Professional Support Beyond Initial Teacher Education by Anna Elizabeth Du Plessis

Author:Anna Elizabeth Du Plessis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811397226
Publisher: Springer Singapore

5.6 Managing a Global Teaching Phenomenon Through Targeted Professional Support

Assigning teachers to positions for which they are not suitably qualified is a common practice in schools across nations. Global research relating to out-of-field teaching practices encompasses countries such as Australia (Australian Education Union, 2009, 2010; Du Plessis, 2014; McConney & Price, 2009), the USA (Ingersoll, 2002), Ireland (Cosgrove, Shiel, Oldham, & Sofroniou, 2004; Ni Rỉodáin, 2014; Ni Rỉodáin & Hannigan, 2009), the UK (Crisan & Rodd, 2014; Loveys, 2011), European countries (Bonesrønning, Falch, & Strøm, 2005; Maaranen, Kynäslahti, & Krokfors, 2008) including Norway and Germany (Bosse, 2014; Lünne, 2014; Törner, 2014), Turkey (Kan, Ҫinkir, Olgun, Eryilmaz, & Cemaloğlu, 2013) and South Africa (Du Plessis, 2005; Steyn & Du Plessis, 2007). School leaders look upon professional learning and development to ‘fix’ the problems that develop because of the phenomenon. This is a misconception.

Teachers functioning in these complex teaching positions hold different expectations for their own professional learning and development than teachers who are specialists in the field. This means that these situations pose a risk for the effectiveness of professional development programs and their designs. The assignment of teachers in complex and out-of-field positions is made at the level of corporate human resources management. The meaning this has for such teachers and their professional growth is not investigated by professional developers. Educational and school leadership decisions and policy improvement in relation to professional learning and professional development need to be deeply embedded in the truths of the field.

Classroom contexts with increasingly diverse student populations and complex inequalities impact teachers’ effectiveness. This makes it necessary to reassess teacher preparation as a social practice (Cochran-Smith & Villegas, 2015). The embodied experiences of teachers in demanding positions can be seen to be aligned with the quality of teaching and learning that takes place in their classrooms. At a larger scale, this quality influences the quality of education which schools can offer. Teachers who function in positions for which they are not fully qualified admit that they would not volunteer information about their subjects to students or parents if not absolutely needed. They collectively add comments raising doubt about how this information is shared and about collaboration with colleagues they do not fully trust. A head of department and subject specialist shared perceptions:If I look at the content of what students are doing in that classroom… and in their books, I can pick it up immediately… this teacher doesn’t really know, they hang around at the surface of the subject. (Project Five: School D, School leader/Participant 1)

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