Teacher Identities Have Become Fragmented - Essay Example

Why do some argue that teacher's identities have become fragmented How do teachers deal with this fragmentation It is evident that the modernsociety experiences global changes that influence all spheres of social life. Some theories regard new approaches of state regulations as a way of solving old problems with the help of new methods. As total traditional state control over various institutions has been replaced by open democratic public establishments, competing for the customers, a number of institutions that are functioning on a base of free market appeared. These institutions, that are partly controlled by the state, but having private or voluntary elements engaged into their activity, change the position and meaning of education. It is evident that necessary changes are necessary in many spheres of society, but it is also important to carry them out as carefully and slowly as possible. The new approach to education supports the idea that these are the families and private persons, who must be responsible for education, leaving minimum space for old objects of regulation. The incidence of state decreased, whereas the society is treated in terms of market and economy. The society is under reconstruction. But due to the fact that many state responsibilities inherent to old model of society are about to disappear, the rights of citizens are suppressed by the consumer rights. So some elements of solving the problems in the sphere of education were passed to the private sector. Present financial crisis and economic decline that still goes on both in the UK and the USA make evident that educational system is revised and reassessed. There are some points that are common for the both countries and these points are most demonstrative factors to show that revision is necessary, as it is dictated by the conditions of reality. These factors are as follows: it is a tendency to blame teachers for level of education doesn't meet the requirements of the society, as well as reducing the funds that are meant for educational needs and putting higher standards with the help of market management. This resulted in a flood of laws and recommendations given to the representatives of educational system. However, a significant part of these recommendations appeared to be a factor disturbing, rather than supporting the teachers in the process of changes made. The attempts of changing existing conditions have some differences in the USA and the UK and can be better seen in comparison. The essence of the educational reform in the USA lies in restructuring, in other words, providing for definite changes in structure, environment, organizations and curriculum of educational system. Changes include giving parents more opportunities of participating in school life and learning, or creating councils, or establishing school management and common problem-solving. Hallinger & Hausman (1993) described a plan that includes major points that should be taken into consideration while working upon the plans of reconstruction: "the decentralization of authority through school-based management; shared decision-making at each school site; a system of controlled parental choice concerning pupil attendance; and curricula organized around distinctive themes reflecting different educational philosophies ... The primary motivation was the district's commitment to the development of a viable and effective way to attain ethnic balance in its elementary schools." (Hallinger, P. & Hausman, C. 1993) The frames and schemes of restructuring differ in various states, cities and schools, but there is one general idea of reformation which is implemented in all these plans of restructuring. Some schools regard changes in structure as obligatory, the others find them optional. However, one of the most meaningful issues that refer to the essence of reformation is its effect on the nature, purpose and content of the teacher's functions. Usually restructuring presupposes a change from stressed administrative role to a flexible leadership, while in the UK restructuring plans this shift is opposite. Here is the description of the principle given by Hallinger & Hausman: "Well, my style is a style basically of school-based management ... I usually do not dictate problems or ideas on people. I ask for participation, so we do a lot of collective discussions and thinking about what should happen ... Sometimes, it takes us a little longer than other schools, but I think we're doing it with the right approach and the right process." (Hallinger, P. & Hausman, C. (993) This passage shows the differences between the plans of restructuring in the UK and the USA. In the USA the leading role is decreased to assistance, rather than a management. In the UK, in turn, there is an evident tendency of growing distance between the teachers and the students, which aroused a large number of complaints that concern directive style of school management. The other item of difference is that the approach implemented in the USA is based upon involving teachers into solving the problems, the teacher's collaboration and opportunity to influence the changes, the methods and approaches contributes much to the efficiency of restructuring. "In the USA teachers are reformers, in the UK they are 'the reformed'."( Maguire M., Ball, S. 1994) In the UK this reform is based on quite different principles: it derives from the pure technical base, the implementation of market management, which determines rapidity of solving the questions. Teachers' role in discussion is minimized; the patterns are worked out as regards to teacher's working process. The level of professional experience is not taken into consideration, and is sometimes regarded as the lack, rather than an advantage. Collaboration and common decision-making are regarded as the parts of the problem, but not the means that could be helpful in solving the matter. The market management reforms in the UK education affirm the boss-worker model of relations within educational system and reduce educational process to material element of the process. There is also an evident difference between the process in the UK and the USA. "Attempts to widen the decision-making base of schools, to include teachers and the community (as is being done in Chicago, cf. Ford, 1992), rest on the concept of stakeholders; a collective and inclusive concept which gives teachers, parents and students a valid say in what is to count as education".( Maguire M., Ball, S. 1994) The systems of local management of schools in the UK or grant-maintained schools are designed as to decrease the role and effect of local authorities and make schools more flexible. But as far as the teachers are concerned, the local authority pressure is replaced by the system of management within the system of education and market factors of tensity. The idea of free market, as the way of solving any kind of problems, which has been popular in Conservative Party, has been implemented in educational system in its pure form. "Open enrolment and per capita funding, together with business models of competition and entrepreneurship, have reduced school autonomy to an exercise in institutional accounting, image manipulation and reactive responsiveness."( Maguire M., Ball, S. 1994) It is necessary to mention that all those critics that were referred to 'bureaucratised schools', can be also applied to the 'managerialised schools' of the UK.(5) But the difference lies in the base of educational reforms in the USA. They derive from the encouragement of teachers as the professionals, like the work of Leithwood & Jantzi's, who investigated educational institutions in various districts. The other factor of difference between the two is that the process in the USA has been carried carefully, with large amount of supplies of different funds, and with flexible schemes that could be adapted to different circumstances of the situation. The most important thing was that the reform has been carried out with teachers' participation in the process, and educational professionals weren't regarded as the objects of the changes. The course of reform was designed in such a manner as to expel professional contribution and discussions. All writings and finding that may illustrate reforming from the positions of teachers, thus highlighting all negative aspects of the process, are forbidden to be published. General estimations of the projects are also restricted. Market and economical notions are integrated into the system of education, suppressing the work of professionals and experts, with no discussions and interaction allowed. There were no systematic research as to possible schemes of reforming and its effects, as well as no evident projects that could investigate the course of the changes appeared. There were the authors that spoke much about the changes in educational system as the process which is carried out with taking no notice of how this process might influence the teachers and their identity. Geoff Whitty insists that this process produces stress situations, which damage the personality, and cause the fragmentation of the identity thus being harmful for the teachers as the professionals. He points out several phases of the process, which worth careful more careful observation and consideration. The first one is "separation: assaults on the self" (Whitty G. 1997). During this phase of identity change, identity starts to separate from the rest of the society, and the existing self becomes indefensible. The extremes of psychological condition of a person demonstrate the traumatic essence of the process, but social impact of emotions is also evident. These effects derive from the interrelations of social conditions of teacher's work and life, and their self that they created for themselves, and that changes are more significant than the changes in educational structure with new demands for the identity. Some shifts in identity are unavoidable and necessary, but new social self should be based upon integral personal identity. This process may be hurtful, causing stress and negativism in emotional condition; it may also separate identity from the old personality. Division fastens loss. There are the elements of complete self that are in danger. They are "a measure of autonomy and control; a sense of balance and equilibrium; a holism and unification of parts, a synchronism of personal and social spheres, of self and role." (7) The person's identity is precious for several essential reasons, and it supports the personality, encourages person's self-assurance, confidence and emotional stability. It positively influences the interrelations within the society. In many respects person's identity is affected by the environment and communicational links, where gender identity plays a significant role. Identity is a kind of flexible system, rather than a stable element of a personality, as it responds to the inner world and the environment. Deep inside it comprises all traditional values, notions and believes that a person keeps unchangeable to save the core of his personality. As all these core elements are closely related to emotional condition of a person, the situation of self separation and stress damages this essential core and separate it from the identity. This phase of the process is accompanied by a number of losses, which strike the most professionally significant and vulnerable elements of the identity, thus breaking the emotional stability. The researches mark out 4 kinds of losses that are the most harmful for the teachers' personality: loss of emotional competencies, loss of emotion regulation skills, loss of positive emotional experiences, and loss of the essential self. (Woods P., Carlyle D. 2003) The loss of emotional competencies is necessary for successful implementation of teaching process. The teachers that experienced this loss spoke of the loss of the assurance in their professional skills and the effectiveness of educational system in general. They also experienced problems with the sense of empathy, which disturbed effective communicating. The loss of emotion regulation skills is characterized by the loss of self-control and the ability to resist and recover from various emotional stresses. There were the teachers who were concerned much about their feelings and emotional condition, who devoted much time to self-reflection. They often spoke about a sense of shame that they felt for being ashamed, or, for instance, they might feel mad for the minutes of anger etc. "Unable to deal with these emotions, to gain understanding of them, or prevent their escalation in social encounters, they became caught in 'feeling traps', where primary emotion states are converted into long-term secondary states, even more impervious to normalization."( Woods P., Carlyle D. 2003) Emotional maladjustment and identity misbalance also led to the loss of the feeling of gender identity. The representatives of both sexes confessed that they thought of themselves as of the persons violating some kind of basic rules. Stress situation influenced the gender identity of man and women, who lost control over themselves, thus losing their status, which led to further losses damaging integral identity. The process of teaching reduced the number of positive experiences in emotional sphere, compared to the old system of teaching and education, as it provided for more space and time for give-and-take. Cooperation and collaboration diminished, and it appeared to be harmful also, as the relations between the teachers had helped much in resolving the stress situations. The loss of the essential self occurs in stress situations. It means that under the pressure of stress people lose the sense of security. The stress situation divides integral identity into multiple parts of self, with some essential parts disappearing and new parts adding to the identity. So people often become shocked of their behaviour or emotions that they felt. They speak about growing sense of discontent connected to the emotions they experience or their behaviour. One more essential point in changes of the educational system of the UK is the opposition between Ofsted and the teachers, represented by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. The Ofsted reports say about multiple failures at school education in many cities of the UK. They insist on necessary changes in the system of education and education management. Their activity is, in turn, criticized by teachers all over the UK. The activity if this organization is regarded as one more factor producing stresses that badly influence the teacher's personality, thus damaging their emotional conditions, professionalism and state of mind: "ATL does not accept that Ofsted should be given the power to close schools. Ofsted judgements are not infallible. The state provides education and the decision to close a school is so grave and affects so many pupils that it should be taken at the highest level." (Teachers attack plan to let Ofsted close schools. EducationGuardian, May 17, 2005) The critics that dispute economic system and educational structure in the UK refer to the specific understanding of economic relations in their global meaning. It is customary to regard the development of capital as the basis for competitiveness. Some authors insisted on inventing a new form of regulation of economy. This model seems necessary in the light of global processes that take place in economy and growing internationalization of economy. This model derives from the approach that is addressed to as post-Fordism. The writings created in the field of this approach are seen as the ideas referred to high level of confidence, skill increase and addition of value. This idea bases upon the notion of a well educated worker and information-oriented society, where everyone needs to increase his educational level. There are the commentators that adduce a set of arguments that question the attractiveness of this idea. They speak about the roughness of the processes that are suggested by the authors of post-Fordist theories, as these processes won't be all alike and would be differently implemented in various sectors of economy. They also state, that a significant part of relations within the economy are influenced outside, from the society and wouldn't be defined by economic determinism. The methods of development of capitalistic economic structure won't be necessary referred to the ideas of post-Fordism, they would be redesigned as to gain maximum effect in surplus value. They also speak about post-Fordist disregard of social oppositions and difference in attitudes to the essential points of the process. (Woods P., Carlyle D. 2003) Works Cited: 1. Avis J. (1997) Globalisation, the Learner and Post-Compulsory Education: policy fictions. Research in Post-Compulsory Education, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2. Graham J. (1997) The National Curriculum for Teacher Training: playing politics or promoting professionalism British Journal of In-service Education, Vol. 23, No. 2, 3. Hallinger, P. & Hausman, C. (1993) From Attila the Hun to Mary had a little lamb: redefining principal roles in restructured schools. 4. International Studies in Sociology of Education, Volume 12, Number 2, 2002 5. Maguire M., Ball, S. (1994) Discourses of Educational Reform in the United Kingdom and the USA and the Work of Teachers. British Journal of In-service Education, Vol. 20, No. 1, 6. Whitty G. (1997) Education Policy and the Sociology of Education. International Studies in Sociology of Education, Vol. 7, No. 2, 7. Woods P., Carlyle D. (2003) Teacher Identities under Stress: the emotions of separation and renewal 8. Teachers attack plan to let Ofsted close schools. EducationGuardian, May 17, 2005 Read More