1. Bridging..
• key questions
• troubled waters
• glocal potential
• European pointers
• education ecosystem
• school activity system
• school system learning
• bridge over troubled waters
• where water meets the ice
• the future: between the rock and the whirlpool
• fractal views
Learning Lab - Kasteelhoeve Wange,
24 August 2013 - Francesca Caena

2. • what is a good school like?
 opportunities x learning, facilities, organization, management,
mission, vision, networks…
• what is a good teacher like?
 competences, knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, passion…
• what is a good citizen like?
 active participant in work and society, professional
competences, transversal competences, openness, tolerance…
• what is ‘good’??
 effective/successful teaching/learning/(inter-)action + morally,
rationally sound (Fenstermacher & Richardson, 2005)

3. Schooling
Functional vs
transformative view
Professional
preparation
Formal learning
Individual
development
Social justice
(Hansen, 2008)
‘School is a place
to better
understand
yourself…’
Curriculum
• Realistic = professional, social
skills
• Classical=knowledge and
culture tradition
• Rational = discovery learning
& research skills
• Moral = active participation
and democratic attitudes,
values
(Snoek & Žogla, 2009)

4. Teacher paradigms
• Scholar-professional: subject knowledge
• Technical expert: specific skills, techniques and
actions
• Skilled craftsman: manage, organize, plan
teaching/learning
• Reflective professional and adaptive expert
• Educational guide: identity development
• Social agent: engagement in social context
(Charlier, 2006; Paquay et al., 2006)
‘Teachers reduce
complexity in
context’

5. Troubled waters
(Giddens, 1990, 1999)

6. Rethinking Education
Key support teaching professions for their
exceptional impact on pupil outcomes
Need efficient, effective investments, policy
support and motivation teaching staff
Ageing teacher workforce; background economic
crisis; swift changes society, knowledge &
learning
Fields, strategies, priority actions for education
improvement
(European Commission, 2012)

7. Supporting
the teaching professions
• realistic, tailored initial teacher education, systematic
induction, collaborative CPD
• Teacher CPD: motivation, incentives, feedback,
agency, ownership
• Selecting, attracting, recruiting, retaining quality
teachers
• Quality teacher educators and school heads : policy
support
• Networks schools, universities, local communities:
partnerships, cooperation and dialogue focused on
pupil, individual, organizational learning
(European Commission, 2012)

8. Education eco-system
Macro level
Meso level
Micro level
national
institutions/
governments
Schools/
Local
institutions
/organization
s
Teachers/educators/
heads/administrators
control
autonomy, trust
Curriculum contents
Curriculum design
& delivery
Organisation
settings, times
Assessment
Expected outcomes
Selection
Qualifications
(Schwille & Dembélé, 2007;
Snoek & Žogla, 2009)
Role of teacher

9. Activity system: the school
School
administrators/
authorities/staff
Curriculum
delivery/organisation,
settings, assessment
School community
Roles of teachers, staff
and other actors
Exit profile
Pupils as future citizens
Curriculum contents,
activities, tools, resources
global
dimension
(Engeström, 1999, 2001)

10. Activity system contradictions:
the school
School
administrators/
authorities/staff:
Bildung VS
Ausbildung
mission
Curriculum
delivery/organisation,
settings, assessment:
flexibility/customisation
VS prescription, tradition
School community:
Collaboration,
interdependence
VS independence/
autonomy culture
Roles of teachers,
staff and other
actors: strategic,
social VS formal,
functional
Exit profile:
focus
competences/
values VS
knowledge
content
Pupils as future
citizens:
all-round individuals VS
specialists
Curriculum contents,
activities, tools, resources :
focus on learning processes
VS products
global
dimension

11. Screenagers, latchkey kids…
Short attention span
Always ‘connected’; fragmented, multiple
identities
Informal, non-formal learning networks
and contexts
Wide diversity learning styles, needs,
difficulties, interests and cultures
‘You cannot not learn’

12. interviews teacher education stakeholders (Caena, 2010)
..kindles
sparks in
pupils
..is a good
advertising
for learning
..makes teaching
and learning ’sexy’
..thinks action in
context
The teacher makes
pupils partners in a
discovery adventure,
re-shaping knowledge…

13. Teacher learning in schools
Vision
Motivation
Understanding
Practice
Reflection
Community
(Shulman & Shulman, 2004)

14. School: bridge over troubled water…
• Teachers’ empowerment : collaboration, decision making;
shared values & responsibilities; quality standards &
monitoring; peer mentoring & support
• Professional learning community (PLC): student/teacher
learning focus; reflective professional inquiry; flexibility,
individualization; knowledge creation and sharing
• Key leadership and organizational factors: integrated top
down/bottom up policy
• System, systematic view of change: link structural, cultural,
political dimensions school environment; careful, long-term
planning and management
(European Commission, 2011)

15. Where water meets the ice: challenges
• School as organization of experts
• Professional bureaucracy
• Identification with subject
• Tricky quality control: complex services
• Central office seen as nuisance factor
• Flatarchy
• Autonomy-parity syndrome
• Key contribution target group/personal relations
• Slow reaction to outer world change
• Strategic development processes seen as threats
(Mintzberg, 1991; Grossmann, 1997)

16. The future: travelling along quadrants
• Internal and external
forces pushing policy
makers : international
benchmarking, scarce
resources, pressure
groups…?
• Forces driving towards
market oriented system:
political ideology? Parent
lobbies? Service
providers? Employer
groups? Mass media?
(McBeath, 2012)
closed
individual
open
social
V
a
l
u
e
a
x
i
s
Supply axis
expectations
about schooling
socio-technical
aspect of
schooling
school geared
to clients;
teaching as
delivery service
equi-finality
principle; widened
role teachers

17. Future scenarios
• Reschooling = learning hub
(core social centres/focused learning
organizations)
• Deschooling = ubiquitous learning
(learner networks/market model
extension) (OECD, 2001; McBeath, 2012)
The future is already here, just
unevenly distributed. But first we
have to know what we are looking
for.

18. Between rock and whirlpool:
bridging probable and desirable
H1:
systematic
reform H2:
‘Cinderella’
zone
H3: Ideal,
desirable
system

19. MEITT Intensive Programme - Vilnius, July
2010 - Caena Francesca
school activity system
policy making activity system
(g)local community/ies activity system(s)
Fractal views…

20. Maps and map makers
The state of translation is the common
condition of all thinking beings.
(Jokinen & Veijola, 1997)
…traveller, there is no path.
We make the path by walking.
(Machado, 1907)
“No man is an island – he is a holon.
A Janus-faced entity who, looking
inward, sees himself as a self-contained
unique whole, looking outward as a
dependent part. (Koestler, 1967)
Mountains are in constant motion.
So are islands: for one cannot occupy,
unambiguously, a bounded cultural world.
(Edwards & Usher, 2008)