constraining factors that impinged on the TE’s pedagogy, as well as on the STs’ overall learning experiences. I commence by exploring the extent to which the policy environment exercised a washback effect on the TE’s pedagogy. In particular, I explore the contrasting scenarios of an open dialogic space with a tomorrow (p.97) and a constricted space with no tomorrow (pp.97-100). I then proceed to examine supporting and constraining factors in the ITE environment as viewed, either implicitly or explicitly, through STs’ eyes. I conclude with some thoughts concerning the nature of the principles of practice discussed.
5.5.1 The pedagogy of teacher education in the thrall of market forces
In his critical interrogation of school-led training, Brown (2018) suggests that it is often not education principles but local market conditions that can determine the design of the ITE courses that universities are able to offer within the School Direct scheme. The TE encountered this issue when she had to teach her Core PGCE group together with STs from School Direct schemes (pp.97-98). Because of the centrally-negotiated content of these one- off sessions, she felt ‘not really the owner or designer of the process at all’. The natural corollary of this lack of agency was having to teach in a constricted space with no tomorrow. As noted on pp. 97-98, because of the perceived nature of the market, ‘sales’ considerations trumped pedagogical ones as the TE adopted what she termed her ‘Dropbox approach’ involving a veritable smörgåsbord of activities that aimed to provide STs from School Direct schemes with ‘their money’s worth’ of classroom activities. Here the TE appeared to have
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become ensnared in the trap of wanting to ‘cover the waterfront’ (Kosnik et al., 2009, p.174). Further, because she was no longer operating in an open dialogic space with a tomorrow, but rather a constricted space with no tomorrow, she was unable to orchestrate lived experiences that could be re-experienced (p.76) and then explored in the more challenging (4.6), Socratic, ipsative, and maieutic ways that were normally part of her signature pedagogy. Instead, she was operating in a fashion more characteristic of the weak end of the modelling continuum, for although there was some reference to theory, she eschewed pursuing certain theoretical ideas because the latter would have highlighted fundamental knowledge differences between the two groups (p.98). This represented not only the ‘delicate dance’ (ibid) she would often have to perform in response to the policy environment; it also suggested that exercising a high level of pedagogical skill is not necessarily an essentialist quality ─ context matters, even for the most skilled of professionals.
5.5.2 The spectre of Ofsted
There were some elements of the TE’s course that were centrally prescribed on the basis of perceived inspection requirements. The issue of what constitutes an ‘outstanding lesson’ and ‘best practice’ (p.99) was one instance of this phenonomen. Since such prescriptions did not mesh with the TE’s educational vision and principles, and because they would have impaired the continuity-and-interaction dimension of her course, she would ‘discreetly resolve’ and ‘subvert’ (p.99) these centrally-imposed agendas. For example, ‘How to teach an outstanding lesson’ became ‘Lesson structure revisited’. By dint of the TE being ‘mistress of her own domain’ and having ‘a tomorrow’, she was able to exercise a certain degree of street-level bureaucracy (Lipsky, 2010) and wriggle out of an externally-imposed a priori pedagogical straight-jacket, thus preserving the continuity-and-interaction dimension of her teaching. In discussing these issues, the TE made the very interesting point that she not only had the freedom to do this, but also the relevant pedagogical knowledge. This was in contrast to one particular course where she had not ‘rebelled against the highly prescribed ways of doing things’ (p.99) because she felt she possessed neither the freedom nor the subject knowledge to do so, although she could problematise the shortcomings of what was being prescribed in the form of the decontextualised modes of reflection as mentioned in 4.3.2. In her view, the lack of freedom and deep domain-related pedagogical knowledge reduced her to a ‘deliverer’ and a ‘task manager’ (p.98). This observation suggests that a high level of pedagogical skill in one area, is not readily transferrable to another. Subject knowledge matters.
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5.5.3 The student-teachers’ development: supporting and constraining factors
According to Beauchamp et al. (2015, p.160), the dominant skills-based nature of the English Teachers’ Standards (Department for Education, 2011c) runs the risk of reinforcing a view of teaching not as ‘a research-based profession and intellectual activity’ but as ‘a craft-based occupation’ based on ‘performative professionalism’. For example, frequent explicit reference to the Teachers’ Standards in taught sessions, or using them to drive the teacher-education learning processes, could be construed as a sign of ‘performative professionalism’. Concerning this study, although there was an emphasis on the Teachers’ Standards within the general programme requirements as a means of measuring progress in school (p.60), reference to the Teachers’ Standards did not occur during the forty-eight hours of teaching I observed. In this respect, there was no evidence of the TE being in thrall to a ‘paradigm of technical rationality’ (Menter, 2016, p.19) with all its ‘teacher-proofing’ overtones (Maguire, 2011, p.32). Following Dewey (1904, p.15), the TE did not focus on short-term skill-getting, which, without wider educational understanding, can lead to a plateauing effect that starts and ends with ‘perfecting and refining skills already possessed’. In Dewey’s view, such an approach would deprive the STs of the ‘power to go on growing’, the corollary of which is that they would not become life-long ‘students of teaching’. It appears that the TE was not only playing the long game here; she was also ostensibly shielding her STs from the potentially restrictive impact of a compliance-driven environment as framed by the Teachers’ Standards.
In those instances in the school context where the STs were not shielded from compliance- related agendas and other restrictive practices, being able to return to the ‘safe’ environment of the university provided a refuge from what some STs had perceived to be the professional pressures and judgements of school (p.101). The university, therefore, acted as ‘place of respite and reassurance’ (Hodson, Smith and Brown, 2012, p.188), as a ‘safe place for unsafe ideas’ (Groundwater‐Smith, 2016, p.xviii). But there was also possibly an additional aspect to the feeling of safety because the STs were both inspired by the vision of language teaching being promoted (p.88) and, furthermore, they had first-hand experience of its effectiveness through the Serbian lessons, the bespoke observations in school, and the related follow-up sessions (p.78). Unlike in those circumstances where STs reject university-inspired ideas because they do not find them ‘practical, contextual, credible, or accessible’ (Gore and Gitlin, 2004, p.35), the reverse obtained. Indeed, as was noted in 5.3.1, the vision of language teaching being advocated, along with its underpinning rationale, acted as a form of refuge in those cases where STs were experiencing difficulties in school, especially in relation to ‘judgementoring’ (Hobson and Malderez, 2013) and its constraining effect through
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hypercritical, restrictive, and restricting feedback. Here theory played a perhaps surprising roIe as a confidante, non-judgemental friend, and guide, as did the assignment on assessment for learning (p.101). Nevertheless, in the short term, a particular compliance agenda had to be observed; but in the longer term, there was ‘critical hope’ (Freire, 2014) that presented ways of transcending the constraints of current classroom practices. And arguably, following Freire (2014, p.2), in today’s educational climate, ‘we need critical hope like a fish needs unpolluted water’. In conclusion, therefore, the STs experienced few long-term constraining factors because, without their being aware of it, the TE discreetly navigated them away from the potentially hypoxic waters of technical rationalism and compliance.