Teacher as researcher and scholar

When the report Teacher Education for the Twenty-First Century calls for the education of “teacher-scholars,” it is reflecting a current trend in the professional development of teachers. The concept of teacher as researcher and teacher as scholar refers to the active research by teachers into their own classroom practices. In the past, teachers were often treated as passive objects by college professors who believed they could tell teachers the best means of improving their teaching. In addition, there was a tendency to promote “teacher-proof” classroom materials. Teacher-proof materials were to be so highly structured that they could not be misused by poor teachers. Basically, teacher-proof material turned the teacher into a technician whose major function was to implement someone else’s teaching methods and materials.

In contrast to teacher-proof material, the model of teacher as researcher and scholar assumes that classroom teachers are the best persons to do research on classroom methods and materials. In addition, the model assumes that part of the satisfaction of teaching involves the development of new methods of instruction and new classroom materials. In this model, the teacher assumes the responsibility of judging his or her own teaching methods, experimenting with and evaluating new methods, and actively exploring new methods of instruction by working with other teachers and seeking advice from university researchers and scholarly publications. The model also assumes that teachers are scholars of the material they teach. Through their own scholarly pursuits, teachers develop their own classroom material rather than rely upon others.

One of the arguments supporting the idea of teacher as researcher and scholar is that teachers are the best source of information about teaching and that their shared experiences provide a method of improving instruction. In Creating Spaces and Finding Voices: Teachers Collaborating for Empowerment, Janet Miller provides an example of the importance of teachers relying on their own experience and abilities to develop teaching strategies, or what Janet Miller calls “finding their voices”. In the book, which is a narrative about a group of teachers exploring their own experiences in teaching, Miller tells the story of “The Carton of Knowledge”. In this story, a new teacher of a college course receives a carton of lesson plans and classroom material from the previous teacher of the course. Initially, the new teacher unpacked the carton and tried to replicate the teaching of the previous teacher. After the teacher's initial attempts to use the material from the carton, she realized that her perspective on the course was quite different from that of the previous teacher. In addition, she was angry with herself for so willingly trying to follow the previous teacher's methods rather than expressing herself through her own materials and methods. She realized that most teachers and students are treated as passive objects who receive their wisdom from others. But passivity leads to poor teaching because teachers lose enthusiasm and creative energy, and their understanding of the subject matter is clouded by the imposition of someone else’s ideas.

The development of the model of teacher as researcher and scholar depends on teachers sharing experience. For instance, in Teacher Lore: Learning from Our Own Experience, teachers analyze their own classroom experiences and share them with other teachers. The editors of the book, William Schubert and William Ayers, argue that most teachers reflect on their own experiences and constantly monitor their teaching. Through this reflection, teachers are constantly improving their instructional practices and classroom materials. It is this active research on the part of teachers, they argue, that can provide the basis for improving the teaching of all teachers. The key to this process is giving teachers confidence in their own work and the opportunity to share it with others.

The profession of teaching has changed greatly since the nineteenth-century model of teachers as paragons of morality. The current emphasis on teacher as researcher and scholar reflects the growing control of the profession by teachers. Teachers are no longer passive objects; they are actively involved in improving their professional status and in improving teaching methods. As I will discuss in the next chapter, an important factor in current trends in professionalism is the power of the two teachers' unions.