[MUSIC] I go to this opportunity to have a discussion or have three discussions Steve, with you and [INAUDIBLE] and Glasgow Could I start with the, really first thing that we come across really, is teaching as a profession. There's a continuing debate about whether teaching is in fact a profession or not, and I'm wondering to what extent in Australia that is a kind of a, a live debate, or whether you've actually established. Becomes any kind, that's, that's what teaching is. >> Yes it has been a debate for some time. I think one of the things that's probably crystallized it is the development of professional teaching standards over the last while, which have articulated fairly clearly what teachers need to know, value be able to do. And I think the other aspect of that is associate national accreditation, for example, of teacher education courses. Looking very, very much now at the outcomes and the quality of those courses. So, if you take one definition, profession. The high standards of initial training for education, I think that's helped to move the debate forward. I think the other thing that's happened too, is that, we've now got a National approach to teacher registration, initial teacher registration. Basically looking much more, I think at teacher quality of the last decade or so. And focusing very much on linking quality, teacher education quality of teachers to student outcomes. So, I think the general answer, is that the major steps, I think, to both, recognize and foster professionalism. >> Yeah, I think you have, in your talks, outlined a whole range of different things that would constitute profession, and you've just talked about all those things in Australia. >> Yeah. >> Of course [LAUGH] in a global context, and we're thinking of African countries like Ghana, and so on. It's still a long way I think to, to be able to establish that kind of criteria, and that I guess you would say, in a not too arrogant way, that Australia is pretty much in the vanguard in thinking about professional standards. Let me ask a, a, another question which perhaps is a little bit more contentious. But one of the things that you say is, and if I recall it the most important factor affecting student learning is the teacher. Now that may seem some, perhaps, pretty obvious. But you go on to say that, the fact that Left would improve education most, is improving the effect on some teachers more than any other single factor. And, I'm thinking about research that talks about the composition effect, who you go to school with. As the most important factor. Often known as the Peer effect. Or home community with where you spend the first five years of your life or indeed before, before birth. So, how do we uphold the claim with teacher is that the most effective? I mean, I think we'd all like, like to believe that. Every teacher would. But, what about those other factors that help in research points to, perhaps more powerful than the teacher effect? >> Well one of the things I make clear is to teachers are the biggest in school influence on learning, not the biggest. And I think we know from the [INAUDIBLE] analytic work of people like John [INAUDIBLE] that having backgrounds which includes things like SES and you know, what the home is actually like, whether it's supportive or not whether it's a literacy rich home and so on. But that accounts for about 50% of the student variance, or the variance in student achievement if you like. The classroom teacher accounts for about 30 p is, is something like about five to 10% of the variance other school factors, about five to ten. So and leadership's about five to ten as well. So, of the in school factors that we can control, if you like, the quality of the teacher. Is the biggest factor. But it's not the biggest factor. And I think we recognize things like background, poverty, and [INAUDIBLE] status and health, and so on all play out, fairly significantly. >> And of course this differs very considerably from country to country, culture to culture, to what extent, it's these different factors would, would play out. So, in some cases, I think the teacher is hugely significant. >> Mm. >> Perhaps another is if the teacher effect is actually much smaller. >> Yeah I think these are probably averages, and averages probably conceal the range. But I think the other thing we know about teacher quality from the research that's been done is, it tends to vary more within schools and between schools. So often what we see is the, effects of status in a high SES school, for example. Often poor teaching can be masked by the fact that the students have advantages to start with. They're motivated, they're parents are motivated for them the school is well resourced and so forth. So, yes, I think there's some fairly important contextual factors. I think equally too, what we have from the data is that there's some wonderful teaching in lower CS schools. And there were some schools that do far better than you would predict, based upon things like socioeconomic status. >> Mm-hm. It's interesting that you give the leadership effect or that voices fairly, fairly low. But, then, when we go on, later on, I think you will talk about. The huge significance of, of the issue. You want to, could you expand on that just a little bit? >> Yes, one of the problems in measuring the effects of leadership is that often what leaders do is incorrect in terms of student outcomes. They can't teach every class. They can't be in every classroom. They can't plan every lesson. Write every aspect of the curriculum. But what we know, clearly, is that it's a very, very significant factor. And again, I think the calculator somewhere between 0.3 and 0.4. But, the thing about this is, that because the effects are indirect, it's hard to measure. But the other aspect of the influence of leadership is, who's exercising the leadership. We're tending to think of our principals, for example, as being, you know, the purveyors and whatever, but there are deputy principals. There are people in coordinator positions, but increasingly, I think over the last few decades, we've acknowledged the importance of teacher leadership. One of the points I make in the lectures is that, every teacher's a leader to some degree. When they take a class, when they take a sporting team, a cultural group, a music group when they participate in planning the curriculum. All those things comprise, constitute leadership. So, leadership's one of those things, I, I, describe it as sort of. Now, the creme on the cake if you like, you can have good teaching without a good school, but you can't have a good school without good leadership and I think what we've realized in recent times is the complexity that various people who exercised leadership. I think there's not much doubt it's important and those of us who've been in schools, for sometime will certainly recognize the effects of good and bad leadership. It's just quantifying that I suppose has been the problem. >> Exactly. I mean I think that is, that is at the core of the issue. How do you quantify something that is so disbursed or so distributed if you'd like. And I think that does raise the question that I know perplexes a number of people about how we are able to pin down and quantify so many of these effects which are dynamic in a sense and andalso very and culture's culture. But let me now go on just a bit to another point Steve which perhaps you could elucidate that one, because the quality, the longer people were in their current school, current position, the more dissatisfied and stressed they were. That sounds particularly. >> Yes, this was an International study of teacher satisfaction that we carried out in England, Australia, USA, Canada Malta, Cypress, and a few other places. And, and what we normally know from studying other occupations is that over time people's satisfaction increases. And there's a number of reasons for this. And those who don't like it, I suppose, might leave the occupation. Those who stay may well become better at. So, self efficacy, for example, how well you feel you can do something, is an important aspect of satisfaction. People tend to get promoted. They tend to get more responsibility, recognition, salary, and so on. Now, when we looked at teacher, and, and school leaders too, it was how long they'd been in the current school and current position that predicted leadership. Now if, for example, they'd been in their current school, but had been promoted, the effect wasn't there. So, it's basically the fact that some people, I think you could say, get into a rut. They often adopt a narrower range of approaches to teaching. They can become established and, in fact, when we interviewed and got the open ended data from a lot of teachers, I'm talking a thousands here, a lot of them admitted that a, a move to another school would have been good for them and probably good for their students, but for whatever reasons, they didn't do that. One of the things I said to us was that I don't want to have to reestablish myself and reestablish my relationship with other teachers and students. And in fact, I often talk about discipline as being an issue there. So, yes, it was slightly unusual finding, but certainly born out by the research. Now, this doesn't apply to everybody of course. And there's always a ranch and exceptions to it. But I think we can say that generally speaking, after a period of time, it's probably good for teachers to move. >> Yeah, either within the same school or another school. >> That's right. >> At least, not to go, not to go stale. >> Yes. >> For that won, as a teacher that wonder and enthusiasm that I had and looked forward to so much, after the holidays to going back to school. And then after few years, I don't know, [INAUDIBLE]. So I think that's a, that, that huge drive in motivation that a lot of teachers have. I think there's plenty of evidence to show that, and diminishes over time unless you get that new influx. It's that new excitement in doing something different or having more responsibility. One thing we did find was that when people have been involved in professional, and they'd actually been working in teams and, and become empowered to some extent, their satisfaction improved. >> Yeah. >> So, a lot of people who've been in the one school probably are stale, probably don't feel empowered. If I get the opportunity particularly to be involved in some interesting work around action research, action learning. We found that even mid to late career teachers can be quite enthused, because they actually you know, they get motivated, stimulated, they start to see some direct effects from what they're doing. In terms of student learning and, and, yeah, their own motivation, satisfaction does increase. >> You know, that's, that's a huge risk because I think, Steve, I mean we see that in Cambridge every, every year and almost week on week, the teachers who come back to do a DPED or a LMED or a PhD or whatever. >> Mm-hm. >> They are just so, and exuberated again and they go back to their classrooms with a whole new kind of insight, and new motivation, so I think it's a huge thing. A hugely significant point, to make let me just talk about one or two things I got. Teachers three, three things that you kind of, among the many things that are, the three things that are kind of, we suggest as no-nos. One, hugging students, two, listening to students' personal problems, and three, listening to students' complaints about other teachers. Now, I picked those out because they are so, so common. I mean, students complaints about other teachers are beyond the point, I have that all the time. Students' personal problems. Yep, lots of that. Also, one of the contentious things that hugging students and I've just been doing some research in, in England and I was more in Scarton. And one of the things that some ti, particularly non, particularly teaching assistants. Say how valuable it is, and how important it is for children at times to be hugged. Now I know there are all sorts of issues around that. But what would be your own take on that, if you visit a school and you find the children, particularly young, we're not talking about 17 year olds here. We're talking about maybe children of four or five, six, for whom a hug is a very important thing. And he comments on that too. >> I think age is affected quite different and I think it's quite tragic that many young children come to school and maybe there isn't that support, emotional support, even physical affection shown in their families. But we have to very, very careful about it. And I mean there's nothing wrong for example in comforting a child when they've been injured or hurt. But, we just need to be very sensible in terms of professional behavior. Unfortunately a few bad eggs have probably made it difficult for everybody, and I know people that are much more sensitive, now to the issue of abuse of students, or abuse of children by not just teachers but anybody in the community. So, I mean as a general rule, I think age is a factor there, and I think no one, no court of law I think is going to be looking too badly on a teacher who is comforting somebody who's been injured. But, I think a teacher who's regularly in the business of hugging. Touching is probably asking for trouble in this current day, and certainly with older students, it's extremely unwise. The other ones that I've mentioned were more, again, about professional behavior. I think some teachers make the mistake of trying to be a confidant for their, their students, and I think encouraging students to complain, for example, about other teachers sets up an unhelpful professional dynamic. I think to some degree, teachers have just got to say, well look, you know, I think that's probably not appropriate for us to be, to be discussing those sorts of things at this time. I have seen it, and it can, you know, it, it can basically encouraging students. Coming to teachers almost like an agony art type thing complaining about people. The other aspect that goes with this sometimes is that some teachers, and often this is a function of being inexperienced, will think that they understand students better, because they're younger and closer in age to them. But in actual fact, the student. Comes to a teacher with a very personal problem, I think a teacher would be best advised to refer them to a counselor or somebody who can actually deal with it. Particularly if it gets into the area of possibly being you know, in the area of assault or something that's quite unpleasant really. Being an amateur psychologist in this situation is probably very very unwise. And, and I would normally advise teachers to refer such a student to some, to a professional who can, can help them. But if, for example, they're being told something to do with their relationship with their parents which seems inappropriate or even, you know, dangerous verging on child abuse or whatever. You must report this, and usually the first port of call is someone like a principal and they've got more experience, they can make a judgement, I think it's, it's probably be halted on teachers to, to pass on information of that nature. Now in several jurisdictions such as Australia it's actually a legal requirement, there is actually legislation that says that teachers must report. Incidents with I strongly suspect, things like child abuse things of that nature. >> Yeah, no I think that's I think that pretty clear cut. Steve I do think one end of, at, it's a very occasional minor thing or, it might not, you know, it's not within the main stream that, that counsel, but. Thought have been cases of, there are cases like [INAUDIBLE] experience this, and, because you have goo, a good relationship with students. And they feel there's enough trust, that they confide in you. >> Hm. Where student has, said could I speak to you about, the colleague, one of my colleagues, who I suspect might be guilty of doing that, so if for example, if it might be a case of abuse by a teacher, and a students really doesn't feel enough trust to confide in somebody else, it may be the teacher that they trust. >> Mm-hm. >> That they'd like to, to confide in. So at the end, you know, it's very much an exception, but I think there are cases where we have to recognize that there are all sorts of complexities to who children can trust and who they feel they can reveal to. >> Yes. >> Because we do now over the years and it's now coming to light, of course, about the amount of abuse that children have suffered that have kept quiet about it for five, ten, 15 years, because there's nobody that they felt they could trust enough to confide it. Anyway, I don't want to elaborate on that Steve, I think you made that pretty, pretty clear on the professional and ability and I have to deal with something like that. I'm just thinking, I've got my eye on talk to you a bit, because I think we're trying to contain this to about ten minutes or so. But let me have the last word in this first two weeks. We're talking about any other issues in particular would like, I like to call it, >> I think that in this particular course is about the professional responsibilities of teachers pro, teachers' professional behavior, ethics. And then we, we look at things like codes of conduct and standards and so forth. I mean, these are all an attempt to capture what it means to be a professional. And how to act professionally. It's another aspect of teaching, because teaching is more than just. Standing and delivering content is more than just being a walking textbook. You mentioned the relationship with students. We know from the research that the, this teacher-student relationship has a very large effect on student learning and is very important. Now, I think one of things I'll try to, to stress is that teachers need to. Adopt appropriate professional distance. On other words, not being too remote and too robotic, uncaring, but also, not too close either. Which can be unhealthy. So what we're trying to do, is to help people understand what is appropriate professional behavior. >> Absolutely, and I think although we, we're dealing here with huge cultural contextual differences in the 50, 60 or more countries of people who are actually online watching this nonetheless I think you would argue that there are common. Common standards, nothing you can alluciate, some of those that really travel, if you like, not simply to Australian or British context, but are kind of universal if you will, universal confessional standards. Okay thanks very much, Steve, we're going to meet again and further discuss these issues after the fourth week. So, to be continued. >> Thanks Joe. [MUSIC]
