On standards and why we need them

The much-awaited sequel

TL:DR* I wrote an analysis paper. You can read the whole thing or the Executive Summary here.

*the paper is a lot longer than my post, below.

---

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

When I speak to teachers, especially leaders, what I often hear is a disdain for yet another change being imposed upon the profession. I’m an English teacher, so if there’s one thing I get, it’s change fatigue. So often, change is imposed from above and without consultation. From my vantage point, things are getting better. Teachers are more frequently stakeholders in the process. Greater emphasis has been placed on acknowledging feelings of discomfort or frustration that come with change, along with the need to de-implement practices to make room for better ones.

I also get the whiplash that can come from the various fads that have been imposed at the school and system level. The open plan classroom has been an abject disaster — all the brightly coloured, kidney-shaped desks and “funky” layouts in the world can’t save teachers from the chaos and noise that a lack of walls engenders. Or take for example the idea that if only we place students’ pictures on a wall, outcomes for diverse learners will ensue. What I don’t get is the view that evidence-based practice is just another pendulum swing, to be tactically ignored till it blows over.

Readers of this newsletter will know that I’ve heartily welcomed the TEEP review into initial teacher education. The core content, based on cognitive science about how students learn, and adaptive teaching in place of differentiation, is not new. It’s established research that many have studiously ignored while designing funky spaces and blue-tacking student faces to walls. I also don’t accept the view that most teachers already teach explicitly or that “this is the way we’ve always taught.” Explicit teaching isn’t just ‘chalk and talk’ and it isn’t simply not teaching using inquiry or PBL. “Explicit” is the most abused word in education right now.

Teaching isn’t easy to do really well. Foundational and ongoing knowledge is needed about the ‘why,’ and since universities have, by and large, not been teaching the core content, it stands to reason that “the way we’ve always taught” isn’t really what we think it is. It’s not the fault of the profession that we don’t have the education we need to deliver for our students. I (partially) blame the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, which inform content in initial teacher education. They’re qualitatively bereft, enabling a breadth of interpretations about “how students learn” and what’s fundamental to good teaching and learning. They also inform all professional development — and by inform, I mean sit by the sidelines. They’re Standards without a standard.

In addition, the Standards, as far as I know, have not been validated and we have no idea whether they’re related to teacher value-add in any way, or by any measure. I’m not saying that this task is easy, but I think we should at least try! The Standards do a pretty good job of capturing the breadth of teacher work, but for this reason, they’re more of a to-do list than an enabler of best practice. The core content has been mapped onto the Standards in the Strong Beginnings report, but it’s lipstick on a pig — proof that the Standards can mean whatever we want them to mean.

Having said that, while there is no real hierarchy of priorities embedded within the Standards, the emphasis on differentiation and ICT is concerning. There is little evidence to support differentiation in the way it’s usually interpreted, and the Standards go so far as to suggest that students learn differently, including students of different socio-economic backgrounds. It’s both untrue and mildly insulting. The repeated references to ICT feel very Y2K, as though none of us know how to use a computer, even after the COVID-19 trial by fire.

I did some research into Standards in other parts of the world, and other than England’s Early Career Framework (ECF), standards around the world seem to be similarly insipid. Their creators seem to lack the moral courage to chart a path to things like critical and creative thinking, which we know to be highly dependent on knowledge. On the other hand, the ECF just calls it: In order for pupils to think critically, they must have a secure understanding of knowledge within the subject area they are being asked to think critically about. There’s no mysterious black box here.

We need Standards to firstly set a standard. They’re used at all levels of teacher accreditation, they’re used as a content map for initial teacher education, and they’re used to ostensibly support professional learning. They’re too important to ignore in the wake of so many other promising reforms. As AITSL noted, do we really want to wait 28 years for these reforms to filter up from initial teacher education into the rest of the sector? There’s an appetite for change. We all deserve standards. And of course, so do our students.