Ask teachers what gives them most job satisfaction, and the vast majority are likely to talk about the sense of professional fulfilment they get from seeing pupils making good progress in their learning and personal development. Some may recount “lightbulb” moments when youngsters who have been struggling with course material suddenly have a breakthrough in their understanding. Others may interpret progress in broader terms and refer to the increased confidence of pupils, their improved social skills, their capacity to work cooperatively, their growing maturity and sense of identity. Some teachers take particular pleasure in helping youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds or who have special educational needs. In all cases, the focus is on enabling learners to grow as human beings and acquire knowledge, skills and dispositions that will be of benefit in later life.

Disaffection

But these positive feelings often coexist alongside more negative attitudes about the context in which teachers work. We are familiar with reports of low morale, complaints about stress and overwork, and frustration at the amounts of paperwork and demands of bureaucracy. The seemingly endless directives from bodies such as Education Scotland and the Scottish Qualifications Authority cause particular resentment. Again, local authorities are seen not as employers who provide welcome support, but as agencies of oppressive control. Quality-improvement officers (QIOs) are regarded as another layer of inspection, in contrast to the old advisory service which had a more benign relationship with class teachers. Headteachers complain about the tortuous processes involved in gaining approval for staffing requests and question the value of producing school development plans, which rarely influence policy decisions at council level. Too many of the returns they are required to make seem like exercises in ticking boxes or covering backs.

Of course, local authorities are themselves under great pressure owing to budget cuts and the expectations of central government that initiatives such as the Pupil Equity Fund will produce measurable results in relation to achievement. Many local authorities have been forced to reduce the number of senior staff and combine the remits of those who remain. Too often, however, this has been seen as an administrative exercise rather than an opportunity to reflect on how officials in local authorities can maintain services and establish better relations with those on the front line in schools. Regional Improvement Collaboratives may help, though it is too early to judge their success (which requires independent assessments, rather than self-reporting). Restructuring which is not accompanied by fundamental rethinking is likely to produce limited results. Tinkering with the traditional hierarchical structure and redefining lines of responsibility will not address the lack of trust which causes so much teacher disaffection.

The co-existence of these positive and negative feelings about teaching has led to a crisis of teacher identity, reflected in deep uncertainties about roles, priorities and the nature of professionalism.

How might morale be improved so that teachers have greater scope to concentrate on the work that gives them real satisfaction and are less bogged down by political and bureaucratic distractions? There is no quick fix but a starting point might be to reflect on what we have learned from the experience of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). Learning is at the heart of the reform programme, a principle that should apply to professionals as well as pupils. One key message is that managing change successfully is dependent on winning the hearts and minds of teachers. Most teachers were initially quite well-disposed to the CfE proposals, partly because they were expressed in positive language (eg, the four capacities) that gained ready assent. But feel-good rhetoric is no substitute for hard thinking and subsequent analysis showed that the curriculum that was being proposed was conceptually confused, containing an uneasy combination of content, process and outcome models.

The idea of liberating teachers from previous top-down approaches to curriculum development also seemed attractive at first but there was insufficient recognition that it needed a complete change of mindset from the more prescriptive style of the 5-14 curriculum. To be successful, it required a shift of culture affecting not just classroom teachers but also inspectors and development officers in Education Scotland. There is little evidence that this took place. The rollout of the programme relied, for the most part, on established methods of in-service training. There was insufficient scope for teachers to engage in “sense-making” exercises to develop their understanding of what CfE entailed. So it was not surprising that some teachers were uncertain about what they were being asked to do. The “hidden curriculum” of CfE was that teachers were expected to change but those occupying positions of authority would carry on much as before. What was being devolved to teachers and schools was responsibility, not real power.

There are other lessons to be learned from CfE: that spectacle is not the same as substance; that the gathering of relevant data as a basis for proper evaluation needs to be an integral part of the plan; that other initiatives (for example, reducing the attainment gap) may affect the “flagship” policy; that there are likely to be unintended consequences in any reform programme; that politicians bearing “gifts” (such as a promise to reduce bureaucracy) should be treated with suspicion; that teachers are skilful at resisting change if they are not convinced by the thinking behind it.

Resistance

It is important to distinguish between different types of teacher resistance. There are those who are unsettled by the prospect of a more active role in shaping the curriculum and are inclined to say: “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” This may be accompanied by resentment when someone does just that, suggesting a degree of professional ambivalence. Then there are those have thought seriously about proposals for reform but are not persuaded by them, particularly if they feel learners may not be well served by the changes. They may speak out at meetings and write letters to the press. In the conformist culture of Scottish education, this reaction is likely to be unwelcome to senior staff, but it should be viewed as evidence of intellectual engagement and used as a basis for constructive professional dialogue.

Yet another form of resistance can be seen in those teachers who may pay lip service to the recommended changes, even adopting some of the approved language, but in their own classrooms continue to operate much as before, perhaps with some minor gestures towards the expectations of officialdom. But the most disturbing group are the die-hard recalcitrants, who are utterly dismissive of anything that might require them to re-examine their professional stance. Most staffrooms have a few people who fall into this category and the requirements of Professional Update are unlikely to make much impact on their intransigence.

Underlying these various forms of resistance are deeper questions about teachers’ attitudes to their own professional learning, starting at the pre-service stage and continuing beyond it. Here another form of bipolarity can be detected. First, let us acknowledge the positive side. It is possible to construct an impressive narrative of the history of the teaching profession of Scotland over the past 200 years. It would include reference to the pioneering work of David Stow in teacher training, the founding of the Educational Institute of Scotland in 1847, the efforts of the churches and then the state in improving courses and regulating admission, the establishment of the General Teaching Council in 1965 and its increasing role in setting standards for different stages of career development, and the continuing campaign by teachers’ organisations to raise the status of the profession.

Yet despite all this effort, a number of teachers remain unconvinced about the value of their own initial training and the many opportunities now available for ongoing professional learning. They see the “real” work of teacher education as taking place in classrooms (the places where they gain most professional satisfaction) rather than in university lecture halls or in courses run by Education Scotland or the General Teaching Council for Scotland. Arguments that theory and practice are interdependent are treated with scepticism, despite the considerable improvements that have been made in partnership arrangements between university faculties of education, local authorities and schools.

This outlook should be a source of concern. In a profession whose rationale is to encourage learning in others, it appears disturbingly anti-intellectual. Furthermore, it serves to undermine the drive for enhanced professional status. A comparison with other occupations, such as medicine and the law, is relevant here. Their unquestioned professional status is partly dependent on the expectation that they will keep up with new knowledge in their fields and upgrade their specialist skills as required. A lawyer who failed to inform himself about changes in legislation would be deemed incompetent. A doctor who continued to rely only on what he had learned as a medical student, without bothering with the latest research or the potential of new drugs, would be in danger of being struck off the medical register. Professional status carries certain obligations - to update knowledge, to acquire new skills, to reflect critically on existing practices. Until all teachers take this on board, their aspiration to achieve the social recognition they seek is unlikely to be fulfilled. The situation is changing slowly, with more teachers signing up for advanced qualifications, but there is still a long way to go. As the late Gordon Kirk observed, in the final analysis, “the hallmark of the professional teacher is that he or she holds open the possibility of enhanced performance, not as a response to political diktat, nor as a form of compliance, nor in fulfilment of a contractual requirement, but as the expression of an inner professional commitment to improved [understanding and] practice”.

Resilience

There are both individual and collective aspects of the bipolar tendencies described above. Teaching has always been an occupation that requires a fair amount of resilience. On days when things go well, when pupils are responsive and keen to learn, it can seem the best job in the world. But on days when things go badly, when a combination of pupil resistance and management insensitivity frustrate one’s best efforts, a mood of demoralisation, and even despair, can take over. This helps to explain why some teachers, including some talented young teachers, decide they have had enough and leave. But for those who remain, what are the options? It might be tempting to keep one’s head down and concentrate solely on what goes on in the classroom. That may work for some individuals but it will not bring about the wider changes that are needed - changes to the institutions and culture of education, to the political context in which policies are made, to the professional thinking that shapes ideas about the aims and values of schooling.

Such questions demand a high level of intellectual engagement and a willingness to re-examine “common sense” assumptions about the learning of both pupils and teachers. Entering this challenging territory requires more than individual responses: it calls for a fundamental reappraisal of teacher identity - including how well classroom teachers are served by those responsible for the management of change.

Walter Humes is an honorary professor in the faculty of social sciences at the University of Stirling. In June he received the John Nisbet Fellowship, awarded for an outstanding contribution to educational research

This article originally appeared in the 2 August 2019 issue under the headline “The yin and yang of teaching”