Gijs Verbeek & Ben Smit (Eds.) Just education. Closing act Professoriate Petra Ponte Behaviour and research in educational praxis

Transcription

1 Gijs Verbeek & Ben Smit (Eds.) Just education Closing act Professoriate Petra Ponte Behaviour and research in educational praxis

2 Just education

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4 Just education Closing act Professoriate Petra Ponte Behaviour and Research in Educational Praxis Edited by Gijs Verbeek Ben Smit Boom Lemma uitgevers Den Haag 2012

5 Originally the texts in this publication were included in the language as used by the authors: Dutch or English. This English translation of the texts in Dutch is available through the website of Boom Uitgevers Den Haag ( and through the website of Petra Ponte ( The original Dutch edition can be ordered at Boom Uitgevers Den Haag Gijs Verbeek & Ben Smit (Eds.) Boom Lemma uitgevers Cover photography: Petra Ponte Dutch title: Rechtvaardig onderwijs: Slotakkoord lectoraat Petra Ponte - Gedrag en onderzoek in de educatieve praxis Translation/correction: authors & Pat Grocott Behoudens de in of krachtens de Auteurswet gestelde uitzonderingen mag niets uit deze uitgave worden verveelvoudigd, opgeslagen in een geautomatiseerd gegevensbestand, of openbaar gemaakt, in enige vorm of op enige wijze, hetzij elektronisch, mechanisch, door fotokopieën, opnamen of enige andere manier, zonder voorafgaande schriftelijke toestemming van de uitgever. Voor zover het maken van reprografische verveelvoudigingen uit deze uitgave is toegestaan op grond van artikel 16h Auteurswet dient men de daarvoor wettelijk verschuldigde vergoedingen te voldoen aan de Stichting Reprorecht (Postbus 3051, 2130 KB Hoofddorp, Voor het overnemen van (een) gedeelte(n) uit deze uitgave in bloemlezingen, readers en andere compilatiewerken (art. 16 Auteurswet) kan men zich wenden tot de Stichting PRO (Stichting Publicatie- en Reproductierechten Organisatie, Postbus 3060, 2130 KB Hoofddorp, No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means without written permission from the publisher. ISBN (Dutch edition, pbk) NUR 841

6 Preface Ben Smit In delivering her inaugural lecture 'Behaviour and research in educational praxis: an orientation' in 2009 at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences (UUAS), Professor Petra Ponte adopted a position in the debate about education and described how she and the members of her research group would approach education research in the professoriate from different orientations. These were a psychological orientation by explaining, predicting and understanding behaviour; a pedagogische orientation by changing behaviour in educational practice; an epistemological orientation by acquiring knowledge through applied research; and a professional orientation by enlarging teachers scope to act. The lecture formed a sound basis for the activities of the professoriate. Three lines of research were distinguished for the research group's research program: - Conversations of traditions; - Teachers perspectives; - Pupils perspectives. Themes have emerged in these lines of research that have played a central role, not only in the research group at UUAS but throughout Petra Ponte s active professional life. These include themes such as participation, action research, and positioning or clarification of stance - themes which Petra has repeatedly used to focus on the philosophical background to education and research. She constantly makes connections between acquiring knowledge and making choices, between conducting research and acting in practice, out of: the need to keep asking critical questions about what it is wise and desirable to do in a specific situation at a specific moment in time; how we could have acted differently; how we perceive reality, other people, pupils; how we can do right by our pupils; how researchers, teacher educators, student teachers and teachers can do all these things together. (Ponte, 2009, p. 30) V

7 Education is more than performing technical operations; it is always about the people involved, their beliefs and perceptions and their behaviour in practice. The perspectives of teacher and student will determine the way in which education takes shape and only in the interaction between teacher and student does education and learning acquire substance. Moreover, education takes place in a complex historical, cultural and moral-ideological context in which those involved are asked to act on the basis of choices: educational praxis. Studying, making explicit and criticizing these choices and the actions within the context in order to open them up for discussion ('conversation') has run as a constant thread through Petra's career. Behaviour and research are closely linked in this. Conducting education research without those who are directly involved playing a significant role is absolutely unthinkable in this approach. Working according to principles of action research and applied research by and with teachers, students and researchers was, therefore, a logical step for Petra. At the same time, it is the manifestation of the pursuit of more justice in education and research in general, and certainly also of a personal principle in acting and thinking. In 2011, when it became clear that the research group Behaviour and research in educational praxis would come to an end within a year, a clear marking of that occasion seemed desirable and appropriate. And what could be more appropriate than to answer a position paper that marked the opening with a public closing act? As it happens, the ending of the professoriate coincides with Petra's resignation from active professional life. It is then very appropriate that the closing act should take the form of a number of essays and position papers by people who have been in some way involved in Petra s work throughout her career. In this way again and by others rather than Petra herself a position is taken on education and research, around issues of a moral, pedagogische, educational, social, political, and scientific nature. Besides skills (competence) in teaching and research, justice (fairness, responsibility, autonomy, care, commitment) plays an important role in these contributions. Thus they touch on the central theme of this volume and on Petra s cry from the heart for just education, and they touch on matters that affect whether it can be achieved. VI

8 This collection offers divergent and provocative perspectives on themes and topics of interest to anyone working in or for education and educational research. A better way of putting it may be to say that we expect it to get the reader to think about his or her own actions in both teaching and research, as we travel towards a more just education. The authors of the contributions to this volume are not only members of the research group or employees of the UUAS, they also come from outside the UUAS and even from outside the Netherlands. All the authors deserve warm thanks for their collaboration in the creation of this collection of essays and position papers. Petra Ponte as head of the research group has been given the first and last word, although hopefully it will not be the last word we hear about just education. Ben Smit June 2012 References Ponte, P. (2009). Behaviour and research in educational praxis: An orientation [inaugural lecture]. Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, Professoriate in Behaviour and Research in Educational Praxis, VII

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10 Table of contents Preface Ben Smit v 1 Competent education still does not amount to just education 1 Petra Ponte 2 Justice is neither absolute nor arbitrary; it exists by the grace of multiple judgments 5 Jan Ax 3 Same work, different field of play 9 Renny Beers 4 Petra Ponte: Reclaiming education as a socially just enterprise 13 Susan Groundwater-Smith 5 The teacher's contribution matters! 15 Carlos van Kan 6 Education in a world of schooling 19 Stephen Kemmis 7 A case for redefinition of teacher competence 23 Dubravka Knezic 8 Ability to change 27 Nijs Lagerweij 9 Food for thought: four experiences with practitioner research 31 Mieke Lunenberg 10 Obligatory: a Malone note for education 35 Ton Notten IX

11 11 Change driven by economics in education is a professional mistake 39 Leon Plomp 12 Nurturing a collaborative practice 43 Karin Rönnerman 13 Pupil participation is not a favour to students, it is their right 45 Ben Smit 14 The incongruous prediction paradigm or the school as an incubator 49 Luc Stevens 15 We should not judge a duck on its climbing skills 53 Hanne Touw 16 Towards an intellectual competency 57 Piet-Hein van de Ven 17 Action Research squared 63 Gijs Verbeek 18 Knowledge of history in the debate on education 69 Nico Verloop 19 Shared Leadership: An Essential Ingredient to Improve Educational Praxis 71 Kyla Wahlstrom 20 Appropriate education: from problem dossier to quality boost 75 Kees van der Wolf 21 Educational research should help us improve education 79 Theo Wubbels 22 Cross-cultural collaborative research partnerships foster better understanding and appreciation of one's own culture of educational practices 81 Semyon Yusfin & Nina Michailova X

12 23 Epilogue: just education as an unending project 85 Petra Ponte About the authors 93 Information and contact 99 XI

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14 1 Competent education still does not amount to just education Taking up a position in the Professoriate in Behaviour and Research in Educational Praxis Petra Ponte In 1992, during the perestroika and glasnost period in the former Soviet Union, Oleg Gazman and his team at the Institute for Pedagogical Innovations in Moscow initiated numerous innovations in the field of pupil guidance. These reforms were part of the democratisation of Russian education that was supported by the then Minister of Education, Dneprov. At that time Oleg asked us: What does democratic education in the Netherlands look like? By that he did not refer to the right to participate in education, as that right had existed during the totalitarian Soviet regime. What he was referring to was the question of how to do justice to the uniqueness and potential of individual pupils through interaction and communication processes in day-to-day educational practice. The moment he asked his question I realised that I had nothing to offer him, that we were no longer accustomed to asking fundamental questions about how we treated our pupils in the Netherlands and what purposes we were trying to serve. So for me Oleg s question ushered in a long period of collaboration with American, English, Dutch and Russian educators, researchers and pupils in a number of international projects. Several universities in Australia and the Scandinavian countries joined us at a later stage. The leitmotif was then and still is a joint quest to find ways to give concrete form to education that is just. The Professoriate in Behaviour and Research in Educational Praxis built on the experiences gained in all these projects. So in my inaugural lecture (Ponte, 2009) intended as the professoriate adopting a position I said that we wanted to research pupils' behaviour as praxis. By that I meant behaviour as 1

15 interaction between pupils and teachers in a social context, interaction that always means something in terms of inherent 'mores', and therefore in terms of what is or can be seen as desirable or undesirable from a pedagogic perspective. I also said that we wanted to particularly focus on the intrinsic therefore always present meaning of educational behaviour in terms of social justice for vulnerable pupils. In defiance of the dominant instrumental neoliberal Zeitgeist, this was also a plea to place educative questions back on the agenda, by which I meant that in educational studies we cannot make do with understanding that which exists or current manifest behaviour. We also need to make a link with the normative demand for the more desirable or in other words the need to look at the nature of the relationship between child, school and community, why it is as it is, and what purpose it aims or should aims to serve (the 'what, why and what for'). In education, sense making in terms of desirable or undesirable behaviour always comes up in some form or other, either explicitly or implicitly. That goes for the behaviour of the teachers and pupils, for the goal they are striving for and for the way that goal is achieved (Ax & Ponte, 2010). Researchers are also members of the education community and they too have to ask themselves this normative question about what the more desirable is or should be. Of course, I am not talking about questions or statements along the lines of What do I as a researcher feel about it personally? or That's just what I think as a researcher ; what I am talking about is carefully selecting the spectacles through which we look at reality and justifying that choice. In substantive terms this concerns questions about what view of people and society we take as our starting point; in procedural terms it concerns the justification of these choices and the type of knowledge to be developed. According to Habermas idea about communicative action (Habermas, 1981, see also Groundwater-Smith, Mitchell, Mockler, Ponte & Rönnerman, 2012) rules for critical intersubjective reflection form part of this justification process. Following the Canadian philosopher Gilabert (2005), three levels of justification can be distinguished: First order: Justifying the way democratic ideas about social justice take shape in concrete educational practice. 2

16 Second order: Justifying the way research procedures and communications about research procedures are congruent with democratic ideas about social justice at third order level. Third order: Justifying views of people and society and the democratic ideas about social justice stemming from them. The standpoint of the professoriate can now be summarised as follows: Competent practice (in the sense of being able to apply what works ) still does not amount to just practice (in the sense of knowing why something should work and what purpose it is serving ). Just practice is only possible when it includes intersubjective critical reflection on the question of how views of people and society and the democratic ideas about social justice stemming from them are expressed in teaching and research (and vice versa). This standpoint, in my view, has three important consequences: The philosophy of science and moral philosophy provide inspiration for the procedures and substance of critical intersubjective reflection and should therefore be included in any self-respecting education for researchers and teachers. Philosophy could and should also play a bigger role when experienced researchers and teachers justify their positions. Researchers and teachers need each other to learn to understand behaviour in educational praxis and for that reason participative forms of research and development deserve more attention than they currently receive in the Netherlands. Participation in international partnerships in this field deserves to be given more attention and should be valued more highly than it currently is. Participative forms of research and development take for granted that researchers and teachers have a substantial degree of professional freedom to take decisions and to act. The ever-increasing influence of administrators and managers, which has been facilitated by deregulation and enlargement of scale in education, must therefore be curtailed in the interests of the professionals themselves having a voice. 3

17 The positions outlined above do not provide a definitive answer to Oleg Gazman's question: What does democratic education in the Netherlands look like? Nor would a final answer be desirable; it is continuing to ask the question that is so important. References Ax, J., & Ponte, P. (2010). Moral issues in educational praxis: a perspective from pedagogiek and didactiek as human sciences in continental Europe. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 18(1), Habermas, J. (1981). Theorie des Kommunikativen Handelns. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Gilabert, P. (2005). A substantivist construal of discourse ethics. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 13(3), Groundwater-Smith, S., Mitchell, J., Mockler, N., Ponte, P., & Rönnerman, K. (2012). Facilitating Practitioner Research: Developing transformational partnerships. London: Routledge. Ponte, P. (2009). Behaviour and research in educational praxis: An orientation [inaugural lecture]. Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, Professoriate in Behaviour and Research in Educational Praxis,

18 2 Justice is neither absolute nor arbitrary; it exists by the grace of multiple judgments Jan Ax In the film Chaos, the Taviani brothers relate a number of Pirandello's stories from Sicily. One of these stories is called The Jar. A gentleman farmer buys an enormous, majestic terra cotta jar to store his olives. The jar gets broken and has to be mended. This can only be done if the maker of the jar seals himself up inside it forever and so it happens. The farmer considers it just that another human being should pay for his material property with his own life. In the context of the film it would have been a trifling matter to find a judge who would also pronounce this to be lawful. Justice here is therefore synonymous with lawful; the law allows it and as such it is a tautology. The jar maker would certainly have a different opinion on the matter. What the film makes clear to us is this. If justice exists, then there is more than one real, true justice; that of the farmer versus the jar maker. What is at stake here is the question of whether justice is relative or absolute. If it is absolute, then it applies to everyone at all times and is a universal good. If it is relative, then there are different modalities of justice. In the second case, the question is who has 'real' justice on his side. That is a question to be settled through argument, persuasion and, in some cases, requires a judgment of Solomon. The gentleman farmer, however, is overcome by another fit of justice when he contemplates his own death: what an injustice on this earth, see me who am rich and have everything who must die and those poor wretches there pointing at his labourers live on. (if I recollect his heartfelt cry correctly, J.A.) However, it would not have been so easy to find a judge to pronounce an adequate judgement on this, seeing as it concerns a natural phenomenon: universal mortality. That is not a matter for moral judgment. 5

19 Justice, therefore, is not objective, something apart. It is a moral judgment that has to be called into being and which must be cherished. It has an actor and a petitioner and so is relational. It is a human experience, something that is lived through. Thus it cannot be bought, but it can be thrown away. Can it not be made more tangible, you may ask. No, is the answer, not in the sense of a summary or list of the characteristics of justice. Yet we can expand on the concept. The legal philosopher, Rawls (1999, 2001), developed a theory of justice that comes down in principle to the acceptance and formulation of a number of fundamental, substantial principles and a basic procedure for passing judgment. The substantial principles include maximum individual freedom and increasing human happiness and wellbeing in combination with the requirement that one person's happiness may never be gained at the expense of another. That is to safeguard individual integrity. The procedure for passing judgment is equally simple. It involves the principle of veiled ignorance. A decision, concerning for example the setting up of an education system, is deemed to be just if it is fair in the eyes of people who, hypothetically speaking, have no idea of their own specific life circumstances and the place that they will occupy in the education system. In that veiled state one does not know what positions one will find oneself in, what tangible and intangible capacities one will have, or even whether one is a woman or a man. In other words, justice is fairness regardless of who the person is. It is not random, but applies to all, while observing Rawls' substantial principles and judgement procedure. It is not an absolute natural phenomenon independent of human beings and nor is it a logical truth. In that sense his thinking has much in common with Rousseau's 'general will' and Kant's 'categorical imperative'. The question now is whether Rawls' instruments for evaluating justice do not leave us with half-empty hands in concrete educational practice. After all, in our practice we have to take decisions which involve weighing up in very concrete terms our own position (as researchers and as teachers ) and that of the pupils, in order to be able to judge whether our action turns out to be just and whether we can be effective in that sense. The more complete the information and the more veils are removed, the better the conditions for 6

20 educational success in our actions. The question remaining therefore is whether there is then no place for universal justice in educational praxis and whether only casuistry applies. The answer lies in the multiple dimensions of that praxis. Justice is a core value in educational praxis, but that does not mean that every professional decision is entirely and exclusively moral in nature. As we have seen, it is concerned with decisions in the real world and there, modern man assumes, knowable causalities or laws apply. Morality is a stranger in the midst of the languagegame (Wittgenstein, 1992/1953) of empirical laws. Educational praxis cannot therefore be captured in a simple language-game. There is the language-game of what we find desirable (morality) and the language game of fact (empiricism). Respecting fair relationships (in the educational relationship) and strengthening the sense of justice (in the curriculum) are both moral imperatives in education. We can use Rawls principles and procedures for passing judgement to assess the result of our actions in terms of justice but that is by no means enough to make us good educators. After all, reality cannot be moulded to our liking. The plurality of educational praxis places higher demands on the professionalism of the researcher and teacher. There is no place in professionalism for courses which are only geared to competences and learning tips, tricks and tactics, or courses which are geared to mental training with conforming to just the way it is as their goal. Professional researchers and teachers must be able to distinguish reality from desirability, facts from necessities, how it is from how it could be. They investigate facts and their opinions are carefully considered; they communicate, argue and justify their positions. It all looks suspiciously like action research, as Petra has always recognised (Ponte, 2012). References Ponte, P. (2012). Onderzoek en onderwijs van eigen makelij: Actieonderzoek met en door leraren [Research and education of our own making: Action research with and by teachers]. Den Haag: Boom Lemma. Rawls, J. (1999). A theory of justice (2nd revised edition). Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 7

21 Rawls, J. (2001). Justice as fairness: A restatement. Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1992/1953). Filosofische onderzoekingen [Philosophical investigations/ original in German: Philosophische Untersuchungen] (Dutch translation: Maarten Derksen & Sybe Terwee). Amsterdam: Boom. 8

22 3 Same work, different field of play Renny Beers You know, he said, you have to learn that progress is slow in education. The key is to persevere. And to keep on seeking answers to questions that the intractable practice throws up. Not to fall back on comfortable routines, which often stand in the way of improving quality. We were sitting on the terrace of Het Open Meer, glass of wine in hand, and we had just been talking at length about his imminent retirement from his position as school principal. This was his last year. I had known K from the basic Managers in Education course that I taught in the 1980s. Having just joined the school management team after teaching biology for about 10 years in a broad-based combined school he had a lot of questions. Leadership is complicated. It assumes that you know where you are and what you want to achieve in school and that you have to create the conditions to do that. Conditions such as scope and security for everyone involved. It demands the guts to go and stand in front of the troops and tell them what you think is important. And then to engage in dialogue, to persuade, but also to listen, to enquire, to ask the other person questions and to constantly criticise and question yourself. He understood that better than anyone and, more importantly, he put it into practice. A man from the real world of professional practice, with a background that had made him who he is today. His childhood had not been easy. As a young boy with glasses and a brace, he experienced what it is like to be different. And later at the gymnasium not accepted by his hockey-playing classmates and thrown back on his own resources he learned what was important to him, what was at the heart of his being, what he stood for. 9

23 He'll never need to learn anything else, he overheard his neighbour say when he heard that he had qualified as a teacher. Where he came from, that was enough. Learned enough? How can a person stop learning and growing? We kept in touch, spoke regularly, and kept each other informed about personal and family developments. He was healthy and had a great deal of energy, his son did really well and his grandchildren added a little lustre to his hobby of philosophy with questions such as: What do you want to be when you're older, grandpa? ; How does a wish come true? ; Why do people die and who thought of that?. What are your plans for the future? I asked. I'm not quite sure, he said, but I have plenty of ideas. I'm going to take up my study of philosophy again and, whatever else I do, I'm going to be more intensively involved with De onderwijstafel. I thought about the meetings of this network, set up by K, to which I had been invited as a guest a few times. The network was made up of people from different backgrounds with the same shared interest: education. From their different perspectives, they discussed themes such as the role of education in society, values, identity and development. A couple of school board members had joined albeit reluctantly and took their part in the discussion. That was new. Spurred on by the government, the main focus of education managers since the 1980s had been on efficient ways of working and on the processes of planning, controlling and dominating. Now things seemed about to turn. In Leiden met liefde [Leading with Love], based on interviews with current and former members of school boards in which he asks them about their motivation, Chris Tils describes a number of key points for the first steps toward a profile for the new education manager. Integrity, love of education and being of service to the education professional were among these key points. Rob Riemen's book De adel van de geest [The Nobility of the Spirit], which talks about the need to speak out, was discussed at one of the meetings of De onderwijstafel. The duty of the intellectual elite ; educated or not, ordinary wise 10

24 people, who reflect on the questions that need asking and keep searching for values which matter. Using their intellect to foster depth. Sorely needed in this age of unashamed populism. In recent years K had put all his energy into this by organising dialogues in his team. He did that in a way that you rarely see among school principals: by throwing his own questions into the ring, by promoting cooperation, by not allowing teachers to do their own thing behind closed classroom doors. Unhindered by hierarchical relationships, he did not keep the executive board of his school at arm's length, but managed to get them to talk to him about what drives them and how they relate to the primary process. Now that you look back, I ask, have you done what you wanted to do? It's always possible to do more and do things better he said, but that's OK. And I'm going to carry on with the same work but on a different field of play. First the farewell party. Would you like to come? It won't be boring. I was very ready to believe that. I'll be there, I replied. The waiter put the glasses on his tray. We walked to the car park together. Assertion Education managers and members of school boards are just the people who should be participating in networks of teachers, students and researchers. Together they can search for answers to the questions about social justice in education. The nobility of the spirit should tempt them to do this through professional dialogue in verbal, written and visual media. References Tils, C. (2011). Leiden met liefde: Op zoek naar de nieuwe onderwijsbestuurder. Den Haag: Sdu Uitgevers. Riemen, R. (2010). Adel van de geest: Een vergeten ideaal. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Atlas. 11

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26 4 Petra Ponte: Reclaiming education as a socially just enterprise Susan Groundwater-Smith The definition of a liber amicorum is that it is a book of friends. To be a friend and colleague of Professor Petra Ponte is a great privilege. Petra, over more than a decade of moments of joy, shared passion, even conflict and disjuncture, has created for me the spaces that have led to more insightful thinking and understanding about what we believe when we speak of a just education. As I read her statement, Competent education still does not amount to just education, I was reminded of her great intellect and unswerving commitment to matters of an education that is inclusive and informed by moral reasoning. As a visitor to the Faculty of Education at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, I found my academic understanding of professional practice became more nuanced and enriched as a result of my interactions with Petra and her colleagues. After a second visit to the Faculty of several weeks in 2010 I wrote to Rick van Dijk, Director Research Center of Education, who has sadly died since then: During my time I was able to make several presentations, the principal one being Forging New Alliances in which I argued that professional schools and faculties within universities have a moral responsibility to the cognate profession such that its practitioners and consequential stakeholders may play an active and critical role in an examination of a particular enterprise. Petra has long demonstrated a commitment to the notion that professional knowledge is not created in the academy alone, but as a result of a fruitful interaction between those in universities and the field of practice. In my own work I have also espoused a need for the pupils in schools, as the consequential stakeholders, to also be enabled to participate in the conversation about practice thus opening the communicative space even further. In her standpoint Petra points out that researchers and teachers need 13

27 each other to learn to understand behaviour in educational praxis to which I would add that the pupils also deserve a voice if a democratic education is to evolve. Following Fielding and Moss (2011), I see that a radical education will be one that nurtures a human flourishing, building on both the desirable features of the past that have provided us with a rich legacy, and an openness to the future in which young people can be active and imaginative agents. In these days of burgeoning neo-liberalism it is a demanding project to attempt to reclaim education as a process that transcends the pragmatic acquisition of skills and competencies that contribute to the human capital of the nation and instead ask ourselves how and what can we do to enhance the common good and wellbeing?. This is a question that Petra addresses not only now, but I am convinced, will do so well into the future. References Fielding, M., & Moss, P. (2011). Radical Education and the Common School: A democratic alternative. London: Routledge. 14

28 5 The teacher's contribution matters! Carlos van Kan Finding a balance between self-direction and self-regulation is a complicated process. In order to do this professionals need an inquiring attitude that enables them to:... enter into the professional and public debate to justify their own actions, and to raise the issue of the position of vulnerable pupils in the education system and in society (rather than thinking that their contribution 'is irrelevant') (Ponte, 2003, p.23). This citation from Petra's work can be seen as a rallying cry to teachers to get involved in the debate about just what is worth teaching. Teachers have a special position in this debate because they are faced with the task of answering this crucial question in their daily interactions with their students. However, the question is whether the teachers' voice is being heard in debates which ultimately affect the essence of their professional practice (Van Haperen, 2007). Teachers always have to deal with frameworks laid down by others, such as the government, the school board, the management team, the professional group, etc. (self-regulation). At the same time professionals have a certain amount of scope to make their own choices about what they believe to be in the interests of their students (self-direction). Petra has argued that the attempt to find a balance between self-regulation and self-direction requires teachers to have an enquiring attitude. This enquiring attitude relates not only to how questions tied up with practice, such as What is the best way to help students to master a particular maths strategy?, but also to why questions, such as Why is it actually important to give more time to Dutch and maths in the curriculum?. It is the why questions above all that are at the heart of the debate about just what is worth teaching. If they are to enter this debate, teachers need to examine their ideas about what they consider to be in the interests of their students, express these ideas openly and be able to question them. 15

29 The teacher as a quiet operator Various research studies have shown, however, that teachers for the most part lack a vocabulary to express the 'why' component of their teaching (see for instance Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2011; Shapira-Lishshinsky, 2011). Debates about what a good education is tend to be monopolised by politicians, researchers, members of school boards and people outside the profession (Van Veen, 2005). Teachers do put themselves forward for the outcomes of such debates, when all that remains is the how question, for example: How are we going to introduce competence-based teaching in senior secondary vocational education?. By then the stage of considering why that is desirable is already in the past (see also Biesta, 2010). It may be that teachers' special dedication to their students and to classroom teaching (Steinbach, & Jantzi, 2000) is part of the reason why they seem (reluctantly) to resign themselves to the role of implementing what others have conceived. After all, the primary process must always take precedence, at least in the teachers' eyes. The pedagogische question On the question of what good education is, Imelman & Tolsma (1987) argued for an ongoing social debate to be organised, in which cultural experts, experts on the child and educationalists work on the fundamental question: What should be taught, to whom, when, how and why? (Imelman, 1995, p. 60). For teachers, this question, known also as the pedagogische question, often seems to be answered at a different level from the level of day-to-day practice. Here is an example to illustrate this. The government has introduced the Regulation to intensify the teaching of Dutch and mathematics in senior secondary vocational education'. The who in this regulation refers to all students in senior secondary vocational education (MBO students); the what refers to a requirement to place more emphasis on Dutch and maths in the curriculum; the when has been set at 2014 (when the national examinations for this content will become compulsory); the how is largely left to the schools themselves; and the why is partly to be sought in evidence from international comparative research (PISA; OECD, 2009) of the worsening position of the Netherlands in language and mathematics. All kinds of glosses can be put on the decision to place more emphasis on Dutch and maths; in any case, in terms of the pedagogische question, this policy decision can be problematised at teacher 16

30 level. In any event students who enter MBO at the lowest level and who have had little success with Dutch and maths in their school careers so far cannot simply be expected to be able to meet the new requirements (who). In vocational education, the content of Dutch and maths teaching is on the one hand linked to the specific occupational function and on the other hand linked to the general social functioning of education. From a policy perspective the latter function is receiving increased attention. The question remains if this development is also desirable from the perspective of the teaching practice (what). Another question that can be raised is whether the introduction of national exams for all MBO levels is feasible by 2014, in terms of preparing teachers and students and practical organisational aspects (when). While it is true that the new system leaves schools free to decide how to provide their maths education, national examinations will push teachers in the direction of teaching maths as a separate subject rather than being integrated with other subjects, with the main focus on the content of the national exam (how). Finally, teachers may ask themselves whether the MBO sector is designed to provide general Dutch and maths teaching. Is that not primarily the job of general secondary education (why)? Problematising educational policy decisions from the perspective of the teaching practice is often done after the process of policy decision-making has taken place. Teachers make their voices heard In her inaugural lecture Behaviour and research in educational praxis (2009), Petra asked herself how much time teachers take to get involved in debates about what is worth teaching. The fact that teachers are coming together to make their voices heard in this context is a sign of hope. An example of this is the ambitious and critical manifesto drawn up by the Leraren met lef foundation [Teachers with Courage] in Another brave initiative is the professional association for vocational education and training (BVMBO). One of the aims which this professional association has set for itself is to represent the voice of the teacher on the question of what is worth teaching and to contribute to the emancipation of teachers in the senior secondary vocational sector. These are developments which, to use Petra's words (2009), bring moral questions about whose interests the various parties are acting in, where that action should lead and why the situation is as it is (p. 37), back closer to the teacher. Without a 17

31 shadow of a doubt, they will make Petra's education heart beat faster: the teacher's contribution matters! References Biesta, G. J. J. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. London: Paradigm Publishers. Imelman, J. D. (1995). Theoretische pedagogiek. Nijkerk: Intro. Imelman, J. D., & Tolsma, R. (1987). De identiteit van het (bijzonder) onderwijs als modern normatief pedagogische probleem. Pleidooi voor een cultuurpedagogische discussie. Pedagogische Studiën, 64, Leithwood, K., Steinbach, R. & Jantzi, D. (2000). Identifying and explaining the consequences for schools of external accountability initiatives. Or what in the world did you think I was doing before you came along? Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, April OECD (2009). PISA 2009 Results. Ponte, P. (2003). Interactieve professionaliteit en interactieve kennisontwikkeling in speciale onderwijszorg [inaugural lecture]. Apeldoorn/Leuven: Garant. Ponte, P. (2009). Behaviour and research in educational praxis: An orientation [inaugural lecture]. Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, Professoriate in Behaviour and Research in Educational Praxis, Sanger, M. N., & Osguthorpe, R. D. (2011). Teacher education, preservice teacher beliefs, and the moral work of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(3), Shapira-Lishchinsky, O. (2011). Teachers' critical incidents: Ethical dilemmas in teaching practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(3), Van Haperen, T. (2007). De ondergang van de Nederlandse leraar. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Nieuw Amsterdam. Van Veen, K. (2005). Lesgeven, een vak apart. In G. van den Brink, D. Pessers & T. Jansen (Eds.), Beroepszeer: Waarom Nederland niet goed werkt (pp ). Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Boom. 18

32 6 Education in a world of schooling 1 Stephen Kemmis Education has a double purpose. On the one side, it is about the formation of persons. On the other side, it is about the formation of communities, societies and our shared world. It has both an individual purpose and a collective purpose. It aims to produce reasoning persons and a reasonable society. It aims to form people who are able to live well, and a world worth living in. Here is my definition of education: Education, properly speaking, is the process by which children, young people and adults are initiated into (a) forms of understanding that foster individual and collective self-expression, (b) modes of action that foster individual and collective self-development, and (c) ways of relating to one another and the world that foster individual and collective self-determination, and that are, in these senses, oriented towards the good for each person and the good for humankind. Throughout history, the practice of education has always been engaged in a struggle with the institution invented to nurture and defend it: the school, at every level from the pre-school to the university. In the European tradition, schools have existed for over two thousand years. First, from Plato s Academy in 387 BC, there were the philosophical schools of ancient Greece, an institution that spread to every major city around the Mediterranean and lasted around nine hundred years. The other major schools were those following Aristotle (the Lyceum), Zeno of Citium (the Stoics) and Epicurus (the Epicureans). The philosophical schools aimed at the education of the young to live a good life by speaking and thinking well, acting well in the world, and relating well to others. To achieve these ends, they studied logic, physics and 1 This is an excerpt from Kemmis, Stephen (2012) Contemporary schooling and the struggle for education The 2012 Bob Meyenn Lecture, presented at Charles Sturt University, Thurgoona campus, Albury, April

33 ethics. The philosophical schools were for aristocratic young men, and they excluded women and slaves. In the early centuries after Christ, the Christian Church began educating its followers, eventually coming to suppress the ancient philosophical schools in 529 AD. Through Middle Ages a time when the learning of the ancients was almost lost the Church created the institution of the monastery and the monastery schools that aimed at the salvation of those they taught, and at preparing some with the knowledge to maintain the Church s alliances with the nobility (the military) and the wealthy. Schooling remained accessible only to the wealthy few, however, although also to young men and women who entered religious orders. Around 1100, a new institution arose out of the monastery schools: the town school, and especially its radically new institutional form, the university. The first universities spread knowledge in many fields particularly in the Liberal Arts, medicine, law and theology. They also created new professions of teaching and studying. Education spread to become more secular, offering access to learning beyond the institutions of the Church. By the late Middle Ages, secular education was extended in the institution of the guild schools. The guilds wanted education for their members not just for the practice of their crafts, but also so their members could take their places as respected members of their societies and as members of an emerging mercantile class. Finally, by the mid-nineteenth century, when schools and education had spread to large proportions of their populations, it was an only short step for the nation states of Europe, North America and Australasia to legislate for mass compulsory education. Through compulsory schooling, those progressive nation states aimed to achieve mass literacy and numeracy, and the preparation of a citizenry sufficiently well educated as to propel the economic and political progress of the nation states of the developed world, and, though perhaps less assiduously, the progress of the colonies in their empires. 20

34 Through the twentieth century, the aspiration for universal education has been more or less achieved in the developed world. Petra Ponte has devoted a life to ensuring that the practices and forms of the institutions of schooling have not, in fact, excluded the vulnerable from access to education, recognition and respect in the work and life of those institutions, and to success in education that will allow each and all to live interesting, productive and satisfying lives. Through the history I have sketched here, as each of these new institutions arose, it fostered new educational practices and new educational aspirations. With each transformation, however, new threats also emerged. The practice of education remained and still remains threatened by the normalising expectations, the routines and rituals, and the sheer institutional selfcentredness of schooling at every level. Too many people in our schools, especially the vulnerable, are present but ignored their personhood, their circumstances, their needs and their aspirations remain overlooked. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we stand at another important moment in human history. We live in a small world that is under immense duress environmentally, economically, socially and politically. Humankind needs to re-educate itself if it is to meet the challenges with which we are confronted: the challenge of climate change, the challenge of ever more extreme maldistribution of wealth within and between nations, and the threat to civility caused by religious intolerance (as well as intolerance of secularism), to mention just three examples. Education is urgently needed on all these fronts, and schooling is making some steps towards responding to these challenges in education for sustainability, for example. In my view, this is a moment when we need transformational, not just incremental, change in education and in our educational institutions. It is not a moment to return to the monological curriculum of the industrial age that allowed the spread of mass compulsory education through the nation states of the late nineteenth century. We have left the nineteenth century far behind. For the twenty-first century, let us renew education by finding new opportunities to extend education as dialogue, through a dialogical curriculum. Let us, for example, explore the possibilities of the new media to realise and extend education as dialogue, whether or not in schools and classrooms. And let us find ways to do 21

35 it by recognising and respecting those who enter the process of education, not just by informing them. We need to revive the notion of a public education that educates, that aims to do more than inform. We need to revive the idea of education conducted as dialogue, not as monologue. We need to recognise that in our times, as in times past, the institution of schooling may threaten the possibility of education, and that we, too, have a role in remaking the institution so it can nurture and protect a practice of education worthy of the name: education for living well in a world worth living in. That is the struggle for education in a world of schooling. We may even find that we need to abandon the schools of today to find new kinds of real or virtual institutions through which we can conduct education as dialogue. But let us be sure not to abandon education. 22

36 7 A case for redefinition of teacher competence Dubravka Knezic It goes without saying that every child has a right to suitable education and teachers who can realize it. The question is how can teacher education help teachers become competent agents of tailored education. Teacher competence has been a guiding concept for teacher education curricula and assessment for some time now. Competence is, however a problematic term (Norris, 1991). Norris distinguishes between three different constructs of competence: a behaviourist, a generic and a cognitive one. In behaviourist terms, competence is a description of action, behaviour or outcome in such a way that it can be observed and assessed. In these terms, a competent teacher could be described as observable action and behaviour. The generic definition of competence goes for broad clusters of abilities which are conceptually linked (Elliott, 1989, p. 98, as quoted in Norris, 1991). This would mean that a competent teacher could be described in terms of groups of abilities somehow appertaining to teaching. The cognitive definition of competence, (Messick, 1984, as quoted in Norris, 1991) says that competence is what a person knows and can do under ideal circumstances, in contrast to performance, which is what a person does under real circumstances. None of the three approaches seems to be succeeding in capturing the wide complexity and dynamics of a teacher s competence in constantly changing professional situations. Perhaps this is for the best, since Gellner (1974, as quoted in Norris, 1991) justifiably warns against such an attempt it being morally offensive. An attempt at a comprehensive definition of teacher competence would be an effrontery to teacher s autonomy. 23