Before discussing some possible ways forward, it is important to have some conceptual clarity regarding what an integrated model for teacher development should aim to include. We turn to available literature for some answers.
Michael Fullan and Andy Hargreaves (1992) identify four basic elements that provide a framework for understanding teacher development:
• the teacher’s purpose; • the teacher as a person;
• the culture of teaching, that is, teachers’ professional relationships with others within the system.
Innate to this conceptualisation is the understanding that teachers’ mastery of subject matter and pedagogical skills, though important, are not the only elements that contribute to effective teaching. This approach recognises, first, that teachers are human beings who ‘do not come empty-handed, they bring much baggage in the form of images, ideas and experiences about teaching. One task (…) is to help them unpack and articulate these, so some can be thrown away, others refashioned or replaced’ (Lewin and Stuart 2003)—a process that requires the provision of opportunities to engage in continuous, practice-based reflection on educational purposes and processes. It recognises, second, that teachers’ practice depends not only on their own abilities or even desire to teach well, but in equal measure on the conditions, expectations and rules of engagement—both formal and informal, stated and unstated—of their working environment.
While the above discussion provides an overview of the kinds of issues that teacher development policies and programmes should address, the process of design of these policies is another important area to keep in mind. Two elements vital to the design process are highlighted below.
First, to what extent are teachers themselves involved in policy formulation? If teachers are mere recipients and implementing agents of curricula and textbooks produced elsewhere, these are unlikely to address their real needs. Nor does a top- down design process model the participatory, interactive process that teachers are subsequently expected to engage in within the classroom as a central aspect of a constructivist educational pedagogy. An influential review of teacher development practices in five countries concluded:
When teachers are actively involved and empowered in the reform of their own schools, curriculum, pedagogy, and classrooms, even those with minimal formal education and training are capable of dramatically changing their teaching behavior, the classroom environment, and improving student achievement. Conversely, when teachers are ignored, or when reforms come from above or are not connected to the daily realities of the classroom and local environment, even the most expensive and well designed interventions are almost certain to fail (Craig et al, 1998).
Second, to what extent do educational policies encompass a comprehensive and integrated response to the diverse set of factors known to affect teacher development?
The policy environment in which teachers work sends a myriad of often conflicting signals about how schools are expected to do business and about what behaviors and skills are valued and rewarded. Messages about more- or less-preferred teaching practices and learner outcomes issue from all of the major education policy domains, including those that shape curriculum, assessment, teacher and administrator licensing and evaluation, and accountability. Existing policies and practices must be assessed in terms of their compatibility with two cornerstones of the reform agenda: a learner- centered view of teaching and a career-long conception of teachers' learning (Darling- Hammond and McLaughlin 1995).
We have seen in the preceding sections of this chapter—and indeed throughout this booklet—that in the Indian context, these ‘conflicting signals’ comprise a
fundamental disconnect between the theory and practice of teacher development: that is, the discourse on what teachers ‘should’ be and do on the one hand, and how the educational system acts to promote or discourage these attitudes and behaviours on the other.
To summarise, available literature suggests that approaches to effective teacher development are:
Multifaceted, attending to a variety of aspects in the evolution of a teacher;
Continuous, requiring the availability of different types of platforms and opportunities for growth throughout their careers;
Comprehensive, requiring attention to these different aspects of teacher development in an integrated manner; and
Responsive to teachers’ needs and realities on the ground: supportive rather than prescriptive, flexible rather than rigid, and locally developed rather than prescribed from above.
To conclude this section we reproduce below a series of questions with which to evaluate current and potential policies related to teacher development (Box 6.1).
Box 6.1. Designing teacher development policies
Experience with successful professional development efforts suggests a number of design principles to guide national and state officials struggling to devise ‘top-down support for bottom-up change’ and to guide local actors who are rethinking their policies. Each proposed and existing policy can be ‘interviewed’ - that is, subjected to a number of questions - to determine how well it corresponds with key factors related to teachers' learning and change. For example:
⇒ Does the policy reduce the isolation of teachers, or does it perpetuate the experience of working alone?
⇒ Does the policy encourage teachers to assume the role of learner, or does it reward traditional ‘teacher as expert’ approaches to teacher/student relations?
⇒ Does the policy provide a rich, diverse menu of opportunities for teachers to learn, or does it focus primarily on episodic, narrow ‘training’ activities?
⇒ Does the policy link professional development opportunities to meaningful content and change efforts, or does it construct generic in-service occasions?
⇒ Does the policy establish an environment of professional trust and encourage problem solving, or does it exacerbate the risks involved in serious reflection and change and thus encourage problem hiding?
⇒ Does the policy provide opportunities for everyone involved with schools to understand new visions of teaching and learning, or does it focus only on teachers? ⇒ Does the policy make possible the restructuring of time, space and scale within
schools, or does it expect new forms of teaching and learning to emerge within conventional structures?
⇒ Does the policy focus on learner-centred outcomes that give priority to learning how and why, or does it emphasise the memorisation of facts and the acquisition of rote skills?
(Source: Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin 1995)