Eru kennarar einhvers nýtir?

Hér er ágrip - á ensku - af kaflanum mínum í bókinni Fagmennska í skólastarfi. Skrifað til heiðurs Trausta Þorsteinssyni  sem barst mér í hendur í dag. Kaflinn nefnist Grunnskólakennarar í aftursætinu og leikskólakennarar í skottinu? Hlutverk og fagmennska kennara í stefnuskjölum ríkis og sveitarfélaga. Í hnotskurn er kennurum ætlað lítið hlutverk í stefnuskjölum Sambands íslenskra sveitarfélaga og afar tilviljunarkennt hlutverk í löggjöf ríkisins, t.d. eru einna gleggstu ákvæðin um framhaldsskólakennara að þeir sjái um námsmat! Ekkert tekið fram um hvort þeir eigi að kenna.

 

The chapter explores the discourse of the Icelandic Association of Municipalities on the role and professionalism of teachers in early childhood and compulsory schools. Selected documents, appearing on the website of the Association, were studied by applying discourse analysis. Discursive themes and legitimating principles were identified. The discourse is characterized by that little is said about the role and professionalism of teachers in general and almost nothing about early childhood education teachers. The documents discuss the role of compulsory school teachers as more or less bound to teaching and assessment, and it does not seem that the documents expect them to have any particular role in school evaluation or wider policy making. While the documents focus on the improvement of teaching so that students would learn more, eaching and learning seem to be viewed as rather straigth-forward and uncomplicated endeavors if the right methods are chosen. The results of the analysis of the documents were matched to models of teachers professionalism that show a movement from a teacher working alone to working cooperatively and even toward interdendency. This comparison shows a high level of expectations to collaboration in the discourse, not only the documents of the municipalities, but in the school legislation as well. Further it was studied if and how teachers are mentioned in the school legislation; the legislation is consistent with the municality documents‘ discourse in prefering to mention „staff“ rather than teachers. Also what is said about teachers in the legislation seems to be rather coincidental.