The teaching profession at the cossroads

THE TEACHING PROFESSIONAT THE CROSSROADS:COLLECTIVE DYNAMICS AND STRATEGIES BEFORE THE CHALLENGES OF THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY
Mariano Fernández Enguita
Universityof Salamanca, Spain
www.enguita.info
Sophia University, Yotsuya Campus, Tokyo
June 23, 2010

Abstract
The acceleration of social change, up to the point that A. Giddens has depicted as a runaway world, is rebuilding the coordinates for education processes, the school system and the teaching profession. The overflow of information paradoxically provokes a further inequality and hierarchization of knowledge and a relentless struggle for attention between the school and other socialization and communication means. The teaching profession, which so successfully conducted us into the Gutenberg Galaxy, seems to be ill equipped to do so into the Internet Galaxy.
In this context, the move towards professionalization runs the risk of deviating into a fall in professionalism, i.e. into an strategy of dual closure which simply pursues to put the profession out of reach either of the democratic state or of the public to be educated. This corporatist strategy is aided by a distortion and instrumentation of the old discourse of the political left, which allows the wrapping of corporatist interests with the flag of the public interest. The alternative is the (re)creation of an old/new democratic professional model, as different from our bureaucratic origins as from our liberal temptations.

INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE, ATTENTION
Information Society means information is abundant, ever cheaper, democratically accessible.
So knowledge becomes more necessary, more scarce, more hierarchical
Growing social stratification around knowledge
A third industrial revolution
So attention becomes scarce
Problems for the school side by side with the city, the media, the internet
Arbitrariness as a point of departure

TWO ICT REVOLUTIONS, BUT ONE SCHOOL, ONE PROFESSION
Gutenberg galaxy
One speaks (writes) to many
Teachers were born with it: they were readers, and writers (calligraphers, even authors)
Ancient philosophers, like Plato, feared the effects of writing: see Phaedrus dialogue.
Internet Galaxy
Many speak/write to many
Change acceleration erodes age and teachers’ status
ICT and IKS mean distributed info and knowl.
Teachers are digital immigrants, pupils are native

How would you qualify the situation of the school system and its academic level?

SOME SUCCESFUL BOOKS, WRITEN BY TEACHERS AND FOR TEACHERS
The Anti-Pedagogic Pamphlet (Moreno)
A Teacher in the Trenches (Tortosa)
The Pedagogical Sect (Ruiz Paz)
Education Destroyed (Orrico)
The Educational Smash (Salvador)
The Great Swindle. The rape of common sense in education (Delibes)
Archipiélago Orwell (Rosúa)
Educational Genocide (Tamburri)
…and so on so forth, some with more neutral titles

SPANISH TEACHERS SALARIES IN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT(EURYDICE, 2001-02, 34 countries)

SPANISH TEACHERS’ MOST CHERISHED COLLECTIVE DEMANDS
Early retirement
Voluntary at 60, with 30 years at work, with full salary.
(Mandatory is at 65, soon will be 67, pension depending on 15 last years contribution)
Continuous working day
The concentration of lecturing hours in the morning, 9:00-14:00)
(Paid work week is 37,5 hours at public school)

The problem of recognition
CIS: Barometer 07/04, general population:
In your opinion, how do you value the work of professors in prmary and secondary schools: very good, good, regular, bad or very bad?
Very good + Good = 63,9%
And how do you think that society values it?
Very good + Good = 33,5%
IDEA/FUHEM, 2006, pupìls’ parents
“My family values teachers positively”
Strongly agree + Agree = 83,7%
“Society values teachers work [positively] enough”
Strongly agree + Agree = 38,8%

A PARADOXICAL SITUATION
Teachers collective attitudes
Deep unrest
Strong tendency to detachment
Victimism, suspicion…
Notwithstanding their objective position and evolution
High social valuation
Comparatively high wages (compared nationanlly to ISCED5 and internationally to teachers)
Full time wage, part time job
Work conditions fast and widely improved

EMPLOYER, SOCIETY
USURPATION:
solidarity, mobilization
DUAL PROFESSIONAL CLOSURE(Frank Parkin’s concept, adapted)
PROFESSION
EXCLUSION:
differentiation, legalism
PUBLIC, CLIENT

PROFESSIONAL MODELS
BUREACRATIC , Organizational
(Civil service: hierarchy, discipline, procedures)
HISTORICAL ORIGINS
TEACHERS
DEMOCRATIC:
- Initiative vs. hierarchy
Teamwork vs. solo practice
Partnership vs. paternalism
PRESENT ASPIRATIONS
LIBERAL, Market
(Autonomous practice: jurisdiction, exclusiveness)

SOME PARADOXES OF EDUCATORS RADICALISM
Widespread anti-globalism, being a global institution and a global profession
Widespread anti-(neo)liberalism, in a bureaucratic profession which fosters a liberal professional ideal (medicine)
Pretended anti-authoritarianism, while exercising an authority-invested role before pupils and parents.
Meritocratic utopianism, acritical stand before power based on or associated to skills and knowledge

THE MEANING OF TEACHERS RADICALISM
The bulk of intellectuals criticism must be seen as a result of status incongruence
Criticism of others’ advantages combines with the defense of own privileges
A rhetoric that advances group interests as universals values: teachers  school system  (children ) society as a whole
A dangerous rhetoric in the coming of knowledge society

THE SOCIAL CRITICAL TRADITION
Liberalism as a critique of authority
Eliminated personal dependence
It failed to criticize power in voluntary relations, such as property or wage labour
Marxism as a critique of property
It exposed them as power relations, particularly capitalist property
It underestimated personal freedom (factory despotism, class dictatorship, etc.)
None of them was as critical of qualification
Most liberals, hostile to people education
However, Weber, Young, Illich…
Marxism, celebrating revolutionary vs. petit-bougeois intellectuals
Wright (Neomarxist): skill assets
Mannheim: freischwebende Intelligenz

MULTIDIMENSIONALITY OF POWER: SOCIETY AS A SYSTEM

What’s going on?
School is not a firm, but a very different kind of organization: an institution
In institutions, the main force is neither the proprietor or employer, nor the whole of members (pupils, parents) or the public, but the profession(s)
As an institution, school is particularly asymmetric: age gap, knowledge gap, conscription
Teachers are not part of the working class in any sense, but a professional group, with professional interests, privileges and strategies
Good for the profession does not mean good for the institution, much less for is public or for society, but the rethoric of the political left is easy to instrumentalize

SOME PAPERS IN ENGLISH(ABOUT THE TEACHING PROFESSION)
School Democratization and Teachers' Professionalism
Schools, Teachers and Social Change
Get to Know Yourself, or Better Not
Alland more at: www.scribd.com/enguita

THE TEACHING PROFESSIONAT THE CROSSROADS:COLLECTIVE DYNAMICS AND STRATEGIES BEFORE THE CHALLENGES OF THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY
Mariano Fernández Enguita
Universityof Salamanca, Spain
www.enguita.info

The teaching profession at the cossroads

by Mariano Fernández Enguita on Jul 24, 2010

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