necessary up to a point, but this point changes depending on factors such as the children’s age and prior experience and the type of task or subject area being studied. Subject knowledge is valuable mainly insofar as it gives teachers confidence and informs the pedagogical content knowledge necessary to enhance children’s knowledge – procedural and conceptual as well as propositional – in specific disciplines and across the curriculum. Unless children’s interest is engaged, teachers’ own subject knowledge is likely to be of limited use. However, many of the most useful components of the primary classroom teacher’s toolbox, such as story-telling, analogies and the ability to lead a discussion, are transferable across subject areas. Resources and textbooks can help support teachers where their subject knowledge is limited, but reliance on these easily promotes the view that learning is largely about content and underplays the importance of teacher judgement. Procedural and tacit knowledge is learned more by practice and watching than through cognitive processes. This is the basis of my call for an apprenticeship model where, particularly at first, teachers learn by watching and by regular practice under the guidance of someone with more experience, and by reflecting on what went well and what they might do differently. This does not preclude the need for theory, as such a model must be enriched by consideration of how practice can be informed by theory. Indeed, keeping up to date with the key lessons of research into how young children learn is a vital foundation for developing expertise. Learning to act and think as a professional does not just entail unthinking compliance with external expectations, often based on simplistic interpretations of data. Rather, it is grounded in how the general lessons of theory can best be applied in practice to meet the needs of a particular group of children.

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I have argued for greater emphasis on the emotional and relational aspects of teaching and on teachers being attuned to children’s emotions as well as cognitive processes. As discussed in Chapter 7, how best to develop personal/interpersonal knowledge to prepare oneself, or others, for the emotional demands of teaching young children is far from obvious, but is intimately linked to craft and case knowledge. One must recognize the complexity of the primary classroom and of the wider role to see why manifesting and developing expertise, and helping others to do so, is so hard. But recognition is not enough. Teachers must be able to regulate their emotions, especially those which undermine confidence, and to cope with the stress which results from the immediacy and intensity of the classroom. Teachers are not going to teach well if under constant stress, especially from external expectations. Their ability to reflect deeply diminishes when they are tired or stressed. How teachers learn to cope with stress and anxiety depends on many factors, both personal and school-related, but they must learn, and be helped, to do so. Maintaining teachers’ sense of agency and ability to exercise informed judgement is essential. The ethical aspect of professionalism means that children’s overall well-being should be of overriding concern for primary classroom teachers, involving attention to learning across, and beyond, the formal curriculum and out of, as well as within, school, not just academic attainment and progress. While teachers must make teaching manageable for themselves, this must not be at the expense of narrowing the range of children’s experiences and so limiting their opportunities and intrinsic motivation to learn. Teachers need periodic rather than constant challenge, preferably generated largely from their own practice, if they are not to become defensive or grudgingly compliant. Primary classroom teachers benefit from relationships of mutual trust, not just with children, but with other adults, such as senior leaders, other teachers, support staff, parents/carers and those from outside agencies. Teachers must be supported and avoid isolation, especially when they are unsure, and, whatever the stage of their career, they benefit from belonging to professional learning communities. Those new to teaching require regular guidance and support. For more experienced teachers the level of support needed can reduce over time, but the need never disappears. These considerations emphasize a culture where teachers have considerable autonomy and are trusted and supported, both in school and more broadly, rather than one of criticism and micro-management. Such a culture offers the chance to consolidate what they have learned and maintain their sense of agency and being in control of how they teach. In such a culture, those in leadership

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roles recognize the constraints which militate against classroom teachers manifesting the features of expertise, both those internal to the classroom and external ones, and help to alleviate these. A robust but flexible sense of identity and extended professionality requires regular, sustained professional learning, relating theory to practice, throughout a teacher’s career. However, too often the structures to enable this, particularly in the years soon after qualification, are absent, as teachers are expected to work largely on their own, with little support. The implications for policy are considered further in the final section.

Implications for pre-qualification teacher education Like teaching, Initial Teacher Education involves dilemmas and compromises. The constraints of time and of external regulation frequently determine what can, and cannot, be done. Pre-qualification courses can only start the process of enabling prospective teachers to cope fluently and confidently with the complexity of the primary classroom, though such courses provide opportunities for reflection with the guidance of an experienced mentor. While those learning to be teachers have to survive what is inevitably a challenging time, Initial Teacher Education must help them look beyond the immediate context of school experience, to provide the springboard for developing the subtler aspects of pedagogy and teacher expertise subsequently. As Zeichner (1996: 217) suggests, writing of the practicum (school experience), ‘[U]nless (this) helps to teach prospective teachers how to take control of their own professional development and to learn how to continue learning, it is miseducative, no matter how successful the teacher might be in the short run.’ The demands on students in Initial Teacher Education are considerable, not least since teaching a class of young children is exhausting. As Maslow (1998) indicates, unless basic physical and psychological needs are met, one cannot focus on other aspects. Often, survival is one main objective for students. To protect themselves from becoming exhausted, worn out or ill, those preparing to be teachers must look after themselves. This involves eating healthily, sleeping enough and not becoming too caught up in planning, marking and completing assessments. However, they need also to be sustained, guided and supported in other ways. It is not realistic to expect student teachers to build up the whole range of expertises involved in teaching a class of young children in the short time available in Initial Teacher Education. On school experience, they may have to focus

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on the priorities set by the school and operate largely in a pre-planned and rulebound way. However, they must increasingly be helped to recognize that: ●

●

●

●

the subject areas usually regarded as most important are only part of a much broader curriculum; subject knowledge must be learned and structured with a view to developing pedagogical content knowledge; for young children to learn at a deep level depends on their sense of agency, engagement and intrinsic motivation rather than on adult control, reward and sanction; and teaching should be judged considering the impact on the whole range of children’s learning, not just on data.

While students on placement may have to adopt the school’s policy for managing behaviour, Initial Teacher Education can help them to recognize that there are many different ways of engaging children’s interest – and that once children are engaged, difficulties with behaviour tend to diminish. Rather than managing behaviour through rewards and sanctions, or (trying to) control learning, student teachers must be encouraged to see their role as one of enabling and motivating children by how they teach and helping them develop the qualities and dispositions to reduce their dependence on the teacher. An essential element of expertise is the increasing ability to apply rules and techniques more flexibly depending on the context. This ability depends on a growing trust in one’s judgement, associated with a sense of agency and confidence. This is helped where students see themselves not just as task managers, or as curriculum deliverers, but increasingly as ‘concept/skill builders’, focusing on concepts and learning qualities rather than mainly on content. Recognizing that the teacher’s role is not simply one of delivery provides an essential basis for students’ subsequent understanding of themselves as extended professionals. One key role of Initial Teacher Education is to enable students to explore and articulate the multifaceted role of the primary classroom teacher, with challenges and expertises which are distinctive from teachers in other phases. A second is to help students understand the need to find various ways of structuring subject knowledge to engage and motivate a particular group of children. These imply an emphasis on: ● ●

drawing on children’s existing knowledge; enhancing their own – and the children’s – conceptual and procedural knowledge in different disciplines;

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using many different ways of presenting material; and identifying common misconceptions,

rather than on the children’s, or the teacher’s, subject knowledge as such. Student teachers must think how ideas and activities can best be presented to young children, making links with what the children know and can do already. Such an approach is strengthened by engagement with research, thinking how the ideas can be applied to one’s teaching, but without resorting to a ‘tips for teachers’ approach. For instance, while Assessment for Learning is often understood as involving techniques such as ‘traffic lights’ (where children self-assess and indicate their level of understanding), a more nuanced view emphasizes aspects such as self- and peer-feedback. At the least, students should be encouraged to recognize the complexity and dip their toe in the water, rather than oversimplify what, and how, children are expected to learn. Hammerness et  al. (2005:  360)  highlight that how people initially frame what they are trying to do affects significantly the strategies they adopt then and subsequently. The language used by teachers both reflects and structures their beliefs about children and ideas such as intelligence and inclusion, standards and expectations. While such words, especially those in common usage outside teaching, may seem uncontentious, Initial Teacher Education must challenge how such language is used and start to unpick the underlying assumptions. Darling-Hammond and Lieberman (2012:  156)  indicate that many countries have adopted an approach where working towards meeting set standards or criteria helps those studying to become teachers, by identifying key aspects of the role. Such criteria are comparable to objectives which help children know what they are expected to achieve. While they may help students to recognize broad areas on which to focus, they easily become limiting as many aspects of pedagogy are tacit and not open to assessment on a competence model. And the harder challenge is to realize these in practice. So, Initial Teacher Education must help students look beyond meeting the standards for qualification and encourage, and help, them to recognize, and start to develop, the types of knowledge and qualities associated with expertise. One of the hardest aspects of starting to learn any complex task such as teaching is to focus less on the detail of what one does and more on the task as a whole. Remembering what was said in Chapter 4 (especially p. 75) about calibration, student teachers benefit from being encouraged increasingly to get the feel of how it is to act and think as a teacher, rather than focus on, and try to correct,

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every detail of what they do. Therefore, they should be encouraged to pay attention to the learning environment by: ● ●

●

●

learning to judge the mood of the class and change course rapidly if need be; looking at the classroom through different lenses, especially how the experience feels from the child’s perspective; attending to how children respond to what their teachers and each other do; and being attuned to the children’s emotions and their own emotional responses.

Many of these are largely intuitive processes and less experienced practitioners are likely to be less accurate in their intuition. Rather than being suspicious of hunch and intuition, students must be encouraged to be aware of, and to trust, these, initially in relatively small ways; and to reflect, individually and with a mentor, on whether and when such intuition should, or should not, be trusted. Otherwise, key elements of reflection-in-action remain unpractised. Teachers with a high level of expertise with young children tend to talk less, and listen and watch more, than other teachers. Hard though it is, especially in a climate of performativity, teachers, from the start, must learn to listen and watch more if they are to become attuned to what children are thinking and feeling, rather than just to talk and deliver. Teachers new to the profession are usually expected to plan, and outline their learning objectives, in considerable detail. This may be useful and even necessary at first. However, the danger is that in doing so, teachers become obsessed with following the plan rather than responsive to what children say and do. While those who are inexperienced are less likely to recognize unexpected opportunities, and to have the confidence to follow these, they should not overplan and be prepared, and encouraged, to depart from the plan when opportunities for discussion or following interesting ideas arise. Particularly with young children, expertise involves manifesting enthusiasm and passion not just for subjects studied in school but for children and their interests and concerns. Therefore, student teachers should be encouraged to note, and respond to, the children’s interests and enthusiasms and to take some of their own into the classroom. This enables those becoming teachers to learn to enjoy children’s company and build up the relationships essential to becoming more attuned to, and engaging, a class of young children. I have advocated an enriched apprenticeship model, where students are encouraged to watch how more experienced teachers act and interact in the classroom, to reflect and to practice. Such an approach helps in learning the

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often-tacit detail associated with craft knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. When observing teaching, a focus on one or two aspects, such as how the teacher asked and responded to children’s questions or how the children were grouped, helps observers to avoid being overwhelmed by the complexity. Teacher educators and mentors should encourage students to articulate what is happening, what the teacher did (well and not so well) and why, and what that teacher, or someone else, might have done differently. But those observing should increasingly turn their attention to the children’s responses to notice how teachers’ and children’s actions affect each other. Noting critical incidents and using case studies to discuss with others why the teacher acted as she did, what the result was, what she might she have done differently and what the student teacher could, or would, have done, help to identify the detail of pedagogy. In this process, maintaining a reflective journal assists in articulating, and so building up, a store of experiences, adding to one’s bank of case knowledge, over time. Teaching a class of young children is not just about technical competence. The role inherently has an ethical element, not least in the sorts of people teachers are helping to shape. So, while student teachers are likely to be more constrained in the parameters of what they can do, they must bear in mind, and keep returning to, their aims and values. Such an approach helps in starting to shape a sense of identity and extended professionality as a primary classroom teacher.

Implications for in-service teacher education Expertise has to be learned and can easily lose its edge unless regularly updated and refreshed. This book has challenged the idea that continuing professional development should mainly consist of attending short, one-off courses. Careerlong professional learning requires sustained opportunities where teachers can, together, explore and deepen their understanding of different aspects of pedagogy, such as using varied types of questions or finding alternative ways of illustrating a concept. Other professions, such as medicine and accountancy, provide opportunities for guided learning, using an apprenticeship model to work with a more experienced practitioner for several years after qualification. Yet, frequently in the first few years after qualification, teachers do not receive this type, and level, of support. Soon after qualification they are often left to work on their own – ‘flying solo’  – with a class most of the time with relatively little support, though under considerable pressure to produce results. In the first year, support from a

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mentor and a reduced amount of contact time is often provided, but the second and third year of teaching may be harder than the first as the level of support is reduced. It is therefore unsurprising that so many teachers, especially those who start as idealists, become disenchanted or give up within a few years of qualification. So, how, and how well, teachers are supported matters for both pragmatic and professional reasons. To refine expertise as a classroom teacher, a balance has to be struck between consolidating one’s learning and facing new challenges. Teachers new to the profession benefit from some stability, where possible. Working with several different classes – or in different schools – in any one week may equip a teacher to adapt to new classes very quickly, and so build up certain aspects of expertise, but it does not enable one to build the deeper relationships which are part of the joy of teaching a class of young children. So, working with one class over a sustained period of time is highly desirable. Watching other teachers at work and trying to identify what they do well, and why, helps to improve teachers’ judgement. However, teachers must experiment with, and then evaluate, different approaches, for instance how children work in groups, and what sorts of group, for change to become more embedded in their practice. Teachers should innovate, improvise and reflect to build up a wide repertoire of pedagogies and different types of knowledge, focusing on a range of outcomes over time and sensitivity to context and culture, where possible in a structured and collective way. Much of this sort of work can happen in the process of teaching in environments which provide sustained opportunities to allow and encourage innovation, risk-taking, making mistakes and honest discussion, without the fear of repercussions. Building up different aspects of teacher expertise requires a greater breadth of experience to avoid too inward-looking an approach. It is easy to believe, however unconsciously, that how one works in one context is the only or the best way to teach. Teachers’ horizons, and their repertoire, are broadened by: ●

●

regular changes of age group, of role and of school, though not so frequent that one never settles; and continuing to engage with, and possibly in, research, such as undertaking a master’s level qualification or taking part in action research.

For early-career teachers, this may involve changing classes and/or age groups after a while, perhaps two to three years, moving to different schools and teaching in schools with different catchments and challenges to extend, and enrich, one’s bank of case knowledge and to acquire and refine new types of expertise.

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This is likely to be enhanced by keeping up to date with research, exploring how this can be related to the practical demands of the classroom. Early-career teachers in the primary phase must be encouraged to understand the role increasingly as a whole rather than just as discrete lessons. This involves simultaneously balancing immediate goals and more distant aims, for instance that children both learn a particular initial sound and retain a motivation to read; or how children can access the support necessary to help them deal with difficult situations and build up qualities to do so independently. While there is no one recipe for how to enhance such teachers’ expertise, the following are highly desirable: ●

●

●

●

●

●

observing other classroom teachers and then discussing, with a mentor or in a group, what was happening, how the teacher acted (and why) and thinking of possible alternatives; seeing one’s own teaching on video to identify, and articulate, key aspects of tacit, craft knowledge; continuing to maintain a reflective journal to identify dilemmas, successes and critical incidents; engaging with research, for instance on child development and the history, philosophy and sociology of education, and considering engagement in research, though the resulting insights may make the role seem even more complicated and challenging, rather than help in the short-term; being brave and gradually taking more risks, including those involving hunch and intuition, while managing the level of risk for children and themselves; and assessing thoughtfully, using their own, and other people’s, experience and judgements, with data prompting further questions rather than being seen as providing definitive answers.

Assessment is a key aspect of any primary classroom teacher’s work. Much of this, as discussed in Chapter 6, is integral to pedagogy, but assessment also involves deciding on children’s progress and where they may require additional help from other adults, with different, more specialized expertise. Therefore, liaison with other professionals, both in school and from other agencies, is an important element of what primary classroom teachers do and a way of building up their own expertise. As Bibby (2010) argues, teaching is an impossible profession, though one that thousands of teachers manage to do, with varying degrees of success and enthusiasm. I have suggested that an extended sense of professionality is associated

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with a greater level of expertise and that a robust sense of personal and professional identity helps teachers to cope with the jungle of policy and the dilemmas of the primary classroom confidently. Building case knowledge and having confidence in one’s professional judgement helps teachers to take the long view, rather than responding immediately to the latest new idea without thought – and helping others not to do so. Primary classroom teachers must be enthusiastic, flexible and open to new ideas, while being realistic, without becoming jaded or cynical. Moreover, they must learn to temper their idealism with realism without losing their passion for learning and teaching. While this is possible as an individual, it is much easier when working with supportive colleagues, who support and normalize one’s mistakes and who see teaching as a collaborative process designed to ensure children’s well-being rather than a struggle to control them or a competition to prove that one is better than other teachers. Developing expertise on one’s own is very hard. I have argued that teachers are ‘defended subjects’ and that this helps to protect them from jumping on the latest bandwagon, but makes them resistant to change, especially in relation to deep-rooted assumptions about teaching and learning and other specific groups of children. Professional learning communities can provide support throughout a teacher’s career and normalize the difficulties which all teachers encounter. In such contexts, all teachers, and others, engage regularly in discussions about research and how this can best be applied to practice; and some may engage in research, whether formally or as a systematic, but less formal, way of evaluating their own practice. While professional learning communities can be created across schools, perhaps in networks of newly qualified teachers, or online, the most immediate and significant ones are within the school where one teaches. The first school in which a teacher works shapes his or her view of teaching to a considerable extent. So, it helps for newly qualified teachers to find a school where they are actively supported; and where innovation, creativity and risk-taking are welcomed and supported. Whether in a small or a large school, a rural or an urban one, a culture of working together to improve learning and teaching helps to create the energy which enables inexperienced teachers to tap into the collective wisdom of more experienced ones. All teachers, but especially less experienced ones, must be encouraged, and feel able, to ask for help. Mentoring is a key way in which expertise is developed. But this is not one-way-traffic, as more experienced teachers have much to learn from less experienced ones and benefit from opportunities to mentor

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or supervise less experienced ones. Possible benefits include being challenged to refine new interpersonal skills, being encouraged to articulate what may have become second-nature and recognizing that one has with experience gained a range of expertise, something too easily forgotten in the frantic race for results. Teachers with a high level of expertise have acquired the craft and case knowledge and the confidence to manage the dynamics of the primary classroom without over-controlling, using their often-tacit knowledge to pre-empt difficulties and avoid situations spiralling out of control. They maintain their enthusiasm for learning, but have learned to pace themselves and not to respond to every new idea without thinking how best it can be implemented. Moreover, they are motivated by beliefs and values related to the whole range of what a particular group of children need, rather than being caught in a rush for shortterm results. Such an identity, rooted in experience, but open to new ideas, helps more experienced teachers to maintain their commitment and enthusiasm, rather than becoming demotivated or cynical in the face of constant change and initiative fatigue. However, too often, the extent to which primary classroom teachers extend and refine their expertises, and are encouraged to do so, is a matter of chance, depending on the school in which they work or individuals’ willingness to do so.

Implications for research and policy This book has focused mostly on processes on how the expertises of primary classroom teachers are best developed, rather than structures and policies, but this section reflects on the implications for research and for how structures and policies, at school level and more widely, encourage the development of expertise, or otherwise. My argument has been based on a wide range of research, much of it not specific to primary classroom teachers, and my, inevitably limited, range of experience. Areas where more specific research would be valuable include: ●

●

longitudinal research which tracks – over a period of at least seven years from qualification – a sample of students training to be primary classroom teachers to analyse in detail how their expertises are refined and extended; qualitative studies to explore how primary classroom teachers understand their role and identity as professionals, updating Nias’s (1989, 1996) work in a changed context, preferably comparing this across different systems; and

Conclusions and Implications ●

197

studies of the personal/interpersonal qualities associated with primary classroom teachers with a high level of expertise in teaching young children and how these are built, and fluctuate, at different stages of their careers.

One overriding message from international research (e.g. Hattie, 2009) is the importance of teacher quality, and not treating teachers as ‘interchangeable widgets . . . just there to implement prefabricated knowledge,’ in Schleicher’s (2016) phrase. As Fullan (1991: 117) writes, ‘[E]ducational change depends on what teachers do and think. It’s as simple and complex as that.’ However, policymakers and politicians have tended to focus on measurable outcomes, standards and structures. So, current policy in relation to primary education is obsessed with raising test scores in literacy and numeracy, with the results of international league tables influencing the means used to achieve this. The focus is on what can be tested, especially content knowledge. This trend is reinforced by highstakes assessment and accountability mechanisms, to try and ensure that the system becomes ‘teacher-proof ’. Behind this are assumptions that the quality of primary teachers is too variable and that teachers will stop trying to improve unless kept under constant pressure. Policy must try to ensure congruence between the aims of education and accountability and assessment mechanisms, so these enable, rather than make it hard, for teachers to meet the aims. I  have argued that primary classroom teachers too often work within structures which discourage, and constrain, the development of expertise, and that the current emphasis on performativity and delivery is mistaken and counterproductive. Interfering in the detail of pedagogy or providing excessive regulation tends to limit teachers’ aims and inhibit the exercise of professional judgement. An obsession with measurable data has had damaging consequences, for young children and their teachers, by narrowing the range of the curriculum to what can be easily tested. A policy context which leads to a narrow curriculum with a constant emphasis on the mechanics of reading, writing and mathematics limits teachers’, and children’s, view of what children can achieve and encourages in their teachers a restricted professionality. An approach to teaching based mainly on propositional knowledge institutionalizes low expectations, as well as overlooking the opportunities for engaging, inspiring and motivating young children, including those less keen on other aspects of school learning, through active experience. A greater emphasis on the humanities and the arts, and aspects as varied as photography and astronomy, cooking and composing music  – and much else besides – and on grappling with real problems would provide, and

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embody, higher expectations of what young children and their teachers can achieve. Policymakers and teachers must avoid the mentality of ‘the sooner, the better’ and be less obsessed with short-term results and data. Moreover, the expectation that teachers should be outstanding all the time, in the messy, multifaceted world of the primary classroom, is a recipe for caution and compliance rather than innovation and inspiration. This is not an argument for accepting low standards of teaching but one which recognizes that the success of primary classroom teachers should be evaluated more holistically over time, rather than on reductionist, short-term assessments based on single lessons and simplistic criteria. This book has highlighted the importance, and interconnectedness, of different types of teacher knowledge in fulfilling the academic and pastoral aspects of the primary classroom teacher’s role. One obvious implication for the recruitment of potential teachers is to look more for personal and interpersonal qualities, rather than just academic attainment and subject knowledge. As Bell (2015), previously a chief inspector in England, argues, we must trust the frontline, if we are really to release teachers’ potential. By ‘we’, Bell means politicians and policymakers but his message applies more broadly. Such a view does not mean that teachers should be allowed to do what they want, though it does suggest a return to a more covenantal type of professionality. There is a risk in allowing and encouraging teachers to experiment and make judgements. At times, things are bound to go wrong. But teachers can afford to make some mistakes, within limits, most obviously those related to children’s safety, and must not be punished for doing so. Those with adaptive expertise realize that recognizing the need to change their practices is a success not a failure. There is an even greater risk of not allowing teachers to experiment – that of being too defensive and so failing to engage children’s interests. Primary teachers as a group have found it hard historically to develop a distinctive professional identity; and an inability, and reluctance, to articulate what the role involves has made it hard to escape the legacy of elementary education and stand up to external interference, especially from politicians. Collectively, a culture of compliance has become dominant. Many primary teachers have been torn between doing what they believe to be in children’s best interests and what they are expected, or required, to do. Moreover, since their personal and professional identities are so closely linked, many have found that expectations associated with performativity and targets have taken much of the joy out of teaching and led good teachers to leave the profession.

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Policymakers provide the framework within which teachers and teacher educators operate. While policy, legitimately, sets out expectations of teachers and learners in broad terms, it must leave open possibilities to exercise professional judgement. While curriculum documentation can provide a broad framework and textbooks some support, those with a high level of expertise in teaching young children make use of much subtler skills and less tangible resources. A  written curriculum can help to ensure children’s entitlement and teachers must be accountable for what they do. However, if the written curriculum is too content-heavy, it provides a strong incentive for teachers to use mainly didactic methods. And high-stakes accountability mechanisms encourage teachers to teach in ways which are less likely either to go wrong or to deepen children’s learning. So, the written curriculum must give scope for teachers’ inventiveness and monitoring must be, and seen to be, developmental rather than punitive. The tendency of accountability mechanisms to increase anxiety and skew practice must be reduced if teachers are to be enabled to extend and refine their expertises. Senior leaders have a key role in creating and sustaining professional learning communities which provide a wide range of opportunities to allow and encourage innovation and open discussion, without the fear of repercussions; and policy, at whatever level, must enable rather than constrain teachers’ creativity and innovation and develop their capacity to exercise these. Teachers need regular, supportive supervision and mentoring in ways common in other professions. This is a different process from monitoring to ensure compliance or an end-ofyear appraisal focusing on performance against numerical targets. Policy at school, ‘middle-tier’ and national level should be designed to enable primary classroom teachers to extend and refine their pedagogy rather than encouraging methods based on scripted instruction. This must include a structure which provides coherent and sustained opportunities for professional learning within and beyond individual schools, especially, but not only, in the years soon after qualification. The small size of many primary schools means that such a structure requires organization at a level above that of individual schools. Therefore, groups such as local authorities, academy chains, school boards and Higher Education Institutions can be very helpful in setting up and sustaining the structures which teachers require if they are to thrive and continue to learn. Teacher education and career-long professional learning will always be subject to constraints of time and resources. Ideally, the pre-qualification period of teacher education should be longer but must be seen as only the start of a continuum, with a particular emphasis on the years soon after qualification.

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Policymakers must provide a framework which enables and encourages such opportunities, especially in the years immediately following qualification. While the focus of professional learning may have to fit with school, or national, priorities, change is likely to be superficial and functional unless teachers are proactive in planning their own learning needs. It is important to invest more time and resources in helping primary classroom teachers to develop a wide pedagogical repertoire and range of expertises, but such resources can easily be wasted, unless deep, sustained learning is encouraged. The research on what promotes this suggests more collaborative, long-term, context-related opportunities and sustained collaborations between schools. Such provision is expensive, but short courses, unrelated to the context, make little long-term impact. This book has in many respects avoided definite conclusions. However, it ends with a stark warning. Unless teachers, as professionals, are trusted and set free from a constricting regime of accountability, too few will develop the sophisticated range of expertise required to help children respond confidently to change. And unless this happens in primary education, we shall not escape from the narrow legacy of the education established for a very different world from that of the twenty-first century. Of course, to do so involves a risk; and one that requires substantial and carefully thought-out changes to teacher education. But who ever achieved anything worthwhile without taking risks?

Appendix A preliminary typology of teacher expertise in the primary classroom Aspects of knowledge (generic)

Desired purposes (age related)

Teacher attributes (age and context related)

Domain knowledge (of) Content/subject

Deep representations of Breadth and depth of content and barriers knowledge of subject and to learning to enhance progression selection of activities Potential links between Provision of coherent Ability to meet multiple subject areas curriculum offer with objectives appropriate balance, breadth and depth of experience Child development theory Match of activities and Understanding of how experiences to individual theories reflect and may and group needs affect practice Relationship between Appropriate balance of pace/ Ability to plan activities cognition and affect space, challenge/nurture, taking account of how structure/freedom, cognitive and affective intellectual/affective needs aspects interact Link between types of Coherence of immediate and Match between aims and knowledge and aims and long-term aims purposes and actions purposes Craft knowledge (how) Setting, awareness Appropriate match of Authoritative relationships and management of activities and experiences based on values such as classroom ethos, climate to current class trust and fairness, care and mood and challenge Setting of performance Differentiated level of Match of challenge to a wide and learning objectives/ challenge for different range of children’s needs goals individuals and groups Testing of hypotheses and Adaptation of objectives/ Ability, and confidence, to plan, self-monitor goals and activities and strategies, recognizing interaction between self experiences in response to and adapt plans in the moment information feedback and context

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Aspects of knowledge (generic)

Appendix

Desired purposes (age related)

Teacher attributes (age and context related)

Management of time, Enabling children’s Ability to delegate control space and resources, appropriate access to, and as appropriate to children including other adults use of, space and resources and other adults Monitoring of children’s Gathering of information to Emphasis on varying learning through inform both feedback to aspects of child’s learning observation, listening children (and others) and to inform feedback and and other means planning planning Processing and providing Provision of varied feedback Match of type of feedback feedback according to task, child and to the needs and likely ‘next steps’ responses of learners Personal/interpersonal knowledge Sensitivity to context and Awareness of how prior and mood, based on accurate current experience affects interpretation of pupil children’s learning cues Modelling appropriate Development of appropriate values through actions learning and other behaviours Recognition of, and care Respect for children’s for, diverse backgrounds differing needs and and needs responses Assessment of children’s In-the-moment selection interests and responses, from repertoire of strengths and appropriate strategies weaknesses From Eaude (2014a: 12).

Attunement to children’s prior experience and current emotional state Enactment of values in practice Authenticity of response to different groups Confidence backed by informed judgement

Glossary Axiological: about ways of working. Calibration: how one acts when aiming at a moving target and when one has no time to correct one’s aim consciously and so has to rely more on habit and internal response mechanisms. Contractual professionalism: a view of professionalism based on complying with a set of standards and clearly set-out, detailed external expectations. Covenantal professionalism: a view of professionalism based on trust and meeting a loosely defined set of expectations, within a broad framework of how professionals act, with the detail left to individuals. Curriculum 1: ‘the basics’ or ‘the core curriculum’, especially reading, writing and computation (or numeracy). Curriculum 2: ‘the rest’, especially the humanities and the arts. Defended subject: a term which indicates that we all have to – and do – erect defences, often unconscious ones, to manage the anxieties we face. Epistemological: about what one has to know and know how to do. Espoused theories: what one says that one does, or should do (as opposed to theories-in-use). Executive function: the ability to regulate one’s actions. Extended professionality: a view which sees teaching as involving a wide range of pedagogical skills derived from a mediation between experience and theory, with teachers having broader perspectives beyond their own classroom and school (as opposed to restricted professionality, see p. 161). Manualization: an approach where teachers are expected to follow exactly a prescribed way of working, as opposed to improvising or exercising judgement. Ontological: about the way we are in the world and the ways in which we orient ourselves to being and making meaning in the world. Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK): defined by Shulman (2004: 203) as ‘a particular form of content knowledge that embodies the aspect of content most germane to its teachability . . . the most useful forms of representation . . . the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations and demonstrations – in a word, the ways of formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others’. Performativity: where success is seen largely in terms of children’s performance in tests and teachers are expected to focus on achieving high results in these. Professional capital: a term used by Hargreaves and Fullan to describe what distinguishes how professionals work, emphasizing complexity and judgement,

204

Glossary

as opposed to business capital, which emphasizes low outlay of resources and quick returns. Professional capital is made up of human capital, social capital and decisional capital (see p. 167). Prototype: in this context, a term which indicates that there are several different ways in which expertise is manifested. Restricted professionality: a view which sees teaching as involving a narrow range of skills derived from the teacher’s own experience and/or external prescription, with teachers’ perspectives mainly those of their own classroom and school. Schemata: deep patterns of thought or behaviour that organize categories of information and the relationships among them. Signature pedagogy: the main way(s) in which those new to a profession are taught and expected to learn three fundamental dimensions of professional work – to think, to perform and to act with integrity (see p. 7). Theories-in-use: beliefs which are manifested in how one actually acts (as opposed to espoused theories).

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Index accountability 17, 20, 25, 28, 155, 183, 187, 197, 199, 200 activity, young children’s learning through 14, 64, 83 adaptability 8, 22 adolescence 2, 25, 39 agency children’s 38, 39, 61, 118, 119, 120 teachers’ sense of 5, 8, 27, 72, 111, 139, 149, 155, 162, 187 aims of education 14, 28, 32, 59, 60, 184, 192, 197 Alexander, Robin 3, 4, 14, 36, 37, 40, 55, 62, 103, 131, 132, 149, 166, 170, 171 analytic thinking 56 anger 42, 43, 134 anxiety 24, 40, 41, 44, 52, 118, 128, 138, 185 containing of 118, 171, 185 apprenticeship 65, 116  model of enriched 5, 75, 76, 80, 105, 146, 186, 191, 192 approval, children’s need for 38 areas of learning 18, 97, 103 art, teaching as a 32 arts 14, 29, 35 assessment 19, 25, 65, 84, 85, 115, 123–5, 194, 197 divergent 123 formative 85, 123, 124 national 17 summative 123 assistants, teaching 18 assumptions 3, 14, 27, 140–4, 161 attachment theory 118 attainment, levels of 15, 45 attitudes 42, 59, 99, 103 attunement 43, 57, 66, 112, 115, 163, 191 authorities, local 2, 15, 16, 21 authority 37, 38, 39, 43, 118 automaticity 52, 110, 111

autonomy collective 161, 173 teacher 5, 17, 20, 25, 27, 151, 153, 155, 158, 161, 173, 183 axiological dimension of teaching 7, 183 Baccalaureate, International 18 balance 33, 120, 185 curriculum breadth and 101, 119 ‘basics’ 14, 29, 33 see also Curriculum 1 behaviour management 3, 19, 21, 118 beliefs 28, 36, 57, 58, 140–4, 150, 151, 157, 158, 161, 163, 167, 178 see also values belonging 23, 38, 120, 121, 174 Bruner, Jerome 23, 35, 74, 159, 167 calibration 75, 116, 168, 190 Cambridge Primary Review 1, 22, 72, 131 capacities 25 see also qualities capital decisional 167 human 167 professional 5, 167 social 167, 176 career-long professional learning (CLPL) 9, 16, 21, 85, 170, 192 case knowledge see knowledge, case case studies 6, 89, 116, 170 challenge 35, 37, 72, 78, 139, 140, 143, 171, 172, 174, 185, 187 change, social and cultural 22 cognitive dimension of classroom teaching 32, 40 cog-wheeling 41, 42 collaboration 25, 175, 176, 195 commitment, teachers’ 128, 139, 140, 151, 152, 163, 166 communities 22, 23, 25, 169 professional learning 10, 53, 79, 146, 173–7, 195, 199 competences 13, 18, 20, 154, 179

218

Index

competition 17, 21, 38 complacency 78, 175, 185 complexity 4, 5, 9, 10, 13, 30, 54, 55, 63, 77, 147, 184 compliance 38, 60, 153, 155 culture of 4, 158, 198 compromise 32, 34, 184 concept/skill builders, teachers as 159, 185, 189 concepts application of 65 learning of 64, 65, 73, 94 confidence 8, 28, 129, 138, 152, 156, 195 conformity 33, 174 confusion 36, 63 consistency 4, 153 consolidation 60, 74, 78, 85, 167, 176, 180, 187, 193 constraints 14, 26, 52, 156 context, importance of 50, 52, 61, 63, 166, 168, 175, 178, 185, 195 Continuous Professional Development (CPD) 8, 192 contrived collegiality 174 control 17, 25, 33, 37–41, 61, 72, 155 fear of loss of 27, 44 courses 1, 8, 9, 15, 16, 21, 26, 29, 77 craft knowledge see knowledge, craft craft, teaching as a 21, 32 creativity 33, 34, 44, 62 ‘critical incidents’ 88, 192 crowds 37 culture 9, 28, 35, 41, 45, 63, 66, 93, 117, 166–8, 187, 188 curriculum 6, 33, 158, 159 breadth/narrowness of 14, 36, 197 ‘core curriculum’ 19, 20 Curriculum 1 14, 17, 18 see also ‘basics’ Curriculum 2 14, 26 National 17 restricted 4, 171 data 18, 84, 123, 177, 197 decision-making 4, 59, 61 defended subject 41, 140, 195 deference 16, 22, 23, 25, 28 deliberation 8, 53, 75 delivery 5, 8, 13, 15, 19, 25, 32, 43, 152, 159 dependence 62

development attitudinal 141, 144 child 15, 64 functional 141 professional see professional development dialogue 83, 96, 103 didactic approach see pedagogy, didactic dilemmas 30, 32, 34, 35, 36, 45, 47, 154, 184 see also space, dilemmatic disadvantaged backgrounds, children from 17, 23, 178 discipline 28 discretion 47 dispositions 8, 34, 35, 83 disruption 25, 28, 36, 39 diversity, cultural and religious 4, 22 dynamics of the primary classroom 36, 43, 48, 63 Education Act (1944) 14 Education Reform Act (1988) 15 embarrassment 38 emotional dimension of classroom teaching 3, 8, 32, 37, 40–2, 48, 55, 129 distance from young children 43, 170 geographies 170 stability 34, 42, 43, 118 empathy 24, 42, 128, 131, 133, 134 enactment 74, 77, 78, 82, 133, 144 engagement 28, 45, 63, 119, 134, 160, 185, 189 English as an Additional Language 82, 142 enthusiasm 6, 56, 133, 152, 158, 180, 191 see also passion entitlement 15, 17, 155 environment, importance of classroom 24, 45, 66, 118–20, 159, 171, 172, 193 epistemological dimension of teaching 7, 183 Eraut, Michael 56, 110, 114, 136, 155 ethical dimension of teaching 6, 35, 36, 57 ethnic minorities 17 ethnicity 139, 141, 155 eudaimonia 36 evidence 5, 81, 84, 143, 176 example 35, 58, 130, 152, 156 see also role models

Index excitement 42 executive function 37 see also self-regulation expectations 6, 14, 22, 27, 28, 33, 39, 63, 101, 151, 197, 198 importance of teacher 58, 64, 118, 119 experience 5, 14, 28, 161, 178 randomness of 132, 165 experiment 4, 60, 74 expertise adaptive 123, 198 general features of 6, 13, 51–4, 71 features of teacher 50, 51, 56, 58–9, 117, 159, 160 fluid 53 Glaser’s stages of developing 72, 79 prototypical nature of 50, 88 static 53 experts 6, 72 exploratory approach see pedagogy, exploratory facilitation, teaching as 157, 162 fairness 132, 134 families 22, 23, 25 feedback 28, 75, 124 to children 125 single- and double-loop 60 to teachers 125, 172, 185 ‘feel’ 50, 168, 190 flexibility 56, 119, 189 fluidity 53, 75 fragmentation 23 freedom 33, 155 frustration 42 garden, primary classroom as 27, 32, 33, 36 gender 37, 139, 141, 142 gifted and talented 101 globalization 23 grouping 46, 121 guidance 4, 47, 162 guilt 42 habit 75, 77, 78, 88, 124, 140 habituation 74, 78, 143 Hadow Report 14 happiness 36 Hargreaves, Andy 13, 25, 130, 176

219

and Michael Fullan 4, 5, 21, 37, 60, 81, 84, 104, 138, 151, 152, 165, 168, 173–6, 180, 181 health, physical and mental 22, 36, 83, 99, 164, 188 Higher Education Institutions 2, 15 history of education 82, 168 humanities 14, 18, 29, 35 humour 133 hypotheses 59, 110, 123 idealists 43, 157, 158, 179, 180, 195 identity 9, 23, 25, 28, 35, 48, 147–51, 154, 160, 166, 174, 196 as narrative 145, 149–51, 166, 167 fragility of primary teachers’ 156, 158 multiple 148, 149, 157 personal 145, 149, 150, 158, 161, 166, 167, 179, 183, 195 professional 8, 10, 57, 76, 145, 150, 151, 156, 158, 161, 166, 167, 169, 179, 183, 195 robust but flexible 5, 10, 145, 152, 156, 164, 165, 167, 169, 183 situational 150 social 149 stable 150, 152 substantive 150 imagination 35, 44 imitation 75, 76 immediacy 37, 39, 40, 42 improvisation 32, 59, 111, 123 disciplined 61, 65 inadequacy, feelings of 37, 101, 139, 158, 177, 181 inclusion 24, 44–6, 66, 117–22, 141 induction 16, 79, 178–80, 194 inequality 23 Initial Teacher Education (ITE) (prequalification) 1, 5, 9, 15, 21, 26, 29, 81, 168, 172, 173, 188–92 initiative fatigue 18, 196 inspection 15, 17, 19 instruction formal 20 scripted 4, 61, 199 intelligence 66, 140 multiple 83, 141 intensity 27, 39, 156

220

Index

interference, political 3, 19, 155, 198 internalization 9, 56, 73, 74, 82, 88, 105 interpretation of pupil cues 111, 113–15, 123, 124, 138 intuition 3, 32, 51, 53, 110, 136–8, 176, 178, 191 isolation 52, 53, 170, 187 joy 42, 135, 193, 198 judgement, professional 4, 5, 19, 26, 30, 32, 84, 85, 145, 153, 160, 162, 167, 183 jungle, primary classroom as 27, 37, 38 knowledge case 10, 55, 56, 86, 89, 109, 116 craft 10, 55, 89, 109–16, 168, 169, 194 domain 55, 92, 93 disciplinary 10, 93, 100, 186 ‘funds of,’ 63 95, 120 pedagogical content see pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) personal/interpersonal 10, 54, 55, 56, 127–40, 187 procedural 54, 55, 78, 99, 186, 189 propositional 54, 55, 98 subject 3, 10, 21, 58, 85, 91, 92, 93, 100, 128, 185 tacit 6, 50, 55, 61, 74, 75, 114 transmission, of 19 use/structuring of 59, 91–5 ‘knowledge society’ 13, 25 Kolb’s learning cycle 87 language, teachers’ use of 113, 141, 190 latency 2, 42 learning conceptual 73 deep 74, 104, 170 embedding 78, 79 lifelong 94, 159 lifewide 94, 159 transformative 76, 140 learning disabilities 2 see also special educational needs (SEN) lenses 87, 160, 191 liaison with external agencies 46, 48, 194 other staff 46, 48 parents/carers 47, 48 literacy 9, 21, 32, 36, 84

manualization 19 mathematics 19, 98, 103 media 23, 25, 36 memory, working 83, 111 mentors 9, 172–3, 176, 195, 199 metacognition 77, 84, 124 mindset 83, 139, 141, 162 misconceptions 84, 97, 99 mistakes 28, 40, 74, 86, 131, 168, 198 normalizing 177, 195 monitoring of children’s learning 59 of teachers 28, 155, 173, 199 mood assessment 57, 111, 115, 191 motivation 26, 28, 33, 37, 39, 45, 134 intrinsic 66, 119, 159 newly-qualified teachers 16, 193–4 see also induction Nias, Jennifer 41, 157, 158, 178, 196 No Child Left Behind 19, 28 novice 49, 51, 52, 61, 72, 73, 76 numeracy 9, 21, 32, 36, 84 objectives 33, 59, 122, 125, 191 observation 28, 76, 88, 105, 116, 169, 170, 186, 192, 193 ontological dimension of teaching 7, 156, 183 opportunities 14, 26, 185 opportunity creation 111 optimism 133, 135, 136 outcomes, measurable 13, 197 pace 19, 43, 185 participation, guided 75, 76 passion 59, 63, 128, 131, 135, 152, 158, 191 patience 6, 134 patterns recognising 51, 100, 110, 112, 136 of resolution 33, 34 pay 16, 151 pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) 10, 59, 65, 93, 100, 103, 104 development of 104–6 pedagogy 3, 4, 15 articulation of 4, 79, 116, 169, 170 didactic 3, 14, 37, 44, 61, 62 exploratory 61 transmissive 28

Index perception 64 perfectionists 4, 43 performativity 5, 19, 28, 32, 38, 43, 156, 158 peripheral vision 112 philosophy of education 32, 168 planning 46, 56, 121–3 plateaux 51, 71, 73, 132, 178, 179, 182 play 23 Plowden Report 14, 15 policy 17, 20, 28, 29, 37 possessions 23, 24 poverty 23 power 37, 38, 118, 172 asymmetry of 38 hierarchies of 176 practice 4, 51, 74, 77, 105, 115, 132, 169, 186 link with theory 79, 82, 86, 160 praise 37, 38, 125 predictability, children’s need for 39, 134 prescription 4, 19, 27 principled performance 51, 155, 171 problem avoidance 111 problem solving 52, 59 profession, teaching 4, 16 as impossible 3, 40, 41, 194 compared to other professions 4, 16, 20, 128, 173, 192, 199 professional development 16, 17, 21, 36, 166 professional learning communities see communities, professional learning models of 73, 74, 76, 80 professionalism 4, 6, 9, 13, 20, 152, 153 professionality contractual 20, 153, 155 covenantal 20, 153, 155, 198 extended 145, 152, 169, 161–7, 169, 171, 174 restricted 145, 156, 160, 161, 179 protecting children 24, 118, 154 psychology 161, 168 qualifications 15 qualities 25, 36, 48, 83, 131, 148, 154, 159 questions 95, 96, 114, 142 racism 23, 142 reading 31, 32, 34

221

reciprocity 78, 97, 124, 128 reflection 4, 55, 57, 105 -in-action 56, 113, 191 models of 87, 88 -on-action 56, 86 reflective thinking 56 relationships 5, 23, 26, 36, 39–47, 102, 119, 160, 170, 178, 185 repertoire, pedagogical 45, 61, 64, 95, 101, 169, 200 see also toolbox/kit representing experience 64, 74, 82, 83, 84, 96, 99, 100 knowledge 51, 59, 60, 92, 93–5, 99, 107, 111 research engaging in 82 engaging with 81, 82, 190, 194 neuroeducational 83 use of 80–3, 160 ‘research literacy’ 80, 82 resilience 8, 22, 24, 37, 45, 56, 128, 139, 152, 166 respect 16, 39, 63, 130, 131 resources 46, 199 results, short-term 29, 43, 59, 84 rewards 19, 120, 134, 189 risk-taking 28, 35, 39, 40, 118, 194, 200 role models 35, 119, 130 see also example routines 62, 120, 144 rules 33, 40, 64, 72, 74, 119 realization 78 recognition 78 scaffolding 62, 102, 121 schemata 141 science 14, 54, 55, 98, 103, 182 teaching as a 32 self-concept 149, 178 self-efficacy 58, 138 self-esteem 23, 41, 125 self-monitoring 51, 125 self-regulation 34, 37, 38, 47, 52, 56, 61, 77, 83, 110, 111, 122, 129, 187 ‘semi-profession’ 16, 145 Shulman, Lee 31, 35, 63, 78, 86, 89, 93, 130, 153 signature pedagogy 7, 8, 156, 183 skills 6, 8, 26, 33, 34, 44, 65, 129, 151, 156, 161, 163 sociology of education 82, 168

222 space dilemmatic 34 see also dilemmas hospitable 120 special educational needs (SEN) 2, 15, 46 see also learning disabilities spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC) 35, 96, 103 standards 6, 15, 21, 25, 28, 154, 155, 179, 190 Teachers’ 20, 21 status, primary teachers’ 14, 16, 151, 152 stereotypes 98, 99 stories 97 stress 20, 44 structure 22, 25, 33, 45, 51, 72, 185 subject specialists 33, 36, 102, 156 subjects, separate 18, 100, 103 success 23, 32, 154, 168 supervision,  guided 4, 192, 199 survival 179, 188 tact 47 talk 40, 64, 83 children’s 96, 97 teacher 97 targets 15, 18, 19, 28, 46, 125 task managers 159 teamwork 52–3, 121 technicians 52, 152, 154 executive 57, 145 technology 4, 14, 18, 22–5, 97–8

Index testing 15, 19, 28, 123 theories espoused 53, 54, 79 -in-use 53, 54, 79, 152 theory, link with practice 15, 26, 55, 170 timing 112 toolbox/kit 77, 81, 163, 179, 186 see also repertoire, pedagogical transitions 118 trends in primary education and teacher education 17–22 triggers, emotional 42, 44, 133 trust 16, 20, 39, 119, 130, 155, 171, 177 uncertainty, confident 138 unconscious, dynamic 40 unpredictability of the primary classroom 57 values 28, 35, 36, 57, 58, 150, 151, 161, 163, 175, 178, 192 see also beliefs versatility 56, 171 voice, children’s 61, 83, 120 vulnerability 24, 55, 171 Vygotsky, Lev 15, 62, 64 warmth 56, 120, 130, 131 well-being 35, 57, 147, 154, 156, 162, 163, 184 ‘what works’ 3, 6, 29, 60, 81, 82 Zone of Proximal Development 62, 95