Jan Masschelein, Maarten Simons - In Defence of the School: A Public Issue (2013)
         

XX. Professionalisation
 
First of all and from all sides is the call for an organised professionalisation of the teacher. This is a taming tactic with a rather long history. We will call out three variants.
A first variant of this tactic is aimed at replacing teachers’ so-called wisdom of experience with expertise or competency. The dream teacher in this professionalisation discourse is one whose expertise is based on validated and reliable knowledge: someone who acts according to ‘the methods’ and in an ‘evidence-based’ manner. taking the bdb The dream – which may or may not be fuelled by education researchers – is to create a teacher equipped with a knowledge base encapsulated in professionalism. That knowledge base is made up of scientifically proven theories, models, methods and even a scientifically validated deontology. To the extent that this professionalisation is propelled by disciplines that position themselves as ‘techno-sciences’, all of this is accompanied by the dissemination of technical criteria: professionalisation as a continuation of taming by technologisation. Hidden behind the ‘scientific’ label is the presumed criterion that ‘it works’ (or it doesn’t), and often involves the application of knowledge that has been ‘proven’ to reach given targets (better) or that leads to a (better) realisation of given learning outcomes. Goal realisation, learning gains and growth margins thus become the professional basic terms of the teacher in the mould of a (techno-) scientific ideal: professionalisation as a path to progress through the application of science and technology. Amateurism appears here as the jaded condition of the teacher caught in a private world of self-sure ignorance, subjective hunches, perceptions and persistent misunderstandings. 
 
The moral imperative that goes with professionalisation is this: rise above the state of amateurism. This implies the taming and even elimination of amateurism (subjectivism) . It also implies that the accompanying significance of the teacher as lover – who acts out of love for the world and for the next generation – no longer carries currency in the discourse. Any reference to love for the cause, for the subject, for the subject matter becomes ridiculous – these are characteristics of the cave-dwelling teacher. The forward-looking optimism of professionalisation relegates terms like embodiment, inspiration and attention generation to the dustbin of the past or to the margins: interesting material for historical research or for marginal romantics but hopelessly unusable as a guide for contemporary – let alone future-orientedinnovation – research. The air of the school is crystallised by the cold-blooded ideal of scientificity. But the jury is still out on whether the crystal palace in the dream – that beautiful, illuminated, transparent, measured-out and endless space where everything works – is even habitable. Everything may work, but nothing has meaning. It is as if we lost love somewhere along the way could't measure it . The figure of the loving teacher is not antithetical to research or professional development. Quite the contrary. It just does not gel with a learning process that expands in length and width and a professionalisation that takes aim at the subjective world of the teacher. It sees research and professional development as a process of formation that expands in depth and height in which the teacher continually brings herself into play. The teacher, too, needs free time (wellbeing?) , that is, time for self-formation through study and practice *re-charge time analytics .

A second variant of the professionalisation tactic equally begins from the now-presupposed expectation that the teacher is a specialist or an expert but emphases a ‘realistic’ grounding more than a scientific ideal. Illustrative of this are the professional profiles compiled by governments and the accompanying lists of basic competencies expected of (beginning) teachers bdb . These transform teaching into a profession ‘in its own right’ with a clear function and specific benchmarks, services and outcomes to deliver. In this formulation, the teacher’s expertise is generally translated as ‘competency’, that is, as (assumed) knowledge, skills and attitudes that can be employed in multiple sense to perform concrete tasks bloem's levels  
In other words, the actual work context and, more specifically, the functions and duties that populate it are of guiding importance. Here again the technical criteria of efficiency and effectiveness are at the forefront: professional competencies literally express what must be done in order to perform the actual work. Competencies are a translation of all the necessary elements in a given work environment – in this case, the school as a workplace for teachers – that must be in place in order to implement the required functions and tasks (work = functions & tasks?) . The professional teacher, in other words, is the competent teacher, and more specifically, the teacher whose competencies are employable in the actual work environment. A professional profile thus functions as an instrument for assessing, adjusting and developing the professionalism of the teacher on the one hand and, on the other, as the starting point for determining the basic competencies (in the form of end-term learning outcomes) expected of young teachers fresh out of teacher training. These profiles and competencies place a whip in the hand of the government used to tame not only the school but also experienced and novice teachers. It is a taming in the name of the current market demands, of optimal intake and of employability. 
   
Professional profiles are conservative * in essence; compliant teacher training programmes reproduce the competencies for the educational context of the current moment. In that sense, the default motto for young teachers-in-training becomes ‘onward to the past’. Another aim is the uniform positioning of the ‘profession’ within the standardised language of competencies. And as with any standard language, dialects arise as a hard-to-eradicate phenomenon and something that is still cherished, with a certain nostalgia, in private quarters of education, but that nonetheless will soon be provided with standardised subtitles. The ideal of scientificity clears space here for the realism of the professional world. But while professionalisation in the name of scientific idealism results in a cold, business-like reality, a realism-motivated professionalisation seems to result in an laughable virtuality. The lists of functions, competencies and sub-competencies evoke an intricacy that takes on a life of its own. The handiwork of determining course objectives and developing a curriculum becomes a challenge for professional puzzlers; the rules are laid down and pencils are sharpened for the checking off of achieved sub-competencies matrix . For the student and the teacher-in-training at the start of her professional development, the game starts here, with a business-like reality and a laughable virtuality. What disappears – or is at least silenced – is the caring teacher who is truly devoted to the cause . Knowledge, skills or attitudes are reduced to ‘competencies’. But obtaining these competencies cannot guarantee a job well done, let alone a loving relation to it. Love for the world and for the new generation shows itself in wisdom, actions and relationships. Or, to put it another way, a competent teacher is not the same thing as a well-formed teacher.
(like we attribute students competencies after finishing a course)
goal: after finishing a course, student can fulfill competencies, defined at the beginning.
rubrics?  
bloeom's levels? taxonomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy  
a model based on research done in the united states in the 50s..
adopting again a cultural model.. which for example speaking about american culture will be racist.
"that is what we use"
also imposed by being built into the technology that will be used for the exams.. remindo
part of back on track! (which the whole institution is on?!)
-greece situation-   Also Ireland!!!
> no color printing pls!
https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/struggle-against-algorithm-view-trenches-reading-university

 
A third tactical variant is related to the previous two: professionalisation through the pressure of accountability. The two previous versions of professionalisation see providing education or teaching as a form of rendering a service. In those variants, the professional or competent teacher is someone who is at the service of something or someone, and more specifically, she is someone who is demand-driven. This can range from student-centeredness to labour market-centeredness to a focus on achieving certain objectives (imposed by a government in the name of societal expectations). And once education becomes a supplied good in the service of a specific demand – as vague or unclear as it may be – then ‘quality’ becomes an all-important measure. The term ‘quality’ – as we have all probably encountered by now – carries currency by virtue of its ‘emptiness’ * . Everything and anything can become an indicator of quality, and nothing can escape the all-seeing eye of quality assurance. The term ‘quality culture’ perfectly expresses the voluntary submission to the all-seeing eye of quality. Every first-order activity must, as a kind of automatic reflex, be accompanied by a second-order activity that always boils down to the following questions: ‘How does this contribute to a high-quality service?’ and ‘Does what I am doing constitute a supply at the service of demand?’. "constructive alignment" When these kinds of questions guide the actions of the teacher, an accountability culture is created: an ability, need, and especially a desire to hold oneself accountable to predefined quality indicators (student needs, satisfaction, targets and gains, performance indicators, etc.). Unsurprisingly, this is often accompanied by a third-party external body – a visitation panel or an inspector’s office – that fulfils a third-order function: a culture police that regulates whether the quality culture is in fact present. 
-department on probation-
-department is back on track-
(proper police terminology)
https://dehaagsehogeschool.sharepoint.com/sites/Theme_QualityAgreements/  
swappable indicators
 
In such a quality culture – which ours increasingly resembles – the inability or refusal to account for one’s performance is viewed with suspicion or seen as a sign of a lack of quality. There are likely quality culture variants related to the scientificity-based or labour market-based variants of professionalisation: the professional realism where quality assurance gives way to a coercive bureaucratisation (where accountability is a serious, formal matter of appealing to the established rules, procedures and indicators), or the playful virtualism where quality assurance is the name of the game (where accountability is a thing of its own; an exercise in juggling words, concepts and procedures). But there is also a third variant, which comes about when accountability (as a second-order activity) actually precedes teaching and the making of a school (as a first-order activity). In this culture, whatever is deemed unnecessary or unacceptable according to the established rules of quality service is simply never actually done. In this way, the teacher-as-service-provider actually tames herself: she submits to a quality tribunal and obeys the laws of quality service. In such a culture, quality assurance is no longer experienced as bureaucratic (over)reach nor as a boring game, but as a mad regime – with totalitarian characteristics.
   
It is not inconceivable that all this leads to a situation in which so-called activities of the second and third order get the upper hand – both in terms of time and importance – in determining how a school is made and teaching is done. And, quite apart from the illusion of control over teaching and learning that characterises the entire pattern of thought around professionalism and quality assurance, this implies that the teacher is called on to assume an attitude focused exclusively on results, growth and profit – and to continually justify her actions in this regard. This makes focusing on the (socially-determined) things of importance increasingly difficult or impossible for the teacher, and so revokes her authority to share the world. Her amateurism, which takes the form of a certain embodiment and dedication to the cause, is seen as ridiculous and unprofessional. An able, quality-oriented teacher certainly knows no ‘free time’ in carrying out her work and calls on her time are constant. Her time must be productive and functional and be put to as efficient a use as possible in the service of predetermined * targets and goals. Even the time spent on social activities or the attention paid to students’ emotional problems is made functional (unless it can be measured?) . All of this must be justified in terms of providing yield-bearing services. Unproductive time, in this formulation, can only exist as leisure time outside of work or as break time during work. But again, both leisure time and break time are actually just forms of productive time: time used to create energy and ‘recharge’ * .

In this regime of quality assurance, the teacher may also be more inclined – as a reaction or escape route – to emphasise the distinction between work and home. Privacy becomes jealously guarded and hours carefully counted – not so much to escape from teaching, but to escape from the permanent pressure of accountability that comes with it. This has an ironic and extreme consequence: the only time left over for occupying oneself with love for teaching is the free time claimed outside of working hours. For the self-liberating teacher, assigned reading becomes vacation reading and thorough lesson planning becomes a weekend pastime. The time for amateurism is exiled to evenings, nights, weekends and holidays. The school becomes a business and teaching becomes a job, rather than a way of life in which there is no clear distinction between work and private life and in which one can and may lose track of time in pursuit of a love that often extends beyond working hours. In other words, there is no longer any ‘free time’ to give form to the love for the subject, the cause – at least not during business hours.
no time for unmeasured time - that will steal time from your recharge time

In a condition such as this, responsibility is replaced by its tamed version: responsiveness in view of accountability. When responsibility is understood in terms of justifying results and returns, pedagogical responsibility* disappears. This responsibility refers to the (difficult-to-measure) giving of authority to things and the forming of interest. This goes beyond simply helping students to develop talents (or learning ability) or keeping up with the curriculum. It is about opening up new worlds (and thus pulling students out of their immediate life-world and needs) and forming interest. This is possible precisely because the teacher herself shows interest, embodies it, and gives it time to develop – and in so doing perfects herself. This is where * pedagogical responsibility * is situated. Placing the emphasis so strongly on the accountable provision of a service and permanent responsiveness displaces the significance of the teacher’s own relationship to the cause, the manner in which she embodies and gives shape to it in the presence of the student, and the manner in which she cares for herself as a person. The rapidly increasing pressure of accountability threatens to eradicate that love and interest for the world (love for the cause/subject as the cause/subject) and for students. The risk: a teacher who no longer shares the world with young people and can no longer care for herself, that is, a teacher who ceases to be a teacher at all.

[.....]

The question that must be raised here, however, is whether the appearance on the scene of the calculating teacher is the result – rather than the cause – of the contemporary quality culture and the pressure of accountability. Isn’t it conceivable that teachers are becoming more calculating because they are constantly and relentlessly being held accountable? After all, being held accountable implies that a teacher must show that her accounts balance out, or at least that she can demonstrate results in some way – even if these results say little or nothing about her work as a teacher. Our counter to this conception can be summarised in an alternative question: Is it really so crazy to trust in the perfectionism and the often tireless efforts of the amateur teacher? Proving that a teacher acts only in her own interest (and thus that a teacher does not act out of self-interest (and thus that a policy based on trust makes the most sense). And if proof eludes us, all of this becomes a matter of faith, an assumption. We resolutely choose to start from the assumption that teachers act out of love for the world and love for the new generation. We choose trust. Once again, this is not to say that there is something wrong with the idea that the teacher that this takes in today’s policy discourse, which forces the teacher to conceive of her work as a productive, outcome-oriented enterprise. 

For today’s teacher (as a representative of society), teaching is no longer a pedagogical assignment involving an (uncalculated) obligation to producing learning outcomes and collecting the incentives that come from it. The immeasurable authority that a teacher imparts on things or the act of generating interest in a student implies an acceptance of the scholastic practice as an open event; one that cannot be controlled or calculated through predetermined outcomes or incentives, and thus cannot be accounted for in those terms. If society is to be renewed, it must free itself and hazard to entrust responsibility for this renewal to Figures – teachers – exempted from the obligation to produce results.

  how to un-measure?
    
 when do you measure?
 
education days?
make time available