Jon Berry - Teachers Undefeated: How global education reform has failed to crush the spirit of educators

First published in 2016 by the UCL Institute of Education Press, 20 Bedford Way,London WC1H 0AL

www.ucl-ioe-press.com

2016 Jon Berry

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978-1-85856-678-8 (paperback)

978-1-85856-775-4 (PDF eBook)

978-1-85856-776-1 (ePub eBook)

978-1-85856-777-8 (Kindle eBook)

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The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and donot necessarily reflect the views of the UCL Institute of Education, UniversityCollege London.

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No other publication that I know of has presented the problems so well from the teachers perspective.

Professor Richard Pring, Honorary Research Fellow, Green TempletonCollege, Oxford

Jon Berry shows how governments have tried to regulate and suppress the energies that teachers can bring to classrooms and how teachers continue, amid constant pressure, to work by different rules. Combining realism and optimism, accuracy and humour, his book will persuade many readers that alternatives exist, here and now, to the grim visions of education that dominate policy.

Ken Jones, Senior Policy Officer, Curriculum and Assessment, NationalUnion of Teachers

This is an important and timely book. It confirms that, despite all the testing, setting, sorting and ranking that are the hallmark of the English school system, teachers remain fundamentally unaltered by the panoply of market-driven reforms. Rather, teachers continue to be driven by a much more optimistic and hopeful vision of education. This book reminds us that everyday there are teachers in classrooms working hard to challenge the dead weight of standardization and targets. More importantly, it serves to remind us that when individual teachers organize collectively they not only have the power to challenge the neoliberal restructuring of schools, but also to create something much more exciting an education that doesnt just reproduce, but transforms.

Professor Howard Stevenson, Director of Research, School of Education,University of Nottingham

Books like this bring hope in troubled times. Here you will read the stories of teachers who are determined to educate and free young minds. This book will help get teachers voices heard above the managerial din. Jon Berrys clear thinking cuts through the thicket of accountability and control.

Terry Wrigley, Visiting Professor of Education and Lifelong Learning,Northumbria University

This is a well-argued and much-needed defence of teacher professionalism, at a time when a bureaucratic, punitive and often damaging accountability system seems to be undermining it at every turn. Jon Berrys is ultimately an optimistic account of how teachers can and are resisting such pressures, focusing instead on the core aspect of their job: teaching children well.

Warwick Mansell, education journalist, former curriculum and testing correspondent, Times Educational Supplement

Acknowledgements

My thanks go to all of you who have so willingly given time to contribute to this book. Thanks, too, for your constant confirmation that the idea behind it is an important one and that its a theme close to your hearts. I hope that Ive captured your thoughts, ideas and, of course, your commitment to better education in the way you would have wanted. To all the activists, campaigners and resisters out there who keep the sparks alive, just keep at it. La lutte continue.

Foreword

The NUT is delighted to recommend this book to teachers. Jon Berry has shown that despite being scrutinized, measured and assessed for the last twenty years on everything they do, teachers still hold true to a vision of teaching and learning that goes way beyond the strictures imposed by successive governments. The testimony and anecdotes from teachers that make up much of this book bear witness to hard-working, committed, thoughtful and creative practitioners. Instead of doubting them at every turn, politicians should be praising their efforts to the skies.

Jon shows how the political and economic context in which teachers work has a profound bearing on their daily professional lives. Thanks to his analysis of this context, along with some historical background, teachers new to the profession will be able to make greater sense of the wave of demands that continues to come their way. At a time when the study of pedagogy, child development and the history of education are being squeezed out of teachers initial training, the book provides discussion of these issues, as well as a gateway to further reading on these topics.

Although it presents a clear analysis of where we are and how we got here, Teachers Undefeated moves towards a conclusion that talks about ways in which teachers can collectively begin to resist the effects of the GERM the global education reform movement. The teachers whose words we hear in this book reject the GERMs meagre and measly view of education. But without this possibility of collective resistance, even the best analysis is only an academic exercise. As a campaigning, active union we always look to the way in which our actions can improve what we are able to do for the young people we work with every day.

I absolutely commend this book to you. I hope you will read and enjoy it and find time to discuss it with friends and colleagues. I believe that you will be inspired to continue to campaign for education as a human and civil right and a public good. This is at the heart of what the National Union of Teachers believes. Our children and our teachers deserve no less.

Christine Blower
General Secretary, National Union of Teachers

About the author

Dr Jon Berry is the programme director for the Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) at the University of Hertfordshire. He taught English in comprehensive schools for 28 years before moving to the higher education sector in 2004 as a teacher educator. Since then he has pursued his research interest into teachers professional autonomy, placing the role of the teacher against the background of the ideological drive towards marketization. His research demonstrates that despite policy overload, which leaves many teachers angry, tired and bewildered at the actions of successive governments, they still cling to a strong notion of education that genuinely puts the child at the centre. He has been an active campaigner in two education unions, the NUT and the UCU, and has been a senior lay officer in both organizations.

Introduction

From the World Bank to a classroom near you: what this book sets out to do

Most teachers love their job. That may sound like a bold statement, but after nearly forty years as a classroom teacher, activist and teacher educator, I know this to be true. Conversely, most teachers think they spend far too much time and effort on tasks and duties that sap their energy and contribute little to the learning of their students. Teachers dont mind working hard and they expect to do so: what they find dispiriting is the whole paraphernalia of the last twenty years or so, which has so complicated the straightforward if challenging business of getting young people interested and learning.