The (in)effective teacher
After beginning to read Glenn Fahey’s (Research Fellow in Education Policy for the Centre for Independent Studies) recent publication Teacher workforce: fiction vs fact, I was struck by how convincing the paper’s arguments we for improving Australian education. The paper is full of thorough (and at times rather overwhelming!) statistical analyses justifying the arguments made throughout. However, what interested me most was how the call for improving the effectiveness of teachers (which is becoming increasingly dominant in educational policy and discourse) could be so alluring.
This post reflects my thinking so far. First, I argue that social efficiency ideology has become hegemonic as one of the dominant voices of Australian education. Next, I describe the way that this dominance has led to a particular common sense perspective of educational outcomes, one that is based solely on measurable retention of knowledge and skills in a few limited disciplines. I then briefly discuss how the reframing of education in terms of learning outcomes logically leads to solutions that seek to improve the effectiveness of schooling and teachers. I will finish with a few thoughts on how we might respond to calls to improve the effectiveness of teachers as a means of improving education in Australia.
Ideological hegemony
Currently, my research is heading in the direction of reviewing the ways in which ideologies seek to determine the existence of Australian teachers. I particularly focus on social efficiency and neoliberalism, as these are two of the most dominant ideologies impacting educational policy, practice and discourse here in Australia. These ideologies have arguably become hegemonic, which means that the foundational beliefs of these two ideologies have become so ingrained in education that they have come to frame the way we see schooling, teaching and education. In a sense, we live within and amongst these beliefs as a common experience. The foundational beliefs of hegemonic ideologies are what contribute to what we might consider to be “common sense” perspectives in relation to education. Even if we may not necessarily agree with these beliefs, Australian teachers are very much surrounded by the discourse of the market and efficiency as promoted by these ideological standpoints. As teachers, we live within them, at times affirming and at other times resisting their influence on our practice and in education more broadly.
Educational outcomes
One example of the immersion of social efficiency within education is the way in which “educational” outcomes are often cited as declining consistently over the past two decades (Fahey, 2022, p. 1). The use of PISA and various league tables produced by the OECD have more recently been used to justify these declines in “educational” outcomes. I would argue that these more so represent declines in “learning” outcomes, as they do not consider other aspects of education that are either not measured or not easily measured. It doesn’t measure what kinds of people we’re shaping through our education system, nor how they might use this knowledge.
So if we frame education entirely (this is an important distinction) in this way, that is as a means of achieving learning outcomes, we’re defining education in terms of the ability of the teacher and school system to appropriately fill our students’ minds with the knowledge and skills deemed desirable and determine their ability to access and apply these. Often in contemporary educational discourse, learning outcomes of a limited number of disciplines (often Mathematics and English) are used as a means of determining the “health” of the education system in Australia as a whole, including the “quality” of their teachers (as this is what we have data on).
Social efficiency and effectiveness
The solutions (often promoted by politicians, media and think tanks) to the problems of Australian education is often one of then improving the effectiveness of teachers. These arguments are often quite convincing. After all, it is quite hard to argue against effectiveness. However, calling for effectiveness implies that the purpose and aims of education have already been determined. As I said earlier, in contemporary educational discourse, “educational” outcomes are often defined in terms of “learning” outcomes of set curriculum knowledge and skills. If the role of the teacher is meant to assist students to improve their ability to achieve in assessments and assimilate the knowledge and skills as determined within a standardised curriculum, then this follows nicely. I would argue that this is not all that defines the existence of a teacher. For example. is good quality of life and a good society simply going to follow from an improvement in effectiveness of our teachers to deliver curriculum content? Maybe, but maybe not. I would like to think that there is more to the work of the teacher than simply improving learning outcomes.
However, it is important to consider here that from the ideological standpoint of social efficiency, this is irrelevant.
From this perspective, the role of teachers is to embed the curriculum and so improving the effectiveness of teachers to do so is an appropriate solution to these problems. The knowledge that students are receiving, as well as the role of the teacher as a facilitator and giver of knowledge, are already assumed to be “good” for students and lead to improvements in society, whether or not we have sufficient evidence to determine this.
Logical conclusions
Can you see why these arguments are often so convincing? Because they actually do logically follow from their foundational perspectives of education! We may feel uncomfortable about these kinds of discourses, but it is not necessarily the discourse that is the problem but the ideological foundations of the purpose and aims of education.
If you want to challenge the discourse surrounding efficiency and effectiveness of schooling, then I would argue (due to its hegemonic dominance) you need to challenge the underlying beliefs and values (that have become common sense) that come to define education and the work of the teacher. We can judge what is defined as educational outcomes and consider the value of this perspective. So we could ask that when we discuss educational outcomes, are we simply talking about learning outcomes? Is this a desirable way to look at education?
Some questions to ponder…
Do you believe yourself to be an effective teacher? On what grounds do you make this judgment?
Can you think of some teaching practices, though not effective or efficient, are otherwise still valuable in educating children and young people?
Till next time,
References
Fahey, G. (2022). Teacher workforce: fiction vs fact. The Centre for Independent Studies. Australia.