Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Thinking about the technical and the personal in teaching

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 35; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03057640500319040

1469-3577

Adam Lefstein,

Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

Abstract This article is about current discourse regarding teaching and its regulation and reform. I argue that underlying most positions in current debates are two competing visions of teaching—one technical and the other personal. Technical teaching is manifested in recent developments in English education—for example, the National Curriculum, National Primary Strategy, accountability measures, and the drive for evidence‐based practice. Advocates of personal teaching tend to oppose these developments, which they see as 'deprofessionalising' teachers and 'dehumanising' educational relationships. I explore these two competing visions, examining their assumptions and assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Technical teaching and personal teaching are manifestations of broader worldviews, which I call instrumental rationality and experiential wisdom, respectively. Each vision captures critical aspects of teaching, yet each is also partial and problematic: teaching cannot and should not be reduced to either. Moreover, seeing the world in terms of one vision often blinds us to the realities and possibilities revealed by the other. When discourse is polarized between these two visions, conceptions of teaching methods and expertise are distorted, and critical questions regarding the interaction of teachers and teaching methods are eclipsed. I conclude the article with an illustration of how technical and personal teaching could be integrated in the design of curricular materials. Notes 1. I would like to gratefully acknowledge helpful comments received from Leah Austin, Noah Efron, Sharon Gilad, Josh Glazer, Yoram Harpaz, Norman Lefstein, Vally Lytra, Gemma Moss, Ben Rampton, Brian Street, Christopher Winch, Andrew Wright, members of the King's College London Research Workshop in Language and Literacy, Darrell Fraser, Diane Peck and members of the Victorian Department of Education and Training, participants in the Oxford Ethnography and Education Conference (September, 2003), two anonymous referees, and the Editors of this Special Issue. 2. My approach draws very heavily upon Foucault's work on discourse and problematisation. See, for example, his discussion of the relationships between medical gaze, discourse, knowledge categories, and practice in The Birth of the Clinic (Foucault, 1963/1994 Foucault, M. 1994. The birth of the clinic: an archaeology of medical perception, New York: Vintage books. [Google Scholar]). Although vision (as I use the term here) is not a central theme in Foucault's exposition, it certainly can be read into the text (especially in chapter 2, 'A political consciousness'). 3. Weber emphasizes that, as an analytical construct, the ideal type does not necessarily correspond to any empirical sociological reality. However, in my interpretation, the ideal type does correspond roughly with the reality of people's hopes, visions and understandings. This approach is consistent with Weber's idea of social science involving interpretation of the meanings that social action poses for its own participants. It also arises from an attempt to come to terms with a certain ambivalence in Weber's account of the ideal type. On the one hand, he warns the reader not to take 'ideal' to mean normatively desirable; on the other hand, he repeatedly uses the word 'utopia' as a synonym for an ideal type. Weber obviously doesn't mean that ideal types are utopian in the sense that they represent his own utopian yearnings. But clearly the word is loaded with value connotations: it doesn't make sense to speak of a utopia being ''ideal' in the strictly logical sense of the term'. The conception of an ideal type that I'm proposing includes an attempt to reconstruct the utopian yearnings distributed among (at least some) members of the social group studied. Thus, I add to Weber's idea that constructing ideal types is 'a matter … of constructing relationships which our imagination accepts as plausibly motivated' the requirement that ideal types be anchored in discourse evidence demonstrating the actual existence of these motivations among members of the studied society. 4. The confrontation between instrumental rationality and experiential wisdom has its roots in unresolved tension between Enlightenment and Romantic visions. 5. In my discussion of instrumental rationality, I use 'Science' in the positivist sense of so‐called 'hard' science, which is the ideal type at the root of this rationality. I am not claiming that this is the only legitimate form of science, or that physicists and engineers actually perform according to this scientistic vision. I do claim that this is the vision invoked when policy‐makers talk about rationalising education (see below). 6. My analysis draws in particular upon Weber (1914/1968 Weber, M. 1968. Economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology, New York: Bedminster Press. (original edn 1914) [Google Scholar]), Arendt (1958/1998 Arendt, H. 1998. The human condition, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (2nd edn; original edn 1958)[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Gadamer (1960/1998 Gadamer, H. G. 1998. Truth and method, New York: Continuum. (2nd edn; original edn 1960) (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.) [Google Scholar]), Habermas (1963/1974 Habermas, J. 1974. Theory and practice, London: Heinemann. (original edn 1963) [Google Scholar]), Toulmin (1990 Toulmin, S. 1990. Cosmopolis: the hidden agenda of modernity, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar]), Ritzer (2000 Ritzer, G. 2000. The McDonaldization of society, Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. [Google Scholar]) and Dunne (1997 Dunne, J. 1997. Back to the rough ground: practical judgment and the lure of technique, Revisions, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). These theorists disagree in their specific diagnoses of the relevant aspects of instrumental rationality and, especially, the possibility and contours of alternative modes. My discussion is not intended as a summary of their common denominator, rather as my own attempt to select and integrate ideas from their theories. 7. Where certainty and predictability are not (yet) possible, probability and reliability become the next best alternatives. Note that exact estimations of probability are made possible by calculability (see below). This example shows the close connection between knowledge of the natural world and its technological manipulation: 'causal relationships [are] mapped onto instrumental ones' (Schön, 1991 Schön, D. A. 1991. The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action, Aldershot: Avebury. [Google Scholar], p. 34). 8. Having failed to achieve the 2002 objective of 80% of pupils at Level 4 in Literacy by the end of Key Stage 2, the Government has begun relaxing (National) objectives‐driven discourse, discarding the 85% target for 2004, and instead encouraging schools to attain their targets 'as soon as possible' (Halpin, 2003 Halpin, T. (2003, May 20) National primary school targets scrapped, Times Online http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ (accessed 25 May 2003). [Google Scholar]). 9. In addition to the numerous published materials (the Framework, Planning Exemplifications, video), initial professional development included two days of training for the Headteacher, Literacy Coordinator and a Governor and tended to 'concentrate on the mode of operation and implementation' (Riley, 2001 Riley, J. 2001. The National Literacy Strategy: success with literacy for all?. The Curriculum Journal, 12(1): 29–58. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). There are of course at least two other possibilities to explain the short professional development program: (1) teachers are already well‐versed in the strategies and methods involved, and/or (2) the DfES lacks the resources (including teachers' willingness and time) to engage in in‐depth professional development. 10. It is noteworthy that Success for All was cited as one of the programs upon which the English National Literacy Strategy was modelled (Beard, 1999 Beard, R. 1999. National literacy strategy: review of research and other evidence, Sudbury, , UK: Department for Education and Employment. [Google Scholar]), and Slavin participated in early policy discussions. 11. Considered independently of other developments, the evidence‐based practice movement could be seen as yet another clash between positivist and interpretivist epistemologies (or, more narrowly, experimental and non‐experimental methodologies) in the chronic 'paradigm wars' (Gage, 1989 Gage, N. L. 1989. The paradigm wars and their aftermath—a historical sketch of research on teaching since 1989,. Teachers College Record, 91(2): 135–150. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) endemic to social scientific research. What distinguishes this current skirmish are the raised expectations regarding the role of research in directing practice, and the broader social and political context shaped by instrumental rationality. The editors of a recent issue of the British Educational Research Journal (Stronach & Hustler, 2001 Stronach, I. and Hustler, D. 2001. Old whine in new battles,. British Educational Research Journal, 27(5): 523–525. [Google Scholar]), express a sense of déja‐vu at the re‐emergence of the issue, and one can sense an element of uneasiness at publishing what they consider to be essentially a rehashing of previous arguments. Hammersley (2001 Hammersley, M. 2001. On 'systematic' reviews of research literatures: a 'narrative' response to Evans & Benefield,. British Educational Research Journal, 27(5): 543–554. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), however, in that same issue, after resurrecting criticisms of the drive for systematic reviews on epistemological and methodological grounds, does conclude with reflections on what is new in the current situation: i.e. changes in the wider political context, educational accountability, research funding and academic autonomy. 12. But see Machin and McNally's (2004 Machin, S. & McNally, S. (2004) 'The Literacy Hour', CEE Discussion Paper No.43; IZA Discussion Paper No. 1005 (available at http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/opsp.asp?prog = CEE (http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/opsp.asp?prog=CEE) ). [Google Scholar]) longitudinal study of the effects of the National Literacy Project on pupil achievement. 13. The Framework's aims are ostensibly established technically, through the study of markets and occupations, and identification of reading skills needed by high school graduates (which in turn become teaching objectives). The value lurking in the shadows of this value‐free rationality is that of the self‐regulating system (see McCarthy, 1978 McCarthy, T. 1978. The critical theory of Jurgen Habermas, London: Hutchinson & Co. [Google Scholar], pp. 8–12). Note the functionalist values embedded in the names Department of Education and Employment and Department of Education and Skills. See Lawn (1990 Lawn, M. 1990. From responsibility to competency—a new context for curriculum studies in England and Wales,. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 22(4): 388–392. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) for a critique of the implications of the English National Curriculum for teacher responsibility. 14. As with the section on instrumental rationality I am simplistically lumping together a number of different and often contradictory ideas into one construct. Similar terms, from which I draw in my explication of experiential wisdom, include reflective practice (Schön, 1991 Schön, D. A. 1991. The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action, Aldershot: Avebury. [Google Scholar]), practical reason (Toulmin, 1990 Toulmin, S. 1990. Cosmopolis: the hidden agenda of modernity, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar]), and pedagogical tact (van Manen, 1995 van Manen, M. 1995. On the epistemology of reflective practice,. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 1(1): 33–50. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). Reconstructing this ideal type is especially difficult since most experientialists tend to be more elaborate in their criticisms of instrumental rationality than in their positive suggestions of alternatives (see Squires, 1999 Squires, G. 1999. Teaching as a professional discipline, London: Falmer Press. [Google Scholar], on this point; and Eraut, 1995 Eraut, M. 1995. Schön shock: a case for reframing reflection‐in‐action,. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 1(1): 9–22. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], for a specific discussion of Schön and his followers). 15. This circle (and terms such as 'horizon' and 'projection') are of course based on the hermeneutic circle, in which understanding of a text (or other experience) is enabled and constrained by one's horizon of pre‐understandings, which in turn is shaped by the texts read (and experiences undergone) (Gadamer, 1960/1998 Gadamer, H. G. 1998. Truth and method, New York: Continuum. (2nd edn; original edn 1960) (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.) [Google Scholar]; Heidegger, 1927/1996 Heidegger, M. and Stambaugh, J. 1996. Being and time: a translation of Sein und Zeit, SUNY series in contemporary continental philosophy, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. (original edn 1927) [Google Scholar]). Theories of personal teaching rarely explicitly make this analogy or cast their discussions in hermeneutic terms (exceptions include Birmingham [2004 Birmingham, C. 2004. Phronesis: a model for pedagogical reflection,. Journal of Teacher Education, 55(4): 313–324. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], who proposes phronesis as a model for reflection, and Field and Latta [2001 Field, J. C. and Latta, M. M. 2001. What constitutes becoming experienced in teaching and learning?. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(8): 885–895. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]], who treat the problem of learning from experience as a hermeneutic problem). The affinity of practical knowledge and hermeneutics is developed by Gadamer, who employs the former as a model of the latter. 16. Note that theoretically a teacher's encounters with her colleagues, academic sources and administrative directives adhere to the same form as that of classroom experience (i.e. projection, experience, reflection and assimilation). Their location on the circle's periphery reflects the primacy of classroom experience in this way of thinking about knowledge in teaching. Similarly, a more theoretically complete account of the formation of teachers' horizons would need to discuss the critical roles of tradition and language. 17. Quoted in Halliday (1998 Halliday, J. 1998. Technicism, reflective practice and authenticity in teacher education,. Teaching and Teacher Education, 14(6): 597–605. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), p. 598. 18. Social scientific theories about the world are partially constitutive of the reality they study. In the words of Hannah Arendt (writing about behaviourism): 'the trouble … is not that they are wrong but that they could become true, that they actually are the best possible conceptualization of certain obvious trends in modern society' (1958/1998 Arendt, H. 1998. The human condition, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (2nd edn; original edn 1958)[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 322). 19. And of course confrontation between instrumentalists and experientialists, who occupy different positions in the political and social field (e.g. policy‐makers vs. teachers, educational psychologists vs. teacher educators). See Labaree (1992 Labaree, D. F. 1992. Power, knowledge, and the rationalization of teaching—a genealogy of the movement to professionalize teaching,. Harvard Educational Review, 62(2): 123–154. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) for a genealogical analysis of the movement to rationalise teaching in the US. He links the methodisation of instruction to an attempt to bolster the professional status of teacher education. 20. Absolute instrumentalism may also include an element of what Buchler (1961 Buchler, J. 1961. The concept of method, New York: Columbia University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) calls 'methodalotry': 'where interest in method ceases to be merely primary and becomes militantly exclusive, where regard for a method begins to be related inversely to regard for its results'.