TEACHERS KNOWLEDGE, PROFESSIONALISM AND TEACHER EDUCATION: SOME REFLECTIONS Maria Leonor Borges School of Education of the University of Algarve Portugal ABSTRACT This paper addresses the issue of teachers professional knowledge and professionalism, and focuses on the importance of teachers practical knowledge to their professional development. Teacher knowledge is seen as a sum of different kinds ok knowledge (subject matter, curricular, teacher education, experiential) with diverses sources (institutional biography, life experience, etc) (Tardif, 2002; Day, 1999). This praxeologique knowledge, tacit held and neither rational or explicit and, often, no spoken, emerges as private theory that legitimate teacher practices (Eraut, 1994, Esteves, 2002; Perrenoud, 1993, Van der Maren, 1995). In this sense, teacher is regarded as the producer of their own profession (Nóvoa, 1992), the principal agent in their professional development. If we want to improve quality in teacher education the study of the construction and expression of teacher knowledge is one of the main ways with implications on teacher education (preservice and inservice) that higher education can t ignore. The reflection presented in this paper reports to an undergoing collaboratively research about primary teachers pratical knowledge in Portugal. 1 TEACHERS KNOWLEDGE It is important to raise the question: should teachers be deprived of their role as knowledge builders and be confined to reproducing knowledge within their working environment, as mere third-party instruments? Accepting that teachers are solely limited to the exercise of knowledge reproduction is the same as considering them as machines responsible for applying theories and techniques, originated by scientific and technical knowledge, and denying them their human dimension as acting agents in the knowledge construction process. To this regard, Hargreaves (cit. in Domingo, 2003: 25) calls our attention to the fact that, as the teaching practice is an activity that deals with people and is characterised by the diversity and variability of teaching settings, the outcomes of such activity cannot be definitely established or anticipated. As teachers carry out their daily
work, they need to maintain a strong link between concept and practice, as well as the necessary autonomy to carry out their teaching/learning activities in teaching environments that are characterised by their complexity and unforeseeable outcomes. A teacher, defined as an acting agent with the capacity to reflect upon and build knowledge, must be a teaching professional with the capacity to create and self-reflect, in order to build knowledge from practice (Develay, 2004). The recognition of practical knowledge is, therefore, crucial in building the new professional identity of the teacher. According to Nóvoa the modern professional culture will inevitably be built on knowledge and powers inherent to teachers. (cit. in Esteves, 2002: 69) The necessary knowledge to carry out the teaching profession is achieved through practical rationality. Such knowledge is created through and based on the very working process, which requires time and practice. (Carter, 1990; Tardif, 2002). This kind of knowledge expresses the inevitable importance, and subjective dimension of teachers knowledge, which also emerges from the specificity of teachers work contexts. As highlighted by Perrenoud (1993), real teaching practices are achieved through spontaneous actions or interiorised routines, not from theories or recipes. The need to plan and organise work in the classroom, rooted in the instructive transposition of knowledge to teaching/learning environments, is challenged by the classroom context. Unforeseeable aspects of classroom context and interaction among/with students makes even the most meticulously planned class fall aground, thus forcing the teacher to make use of his teaching habitus and personal characteristics to act, adjust formal and personal knowledge and organise such knowledge according to any given situation (Perrenoud, 1993). In other words, teachers resort to a whole set of different types of knowledge, based on memory, information and experience, but they also resort to patterns of thinking, interpretation, hypothesis-making, evaluation, anticipation and decision-making in order to identify the relevant knowledge, and make the most appropriate selection, combination, extrapolation and differentiation. (Fryxell: 50). All aspects of this work may occur unconsciously, as teachers may not be aware of the patterns supporting it, in other words, this constitutes implicit knowledge. New knowledge must include objective and subjective characteristics, results of interaction between different types of knowledge and the way in which they are acquired and used by teachers. If, on one hand, knowledge is built on experience, it also depends on the way such knowledge is acquired, selected and interpreted by the teacher,
if we clearly assume that teachers are producers in the context of their professional activities. 2 EXPERIENTIAL KNOWLEDGE: KNOWLEDGE PRODUCED BY TEACHERS Teachers experiential knowledge includes all the knowledge used in their daily activities, within their respective teaching environments (Tardif, 2001): public theoretical knowledge, representations on pedagogical practice and all teaching agents involved in educational contexts, personal knowledge acquired through personal and professional life, practical knowledge and capacity to mobilize different types of knowledge. Teachers must be capable of articulating different types of knowledge (Tardif, 2001:) a) Professional Training Knowledge refers to knowledge transmitted by professional training institutions. b) Disciplinary Knowledge refers to social knowledge 1 defined by universities and transmitted to teachers in the form of disciplines, in initial and continuing training. c) Curriculum Knowledge refers to school programmes, through which the school presents social knowledge defined as Culture, in the form of discourses, objectives and methods. d) Experiential Knowledge rooted in practical rationality, such knowledge is developed by teachers based on their daily work, personal experience and validation. This type of knowledge is not learnt in training institutions and is not systematised in theory. Practical knowledge (practical knowledge and not of the practice) includes a whole set of representation, which serves as the basis on which teachers analyse, interpret and direct their daily professional activity. While production and control over the first three types of knowledge is external and unattainable 2 to teachers, experiential knowledge is a result of teachers analysis, 1 Social knowledge is all the knowledge available to any given society.
assessment and reflection in and throughout their professional practice, where they assume the principal role in every aspect of knowledge production. This praxeological knowledge is non-systematic, never fully defined and subject to the conditions inherent to any given context. As it is not necessarily based on logical and scientific thinking, teachers knowledge does not always hold to objective and conscious rationality, thus part of the knowledge is implicit in the action, in a logics that remains in the unconscious of the individual. If, in certain situations teachers actions are in agreement with their thoughts, there are situations where there is no link between thought and action (Esteves, 2002). It is also possible that, having conscience of the décalage between thought and action, teachers may alter their thinking in order to legitimate their actions in certain teaching situations. In other words, teachers do not always know why they act the way they do and are not always aware of everything they do and the reasons why they do it (Tardif, 2002, Van der Maren, 1995; Perrenoud, 1993). Van der Maren (1993) goes even further by stating that praxis can only be elaborated, if practitioners and researchers subject themselves to the rule that everything that occurs in practice does not necessarily have an explanation, nor does it need to be rational. Routines that are built on professional experience clearly illustrate teachers implicit knowledge. Such routines constitute knowledge-in-action, the practical conscience, which emerges from experiential knowledge of action transformed in ways of acting, not only prevent teachers from starting from scratch all the time but also enables them to avoid lengthy reflections and manage the complexity of teaching environments. Such routines (Giddens, 1987 cit. Tardif, 2002) serve the purpose of controlling situations but also to transform activities in resources to reproduce knowledge, which, with time and experience, defines teachers way of being, style and personality. This means that a routine activities rooted in the control of actions and based on learning and temporal acquisition of practical skills, do not depend on voluntary decisions, or choices made by the teacher, but rather on the interiorization of implicit rules of action acquired with and through the experimentation of action (Tardif, 2002: 206). The anamnesis of conscious discourse from temporal dimension implies that some teachers activities do not depend directly on their professional conscience or, in other words, the explicit knowledge of what they are and do. 2 The notion of exteriority is frequently expressed to devaluate professional training, designated as distant from reality and based on abstract theories from universities.
Thus, teachers knowledge holds to a certain objective and rational existence, which may be found in the reasons, discourse, language and argumentation expressed by teachers. They need to be asked why (causes, motives of their discourse or action) and how, as the means at their disposal hold subjacent motives, choices and decisions. But this information is not enough to have access to teachers knowledge, insofar as, and as discussed above, the latter are not always aware of this knowledge and, therefore, are unable to express it. Teachers knowledge must be studied not only on the basis of discourse but also in terms of know-how, observing and describing their activities in order to draw from their actions the subjacent skills that make it possible. In this line of thought, Van der Maren (1995) proposes a critical theorization of daily teaching activities (teaching praxis 3 ) resorting to a process of research that uses reflexive analysis of practitioners interpretative categories. However, one must always bear in mind that experience alone does not entirely assume a major role in the apprenticeship of being a teacher or, in other words, to learn with direct practice may bring experience but does not necessarily translate into knowledge (reflection, critics, systematization, etc) (Day, 1999). Moreover, the same experience may have different effects in the process of being a teacher, from person to person, whether it is ignored or brings about the construction of knowledge (praxis), which is related to teachers personal biography, training (formal and informal) and their particular level of professional development, among other aspects. 3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY Objectives: - Identify the processes through which teachers experience (practice) becomes knowledge (praxis) through the socialization process in their profession. - Identify the sources of this self-built knowledge. - Understand how teachers praxeological knowledge contributes to professional identity(ies). - Identify relevant elements to teachers training concepts and practices, in order to stimulate the development of praxeological knowledge in future teachers in training. 3 Praxis: reflection and conceptualization on practice.
6 METHODOLOGY The research is based on the teaching practice epistemology known as the study of a set of all knowledge truly used by professionals in their daily workplace to carry out all tasks (Tardif, 2001: 255). The research seeks to unveil these types of knowledge, how they are fully integrated in teaching activities and how teachers build such knowledge, incorporate, use and transform it when faced with the limitations and resources inherent to their professional activities. It s a collaborative study, as Van der Maren say the praxis can only be elaborated through the dialogue between the searcher and the teacher about their actions. The searcher is only a translator. The chosen methodology is qualitative, resorting to direct observation, analysis of documents and materials produced by teachers, and personal interviews. Considering the abovementioned issues and objectives, the study would initially include: 1 st Phase - Semi-directive interviews with teachers on the theme How did you learn to be a teacher?. Objective: isolate variables that intervene in professional knowledge construction 2 nd Phase - Naturalistic observation in the classroom: identify variables that intervene in knowledge construction, taking in consideration the teacher s professional development level. 3 rd Phase Focused observation assisted by observation tables built from results obtained in previous phases on the following subjects: interaction with pupils, activities developed, materials used. Objective: describe actions carried out by teachers in the different subjects studied, as well as the context in which they occurred. Video-recording of classes. 4 th Phase Mini-interview (recall interview) after observation where researcher and teacher/practitioner analyse what happened in the classroom and the actions of the latter, previously recorded in video. This study includes the participation of first stage - primary education teachers from several primary schools, in the city of Faro, selected in accordance with a judgement
sample and an intentional sample (Pardal & Correia, 1995). These samples include teachers from all age groups with different numbers of years of service and at different professional development levels. This ongoing research is at its initial phase, but I would like to share some information/ideas that seems to point the importance of experencial to be a teacher. I chose the words of two teachers, as you can see in Table 1, with different time service and in different development phases. For Maria, the youngest one, what she learn at the School of Education it wasn t useful to be a teacher. Where did learn how to be a teacher: Then I begin to learn with my older colleagues who were working from a long time. The importance of experience and the more experienced teachers seems to be very significant in her construction of being a teacher. And finally she says ( ) it begins to be usual to observe the others and put in practice ideas, and to experience/test. If we don t have good results, we must think, meditate/reflect to understand what was wrong and what we must do to be better. Perhaps, I was wrong about the pupils needs and I went to a wrong way. In this way I m testing ( ) : she begins to walk by her feet, she treys to find the solutions for her problems. For Ana, the older one: there are some things that come from my experience more practical, but that only happen because I have that formation. Probably, if I haven t that support formation I ll never remember to find there is always a mixing. For her what she learns in her initial training was important, however she also says and how we do? And how? So we exchange experiences. We can ask: if we make the same questions twelve years ago would the answer be the same about the importance of initial training? It s possible that after 22 years of experience she find a link between what she learnt and how she act? She says: it s the creative part, to create, create the lesson, to connect the things, Oh! Look I can do this way and than. Sometimes it happens in the moment. Experiences and practice seems to have a great importance for Ana and Maria and for their professional development. What are the processes through which this teachers transform their experience (practice) in knowledge (praxis)? What are the sources of this self-built knowledge? We will try to find an answer.
Table 1 What the teachers say About the Professional Training Knowledge Suggesting Experiential Knowledge P1Maria 10 years of service Age: 34 For me it was too much theory and then in the practice...the theory wasn t useful ( ) I think we must spent more time in practical work on schools, to have more practice as student teachers ( ) what I saw during the four years as student teacher as little do to with what happen outside ( ) P2 Ana 22 years of service Age: 45 ( ) I think there is a certain balance, which is: there are some things that come from my experience more practical, but that only happen because I have that formation. Probably, if I haven t that support formation I ll never remember to find there is always a mixing. - The importance of colleagues with more experience - The importance of practice - Building knowledge (implicit theories) Then I begin to learn with my older colleagues who were working from a long time. At the time I had a colleague giving me support in the class. This colleague has many years of experience and in that year I learned a lot. ( ) One day I was with a problem and she came and told me If you don t mind I can help you. I watch how the others do the things, but I begin to watch not the youngest ones, like me, but the colleagues with more age, and more experience. ( ) it begins to be usual to observe the others and put in practice ideas, and to experience/test. If we don t have good results, we must think, meditate/reflect to understand what was wrong and what we must do to be better. Perhaps, I was wrong about the pupils needs and I went to a wrong way. In this way I m testing ( ) ( ) and how we do? And how? so we exchange experiences. That school was a good place to learn, the practice and the exchange of experiences What was more important was much more the experience, and what the others told me. One thing is telling, Ah, everything is connected, but how to connect? That is intuitive. But it s the creative part, to create, create the lesson, to connect the things, Oh! Look I can do this way and than. Sometimes it happens in the moment.
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