IP 89-11 The architecture of teaching.
Abstract
This paper explores the relationship among teaching, learning, and the occupational structures in which teachers do their work. The authors argue that recent policies implemented to improve the quality of the teaching profession by altering career structures are not likely to affect positively teachers' practices, teachers' work conditions, students' learning, and traditional school organizational patterns. Through analyses of four teacher career structures, the authors show that current occupational structures do little to address how teachers teach, what teachers know, and the diversity in terms of knowledge, skill, ambitions, and interests among individuals in the profession. Three alternatives for career structures are proposed: teachers as participants in a school community, teachers as participants in the local community, and teachers as individuals. The alternatives proposed are based on the assumption that the teaching occupational structure can support teachers as individuals who have knowledge, expertise, and interest in their work, worthwhile contributions to make in shaping their practices, and ambitions for professional growth. Supporting teachers in their efforts to change their work during the career cycle can facilitate teachers' abilities to enhance students' learning. The three alternative structures are discussed and evaluated in terms of how they account for individual differences among teachers while maintaining high standards for meaningful teaching and learning, and how they take into account existing organizational characteristics, norms, and expectations of teaching life.