Stories of the Eight-Year Study: Reexamining Secondary Education in America

8. Staff Development:Teacher Workshops as Personal and Professional Growth

189 Chapter 8 Staff Development: Teacher Workshops as Personal and Professional Growth Improving the quality of teaching has long been a pressing issue and remains so today. Under federal legislation, the goal to place a highly qualified teacher in every classroom is a worthy aim. But definitions of what constitutes “highly qualified” are sharply contested as they have been for generations.1 Despite a century-long move toward increasing standards, at present a rather simplistic conception of outstanding teaching is predominant among many policy makers and politicians: to be a highly qualified teacher merely requires a college subject area major and some degree of verbal fluency. From this perspective, expertise is defined in technical ways, often by classroom behaviors, and the ultimate proof of good teaching is determined by high scores on students’ standardized achievement tests. Many educators realize that much more is involved. Few disagree that teachers require ongoing instruction in order to remain effective in the classroom, but debate becomes intense over what kind of education, or training, is most valuable. In particular, sharp disagreement exists concerning the respective value of content area versus pedagogical studies and activities in pre-service and in-service teacher education.2 Standing back from these differences, all agree that teachers should have strong academic backgrounds and possess specific skills demonstrated to promote learning. These values were also important to leaders of the Eight-Year Study; however, there was another area of concern, one that is seldom mentioned in discussions today: “To be a good teacher one must be first of all a good human being.”3 Being a “good human being” is not a precise designation either, of course, and consistent with the Aikin, Thayer, and Keliher Commissions’ spirit of experimentation , this end was never seen as fixed or static. The beliefs and values of teachers were considered very important, as were their 190 Stories of the Eight-Year Study academic knowledge and instructional skills. But Commission members understood that the humanness of a person—the thoughtfulness, the kindness , the inquisitiveness of the teacher—profoundly influenced not only how content would be presented but also how well students would learn. Educators who participated in the Eight-Year Study came from many different personal and academic backgrounds—from small liberal arts colleges to large universities and from specializations in science and mathematics to degrees in elementary education. In fact, the Aikin Commission’s Curriculum Associates applauded the diversity of experiences among the participating teachers, especially those who had previously held blue-collar jobs and maintained dramatically different interests.4 At the same time, these teachers shared qualities and dispositions —a deep curiosity about the problems of teaching and learning, a robust commitment to improving school practice, and a strong belief in themselves as learners—commonalities that seemed to emerge from discussions at some of the participating schools. Certainly such traits were embraced and promoted, since the project’s success rested ultimately upon the abilities of teachers to implement educational change. Yet these traits do not just appear. Teachers cannot be “trained” to accept values, nor do certain beliefs— the importance of school experimentation, for example—evolve naturally . In fact, one principal, in attempting to explain her staff’s modest attempts at experimentation during the initial years of the study, remarked , “We have come to love our chains.”5 Many of the teachers needed assistance to reimagine themselves as scholars and academics and to change habitual ways of thinking about instruction and learning . Their faith in experimentation and their confidence in themselves and others as being capable of directing reform would have to grow. Through a series of planned experiences—all oriented toward fostering discourse, examining ideas, clarifying values, and attending to consequences —teachers and staff were able to come together and reimagine themselves and their work as educators, that is, good human beings maintaining faith that positive outcomes would result from conversation and community. Commission leaders learned that one of the most significant factors for improving schools was straightforward but profound : “When a group of teachers dealing with the same students begins to talk about human beings instead of subject matter, changes begin.”6 Typically the Eight-Year Study is viewed as a curriculum project but, as previous chapters have shown, expanded to become much more. In this chapter we explore one of the more neglected aspects of the experiment : in-service teacher education designed for the growth of teachers broadly understood, involving more...