“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” So goes the Chinese proverb, harking back to the Analects of Confucius.
In other words, being clear what a thing is - naming it - matters. It helps us all to know we are all talking about the same thing, to question based on shared understanding and to drive towards a common purpose with clarity.
If something doesn’t have a name, then you end up resorting to descriptions and imprecise terms, to euphemisms that are open to interpretation and can lead to confusion.
The meaning of teaching
We have a clear example in terms of “teaching” - a word that means multiple things and can be used generically - I can teach my dog a trick or teach my son the words to 1990s Britpop classics, but that doesn’t make me a teacher.
Instead, when it comes to the specific expertise of being a teacher, we use the term pedagogy - the teaching of children encompassing both subject knowledge (for example, a geography teacher needs to understand longshore drift to teach it to a class) and the practical skills and knowledge needed to teach (which would include things like understanding classroom management or assessment approaches).
By using the specific term, it enables us to be more focused on what we are discussing and to use that shared language to have an impact across all schools.
Pedagogy vs andragogy
There have been attempts to think differently about the teaching of adults, and the term andragogy seeks to draw a distinction between the approaches that should be taken with children and adults. It is a complex and diverse discipline with competing ideas, helped by the fact there is a specific term that allows those engaging in debate to do so within common parameters.
But what about the teaching of teachers? This includes teaching them to teach, as well as developing their teaching when in the profession. Would naming this discipline help us understand what is unique about it? Would the power of a name raise the status of debate about how to do it better?
We think it might.
A new language for the teaching of teachers
As a country, we spend many hundreds of millions of pounds on training teachers - from the initial teacher training (ITT) at the very start of their career, through to the Early Career Framework (ECF) as they are inducted into the profession, and onto National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) as they develop across the roles within the profession.
Government funding stretches to varying initiatives based on subject or phase, level of seniority or specialism. There are thousands of people in hundreds of organisations and institutions dedicated to teaching teachers.
Yet, we still find ourselves stumbling over language, using terms like “CPD” (which applies to specialist and generic training alike across all professions) or referring to programmes (ITT, NPQs) - rather than being clear about the specifics of teaching teachers.
Too often we see pedagogy being used as the basis of teacher training programmes. Of course, there are common threads from the teaching of children to the teaching of adults, and even to the teaching of teachers.
But if we are not deliberate in understanding distinctions, then we risk slipping into unhelpful practices and developing training programmes for teachers based on the same principles we apply to the children they teach. This can be both ineffective and feel patronising (adult brains and lives are very different to those of children, as are the opportunities to learn, after all).
At its worst, such approaches can feel infantilising and demoralising; the very opposite of what we should be aiming for if we want a motivated and curious profession.
A new working party
That is why we are launching a working party to explore what might be considered unique about the teaching of teachers, even to see if there is a word we should be using to define the discipline (or perhaps even create a new one).
Alongside staff from the Teacher Development Trust, the wider members are:
- Professor Tanya Ovenden-Hope, Plymouth Marjon University
- Emma Hollis, NASBTT
- Sam Gibbs, Greater Manchester Education Trust
- Jane Kennedy, Education Durham
- Lisa-Maria Muller, Chartered College of Teaching
- Phillipa Cordingley, CUREE
- Professor Caroline Daly, UCL
- Sarah Botchway, London South Teaching School Hub
Our first meeting will take place later this month and we hope to produce a first report by October. Anyone interested in sharing their ideas is welcome to get in touch with the project lead.
Finding a common language
Overall, we are not looking to create a single model or promote one approach over another.
Rather, this is about ensuring we have a common language to look at teacher training and professional development - that we are calling the thing by its proper name so we can debate it, improve it and celebrate it.
Gareth Conyard is CEO of the Teacher Development Trust
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