Teacher Strategies (RLE Edu L)

Explorations in the Sociology of the School

Peter Woods

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415753012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136462788
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

This book takes as its focus the key interactionist concept of 'strategy', a concept fundamental to many current concerns in the sociology of the school, including the understanding of the links between society and the individual, a more accurate description of certain areas of school life and implications for the practice of teaching. 'Strategy' bears on all these issues. It concerns both goals, and ways of achieving them and short-term, immediate aims as well as long-term ones. The essays in this book share a common concern with teacher strategies, emphasizing the discovery of intentions and motives, alternative definitions of situations and the hidden rules that guide our behaviour. Amongst the areas investigated are the influence of factors outside the school in determining the role of the teacher, and the nature and influence of teacher commitment.

The implications for practical action and policy making are stressed throughout, and by recognising and exploring the constraints and influences that operate on teachers, this work constructs a realistic appraisal of the teaching situation.

1	STRATEGIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING Peter Woods

Strategies — What Are They?

The concept of strategy gives us a useful purchase on the various issues discussed in the Introduction. In essence, strategies are ways of achieving goals. One definition of strategies is as patterns of ‘specific and repeatable acts chosen and maintained in logical relationships with one another to serve the larger and long-term rather than the smaller short-term objectives …’.¹ So they are identifiable packages of action linked to broad, general aims. More immediate objectives might be subsumed under them together with the associated planned action, as tactics within strategies. Many are patterned and complete in themselves, and governed by some controlling principle. Goals cannot be taken for granted. They may be different from what they appear to be, or they might be conditioned in some way, they might have to be seen within a range of priorities, or in the degree of desire to reach them. There might be goals within goals, some almost unattainable like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the others representing a series of successive fall-back positions. The associated strategies would overlap, and by no means neatly, as now one goal appeared uppermost, now another. For example, teachers might have some general aims of ‘teaching’, ‘educating’, ‘socialising’, etc., but with a rebellious form in a secondary school, one teacher might aim to ‘hammer some sense into them’ to achieve some objective standard; another to humour them with a view of teaching them something ‘about life’ — another simply to pass the time away as agreeably as possible. Or, a single teacher might display these, and many more, within his own framework. Clearly, the more complicated the goal, the more complex the strategy; and the higher the goal, the greater extension of risk. For it is the problems that intervene between intention and risk that give strategies their character.

What governs the shifts, then, and what makes the study of strategies in schools such a fascinating one, is the number and complexity of the great unknowns in the teaching enterprise, and the gap between ideals and practice. There is reason to believe that this gap is greater today than ever before, due to the pace of social change.² The more stable the scene, the more routinised strategies will become, and the more straightforward and manifest new ones will be. The more rapid the change, the more problems are thrown up as new situations arise, old strategies are outworn and new ones constantly demanded. Teachers are in the sort of job which is being overtaken by events, especially in the secondary area. Before they can devise a satisfactory life-support system, they are having to fall back on more and more ad hoc measures, thus devising strategies within strategies.

The extremes of the teacher problem are illustrated by ‘the weekend syndrome’ — the devising of brilliant teaching programmes over the weekend, and their instant dismissal in the first minute of Monday morning reality. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this is how the weekend syndrome persists among the most experienced and ‘hard-headed’ of teachers, despite the obdurate, persistent and over-whelming nature of the reality of the teaching situations. Teaching thus, for most, is never a settled activity. A whole range of goals are held in view, and selection is made on the basis of such factors as resources, teacher-pupil ratio, pupil receptivity. These are interjected as hurdles into the route to the master goal, and either strategies are devised to get round them, or different goals are selected.

These strategies could, of course, be formal ‘teaching techniques’, but they are a particular kind, and only the tip of the iceberg of teacher strategies. For another distinctive feature of them is their implicitness. They are more frequently the unstated action of ‘between weekends’, or ‘after teacher training’, and the unseen action of the ‘autonomous’ teacher in the fastnesses of his classroom. They are not what are presented under ‘inspection’, or when the headmaster is in attendance. This is a hidden curriculum. It will no doubt invite a range of varied and differing explanations. But we might note here one problem that exacerbates this dilemma. This is the disjunction between teachers as a group, and particularly the promotion of their claims to professional expertise on a level with other more recognised ‘professions’, and the individual teacher faced by the harsh realities of the classroom, which impede and often frustrate the practice of that expertise. He has to cope, but to be seen to cope in accordance with what is expected from a professional if he is not to damage the teacher image. This disjunction matches exactly the gap between ideals and practice mentioned above. Teachers want to be experts, and indeed by any standards when measuring them by skills and knowledge, both of an academic and interpersonal nature, they do possess great expertise. And it has grown over the years, with, for example, the extension of teacher training, and now the real prospect of an all-graduate profession. But society gives these experts neither the tools for the job, nor the raw material. Creativity and ingenuity is displaced from the manifest job in hand to the latent necessity beneath.

Strategies — Some Theoretical Considerations

Here I want to consider five other prominent aspects of strategies, relating them to their origin in interactionist theory. They are 1. the emphasis upon the individual's input, and upon intentions; 2. cultural influences; 3. the presentation of ‘front’; 4. the importance of context and situation; and 5. the relation to structure and process.

The Individual

In interactionist theory, the human being is the constructor of his own action. Since he is able to view himself as object, he can make indications to himself, and these, he interprets. This interpretation, though guided by culturally influenced perspectives, carries the essence of his individuality:

In order to act the individual has to identify what he wants, establish an objective or goal, map out a prospective line of behaviour, note and interpret the actions of others, size up his situation, check himself at this or that point, figure out what to do at other points and frequently spur himself on in the face of dragging dispositions or discouraging settings.³

It is this which guided W.I. Thomas in his concept of ‘the definition of the situation’, wherein he argued that ‘if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences’.⁴ It is the interpretation that counts as far as actions are concerned, and therefore man's own thoughts and evaluations, not instinct, nor the ‘objective’ reality of the situation.

The processual nature of the act is well illustrated by Mead:

There are no static elements. There are things that do not change although they pass. These are but two sides of the same situation, at least in the world that is there. There is no thing that does not change, except in so far as it passes, and there is no passage, except over against that which does not change. Motion, or change of position, is a change of that which in certain respects remains without change, while the change of quality involves that whose substantial character remains unchanged — but neither takes place except in passage. Abstractive thought isolates these phases of the world that is there …⁵

So the act is a succession of phases, of which the manifest behaviour is but one. It includes the initiator, the ‘I’ reflecting upon the various ‘Mes’ in the form of particular, significant and generalised others, which themselves are the product of much past interaction; taking the role of the other, making representations to oneself, interpreting, and ultimately performing the visible act. The individual input is there in all social action, and is emphasised in strategical work.

Cultures

Actors need a basis on which to orient their interpretation of others, and to this end they first define the situation. This gives them a key to interpretation and aids the construction of their own action. Thus pupils learn to identify what consistutes ‘a proper lesson’, ‘a conflict situation’ or ‘a laugh’. Key definitions become structured because previous interaction has established common understandings of them. This is how cultures arise, and how they both form a platform for interpretation and a basis for new developments.

New recruits just beginning their careers find rich, well-established, jealously guarded and vigorously championed teacher cultures already in existence when they enter schools. These cultures, or sub-cultures, promote certain sets of strategies. But it is a dialectical process. As Lacey has explained,

As a group of individuals develop or acquire a sense of common purpose, so the sets of strategies adopted by them acquire a common element. It is this common element that enables the common perspective to emerge. As the perspective develops, and if over a long period of time, the situations that continually face the group have a common element, then the understandings broaden and develop to produce a sub-culture.⁶

It then exerts an influence in its own right. So also, do other cultures the individual belongs to. As he progresses through life, he acquires a mixture of cultures, which are all available to him to some degree or other to translate into strategies. Social class cultures, for example, will profoundly influence the strategies employed by pupils. It is both a constraining and enabling situation, the culture predominating in circumstances where the individual is at a disadvantage with institutional forces, such as beginning school (for either teacher or pupil), the individual's own initiative growing as he gradually becomes more socialised into the way of things and contributes to new cultural forms. Thus teacher culture can enable the new recruit to get by, by pointing him to certain strategies that have stood the test of time. But it can also inhibit him if he allows his own initiative to be subsumed under it. Recent work however points to a variety of cultural forms and suggests continued opportunities for individual input. As Lacey notes, Becker and his colleagues emphasised the homogeneity of student culture and the inexorably constraining influence of the institutional structure. They implied as a consequence, that there was little variation among student perspectives.⁷ But as Lacey's own previous work has shown, as has that of Hargreaves, student sub-cultures can form in opposition to the formal school culture, and exist, sometimes uneasily, sometimes comfortably, within it.⁸ Work since then has demonstrated the existence of many cultures within the school actively constructed by pupils and teachers, some of them subject to continual change depending on which individuals are present.⁹

In another context, Wieder and Zimmerman have given a perceptive account of the process of becoming a ‘freak’, and how the individual relates to the sub-culture.¹⁰ It is an internal struggle to ‘work-out’ the freak life-style. They encounter situations by choice, then have to lose enough ‘uptightness’ to identify what they really want to do. They have ‘hang-ups’ when they respond more in tune with Protestant ethic values, as in ‘shame’, ‘guilt’, or ‘anxiety’. They develop strategies to cope with these, such as ‘being cast’ and ‘giving’ and significantly, sinking their ‘hang-ups’ in the group by throwing them open to general discussion. But the personal hang-up is resolved personally, the group acting as therapist. The culture develops from such interchanges. This study illustrates how the individual gives to and borrows from culture, and how the emergent strategies owe something to both. Becker has given a similar account of drug-users, though the emphasis here is on how the individual learns from the culture.¹¹ On schools, as already noted, Willis has suggested how pupils continually re-create their basic social class cultures within school, responding to identifiable structural and material concerns that run through society (which of course includes the educational system).¹²

In his more behaviourist study, Paisey addresses the problem of teacher individual input from a different angle implicitly from the point of view of the individual's contest with the institution.¹³ There are more mechanical and immediate tasks which can be fulfilled by mechanical strategies. But there is also an aspect of the teacher task which ‘invites the individual concerned to inquire into, and inform himself of, the larger contextual dimensions of the total operation of which his own share forms an integral part’.¹⁴ This is also implicitly about commitment on the part of the teacher. Their initial choice to become teachers, and the opportunities to fulfil their desires, are not in every case so clear cut and enabling as those of ‘freaks’. The point at which commitment meets possibility is an explosive one, and what might have been a neat package of strategies devised to meet a clear cut aim with adequate means becomes diffused into many different kinds. So that there are those who only address the mechanical tasks, and there are also those who are concerned with larger contextual dimensions. But there are also many who are a bit of both, and many in between.

Front

Strategy frequently implies a kind of deception. To reach goals we may have to outwit opponents who stand in the way of our attaining them, frustrate their plans to achieve goals which run counter to ours, or persuade others to join forces with us to add to our strength. Or we may wish to give the impression that we have reached certain goals. This deceptive element has been well covered by Goffman.¹⁵ ‘Impression management’ constitutes the attributes required of a performer for the work of successfully ‘presenting a front’. Presentation equipment consists not only of dress and display, but expressions of self.

Actors have to respond to each other for meaning to emerge and they are able to respond to each other because each of them takes the necessary steps to ensure that they announce their intentions — verbally and gesturally — so that the announcement would elicit the needed responses: they dramatize their meanings and create a social act.¹⁶

Thus individuals try to manage the impressions others have of them. In seeking to optimise their own concerns however, they will be found to moderate their own desires and feelings in the interests of establishing a ‘working consensus’. What comes to be accepted as a commonly agreed definition of a situation is not a reflection on what actually exists, but rather ‘a real agreement as to whose claims concerning what issues will be temporarily honoured’.¹⁷ Accordingly, interactionists have made much of the notion o...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction Peter Woods
• 1. Strategies in Teaching and Learning Peter Woods
• 2. Teacher Interests and Changing Situations of Survival Threat in Primary School Classrooms Andrew Pollard
• 3. ‘Keeping ‘em Quiet’: the Significance of Noise for the Practical Activity of Teaching Martyn Denscombe
• 4. The Role of Humour in Teaching: Strategy and Self- expression Robert A. Stebbins
• 5. Strategies and Structure: Some Critical Notes on Teacher Socialisation George Mardle and Michael Walker
• 6. The Occupational Culture of Teachers David H Hargreaves
• 7. Subject Disciplines as the Opportunity for Group Action: A Measured Critique of Subject Sub-cultures Stephen J. Ball and Colin Lacey
• 8. Teachers’ Conceptions of Professionalism and Trades Unionism: An Ideological Analysis Mark B. Ginsburg, Robert J. Meyenn and Henry D. R. Miller
• 9. The Politics of Participation — with Specific Reference to Teacher-pupil Relationships Colin Hunter
• 10. Patterns of Power and Authority in Classroom Talk A.D. Edwards
• 11. Technicians or Social Bandits? Some Moral and Political Issues in the Education of Teachers Anthony Hartnett and Michael Naish 2
• Notes on Contributors
• Subject Index
• Author Index