Back in March, I said I would post about narrative three, or discourse three if you prefer. For me discourse three is about understanding and allowing teachers to be professionals, and becoming serious about professional development over a career. David Crook, a historian of education, reminds us that the conceptualisation and theorisation of teachers work has discussed the competing discourses about the nature of professionalism and professionality- moving from good teachers are born not made, to high entry requirements, to teachers learning on the job- reflected in current policy. Increasingly governments have asked others such as parents and business to have increased influence(perhaps reflected on the ground in the current free school openings). "What sort of teaching profession do we want?" is the question that is being asked, not always explicitly.


I don't actually think we are willing to entertain the fact in England that there are alternative discourses. Whenever something is suggested, writers seem to want to push it into one of the two current main discourses about education- hence an idea may be seen as 'elitist' and bad, or elitist and good, depending on your own value stance. So successive governments have seized on whatever they see as the problem in education, and applied various solutions, many of them structural (re-disorganisation/Pollitt). At the same time, there has been much talk of evidence, and what parents want, often in vague terms, with research being used to justify one's own viewpoint. Governments vacillate between trusting teachers, and blaming them, often in the same document. Policy makers find it very difficult,  I would argue, to stop and look at the evidence in a much more wide ranging narrative three way- by that, I mean what is education in the 21st Century for, and how can schooling produce active learners? Indeed, can it? If I have a confirmed viewpoint it is that currently we seem to be asking schools to be childminders (new free schools with longer hours to 'help parents'), to move to embrace each new policy initiative so that their school does not 'fail' (The Ebacc etc, see Warwick Mansell's excellent NAHT blog), and to treat young people as cohorts not individuals. Voices from the professionals in schools seem dimmed to me at the moment, perhaps overwhelmed by the current situation. What can be done to change this?

We seem to be stuck in a 'my own schooling worked, let's replicate it', or 'my own schooling was bad, let's do something different' mode. The difficulty for everyone, policymakers, academics, parents and teachers is the individuality of learners. Excellent school X may not suit child A for example. Child B may work well with teacher Y, but her brother finds that teacher unhelpful. For me, I was fortunate enough to go through three different school systems, here and abroad. I had some excellent teachers and some who were mad, bad and dangerous to know. From one of the latter, I learnt quite a few of my old time management skills, which is good, but she was also not good for less self motivated individuals. I will leave today with some thoughts- What do teaching professionals do to encourage the whole panoply of the population? Can they do it in the current accountability climate? Can teachers reconceptualise themselves as 'agents of change' rather than 'victims of change) (Johnson, M. Hallgarten, J (eds) (2002)From victims of change to Agents of Change: the future of the teaching profession. London: Institute for Public Policy research).

These questions about alternative discourses, and what it means to be a professional, are areas I will be discussing with my students over the coming year.