The Learner Teacher in the 21 st century A Case for Deep Teacher Professional Development

1. The Learner Teacher in the 21st centuryA Case for Deep Teacher Professional Development Prof Michael Samuel University of KwaZulu-Natal Presentation at EASA Conference 2009 Karridene Hotel, Karridene 16 January 2009

2. Structure of presentation • Where have our teacher campaigns led us? • Shifting focus from “the teacher” to “quality of teaching and learning” • What kind of learning is required for the 21st century learner? • Are teachers ready to enact quality education? • How well are we doing? Conceptualising the LEARNER TEACHER • From collusion to reflexivity • Deep professional development • Are the multiple roles and responsibilities of teachers enabling or detracting? • How do teachers acquire professional development? • When? Where? How? • How do we organise systematic deep learning? • Some action plans • the role of teacher educators

3. Campaigns, Presumptions and Consequences

4. Campaigns Teachers should be paid higher salaries. There should be a minimum certification level of teachers Quality education can only occur when all schools have the same quality of physical resources. Focus on the systemic/ structural level TEACHERS Presumptions Better paid teachers will produce better quality learning Teachers with higher certificates teach better and learners will learn more Good quality learning is dependent on material resources Focus on the impact, the agency LEARNERS and LEARNING Some dominant issues

5. Understandable focus on “the teacher”: toppling of the previous salary injustices…ongoing campaign… Minimum qualifications levels: Redress… The SADTU Vision and Mission for public education WHO WILL RESCUE THE DECLINING STATUS OF TEACHERS and TEACHING? THE TEACHERS THEMSELVES A new vision of teacher empowerment Un-intended consequences Has the campaign become an end in itself Shift towards the importance of positions rather that responsibilities Shift in focus towards promotions rather than competences, service to education Has schooling become a haven for employment of the un/der-qualified Continuing cycle of un/der-qualified teachers Declining competence of the teaching forces Lack of faith in the caliber of the teaching force Consequences of the Campaigns

6. Focus on resources: understandable given the backlog of disadvantage TEACHERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN DISEMPOWERMENT AND EMPOWERMENT! SCHOOLS, TEACHING AND TEACHERS MUST BE ABOUT CREATING THE FUTURE (not just for teacher themselves, but for the learners and the wider society). Tendency to believe that resources are only external material resources Underplays the most valuable resources of the teacher in the classroom We have become DETRACTED from the core (constitutive) focus of what schooling is for: improving the lives and quality of knowledge and prospect of being for the next generation Schooling has become places of employment for teachers rather than sites of learning for learners.

7. “regimes of truth” “not so much objective as they are expressions of dominant discourses. Through their repetition in multiple conversations they exert power over what can be thought or said. They come to be taken-for-granted as true statements and become true through their performance.” (Winslade: 2008) “governmentality” “people are not passive in the face of knowledges that govern their consciousness” Not all about powerlessness (Winslade, J (2008). Structural unemployment and its effects: There is always a reflexive response. PIE (2008) Vol 26 (3), September 2008. People collude with forces that oppress them Does not intend to detract from systemic level, but the reflexive interplay between structure and agency. Foucault (1969, 1980, 2000)

8. From Collusion  Reflexivity • To unlock the collusion with deficiency, teachers have to recognise deeply their own implicatedness in their present status, AND also the potential for unlocking and escaping such imposed or self-imposed “regimes of truth” • How do we contribute to perpetuating the constructions of oppression? • This does not mean that there are no oppressive systemic forces. • Simply changing the “sovereign power” (external powerful [oppressive] forces) (Foucault) will not necessarily liberate the potential of teachers.

9. The Future Are we ready?

10. FORDIST Standardised products Production “pushed” “Just in case” production Employees contribution minimised Individual and sporadic innovation Quality control output POST FORDIST Differentiated products Demand “pulled” “Just in time” production Employees contribution maximised Collective, continuous improvement Quality control at input (processes) Lewin, K. Samuel, M and Sayed, Y. (2003). Changing Patterns of Teacher Education in South Africa. Heinemann. Sandown. (Education) institutions

11. MODE 1 Knowledge generated in academic communities Mono-disciplinary Homogenous organisations Hierarchical and conservative Accountable to specialists Quality control through peer appraisal MODE 2 Knowledge generated in the context of application Trans-disciplinary Heterogeneous organisations Task-focused, innovative Broad social accountability Quality control by a range of stakeholders Lewin,K. Samuel, M and Sayed, Y. (2003). Changing Patterns of Teacher Education in South Africa. Heinemann. Sandown. DICOTHOMIES PROBLEMATIC Knowledge generation

12. The Learner/Teacher for the 21st Century • Knowing what knowing how? Why? In whose interests is this knowing useful, productive, valuable? • Contested notions of knowledges (the sociology of knowledges) • Local and global citizen • Responsive to an increasingly technological era • Ever-learning society • By 2020, most of the jobs categories that will be available do not yet presently exist. • Education for continued learning • What you learn today, is already outdated by the time you graduate…

13. How well are we doing ? • Systemic Evaluation • TIMMS • Matriculation Mathematics performance

14. Maths Matric Performance in SA 1994-2006

16. Teacher Roles and Identities Enabling or detracting?

17. Multiple identities INTERNAL EXTERNAL Teacher as employee functional Teacher as an academic student theoretical Teacher as individual practical Teacher as a member of a community social Teacher as a member of a unique school evaluative interpretative Teacher as a member of a team co-operative Teacher as citizen political Teacher as a member of a unique classroom

18. How do teachers acquire the professional development? When? Where? How?

20. Deep professional leanring • What? • Highly COMPETENT, know your subject/field and be flexible • How? • Skilled practically: CAPABLE • Why? • Moral, ethical, social, political, cultural COMMITMENT • CARE

21. Commitment • To produce a teacher is • to address the agenda of social commitment: • understanding of social inequality; • understanding of the wide disparate contexts of South African society; • understanding of the specific health, poverty,justice, etc circumstances Is this what our present IPET and CPTD programmes? Are we producing a skilled labour force or “deep professionals”? IS MORE THAN SIMPLY how to teach a particular “subject“ / “learning area” Cannot be learnt from only an Initial Professional Education Programe IPET alone cannot produce a teacher! Becoming a teacher is a lifelong journey: …CPTD some never achieve this commitment…

22. Competence • Socially aware (politically astute) but disciplinary depth lacking/ questionable • Poor literacy and numeracy levels (of teachers/ learners) • Lack of adequate understanding of the content they teach • A professional teacher is aware of the range of possible methodologies available to activate • for particular learners, in particular settings • Not about knowing a bag of tricks: skills to perform in the classroom • Knowing about teaching /education, but not how to activate learning • Not simply matter of theory and practice • About making interpretative and situated judgments • based on what, who, where, when ,etc…appropriate, relevant, recent, exciting, etc…. •  DEEP PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT • Competence acquired over a long period of time

23. Care • Knowing that choosing a career in “Education” is not about simply getting employment • Schools are not just labour sites for teachers, but also engine rooms for the future society! • my own conditions of service and benefits but also about “how can I be of service” • How/ where/ when do teachers learn “service” to the community? • Awareness of the realities of the life of the community: needs deep engagement with the community? • Deep awareness of our own (theoretical) notions of “empowerment” , “transformation”, “change” [internal constructions/ collusions] • Debunking the “regimes of truth” • Breaking the cycles of “false consciousness”

24. Theoretical Challenges • Teacher professional development is a lifelong journey • Initial teacher education is only the “petrol-station” at the beginning of the journey • Moderate unrealistic expectations of what IPET can deliver • Professional practicum cannot fully develop a novice teacher

25. A comment about POLICY… • PROFESSIONAL TEACHER DEVELOPMENT IS ABOUT DEVELOPING DEEP ENDURING SUSTAINABLE CHANGE EVEN IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY MONITORING OF ITS IMPACT • It’s not about compliance, it’s about quality!

26. Operationalising the CPTD system • SACE-DoE Task Team • 3 categories of CPTD activities • School-based activities • Self- directed activities • Provider driven activities

27. Some action plans The Role of Teacher Educators

28. Promote activities/ strategies which yield a systemic impact, rather than opting for fashionable high profile activities (look for deep long-term impact) For example: • Spending resources to develop (at school /learning site level) productive “communities of practice” which support and activate deep professional learning drawing on supportive and well trained mentor teachers; • investing in supporting the OSD Teaching and Learning track promotions route • Encouraging learners to become teachers: advocate the bursary support for students to study and teach African languages (especially in early childhood development/ foundation phases) • Support students to teach in rural areas • Support students in IPET programmes which have a rural development focus in their curriculum • RENEW THE TEACHING PROFESSION FROM WITHIN

29. OUTSIDE- IN Tendency towards teacher deficiency ? Necessary to address skills under-development Need for (policy) orientation given the poor quality of previous teacher training INSIDE- OUT Teachers taking charge of organising themselves as resources to each other Understanding our collusion and contributions to our “own realities”/ “regimes of truth” THE LEARNER TEACHER Teacher Development

30. Are teachers ready for 21st Century Education • Not yet… • because we are asking the wrong questions about what constitutes QUALITY EDUCATION • Because we are focusing too much on the gains for the TEACHER, rather than the impact for the LEARNER • We are focussing on technicalities and not our epistemologies • SUPERFICIAL  DEEP PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

31. Concluding thoughts • Invest in supporting different models of teaching and learning that pay attention to DEEP PROFESSIONAL LEARNING • Have a clear understanding of the complexity of the process.