Jim Mitchell, Paul Cooper: University of Canberra
This paper deals with differences in the ways in which a group of English
and History teachers in a sample of English secondary schools talk about
their teaching and their interactive decision making processes. It will
be shown that the ten English and five History teachers who were the focus
for the study consistently talked about their teaching in terms of long
term aims, short term objectives, their own teaching performance, and their
images of how the classroom situation was maintained. This paper is structured
around these elements. On the basis of this analysis, two distinctive types
of teachers' professional craft knowledge have been identified: the "technical"
and the "affective". Consideration is also given in this paper
to the impact of the recently introduced National Curriculum in England
and Wales on teachers' thinking about their practice.
| McGill | Conference Abstracts | Nance |
Introduction.
This paper deals with differences in the ways in which a group of English
and History teachers in a sample of English secondary schools talk about
their teaching and their interactive decision making processes. It will
be shown that the ten English and five history teachers who were the focus
for the study consistently talked about their teaching in terms of long
term aims, short term objectives, their own teaching performance, and their
images of how the classroom situation was maintained. This paper is structured
around these elements. On the basis of this analysis, two distinctive types
of teachers' professional craft knowledge have been identified: the "technical"
and the "affective". Consideration is also given in this paper
to the impact of the recently introduced National Curriculum in England
and Wales on teachers' thinking about their practice.
Background.
The findings discussed here represent part of a wider study of teachers'
and pupils' perceptions of effective teaching and learning. Other aspects
of this study have been reported elsewhere (Cooper and McIntyre, 1992, 1993,
and Cooper, 1993), and further reports are currently in preparation. The
research is located within the teachers' craft knowledge (McNamara and Desforges,
1978, Brown and McIntyre, 1986, 1992) or 'theory of action' (Schon, 1983)
paradigm.
This research approach to conceptualising teaching, sees the teacher as
a thinking professional, and thus represents a move away from the 'teacher
technician' view that sees teachers as unthinking implementers of research-based
skills and algorithms (Schon, 1983). According to Schon's theory of action
paradigm, teachers learn by engaging in reflection in action and reflective
conversation with the immediate context. This conversation, it is held,
involves the teacher in constructing a new theory to suit each unique classroom
setting, searching for adequate specifications of the situation, defining
means and ends interactively, reconstructing and re-evaluating as the lesson
proceeds. Teachers' 'theories of action' serve in this context as providers
of information, ideas, beliefs etc against which new phenomena can be considered.
The purpose of the research reported here is to gain access to the thinking
that teachers engage in, as they construct and test their theories, and
by so doing, obtaining insights that can help to inform the thinking of
other teachers at all stages in their professional development.
Methodology.
The claim of this study is that the data presented here describes teachers'
accounts of their authentic experience of and thinking about actual teaching
episodes. The approach adopted can best be termed as falling within the
realm of "empirical phenomenology" (Tesch, 1990). The approach
is empirical in the sense that our theorising is based on data that we have
collected through fieldwork (as opposed to rational reflection alone), and
phenomenological in the sense that it treats subjects' personal accounts
as data. This approach has already been employed successfully in the study
of teachers' craft knowledge by Brown and McIntyre (1992).
The central requirement of this research approach is to create circumstances
in which subjects are motivated to express their individual ways of construing
successful teaching and learning. To this end a form of informant style
interview (Powney and Watts, 1987) is employed. The interview style is characterised
by the researcher's attempt to facilitate a dialogue with the subject which
derives its structure from each interviewee's particular pattern of concerns.
Three important measures were adopted in order to maximise the authenticity
of subjects' responses. First, subjects were encouraged to talk about only
those things they believed to have gone well in lessons recently taught.
This measure gives subjects a high degree of control over the content of
the dialogue, allowing them to avoid areas which might invite defensive
or evasive responses. Second, the lessons to be discussed were observed
by the interviewer, thus ensuring opportunities for assessing the degree
to which subjects' accounts are grounded in actual events. Third, the observation
- interview process was repeated several times for each subject over a 4
hour 'unit' of related lessons, and, where possible, teachers were studied
for three such units, on three separate occasions over the academic year.
(See Cooper and McIntyre, 1993, and Cooper, 1993 for further details and
discussion of this approach.)
Teachers' Shared Concerns.
There are four major areas of concern to which teachers in this study refer
repeatedly. These can be seen as dimensions which are used by these teachers
to make judgements about the effectiveness of their teaching. These dimensions
are:
(1) their long term AIMS, in relation to pupil outcomes over an extended
time scale (such as a term, year, or pupils' school careers); and their
professional commitments (eg 'coverage' of syllabus);
(2) their short-term OBJECTIVES, in relation to pupil outcomes and progress,
over a narrow time scale (such as a lesson, group of lessons or half-termly
'unit');
(3) their own PERFORMANCE, in terms of decisions made in preactive and/or
interactive phases of lessons, their management and presentational skills,
and the success and appropriateness of their teaching methods;
(4) their preferred IMAGE, in relation to the type of classroom state they
seek to maintain, through the promotion of particular forms of interaction
(social and interpersonal) and pupil behaviour.
The categories will now be elaborated in relation to the four dimensions
of teacher's concerns outlined above.
Teachers' Aims.
Teachers show evidence of setting both, what we term, 'affective' and 'technical'
aims. Prominent affective aims include: engendering in pupils a sense of
security and willingness to participate in class/group discussion; encouraging
pupils to adopt a positive attitude to the subject area, and to derive pleasure
from study. Ms Brown, an English teacher, illustrates the use of affective
aims:
I'm looking particularly, I suppose, at imaginative writing [...] and I
want to teach them that English is interesting and dynamic, that it's got
so many off-shoots - so many facets you can explore [...] And also just
to enjoy it.
[iv, 7]
Notable here is the prominence of affective aims in relating to pupil interest
and enjoyment, and the relative vagueness, signalled by the teacher's uncertainty,
in relation to cognitive, subject focused goals.
Technical aims relate to pupils' acquisition of particular knowledge, their
cognitive development, their understanding of concepts and their mastery
of specific skills, as is demonstrated in the following extract:
[...] one of the main aims which I want to try and address this week is:
what is particularly special to the dramatic form as opposed to the novel
for example? Why should writers choose to write in a dramatic form rather
than in prose? And also I think it's important to address that question
with the children and say, 'what's actually the difference between drama
and prose?' The reason being, it seems to me that, [...] when they come
to GCSE the exam boards require the students to write on plays, but the
questions are nearly always content based. [...] very rarely does an examination
question focus on the actual form of writing. That's a thing that I think
is very important, really.
[Mr Fox, English 4/11, 1]
In this case the teacher's rationale is closely related to his own view
of his subject and the type of knowledge that he believes is necessary for
pupils to have. This teacher makes no reference at all during this interview
to any affective aims he might have for his pupils. Elsewhere, he reveals
that the importance of affective aims lie primarily in the degree to which
they contribute to the achievement of technical (particularly cognitive)
goals.
Technical aims also include what might be called psycho-motor skills. For
example, when Ms Sim describes a history lesson in which pupils are required
to copy accurately a matrix from the blackboard, she accounts for this with
reference to her perception of her pupils' psycho-motor skills:
[...] they wrote down the necessary information they needed to have in their
books, in preparation for the lesson involving this game (the Roman Empire
Game) [...] I tried to keep the explanation very simple, because even doing
something as simple as drawing out a table and following instructions -
some of them find it very difficult.
[Ms Sim, 5/11]
Although the emphasis on technical and affective domains carries across
both history and English subject areas, there are important distinctions
to be made which relate to subject differences. Because the national curriculum
in history is perceived by teachers in this study to be more highly prescriptive
in terms of content and learning outcomes than the English curriculum, all
history teachers have a tendency to centre their descriptions of their aims
around learning objectives (ie technical aims). However, among the history
teachers it is possible to distinguish between the majority of teachers
who prioritise technical over affective aims, and the one teacher who consistently
emphasises the primacy of affective concerns. The technicist position is
illustrated by Ms Wills, when she emphasises the importance she attaches
to giving pupils an understanding of the 'coherence' of the history course:
I'm feeling under pressure about getting through it all [...] I do actually
believe in explaining to them the coherence of the course. So I wanted to
make it clear that we are now moving to look at problems with government.
[8/4, 1]
Ms Bell, however, is unique among the history teachers, in that she often
prioritises affective at the expense of technical aims. This is illustrated
in this example where she intentionally sacrifices pupil understanding in
favour of perceived pupil feelings. She has just described the way in which
she has curtailed an exposition in order to prevent pupils from becoming
bored:
I'm very wary about going on [to pupils] about it (ie the national curriculum
attainment targets) because [...] the most important thing to me in this
is that they're enjoying it. [...] If I start going on about [...] (it)
they'll all switch off. I don't want them to do that because I don't want
them to think that history's got to be laboured.
[24/1, 17]
In contrast to other history teachers Ms Bell expresses a degree of uncertainty
about the extent to which she needs to make learning targets explicit to
pupils:
I don't know how much to go on about it {ie attainment targets] That's something
else that I'm puzzled about at the moment: whether or not to tell them a
lot more about what we did.
[24/11, 16-17]
This suggests that this teacher's view of aims is not firmly fixed, because
she is clearly experiencing a dilemma in relation to the relative importance
of technical and affective aims. It could be that in resolving this dilemma
she might change her current position on this issue, and move closer to
that held by her colleagues.
Teachers' Objectives.
Teachers' talk about their short-term plans for and outcomes of individual
lessons and units primarily in terms of technical and affective objectives.
Technical objectives are characterised by an orientation towards instrumental
outcomes, whilst affective objectives tend to centre on 'expressive' concerns
(Eisner, 1985). Once again the psycho-motor skills represent a sub-set of
the technical objectives, and are least prominent in teachers' accounts.
Where evident, psycho-motor objectives are expressed narrowly in terms of
pupils' mastery of manipulative skills, such as handwriting and graphic
skills (ie preparation of tables).
Technical objectives are often expressed in terms of pupils' skilled performance
in intellectual tasks that are of a cross-curricular nature (eg articulating
responses to teacher inputs, evaluation and interpretation), the state of
their subject knowledge (ie factual recall, procedural knowledge), and their
mastery of subject related skills (eg character study in English; recognising
bias in an historical source). Here an English teacher cites pupils' ability
to ask apposite questions relating to literary forms as an important objective:
I certainly think that my immediate objectives over the 5 or 6 lessons have
been addressed, and I'm fairly satisfied that I've hit the majority of children
with that, regardless of difference in ability, in terms of encouraging
them to ask questions on the form rather than just merely the content of
what they've been reading. [...] I'm quite pleased to hear them thinking
in fairly sophisticated ways for year 7 kids about the actual form of the
thing.
[Mr Fox, English 19/11, 1]
The next example typifies the way in which the teachers talk about psycho-motor
objectives:
[....] I was good the way they couldn't understand the writing. I thought
it was quite good [that] they didn't know certain words. [Thus highlighting
the importance of presentational skills, and one of the purposes of redrafting.]
[Ms Jack, [iii, 3]
Affective objectives and outcomes are often expressed, by both History and
English teachers in terms of pupil enjoyment and enthusiasm for tasks and
subjects:
[...] I want them to get the idea of concentrating and also enjoy doing
it.
[Ms Lee, English, 10/12, 2]
[...] basically we were having fun playing with words and drawing silly
pictures, with the [...] implication of something more serious.
[Ms Brown, English, [iv, 6]
Normal Desirable States of Pupil Activity.
It is useful to employ the concept of Normal Desirable States (NDSs) (Brown
and McIntyre, 1992) here, to refer to the tendency among teachers to talk
about individual lessons in terms of the types of pupil activity they seek
to maintain. These NDSs, at different times, reflect different concerns,
which can be discussed in terms of technical and affective objectives. Typical
technical NDSs relate to evidence of pupil engagement with the learning
content of the lesson, such as their performance in answering questions,
the types of questions they ask or the evidence of cooperation and understanding
shown in group discussion. Affective NDSs are more often concerned with
the quality of social interaction in the classroom and evidence of emotional
states. Descriptions of positive affective and technical outcomes are often
framed in terms of lessons having 'gone well'. A lesson is seen to have
been of an affective orientation when pupils have shown that they have enjoyed
the lesson, or have appeared to work harmoniously together.
[...] I was fairly happy that they were all busy and that nobody was bored
because they didn't understand anything, and nobody was bored because they'd
done everything too quickly or anything like that.
[Ms Bell, 24/1, 24]
Where teachers talk in terms of lessons having gone well from a cognitive
point of view they tend to cite evidence of conceptual development or other
signs of cognitive performance:
[...] you've got to remember that at this time of term they're tired as
well - I've noticed that - slacking off of concentration and effort. [But]
no they weren't bad, they're still making the connections [ie showing evidence
of recognition of common themes across different historical periods and
topics] that I was pleased about last term.
[Ms Wills, 8.4.92, 5]
Sometimes affective NDSs are cited as contributing to the achievement of
particular cognitive outcomes. In this case pupil 'interest' (ie affective
NDSs) is seen to contribute to the lesson by motivating 'weaker' pupils
to contribute 'useful' information to the lesson:
[I was pleased with] the general level of involvement and interest [of pupils
in the lesson]. I think that the weaker members of the group: their ideas
were good; they perhaps didn't express them so well on paper, but they certainly
came up with some useful ideas. [...] I think I got over the message, at
the end, that history is based on evidence, and we need to have theories,
but we need evidence to back up our theories.
[Mr Home, History, L2, 7]
Typically, when teachers report on psycho-motor NDSs they refer to organisational
aspects of the classroom, such as factors associated with pupil movement
and discipline. An example of a psycho-motor NDS is provided by Ms Hall
(English) when she reflects on her organisation of classroom groups:
I'd deliberately built groups of four, so there weren't too many children
sitting around saying, I don't know what to do. I'll go and wander round
and see what's going on in the classroom.'
[11/12, 6]
Ms Brown (English) exemplifies a disciplinary NDS:
[...] I come down very heavily on the sniggers. This morning it was happening
when he [a pupil] talked about [...] he slipped, because he was aware he
was in centre stage [...] So, therefore, I picked that up: 'this is nasty,
you're [the class] being silly to laugh at him.'
[Iiv, 13]
This example also shows how the teacher's disciplinary intervention can
have the effect of supporting an affective NDS.
Teacher Performance.
Teachers talk about their performance in terms of the quality of their decision
making, their management and presentational skills, and the success and
appropriateness of their teaching methods. When reflecting on their own
performance during lessons teachers emphasise two different aspects of their
classroom behaviour. They tend, on the one hand to talk about the ways in
which their performance relates to the learning aims that they have established
in the pre-active phase, and on the other, to talk more in terms of the
ways in which they respond or react to prevalent conditions during the interactive
phase of lessons. These conditions tend to relate closely to individual
differences among pupils.
Ms Brown gives an example of her effective presentation of material to pupils,
which also shows the importance and value she attaches to the quality of
teacher-pupil interaction:
I think probably, reading that little piece of work [a pupil's essay] was
quite effective, because I don't think they were expecting that. I think
it was also effective, my standing there and asking if I may. [...] Because
it was his [essay]. [...] I would have liked to have read the whole script
[aloud] but I didn't want to, you know, bare his inner soul.
[1i, 5-6]
Teachers are also sometimes concerned with their self presentation in a
more general sense. In the following example Ms Brown refers to the kind
of persona she wishes to present to her pupils:
I think you have to [be charismatic], certainly my colleagues always seem
to be very charismatic as well. You've got to come in, when you're feeling
like death, and virtually perform on the occasion.
[1iv, 10]
Teachers' manner of self-presentation is often closely related to the particular
objectives they have for lessons. For example, Ms Brown carries on from
her comments about charisma to say:
[...] today, socially and organisationally, these children have got to learn
that it isn't acceptable not to do your homework. [...] So the guise of
being very angry had to be put on, as I walked through the door.
[1iv, 11]
On a further occasion, this teacher explains how she uses self projection
in order to demonstrate the nature of a Shakespearian character [Iiv, 11)
thus indicating how this aspect of teacher performance can be used for the
achievement of cognitive objectives.
Ms Wills (history) provides an example of how teachers relate their performance
to pupil learning outcome:
[...] I was quite surprised [...] about the connections they did make between
the understanding and the activity. I mean obviously I'd set it up by putting
that on the board [...]
This also represents a model of teacher effect. This model is exemplified
elsewhere, when Ms Hall (English) gives an example of the extent to which
teachers' performance is goal related:
Sometimes I have a conscience that when you do things like this [ie group
work with a 'scribe'] [...] some children are getting away with not doing
any writing, and those children are usually [...] the ones who should be
doing the writing. So I think I would usually say 'I want you ALL to write
down the instructions [related to the set group task] [...] You all write
down the instructions so you've got a copy of it. So that some of them are
just practising writing more than anything.
[11/12, 14]
When teachers talk about their performance in terms of decision making,
they often refer to the appropriateness of their choice of tasks:
In terms of difference[s among pupils] [...] I generally sat down and thought,
'probably it's more - this is a [...] middle to see what the brighter ones
make of it and what the weaker ones make of it.' [...] There are times [...]
when I [...] say, 'this is a bit weak for the bottom end, and it's not necessarily
stretching the brighter ones.'
[Ms Hall, 11/12/91, 6-7]
In the following quotation Ms Jack describes her sense of satisfaction with
the range of material she has provided for pupils as models for the writing
of autobiographies. Once again, her particular concern is with the issue
of individual differences among pupils:
I thought there was a good range in that material in that some of it's very
simple, and they can imitate it. So like with Jim [pupil with learning difficulties]
with the 'I wish' poem, I was very pleased cos he can copy most of it and
add some. And Jim is literally at the stage where [it is] [...] very hard
[for him] to write freely. But to actually copy, and then add an idea -
. So I thought it was good to range from that [low level] through to 'Salford
Road' [poem], which is slightly obscure and retrospective [...]
[I, 6]
Teachers' Classroom Images.
Teachers reports of their practice often contain references to their preferred
'images' (Elbaz, 1981, 1983; Clandinin, 1986). Classroom images are defined
as 'brief descriptive and sometimes metaphoric statements' (Elbaz, 1983,
p254) that are made by a teacher in order to communicate aspects of their
craft knowledge. Images function as frameworks within which teachers' structure
and process their classroom experience. They are generated from the interaction
between teachers' experience of teaching and their broader field of personal
experience, and are characterised by strong emotional and moral associations
which root them deeply in teachers' thought processes (Clandinin, 1986).
The particular images employed by a teacher can therefore provide the researcher
with insight into the constraints and opportunities that the teacher perceives,
since the image is both a product of such perceptions and a means by which
these are maintained.
This study provides examples of teachers' images of self, of the subjects
they teach, of their pupils, of the teaching process and of the classroom
environment. In the present study, teachers employed images to elucidate
areas of their classroom teaching, but not always to draw attention to the
desirable features. In this extract we find an English teacher giving an
account of her teaching style, and in doing so showing how by virtue of
the personal biography she holds conflicting beliefs which influence her
classroom practice in sometimes negative ways:
I've always thought that you should do that [ie be a transmitter of knowledge
to pupils]. I was brought up by parents who were wonderful but they always
told me [what to do], and I'm rather guilty of that [in the classroom] at
times, I think. I'm a sort of fairly 'housewifey' sort of teacher, I think.
I'm very sort of fundamental and basic [...] And I think it's very dangerous.
I mean, I think they've got to be free to find their own interpretation
of things, bring their own response to things and to give what they've got.
[Ms Jack, English Iiii, 10]
In the following two examples we see how a teacher's classroom images influence
her practice:
[...] as soon as I betray a trust then I've lost {teacher as leader}
them, haven't I? I think [...] stopping and questioning en route {lesson
as journey} [...] you have to do it. I think that's effective, and if
you don't do it then you don't quite know who's following you at all {teacher
as leader + lesson as journey}. [...] I've always been on red alert
{military/conflict/battle}. It's the teacher with the experience
being on red alert to see who's always giving information. And obviously
at the moment, they are secure and they are happy and they're OK.
[Ms Brown, Ii, 5]
I think very carefully before I come in [...] these children have got to
learn that it isn't acceptable not to do your homework. And so the guise
of being very angry had to be put on as I walked though the door. And that
was just walking straight, centre stage, and leaning on the table waiting
for them. I didn't say a thing. It was all charade {teacher as actor}.
[Ms Brown Iiv, 11]
These extracts reveal a view of pupils as essentially passive objects to
be manipulated and 'led' by the teacher.
Other teachers define pupils in more dynamic terms, seeing them as possessors
of tacit knowledge, as opposed to 'leading'. In the following example the
teacher talks in terms of giving emphasis to particular subject knowledge,
and providing a 'framework' in which pupils can apply their tacit knowledge.
Well, I'm pleased with the way that, through their talk, they seem to be
using their own implicit knowledge about language to make their own statements
and, therefore, taking it a step further in their own learning. And that's
not coming from me a lot of the time. Because I do believe that all children
have a strong implicit knowledge of language that the teacher needs to tease
out, or to set up lessons that will enable the students to verbalise that;
to bring it out themselves [...]
I've tried to give them some framework about what I perceive to be the important
pointers about how language works and how language changes [...] what I
try to do is just give them apposite examples of that, and again, we try
to make that interesting, we try and make that humorous, in the hope that
will be sparking off thoughts in their own mind. So I mean I could stand
at the board and give them notes, and they could copy. But [instead] through
a series of examples, and through that framework, actually asking them to
try and make more of the links themselves [...]
[Mr Fox, 23/3/92, 1-2]
This extract shows how this teacher's images of the subject matter, his
pupils and his role as teacher intertwine and interact. The particular importance
of his view of pupils' constructive abilities, is emphasised by his preference
for the pupil centred approach he adopts. This is a consistent feature of
this teacher's teaching, as is demonstrated on a different occasion with
entirely different subject matter:
Today we're going to have a short lesson. So I would just like to frame
that question ['How is it different if a writer chooses to tell a story
using a play as opposed to a novel?]; introduce it to them. And in pair
and group work I'm going to be asking them to brainstorm some ideas themselves.
But it seems to me that it's important to use the children's own, if you
like, repertoire of reading, or their own skills, to try and answer those
questions. I mean, it would be quite easy for me to stand at the front [of
the class] and tell them what I think the difference is, but that would
be a nonsense. So we're going to start off by just asking them to think
in groups about that question and brainstorm some ideas and put them on
the board, to have a discussion based on that today.
[Mr Fox, English, 4/11]
As one might expect, some images have a more pervasive quality than others,
as is demonstrated by Ms Hall, when she indicates the relationship between
a particular personal image and key aims she sees herself as pursuing in
her teaching:
[...] I can remember when I was at school [as a pupil], a lot of teachers
would just stand at the front of the classroom and it would be [...] and
you sit there thinking 'oh', you know, 'I wonder what I could do at break?'
You wouldn't be listening, and you wouldn't be actively involved in your
learning. And I think it does help - even little things like they did today:
the dialogue between the two of you from a script - it boosts confidence
[...] I would like to think that, when children come out of my classrooms,
they think 'I've learned something today', or 'I enjoyed that.' Because
when I think back to my own days at school, there was many a lesson I walked
out of and I just thought, 'that was hard work!' or, you know, '[we've]
got so and so now, and that will be just as bad.' I suppose it's me not
wanting to be like the people who taught me in some respects.
[Ms Hall, English, 28/1, 39-40]
The central image here is of the teacher's own experience of being a bored
and sometimes bewildered student. This image is then related with her own
central preoccupation with making learning purposeful and enjoyable for
pupils: a preoccupation that is borne out in other interviews. Her particular
concern is to avoid being like her former teachers. This intention is enacted
in her repeated avoidance of lengthy explanations in the classroom, and
her willingness to allow lessons to be shaped, on occasions by pupils' interest
rather than the particular learning outcomes she has preplanned. This image
is also reflected in her own repeated claim to require variety and stimulation
in her teaching. This example illustates the way in which a teacher's image
can have a profound influence on the kinds of decisions that a teacher makes
about appropriate aims and methods in teaching.
Types of Craft Knowledge.
It should be clear by now that whilst all teachers, in this study, employ
the above dimensions (ie long term aims, short term objectives, their own
teaching performance and their images of how the classroom situation is
maintained), when they talk about their teaching, there are important differences
in the ways in which they talk at different times. A powerful way of conceptualising
these differences is in terms of two different types of craft knowledge,
which are differentiated by teachers' concerns with technical and affective
considerations. Craft knowledge which is directed at the attainment of affective
aims deals with the establishment of a particular social climate in the
classroom. Craft knowledge which is directed at technical ends tends to
be guided by formal curricular concerns. Affective craft knowledge is based
on understandings and beliefs about pupils' emotionality and the dynamics
of interpersonal and social interaction. Technical craft knowledge draws
on subject knowledge, and understandings about how children learn, as well
as knowledge of appropriate teaching methods.
Whilst the teachers in the study tended to employ both forms of craft knowledge,
there are differences among teachers in the degree to which they show a
preference for one or other of the types of aims. An extreme 'technicist'
position is shown by Ms Lee, an English teacher:
I want to make them [ie the pupils] think rather than feel.
[11/2, 16]
I don't want to make them more sensitive.
[11/2, 21]
[...] to actually see your role as being [involved in] the development of
the child's [...] emotional base, or whatever you might call it [...] rather
than their range of skills and their intellect [...] And it seems to me
that we ahve a very limited ability to intervene in [...] people's emotional
make up [...] On the basis of 2 or 3 hours a week we are not going to transform
their lives. And it seems to me an amazing arrogance to assume that we can.
[...] What you can do is actually provide them with the skills which will
give them the power to develop themselves.
[11/2, 24]
Here Ms Lee shows direct opposition to the view that pupils' affective needs
should be central to curricular aims. However, she also suggests that their
'personal growth' can be promoted through the mastery of certain skills:
[...] skills presumably are part of personal growth in that, you know, the
better you are at doing a range of things, the better you are able to function
as an individual.
[11/2, 24]
Although Ms Lee presents an extreme cognitivist view, she illustrates an
acknowledgement of the importance of pupils' affective needs. Her major
concern relates to the limitations of the scope of teacher influence.
The primacy of the technical over the affective is demonstrated by the way
in which Ms Lee sometimes places a high value on classroom experiences which
produce cognitive gain as a result of what might be termed affective dislocation.
In both examples the frustrations of pupils are seen by the teachers as
giving prominence to important teaching points:
[...] what makes me very edgy about 19th century fiction generally is that
[...] it's making things safe and soluble. [...] I took a book called 'I
am a Cheese' [...] for year 10. [...] [Once we finished reading it] I've
never had 37 so cross people in a room at one time, because it's a circular
narrative, and it has a narrator you can't depend on. [...] And so they
didn't know what had happened by the end of the book. They didn't know who
to trust. [...] And they were absolutely furious. Now that was the point
of the book. I mean, it took them quite a while to work through that. [...]
I suppose that's the kind of thing that I actually enjoy doing.
[Ms Lee, English, 11/2, 14-15]
An extreme 'affectivist', on the other hand, demonstrates the promotion
of positive affective states as an overriding consideration, to the extent
that lessons are sometimes planned with this as the main objective. In the
following example an English teacher's main concern is with pupils' expectations
of a drama lesson, her lesson plan arises out of the prioritisation of pupils'
expectations over cognitive objectives:
The intention behind it [this lesson] was[...] [based on the fact that]
they usually have drama on a Monday, and I thought they'd probably lynch
me if they hadn't got drama. So, what could I do that's drama related, that
will relate to story work as well? [...] my first priority was to try and
create a drama lesson.
[Ms Hall, English, 2/6, 4]
It is important to note here that this teacher is not simply ignoring the
cognitive content of the lesson, but rather that she is shaping her approach
to the prescribed topic in accordance with her perception of pupil expectations
of lesson form.
It is important to consider that these differences may relate to the kinds
of images that teachers have, in that decisions about which form of craft
knowledge is appropriate will depend on the kinds of images they bring to
bear on the situation with which they are confronted. Thus, for example,
when Ms Hall (see above) is confronted with pupils' enthusiastic expectations
of a drama lesson, she is guided by her image of the 'bored school student'
(see section on teachers' images, above), she seeks an affectivist solution,
ie to avoid pupil disappointment. Alternatively, Ms Lee's technicist decision
to frustrate pupils' expectations of a 'happy ending' (see above) is guided
by her own clearly articulated image of real life as not being 'safe and
soluble'.
Conclusion.
This paper has presented an analysis of data on 15 teachers' accounts
of the thinking underlying their classroom practice. It has been suggested
that these teachers think about their teaching in terms of four dimensions:
their aims, their short term objectives, their performance and dominant
ways of imaging the important aspects of their work. It has also been suggested
that their ways of thinking about classroom practice can be divided into
two types of craft knowledge: the technical, which is directed at the attainment
of cognitive and instrumental aims, and affective, which focuses on social
and personal concerns.
The emphasis placed on teachers' aims, objectives and performance, indicates
differences in the range of concerns of these teachers from those studied
by Brown and McIntyre (1992). Whilst the teachers in Brown and McIntyre's
study talked mainly about their pupils' progress and classroom behaviour
('Normal Desirable States'), the teachers in the present study add to these
concers an interest in their own performance and a preoccupation with short
and long term learning outcomes. Whilst the small scale nature of these
two enquiries might well account for the difference in findings, in terms
of individual differences among these teachers, there is evidence in the
present study to suggest that the advent of the national curriculum may
be of significance.
Teachers of both English and History indicate that the introduction of the
national curriculum has been welcomed for the extent to which it has formalised
a broad and balanced content to their respective subjects, and helped to
confirm their previously held ideas about good practice. In addition, the
demand for standardisation of curriculum content has led to an examination
and, in some cases, a sharing of teaching apporaches between members of
a deparment, as teachers pool their various strengths. Furthermore, the
emphasis placed by the national curriculum on attainment targets, has required
teachers to direct their teaching toward specific outcomes in a way that
is new. Thus whilst the teachers of this study are still concerned with
'normal desirable states' and pupil 'progress', it is reasonable to assume
that they show a greater concern with the learning outcomes to which these
are directed, than they would have prior to the introduction of the national
curriculum.
*
References.
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Professional Craft Knowledge monograph, Oxford University
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The research on which this paper is based was supported by a grant from
the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
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