Take action or do nothing: The educational dilemma of the teacher

Abstract

It is argued in this chapter that teachers could be regarded as being in a somewhat invidious position when it comes to the implementation, or enactment, of various education policies. Yes, teachers are agents of the state but they can have a large influence over the effectiveness or fidelity of government policies. This chapter considers the dilemmas, from a philosophical and practical point of view, that teachers (here we focus on the schooling sector) face in deciding whether to take action that may be in the interests of students or to implement policy, without question, as mandated. Of course not all policies arrive in schools directly from the minds of politicians unscathed. They pass through various other bureaucratic and political processes and mechanisms that create other policy conditions, especially related to implementation and these inflect the potential of its fidelity – how closely the policy can be made to fit the original intentions of the policy makers and how this will be measured. In the case of Australia this process is more complicated, as in the Federation, the States have ostensible responsibility for education, although the Australian (national) government has sought to assert its authority, especially since 2007 through National Partnership Agreements. Our argument is that teachers’ responsibility is towards the students they teach, and that policy, in whatever condition, and from wherever, it ‘arrives’ at a school, must be reconditioned so that this responsibility may be met. How well or poorly such responsibility is carried out, is an important and broad question that current measures focused on accountability (for example high stakes standardised testing, such as the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy [NAPLAN]) do not adequately measure. With this in mind, we would like here to set out some of the ways that we might approach the policy dilemmas that teachers face, and how considering these might contribute to the fulfilment of teachers’ educational responsibility, in spite of policy mandates and the current rise in accountability measures.