Teachers Learning in Community: Realities and Possibilities

8. A LOOK TO THE FUTURE

鵷 8 鵸 A LOOK TO THE FUTURE DIANE R. WOOD AND BETTY LOU WHITFORD Throughout this book, the authors have scrutinized learning communities in action, weighed the relative hospitality of their local contexts , and raised questions about their viability and potential. They have depicted learning communities as faltering in the face of serious obstacles and pressing demands, but they have also described scenarios in which these communities seemed to be thriving. After chapters 1–6 were drafted, all of the authors read one another’s work and came together for a half-day meeting to discuss what we had learned. We recorded, transcribed, and reviewed the conversation , which coalesced around the following questions: 1. Who should determine the work of learning communities, and what should that work be? 2. Are learning communities sustainable given the “entrenched realities” (Sarason 1996) of public schooling? 3. How can learning communities have a discernible impact on improving student learning? Drawing on both the research reported in this book and our prior knowledge of school change, we discussed a wide range of factors bearing on these questions, but we did not fully reach consensus. For example , some participants argued that learning communities should be mandatory in order to maximize school-wide impact; others argued that voluntary participation would build teacher commitment more effectively . Some argued that teachers ought to control their groups’ agendas; others said the district leadership should exert clear direction. And while 167 all of us agreed that such groups should improve student learning, we varied in our opinions about their capacity to accomplish such a goal. Nevertheless, there was strong agreement about one point. All of us had seen firsthand that learning communities tended to energize participating teachers and spark enthusiasm about collaborative work. Dick Corbett (coauthor of chapter 5) put it especially well. He observed that, despite obstacles and challenges, People still see the promise; it hasn’t waned. It’s not like “in the fading light of the project, people hearken back to the day when they were really excited.” It’s still there; they’re excited, so something’s going on. Around the room, everyone nodded. We have concluded the “something” is related to another recurring theme in this book: the professionalism of teachers. From the beginning, the project designers intended the learning communities to be a form of professional development, a means of facilitating “a collaborative culture within the schools, in which the school community works together to achieve mutually agreed-upon student-centered goals” (Pine and Duhl 1999, 5). And yet in many schools and districts across the United States, there is nothing professional about the development of teachers. In fact, they are often cast as technicians in need of retooling, especially in a high-stakes accountability context (Jones and Whitford 1997; Whitford and Jones 1998; Whitford and Jones 2000). We contend that a professionalizing stance toward teacher learning and development is a far better course. How professional development is approached in schools ought not to position teachers as technicians, expected mainly to implement decisions made outside of the classroom. Rather, professional development should promote teachers as professionals by encouraging them to develop and share knowledge and exhibit agency through more clearly defined decision-making authority. In fact, we maintain that such an approach is essential if schools are to operate more equitably and attend effectively to the learning needs of all children. In this final chapter, we first explore why fostering teachers as professionals offers the best hope for ensuring student learning. Then we summarize how learning communities can contribute to professionalizing teachers’ work. Finally, we argue that, despite their promise, learning communities as we came to understand them during this research are insufficient in and of themselves as a means for professionalizing teaching cultures. 168 DIANE R. WOOD AND BETTY LOU WHITFORD TEACHER LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT: A PROFESSIONALIZING STANCE The scenarios of more successful learning communities presented in this book demonstrate that they can be fertile grounds for teacher development . Teachers in these groups socially constructed professional learning as they collectively critiqued student learning and their own practices; defined questions and problems in their work with students; engaged in reflection, dialogue, and inquiry; consulted outside expertise; and tried out new practices. Why should schools invest in developing this kind of collaborative learning? The best of the learning communities we saw were those in which the teachers accepted the responsibility to talk honestly about the...