The university based elements of the course perceived to be getting it wrong

Some of the views expressed by Nick and Tom went beyond criticism of the PGCE course for limited coverage of behaviour and were directly critical of specific activities. In the second questionnaire Nick had indicated the university based elements like lectures, tutor groups and assignments had not made a particularly significant contribution to his knowledge, skills and understanding in relation to managing behaviour. He was particularly critical of the emphasis on self reflection:

I don’t know... it was self reflective, but self reflective in a completely arbitrary way, it didn’t actually have any benefits, so “well how did that make you feel” if a child told you to you know, how did that make you... well what’s it matter how it makes me feel, it’s how I deal with the situation.

(Nick, Interview 1)

Nick’s negative views on reflection raise issues in relation to the suggestion from some writers (e.g. Murray 2002, Moore 2004) that the reflective practitioner discourse has received much support in higher education institutions offering courses in initial and continuing teacher education. Nick’s criticism of the reflective activity implies a view that learning what to do when faced with difficult behaviour is more important than learning how to think about the behaviour. His concern appeared to be with a particular kind of introspective reflection that focuses on feelings. Though his focus on the practicalities of what to do is entirely rational given his position as a trainee attempting to successfully meet a set of professional standards, there is relevance to considering the adult’s feelings if the argument (e.g. Watkins and Wagner 2000) is accepted that thoughts and feelings drive the adult’s behaviour. For example, if an individual experiences the behaviour as a direct threat to their feelings of competence as a teacher then they may respond aggressively, or at least defensively, rather than entertaining other strategies that might better address the situation. An issue that arises is

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whether the input of this theoretical perspective that links the adult’s feelings about an incident and their behavioural response would have made any difference to Nick’s perception of the relevance and value of the reflective activity he was asked to undertake.

It seems that Nick was either not made aware of the purpose for the focus on his feelings or, if he was, it was not a purpose to which he was willing or able to attach credence at this stage of his career. This perhaps highlights the issue that engagement with learning about behaviour is more likely if it relates to a reasonably immediate perceived need. Though speculation, there is the possibility that, because of the anxiety behaviour may provoke in trainees, there may be less willingness to tolerate input that does not appear to service this practical need than there might be in relation to, for example, subject teaching.

An interesting feature of Nick’s antipathy towards the Professional Studies aspect of the course was that it remained even once he was a well established teacher with a breadth of experience gained from working in two very different schools. The ‘how did you feel’ example cited in the first interview had seemingly become an anecdote to be retold as evidence of the perceived limitations of the course:

To be honest, very little was covered in terms of… going in for those university days, we’d sit around and it’d be a bit of discussion… so it might be a behaviour thing: “OK, can anyone tell me about a time when you’ve been in school and behaviour hasn’t been very good?” Yes, everybody can. [puts on ‘caring’ voice] “How did it make you feel?” [laughs]. Come on, let’s do more of that kind of “Right, here’s a lot of research cobbled together that we could look at and we could build into… here are three hundred different behaviour ideas.” That would have been I think more useful. The professional studies side seems to have just drifted off into a sort of wishy-washy thing. And it shouldn’t be - it should have been the core of the university (course), I think. Subject studies - that should be brushing up on what you already know. Professional studies, you should actually come with very little knowledge of… if you come from my background…it’s

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business and things…but I don’t know the professionalism of teaching. So it should have been a real, strong focus and it wasn’t.

(Nick, Interview 3)

Nick’s closing remarks make a clear distinction between subject studies and professional studies. The implication is that he had some security in relation to the former because of his degree but the important new learning related to what he termed ‘the professionalism of teaching’, of which he considered managing behaviour to be a part. Though, as far as I could judge from talking to him, Nick had evolved into a fully competent and reflective practitioner, there was still a sense conveyed through his comments that he achieved this despite the perceived inadequacies of his training. It begs the question of whether he could realistically have achieved this point any faster, or would be an even better practitioner, if he had received the type of input he still indicated he felt would have been beneficial. As discussed in Chapter 4 (pg 115), the issue may relate to an emotional need in the early stages of a teacher’s career to feel prepared rather than any material difference in the resultant professional competence.

While Nick had found some value in the essays that formed part of the professional studies part of the course, Tom was sharply critical of this aspect, suggesting that ‘the PGCE would hugely benefit from getting rid of those essay projects’ and complaining that ‘we wasted so much time farting around with essays’ (Tom, Interview 1) . The lack of value attached to the essays seemed to be linked to Tom’s views of the purpose of the PGCE course:

It was only once we got away from the university into a school itself that you could actually start doing something useful and a lot of us said the PGCE…um …it seemed to try and justify its own existence by giving us things to do when really it’s there to do a job to train us to be teachers not train us to be students again so that’s what I felt.

(Tom, Interview 1)

His comment suggests he viewed the PGCE very much as a professional qualification rather than an academic one. As a graduate with a ‘first class honours degree in history’ (Tom, Interview 1) he felt he had proved himself

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academically and did not ‘need to sit and write an essay to prove I can write an essay’ (Tom, Interview 1). In his comment there is a stark contrast between what happens in school which is constructed as ‘doing something useful’ and what happens in the university, by implication, as something that is not. Tom’s comments raise an issue for the university in terms of managing individuals’ differing expectations. Reflecting in the third interview, in response to my suggestion that the PGCE might fulfil a role in building the capacity to problem solve rather than trying to impart specific strategies, Tom remained critical:

I think they gave us a broad academic background to the world of teaching, but so broad it didn’t address any real issues that we were going to come across. And too ethereal, too academic to really compare to the practical element of teaching. The PGCE as it stood for me was probably best for someone going out of PGCE into a grammar school, where everything was disciplined and you could practise teaching by the book. But anything other than a grammar school, the book is useless here.

(Tom, Interview 3)

In this comment Tom seemed to be questioning the relevance of the university based elements through the suggestion that the PGCE only prepared trainees for a particular context that only a small proportion of them would teach in. He seemed to be arguing that in other schools a teacher needs greater personal adaptability than the course developed in trainees.

7.1.4 The university based elements perceived as faced with a difficult