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The teacher has\u00a0a place of honour in human history;\u00a0there is\u00a0an inherent nobility in teaching that persists even today when perhaps the teacher’s true worth\u00a0is not adequately\u00a0acknowledged by\u00a0some parts of modern society.<\/p>\n
The core purpose of teaching, at least in the Western democracies,\u00a0should be\u00a0to produce\u00a0free and creative citizens\u00a0capable of\u00a0balancing the desire for personal\u00a0independence\u00a0with a recognition of our social and economic\u00a0inter<\/em>dependence. That is a tough ask of our education systems today, and the best teachers are all too well aware that they have to approach\u00a0their responsibilities from a position\u00a0of continual doubt – perplexity, even – always questioning, and never believing they know all the answers. Doubt is healthy! Teachers grapple\u00a0not only with the complexities of the task that confront them, but also with the reactionary tendencies of governments whose policies too often\u00a0put a brake on teachers’ capacity to encourage precisely the creativity and resourcefulness that they know their students need in order to thrive in today’s world (and tomorrow’s). Good teachers know what learners need so much better than any government minister with a fixation on tests and standards and control.<\/p>\n Given the above, the teachers I have trusted least<\/em> in my half century and more in education (a career that began, I hasten to add, aged five, when I started primary school) have been\u00a0those who never doubted, who never questioned, whose practice was routine, unvarying (except when change was forced on them by decree), and who plied their classroom trade with no apparent\u00a0heed to the social, cultural, philosophical or pedagogical rationale\u00a0underpinning their labours. Such teachers tended to value\u00a0docility and obedience in their students\u00a0over creative thought, independence and any sense of learning beyond the superficial recall of the material taught.<\/p>\n As CP Snow once wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n When you look at the long history of man, you see that more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have been committed in the name of rebellion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The best teachers have always sought to reflect deeply on their own teaching, to think with honesty and rigour\u00a0about their craft and their skills, and to work in tandem with their colleagues to support each other to improve their mutual effectiveness as teachers. Such teachers know that teaching is about so much more than mere presenting of information, so much more than mere memorization, and so much more than the simple transference of information from a book or the teacher’s brain to a learner’s brain. They also know that any teaching that requires that students\u00a0accept the\u00a0unquestioned authority of the teacher is ultimately detrimental to effective learning\u00a0and, in any case, is ridiculous in today’s world.<\/p>\n Reflecting on Teaching – and on Learning!<\/strong><\/p>\n I like Stephen Downes’<\/a>\u00a0straightforward\u00a0definition of teaching as ‘modelling and demonstrating’, since it moves us emphatically away from any of the tired traditional denotations of teaching rehearsed above. He likes to tell people:<\/p>\n …to teach is to be the sort of thing you want your students to be…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Like Downes, I disagree with those who tell us that teaching is dead, or that we do not need teachers any more. I\u00a0believe that\u00a0we need teachers more than ever, but we need them to be thoughtful, reflective teachers who admit they don’t know all the answers and who understand that everything they do has to be about learning rather than teaching. My own philosophy of education, expressed as I Am Learner<\/a>, states provocatively that “I am not taught. I learn.” By that I mean that, ultimately, we as learners determine (consciously and unconsciously) what we learn, whether it be\u00a0explicitly that which\u00a0is being ‘taught’ to us, or, more likely, our own interpretation and version of what is being taught. Often that means we learn something radically different from, and\u00a0even at odds with, what is being taught, because we<\/em> do the learning!<\/p>\n The truly effective teachers know this and therefore know that they not only have to reflect on their own teaching, on what it means to teach, but also on how that teaching is transformed into learning by their students. That is by no means\u00a0a simple process. Instead it is messy and ineffable (something that few government ministers could ever acknowledge). So, thoughtful teachers have to reflect both on their teaching and on their own professional development (in other words, on their own learning)\u00a0as well as, of course, on the learning of their students. And the deepest reflection should be on the\u00a0‘how’<\/em> of learning rather than the\u00a0‘what’<\/em> of learning.<\/p>\n Empathetic Teaching<\/strong><\/p>\n Reflective teachers, since they are modelling and demonstrating, and since they are being what they would like their students to be, have\u00a0to build and sustain a high degree of empathy for how and what the student is learning, and will always\u00a0strive to understand how their teaching is being received, absorbed, filtered, appreciated and interpreted by the student. That requires at least some understanding and acknowledgement\u00a0of the learner’s starting point\u00a0(in the broadest sense), on what they as students bring to the classroom, not just in terms of prior learning but also in terms of\u00a0who<\/em> they are,\u00a0how<\/em> they think,\u00a0what<\/em> they consider important to them. Good teachers will always want to\u00a0know<\/em> their students to the greatest degree possible within the bounds of the teacher-student relationship.<\/p>\n Techniques for Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n There are any number of techniques and practices that teachers can use to reflect on teaching and on learning. I would add, at this point, that I am not interested here in any ‘top-down’ model of reviewing the professional development of teachers, except insofar as that has been requested by teachers themselves\u00a0– the most powerful and effective reflection on teaching will always be carried out\u00a0by the teachers themselves for their own professional reasons and not by, or at the behest of, any external agency or ‘higher’ authority.<\/p>\n Teachers\u00a0can and should make use of their peers, sometimes\u00a0in a relationship of equal and\u00a0mutual support, sometimes in a mentoring or coaching relationship (in either\u00a0direction), and sometimes simply as professional colleagues offering advice and suggestions to each other on an ongoing basis in order to do things differently and\u00a0better.<\/p>\n They can find the means to review their own teaching and their interactions with students, honestly and rigorously. They can simply use recall for this but, of course, today it\u00a0can mean also using the power of video: recording their teaching so that they can watch and analyze themselves and their classroom interactions, and perhaps share their practice with colleagues and even the wider community of teachers.\u00a0This involves a logical onward\u00a0step from the use of peer relationships described above.<\/p>\n Critically, and to repeat myself, it\u00a0is a process that the teachers themselves should always<\/em> have complete control over. They should be able to decide when<\/em> they wish to record themselves, why<\/em> they want to do so, how<\/em> they share it and who<\/em> they share it with. Any measure\u00a0of compulsion from ‘above’ in this process will diminish its power considerably, so, again, it is not a tool to be used by, say, a headteacher or principal as a means of appraising teachers. That has little or nothing to do with learning and certainly nothing to do with truly reflective teaching. It should be opposed at every juncture.<\/p>\n Involving Learners in the Process<\/strong><\/p>\n I would also suggest that\u00a0teachers should have the confidence and the courage to involve their students in this process too, since they are what education, schools and teaching are all about! With due regard to the age of the students involved (which will have a bearing on\u00a0how and to what extent they can be involved – although\u00a0even very young children should be brought into this where possible), a teacher’s discussion with learners about the efficacy or otherwise of a lesson or course, or of a particular methodology, or a specific set of resources, can be a very powerful means indeed of improving their practice over time.<\/p>\n Showing a\u00a0willingness to take this step has a number of positive implications for teachers, not least that it embraces\u00a0a recognition that it is the learning that is of ultimate importance, and that any improvements in teaching are only improvements insofar as they help students to learn more effectively. It also acts as a fundamental mark of respect from teachers for their students, allowing students to see that their teachers take their needs, and their views, seriously, and that their teachers are also learners. Teachers willing to bring their students into their professional reflections are walking the talk, by\u00a0modelling good learning practice.<\/p>\n Meeting Scotland’s Improvement Agenda<\/strong><\/p>\n The reflective teacher is a desideratum of every forward-looking education system in the world. Here in Scotland, much of our\u00a0broad and multifaceted agenda for educational improvement is now dependent on us embedding the concept of the reflective teacher deep within our\u00a0culture of teaching and in the culture of our schools. Curriculum for Excellence<\/a> is itself constructed explicitly around\u00a0notions of teacher autonomy, teacher professionalism and teacher self-reliance. The reflective teacher is therefore a critical component of Scotland’s drive for educational improvement, and one based on collegiate efficacy rather than on heavy-handed decree from above.<\/p>\n Similarly, the massively\u00a0important quest for ‘Excellence+Equity’<\/em> built into the Scottish Attainment Challenge<\/a>, in which every single teacher is asked to consider their impact on every pupil on a continual basis, including and especially on those learners who we know have to face\u00a0the egregious barriers to learning that derive from poverty and deprivation. There is possibly no more vital driver for promoting the necessity for teacher professional reflection than this.<\/p>\n