The term 'professional' is used so widely in our society that most of us take its meaning for granted. When the term professional is used we typically refer to a process that contains some gravitas, in which a group or individual proceeds knowledgeably and with understanding. The word professional has other meanings in other contexts. It can be part of a request to work in difficult circumstances or to work without thanks or for lower wages. Or, sometimes, used by a group who are seeking higher wages, better working conditions or more respect.
Over the last eighty years our society has become a professional society. We used to be, first and foremost, a class society and to an extent we still are. But our society cannot be merely described as a class 'pyramid' for it is also a 'forest' of professions. Pictured in the latter way our society is a series of trees or professions, each one jostling for influence but some doomed to work in the shadow of other more prominent ones. Most people see themselves within one of these trees.
Take a doctor of medicine who works as a general practitioner in a health centre. During many mornings the doctor is at her consulting desk seeing patients. While many of them may have similar ailments, each is an individual and must be treated as such. Not all patients can be prescribed the same drugs, some maybe allergic to antibiotics, and the advice the doctor offers will depend upon the patient. Advice to a patient who has broken a leg playing football will be quite different to that offered to the pensioner who has broken hers by falling down the stairs. The doctor does not have a small book with a section entitled Helpful Advice for Footballers Who Have Broken a Leg. Rather, the doctor has to talk to the patient, listen to any problems, attempt to perceive difficulties and so on. In other words the doctor has to use her judgment [a notion I will consider below] in each individual case. Moreover each piece of advice is given for the interests of the patient in order to help that person to recover.
Patients, and society as a whole have to trust our doctors to go through this sort of process many hundreds of times a day. The doctor will see many patients during this time, some at the health centre, some in their homes and possibly others at hospital. This is not to say that all doctors observe the ethics of the profession all of the time or are slow with the prescription pad when they should be discussing prevention. Nevertheless, we can, and indeed have to, trust doctors to do their work for most of the time.
Why do we, for the most part, trust doctors? One major reason is that doctors go through an intensive and carefully monitored period of training after an exhaustive selection process. All professions put up barriers around themselves to ensure that only certain people can become qualified. There are also checks and balances on their activities, they cannot do whatever they want. One of these is the British Medical Association which offers advice and guidance and patients can always complain to health authorities, senior partners, other doctors and so on. The BMA represents the interests of doctors in political circles too, and this is a very important function. It offers guidance but also takes part in disciplinary action against individuals who do not uphold the codes of ethics.
Let us now take these considerations and discuss the work of teachers.
Teachers have to treat their 'clients', primarily children, as individuals in just the same way as doctors. Of course doctors can rely upon a vast array of drugs and pills. Equally, teachers make use of book schemes but for the teaching of children with SEN it is particularly important to understand each child in order to provide the right support. If a child cannot read, for example, it is important for the teacher to understand why this individual cannot read rather than immediately turn to a text book. Similarly if a child is not interested in an area of the curriculum the teacher has to understand why and possibly approach the topic in a different way or even leave that area for a time and return to it later. As with doctors, teachers have to work for their clients' interests.
Like doctors, teachers are socialised or inducted into their profession. We might argue that taking this process out of its university context and placing it in schools, as is currently occurring, may well reduce the credibility and status of teaching as a profession. We can also note that unlike the BMA for doctors, teachers do not have a national professional association which concerns itself primarily with their practice. There are, of course, the subject associations but there has also been much talk of a General Teaching Council which would, for example, attempt to create a code of ethics.
An associated argument about teaching is critical of the national curriculum. This argument suggests that the scope for paying attention to individual children is sharply reduced by a national curriculum which stresses the need to convey knowledge. The importance of this knowledge rests upon its identification by NC documents rather than a teacher's understanding of a child's needs. It has been widely argued that the NC and similar recent changes to teaching imply that teachers are not doing a good job and that the profession as a whole needs guidance from people who do not teach. It is then suggested that such moves which are occurring across education, question the whole notion of teaching as a profession and that this is undermining teachers who, like most other groups, are living in a professional 'forest' and want to live in a tall tree. Such considerations have prompted writers such as Elliott [1991] and Winter [ 1989] to ask whether teachers can recapture their professionality and, if so, how they might do it.
According to the analysis so far there are four elements of professionality. Professionals:
For teachers the third of these continues at present but in some ways, as it becomes increasingly at the mercy of government guided funding and legislation, is not easily influenced by individual teachers in schools. The fourth continues to look unpromising as an area of influence.
The first two, in contrast, are part of the everyday work of teachers. We can concentrate on these as it is nearly always the case that they can be improved [this is not a negative comment on teacher practice]. In doing so teachers are able to participate in a form of professional development. Indeed, it is precisely this argument that has been used by the action researcher movement and is also a central element of this course.
As a final example take the case of nursing.
Nursing was seen in the middle 1950s as a semi-profession. In 1971 Etzioni still regarded nursing as a semi-professional occupation due to the inadequate length of time for training and because of lack of autonomy responsibility for their decision-making. Whittington and Boore (1988: 112) following their review of the literature identified the following characteristics of professionalism:
Even as recently as 1989 Hepworth, refers to the fact that nursing has been considered variously as an 'emerging profession, as a semi-profession and as a skilled vocation'.
While these summary descriptions of professionalism can be criticised for omissions, they do point to important defining features of professionalisation. In particular, the contemporary history of both nursing and midwifery has accorded reasonably well with (the above) description, particularly the recent moves into universities and the increasing claims to possess a core of defining tasks and knowledge.
The traditional professions having long established relations with universities are law, medicine and divinity. As originally male professions they have remained by and large essentially male professions. Both law and medicine have successfully entered the market place. Indeed, particularly in the USA, medicine has become the 'leading exemplar of a profession' starting from the foundation of the John Hopkins Medical School and attached research hospital by John Billings, which ensured scientific medicine spread throughout the country (House 1993: 20). American physicians have, as House comments, been very successful in turning their 'professional authority into very high income, extreme professional autonomy, and considerable political power.' Thus 'while other professionals increasingly came under the control of bureaucracies and corporations, often working for the organisations, doctors became small capitalists.' House sees this dominance as possibly coming to an end due to 'escalating health-care costs and the extension of private enterprises into the health-care business, which means that doctors will be employees of the corporation, too'.
The market as a way of organising social practices has come to dominate government thinking in the UK since the election of the Conservative government under Prime Minister Thatcher in 1979. In reorganising the provision of health services into a purchaser/provider format with Hospital Trusts and general practices being run like small to medium size businesses, the franchising of allied services and the execution of medical audits to increase efficiency, traditional patterns of vested interest and power are being eroded and transformed. This is to be expected and was intended. It has long been understood by economists that:
characteristic of a market economy is a tendency to incorporate every aspect of a society into the nexus of market relations. Through such "commercialisation," the market generally brings all facets of traditional society into the orbit of the price mechanism ... everything has its price, and ... its value is its price. As a consequence, markets have a profound destabilising impact on a society because they dissolve traditional structures and social relations.
(Gilpin 1987: 20)
Rather than nineteenth century traditional values and social practices what is currently being de-stabilised is the autonomy and authority of old established professions to define social and health needs. While it is not yet clear how the new patterns will settle out, it is clear that the power of autonomous decision by the professional is being replaced by negotiation between purchasers and providers, the management of services to meet performance criteria established through audit and political demand. In addition, the allocation of services is less according to need (as established during the period of Post War consensus about the aims of the Welfare State) than according to the principle of scarce resources and the willingness and ability to supply and to pay which underlie the definition of the classical economics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the neo-monetarism and positive (as distinct from normative) economics of the 1980s and early 1990s.
Professional practice is continually under change and will differ in some respects from profession to profession. Stenhouse, Elliott and others have claimed that professionals can take some control over their own work, i.e. engage in professional development, and have added that in doing so they develop into practitioners who are confident and better prepared for the next set of changes. It should be noted that the argument is not that there should be sets of structures, institutions and organisations that enable professionals to take these steps. Rather the argument frames professional development in terms of the development of knowledge about practice. Elliott [1993] has a similar idea and calls it a practical educational science and it is created through qualitative research which for us means action research or insider evaluation.
The central features of this practical educational science run through this course and reader. The key elements of professional development underlying this course are as follows:
1. Educational Challenge
It is useful to maintain a distinction between schooling and education. Sociologists have criticised schools for their role as agents of social reproduction and social control. Schooling is more about the fashioning and forming of minds to meet traditional notions of 'good' behaviour, 'appropriate' knowledge, values and beliefs. Education has a broader more critical brief. In Dirty Marks, Schostak defines the distinction as follows:
Schooling, as I use it, designates a political instrument with the object of processing and socialising children. In schooling it is part of the forbidden discourse to 'draw out' (or educate) the self as self. It is through education that the forms of reflection, expression and action articulate the self as a source of challenge to the old heroes of the social order whose actions do not liberate. In challenge there are the new heroes of the challenge, the new discourses through which the self is re-written and the course of life re-directed. And there are the narratives of challenge to be recounted.
(p. 134)
It maybe a hackneyed term but we should consider educating as empowering the individual in some sense.
2. Innovation and Change
These two words have been used in recent years, along with the term 'initiative' to label tasks that are designed in one place and implemented in another [i.e. usually by teachers in schools]. The values of professional development, as outlined above, suggest that design and implementation should not be sharply divided. That is, those who implement should play a major role in design of, for example, the curriculum.
In recent years there has emerged a growing literature on the issues associated with change. The better quality writings indicate that if teachers or others are treated as mere implementers then they have a tendency to subvert or comply 'creatively'. So for example, we know that many teachers of children with SEN realise that they cannot deliver all of the national curriculum and tend to place much more stress on helping children to understand some parts of it. Teachers are covering their backs and giving the impression that all of the national curriculum is 'covered' but some areas are taught much more carefully than others. This is not differentiation.
3. Judgement
For many centuries there have been distinctions between different forms of knowledge. Aristotle in the Nichomachean Ethics, for example, distinguished between theoretical knowledge, technical knowledge and practical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge is generalisable and abstract; technical knowledge is unreflective and amounts to a series of superficial rules. Practical knowledge is concerned with judgement and choice. It deals with what is variable, about which there can be differing opinions and is essentially practical. There are no simple technical rules nor all embracing generalities.
These points are probably best illustrated by an example. Let us consider that I am buying a car. I would like a Ford Sierra because it is cheap to service, parts are inexpensive, it has sufficient space for my family. But I also like Vauxhall Cavaliers. The Cavalier also has enough space but is more expensive to repair and service but is probably more reliable. The Vauxhall parts are more expensive but probably last longer. An additional complication is that my family would prefer an older Volvo which lasts well but has a more dated design. The Volvo has enough space but is very expensive to run and repairs are very expensive. Yet it is likely to last longer than either the Sierra or the Cavalier. Which do I buy?
There is not a correct decision to be made here, I have to choose one of these cars and make the most of its advantages. This is in the nature of making practical judgements. Judgements are not fanciful or whimsical but based in our day to day experiences. Experienced teachers do not have to sit and think in great detail about each minute of their work. Good teachers instantly recognise when their lessons are failing because they have practical experience and have listened to and observed their colleagues. They know how to change direction in lessons without panicking. They have developed their judgement and one major aim of qualitative research based courses is to assist practitioners in developing their judgment by studying their practice. This is a form of professional development.
4. Criticism
We have seen students on past courses who study their work and see no problems. Everything is hunky dory. This almost always reveals superficiality of thought and understanding and sometimes a fear of being wrong. When practitioners carefully study their own work they will nearly always unearth misunderstandings, problems and new possibilities. It is part of the professional condition that one's colleagues and clients have differing perceptions which make situations problematical and interesting.
The intention here is not to encourage students to criticise either themselves or their colleagues but to appreciate that their work is complex and perceived in different ways by others. The teacher researcher has to ask whether she could work in a different way and whether some of her practice is not very successful or could be improved. Change, improvement and professional development are usually dependent upon treating our practice as problematical.
5. Discourse
Those who place a heavy emphasis on theoretical knowledge tend to believe that we can make general statements about what schools should look like and insist upon these as standards. Those who value technological knowledge tend to believe that if we place the correct rules and regulations in each school we can insist upon their observance. For those who value practical wisdom, discourse between practitioners usually assumes a significant role. Many of us have heard that the best part of an Inset course was the tea break discussion with colleagues. Nevertheless, discourse is invisible, unquantifiable and therefore very difficult to justify when teachers are asked to be accountable to cynical onlookers. It is also difficult to show direct and unproblematical relationships between discourse and classroom improvement. Yet many practitioners are convinced of its value.
Discourse comprises all forms of communication, including body language, the spoken word and so on. A reliance on discourse assumes that practitioners learn from each other and that they go on learning. There is a rigidity about theoretical generalisations and technological rules that is absent from discourse. Discourse helps practitioners to improve their judgement and is an element in professional development. The interviewing, observation and discussion that teacher researchers will carry out, are all forms of discourse.
6. Action
If there has been a tendency in the past for courses to be about listening to lectures and then carrying on as before, such endeavours have been a waste of time and money. Practical knowledge underwrites professional practice and part of this knowledge is acting upon one's conclusions. After the first set of actions practitioners are then in a position to monitor and analyse and then embark upon another series of decisions, changes and secondary actions.
In taking action, practitioners assert their independence and create situations for their future development. Action is an essential element in professional development. It is an educational process:
The first step to change begins in imagining alternatives. Mass education was feared at its introduction because of its power to put ideas into people's minds. The works of imagination are feared because they open the mind to the possible, the images of desire and the bizarre creations of nightmares. Education and imagination together create the imagined communities that provide identity, belonging, self-value and purpose. However, a distinction must be maintained with schooling. Where schooling moulds and fashions belief, education, through a playful suspension of disbelief, opens up the imagination for reflection, experimentation. In the imagination there are other faces of the self, other forms of conduct appropriate to the new face, other dramatis personae and the new possibilities for action and relationship that go with the new worlds of experience.
(Schostak, Dirty Marks, p. 203)
Only by imagination allied to practical judgement can new courses of action come into being.
Elliott J. [1991] Action Research for Educational Change, Milton Keynes, Open University Press.
Elliott J. [1993] Reconstructing Teacher Education: Teacher Development, London, Falmer Press.
Etzioni, A. (1969) The Semi-professions and their Organisation: Teachers, Nurses and Social Workers, New York: Free Press
Gilpin, R. (1987) The political economy of international relations, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press
Hepworth, S. (1989) 'Professional judgement and nurse education', Nurse Education Today, 9, 408-12
House, E. (1993) Professional Evaluation. Social Impact and Political Consequences, Newbury Park, London, New Delhi: Sage
Jarvis, P. (1983) Professional education, London: Croom Helm
Larson, M. S. (1977) The Rise of professionalism: A sociological Analysis, Berkeley: University of California Press
Schostak, J. F. (1993) Dirty marks. The Education of Self, Media and Popular Culture, London, Boulder Colorado: Pluto Press
Schutz, A. (1976) The Phenomenology of the Social World, tr. G. Walsh and F. Lehnert, London: Heineman Lewes, Falmer Press.
Winter R. [1989] Learning from Experience. Principles and practice in action research, London: Falmer
Whittington, D., and Boore, J. (1988) 'Competence in Nursing', in: R. Ellis (ed) Professional Competence and Quality assurance in the Caring professions, London, New York: Croom Helm.