Teachers' Workplace Meets The Professors of Teaching: A Chance Encounter at 30,000 Feet

Abstract

In Teachers' Workplace, Rosenholtz presents evidence suggesting that teachers' attitudes and behaviors are direct results of the social organization of their workplace. She describes low- consensus schools, where the many uncertainties in classroom teaching lead to isolation and pluralism, and high-consensus schools, where teachers solve problems collaboratively and, in the process, define common goals and desirable teaching methods. In The Professors of Teaching, education faculty emerge as a highly fragmented, pluralistic group, strikingly similar to the teachers Rosenholtz describes in low-consensus schools. Although some degree of pluralism is inherent in the nature of the professoriate, teacher education as a professional field may be unique in its extreme ill-structuredness. Teacher educators, like K-12 teachers in low-consensus schools, may be driven by the uncertainties of their work to the same coping mechanisms: isola tion and self-defensiveness. The task of restructuring teacher education appears to entail trans forming colleges of education into high-consensus schools. The deeply problematic nature of such a transformation is discussed.

Teachers' Secondment Experiences

“…It is important to recognize that part of the difficulty in making the transition from schools to the university lies in adapting to the various communities that are firmly entrenched on university campuses. Elementary and secondary schools are more often thought of as singular institutions, or as Kagan (1990) says, "places of a common professional culture with a sense of similar goals and purposes" (p. 50), whereas universities include a multiplicity of diverse communities.…”

“…The expansion and redefinition of their role can be linked to efforts to unify the teaching profession and lessen the gap between professors of education in universities and classroom teachers in public schools. Goodlad (1990) and Kagan's (1990) work about school and university cultures is important in understanding the complexities of fulfilling the seconded teacher role.…”

A hyphenated curriculum: A precondition for effective teacher education?

“…Second, an effective program occurs only where there is high consensus among faculty regarding program purpose. The reason teacher education in the past has been weak is that it has been low consensus; faculty members across campus and within education units have been isolated from one another and divorced from larger programmatic purposes (7).…”

Novice English Teachers’ Learning to Teach

“…To investigate novice teachers' learning to teach can provide teacher educators much food for thought in making or revising pre-service teacher education programmes. Kagan (1990) states that a successful programme of pre-service teacher education should be set in a framework where conceptions of teaching and learning are based on theories and supported by researches. Our study aimed at investigating novice English teachers' feelings on learning to teach, collaborative and reflective efforts and urgent need, and at providing suggestions on the basis of the study in expectation that there will be big difference in preparing pre-service and novice teachers for learning to teach in future.…”