Improving Teachers pay and conditions: Art or Science?

The key question I would like to explore is:

As a profession, how should we best represent ourselves.

As @beardface noted earlier on Twitter, the common metaphor and analogy for teachers and teaching currently are Doctors and/or Medicine. This may seem like a positive association, which is true for pay, conditions and status, but the persistence of the idea, and its over-application, also holds issues.

Specifically, Davies (1999) conceived of Education as medicine in the debate around the ‘what works’ and ‘evidence-based’ practice and research (Hammersley, 1997; Olson, 2004; Slavin, 2002, 2004). In response, Olson (2004) rejected the analogy made between education and medical research, commenting on the differences between a ‘drug’ being administered and an educational intervention. Whilst Hammersley (1997) shifted the analogy to align educational research with surgical operations made up of complex decision-making.

What I am questioning here, however, some 20 years later, is how useful this persistent analogy is? And in what respect we present ourselves to the wider public, how we represent ourselves as a profession.

Is teaching more art or science? Not unlike the knowledge versus skills debate, this may seem pointless, with the answer being clearly and unequivocally ‘both’.

Yet, unlike this debate, the question of art or science goes beyond a debate had between teachers and educators, because it is crucial to our outward facing appearance.

The thrust of our society is towards the free-market (the neo-liberal), science and it’s methods have proven dominant, the idea of students and parents as clients and business jargon proliferates in our schools. Quantitative data is the primary way that policy change and implementation is considered. This same process has been widely mirrored in the way that education is conceived of and discussed in the political, policy and also the popular media spheres in Australia.

As teachers, we also take on this language and focus, however the best illustration of it, is the ideas being generated by Melbourne Univsersity’s Graduate School of Education (MGSE), John Hattie and the ‘Visible Learning’ company. It is important to separate out these three corporate entities, but I believe it is most beneficial to think of them as a movement within our school-level and pedagogical practices. These three examples, and many more besides, represent the above movements and one polar extreme of the two possible ways to present education. These three parties are closely tied to Hattie’s meta-analysis which has been widely panned (Bergeron & Rivard, 2017; Higgins & Simpson, 2011; Simpson, 2017), which is a topic for another day, though one that does not necessarily damn the entire face of this aspect of teaching.

The opposite end of the spectrum is something much more artistic, human, humanistic and earthy, which is best typified by the 2002 film ‘To be and to have’ (see short clip below for an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_pHFtObb4A). About a male school teacher (Georges Lopez) who teaches 12 students in rural France, it shows teaching as a calm, thoughtful, artistic and human activity. This conception of teaching is robust and unable to be commodified or rendered business-model friendly. This is an aspect of teaching that is unlikely to engender higher pay but represents many of the positives and good-feelings that members of the public retain from their own school days.

These two poles represent the possibility of good pay, but equal competition and footing with all other industries and business ideas, versus the possibility of higher esteem or respect within our wider communities though likely lower or similar pay. They also represent a movement towards ‘evidence-based’ education, again, a topic for a later date, and a conception of education as solve-able.

The direction of our profession in either regard, will likely impact the pay scale, conditions and our wider standing within the community.

The question remains, which way is the best way forward? Which way or both?   

I would love to hear your thoughts.

References

Bergeron, P. J., & Rivard, L. (2017). How to Engage in Pseudoscience With Real Data: A Criticism of John Hattie’s Arguments in Visible Learning From the Perspective of a Statistician. McGill Journal of Education/Revue des sciences de l'éducation de McGill, 52(1), 237-246.

Davies, P. (1999). What is evidence‐based education?. British journal of educational studies, 47(2), 108-121.

Gilliland, A. & Stevenson, H. (2015) Teacher Unions at the Heart of a New Democratic Professionalism. Howard Stevenson, Alison Gilliland. From: Evers, J., & Kneyber, R. (Eds.). (2015). Flip the system: Changing education from the ground up. Routledge.

Hammersley, M. (1997). Educational research and teaching: a response to David Hargreaves’ TTA lecture. British Educational Research Journal, 23(2), 141-161.

Higgins, S., & Simpson, A. (2011). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. By John AC Hattie: Pp 392. London: Routledge. 2008.£ 90 (hbk),£ 27.99 (pbk),£ 35.37 (e-book). ISBN-13 978-0415476171 (hbk), ISBN-13 978-0415476188 (pbk), ASIN: B001OLRMHS (e-book).

Simpson, A. (2017). The misdirection of public policy: Comparing and combining standardised effect sizes. Journal of Education Policy, 32(4), 450-466.

Slavin, R. E. (2002). Evidence-based education policies: Transforming educational practice and research. Educational researcher, 31(7), 15-21.

Slavin, R. E. (2004). Education research can and must address “what works” questions. Educational researcher, 33(1), 27-28.

Stevenson, H. (2018) Flip. the. system? Get. organised! From: Rycroft-Smith, L., & Dutaut, J. L. (2018). Flip the System UK: A teachers’ manifesto. Abingdon: Routledge.

Terhart, E. (2011). Has John Hattie really found the holy grail of research on teaching? An extended review of Visible Learning.Journal of curriculum studies, 43(3), 425-438.

Olson, D. R. (2004). The triumph of hope over experience in the search for “what works”: A response to Slavin. Educational researcher, 33(1), 24-26.

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