Teachers of Promise
Presentation at TEFANZ Conference 2006
Dunedin College of Education,
New Zealand
Monday 3 - Wednesday 5 July 2006
Marie Cameron, Robyn Baker and Susan Lovett
1
Teachers of Promise: Aspirations
and Realities (2005-2008)
A longitudinal study of the professional
identities, careers and workplace learning of
New Zealand primary and secondary
teachers from their third year of teaching.
Phase One: 2005
2
Overview







Rationale for the research
Research questions
Focus
Methods
Sample
Themes from the first year
Discussion
3
Rationale
Teachers are key to improving student learning
 Aging workforce
– Only 15 % NZ secondary teachers under 30 years
– Average age = 45 years
Significant attrition in first 3-5 years (37%)
 Staffing problems
 Loss of teaching expertise
 Damage to collective school capacity
4
Questions
Why teach?
What are the factors that influence decisions to:
 Stay in current school?
 Change schools?
 Leave teaching?
How do teachers
 Deepen their expertise?
 Build their careers?
5
Focus
Perceptions and experiences of 57 teachers
judged to have “promise”
( 9 ITE Providers and schools)
personal beliefs, values, place of teaching in
their lives
Teaching as work
 social and organisational contexts
 professional contexts (how they are
supported to build understandings and skills
in teaching)

6
Methods
a) Methodology
 May-June 2005
• Initial interviews (1 hour) face-to-face, semi structured.
• Explored reasons for becoming a teacher, experiences of
initial teacher education, induction, and current situation.
 October- November 2005
• Survey (mailed and collected at second interview)
• Second interviews (1 hour) face-to-face, semi structured.
• Explored changes, development as a teacher (image and
confidence, building knowledge and expertise, future
goals).
This presentation focuses mainly on the second interview and
survey. (Refer http://www.nzcer.org.nz/pdfs/TipTop1Sep2005.pdf)
7
Sample
b) The sample
(n = 57)
Gender
Males 33 percent (cf 20% of profession)
Ages
20-25
26-30
31-40
41-50
18
18
12
9
Mäori
Päkehä
Pasifika
Asian
7
47
2
1
Ethnicity
8
Sample
School deciles (2005)
Low (1-3)
Medium (4-7)
High (8-10)
10
28
19
Teaching levels (2005)
Primary
(n=25)
Intermediate
(n = 11)
Secondary
(n = 21)
Male
6
4
9
Female
19
7
12
9
Qualifications

19 three-year teaching degrees (6 providers)

34 one-year graduate diplomas (7 providers)
 16 BA, 5 BSc, rest had commerce, journalism,
music, physical education
 3 Masters degrees
 1 PhD (chemistry)

4 4-year conjoint degrees (3 providers)
10
Sample

16/57 taught in more than one school
already

Deliberate movers changed because
school did not meet their initial
expectations
11
Movers

“I thought if I’m going to be a teacher, I need
to find the right kind of school that’s going to
support what I believe and what I want to do.”

“I loved it, but the culture of the school was
doing my head in.”

“ I didn’t want to be there anymore, but
needed to give teaching a go in another
environment.”

“The first school I taught at wasn’t very
inspiring at all and it just dragged me down”.
12
Movers

12 were “deliberate movers”
4  school of higher decile
6  same decile
2  lower decile

4 had a series of relieving positions
before current job
13
Motivation to teach

Primarily intrinsic rewards, plus job
security(7), holidays (6)

Career changers (35) dissatisfied with
current work





Lack of autonomy
Lack of challenge
Lack of variety
Lack of personal meaning
Expected to enjoy teaching

Colleagues, children and young people, sharing
knowledge…..
14
Motivation to teach
“I wanted to be challenged, use my
qualifications, have a job where you
didn’t just wait for a break to arrive, be
inspired, make a difference, empower
students and share my love of
literature.”
(Female, secondary)
15
Preparation to teach
37/57 positive/very positive
Well I thought it was fantastic. That year was so intense in
terms of its study and the content and assignments you
had to do. It was more intense than the journalism degree,
because I was learning how to be a teacher in one year.
When you are teaching a Class 7 curriculum there is an
extreme amount of knowledge you have to know. I thought
[provider] was fantastic. There were some really
inspirational lecturers there. They had been at the game a
long time but they were still passionate and enthusiastic.
Yes I kind of got inspired by them really.”
(Male, 20-25, intermediate)
16
Preparation to teach

Importance of theory-practice links
To be honest, the first year I didn’t know what
on earth I was doing. Looking back I think I
wanted someone to walk in with a big fat
folder and say to me “Here is your first divider.
This is all we need for learning. Here’s the
second folder. That’s all you need for maths”
and so forth. I wanted like a manual given to
me, so that I could begin to implement it.
(Female, Pasifika, 31-40)
17
Survey data on preparation

1/3 primary felt poorly/very poorly prepared for
classroom management/discipline problems
(Half were from one provider, school decile not
a factor)

38 percent felt inadequately prepared to work
constructively with parents
Well you don't get taught it at College, you don't get
lessons in how to interact and communicate with
parents and have those discussions that you need to
have.
(Päkehä, female, 26-30, junior school)
18
Beginnings…..
The first day was scary because you turn up and you see all
those smiling faces and the odd parent who has come to see
[what’s going on]. You look around and there is no associate
to call back up on. You’re it ! And that’s when it hit me,
because coming in early and setting the class up, that was all
cool, but when they are all sitting there looking at you saying
“right, teach us!”, you’re going “It’s all up to me now” and that
was cool.
(Päkehä male, 26-30, middle school)
It’s not until you have your own class that you can do things
your way and try new things and fail and “Oh that didn’t work
this time, what am I going to do better about that next time?
(Päkehä female,26-30, junior primary)
19
Mentoring supports in first two
years

Systematic and supportive induction:
 19/25 primary
 4/10 intermediate
 8/22 secondary

10 reported no/extremely limited
induction( 8 in secondary schools
20
Good experiences
I think that for the rest of my career I’ll always
look that fondly on my first year. I had so much
fun in my first year, it was unbelievable. I don’t
know what it was about it particularly; the kids
were great, the class was great and I had a lot of
fun with them. I remember that there wasn’t so
much pressure on me, that could be partly
related to the time allowance we had, of course,
more time to prepare and things like this.
(Päkehä male, 26-30,secondary)
21
Left to “get on with it”
I had another beginning teacher next door and I had a teacher in
the other classroom next door to me. I think it was his 2nd year
or something, and we all had to muddle along together and we
just really relied on each other and experience–wise we didn’t
have a lot of stuff behind us. We were just starting out ourselves,
we were left as a wee group to figure it out and support each
other with things. It would’ve been nice, you know, particularly for
my tutor teacher to have just been there a bit more. They didn’t
really know what was going on in the classroom at all, no one
seemed to be really interested in my programme. I think I got
observed once in 2 terms. It [felt like] “here’s a class, go free,
teach them!” and no one was really interested in what I was
actually doing.
(Päkehä female, 26-30, junior primary)
22
The second interviews

52/57 still teaching
 3 women OE
 1 woman maternity leave
 1 woman resigned
I have to say also that I didn't realise how discontented I was
with teaching until I stopped doing it. It's the old brick wall
scenario, you know, you don’t realise how much damage
you're doing until you stop banging your head…Since I've left
I have realised how much extra work I was doing out of
school, how much work I was doing that was unrecognised….
(Päkehä female, 41-50, primary)
23
New roles
 More than half had roles in additional to
teaching
Secondary (n=18)




2 acting HODS
3 Deans
Extra-curricular ( choir, dance, drama, sports)
3 curriculum leadership
Primary (n=34)
 14 curriculum leadership (usually arts related)
 4 kapa haka, 4 sports
 3 mentors for BTs
24
Risks of extended roles
I think on reflection I need to know when to say
“Stop”, or “No” to responsibility. I’ve enjoyed
taking on extra responsibilities, however I think
the main priority in any school is the children. It
concerns me that any one individual taking on
quite a lot will result in the children losing out,
whether it’s energy wise or time wise.
(Mäori, female, 20-25, primary)
(Became DP of her school at end of second year teaching)
25
Expectations

Majority felt that teaching met their
original expectations

Half the primary and slightly more
secondary agreed that “teaching has
turned out better than I thought it would
be”
26
Motivation

More than 2/3 were more motivated to
teach than when they began teaching
Growth in confidence
I think I'm enjoying it a lot more than I was probably at the beginning of
the year and definitely over the last couple of years just in terms of
becoming a bit more relaxed and feeling in control of everything that
you're doing… realising that I am doing a good job, so now I'm kind of
reprioritising and thinking about what I can be doing to spend more
time with them and different ways to approach things. It's more to do
with confidence in myself and just knowing that I'm doing it right. So
just relaxing a bit more and therefore enjoying it. … Like I think it
matches what I hoped it would be like at training college and what I got
from kind of practicums and the enjoyment I had then. I think then you
hit the reality of the learning curve in the first two years and now it is
like how I hoped it would be, getting past the other stuff.
(Päkehä, female, 20-25, primary)
27
Motivation

Enjoyment of school
I couldn't speak highly enough of the
profession, I love it, absolutely love coming to
school and I look forward to it. I look forward
to seeing staff members and I look forward to
seeing the kids every day .. . I look forward
to seeing staff members and I look forward to
seeing the kids every day.
(Päkehä
male, 26-30, primary)
28
Motivation

Student success
I feel really good any time that I get some sort of feedback
from the kids that I know is genuine and it just pops out.
Where they express perhaps something that was really
interesting, or they really enjoyed that or they've now found
out something that they'd never have known or they really
enjoyed the way something was presented to them. Those
sorts of tangible things make me feel good. The times
when I get those external results and I see perhaps
someone has really peaked and they really came up and
they really did the job, those are very satisfying things and
make me feel good because I'll have produced a result.
(Päkehä male, 26-30,secondary)
29
Demotivators

Having to teach subjects “out of field”
I've experienced teaching a subject that I didn’t know much
about at all, I was just told “you're teaching it” and I had an hour
session on it. They just said to me “oh something has happened
in the timetable and instead of your colleague you're teaching it”
and I felt completely left out in the loop. It's like asking a
mathematician to teach physics even though certain components
and formulas might be the same it does not mean that you know
how to do it and nobody said to me “we'll send you to a course
first”.. I thought “wait a minute this should not be happening, I
feel completely incapable of teaching this subject and I know the
kids will know it as soon as they see me up there.”
(Päkehä female, 20-25, secondary)
30
Demotivators

Constant changes to teaching
assignments
Well that’s one of the things I’ve been begging
the Head of Faculty for next year. Please let
me have two years in a row where I’m actually
doing the same thing twice, cause every year
I’ve had something new.
(Päkehä male, 26-30, secondary)
31
Demotivators

School politics
Yeah the management has changed since I've
been here in the way that it operates and there's a
“them and us”. I don't know that that's been
deliberate, it definitely hasn't been deliberate. I
don't know quite why I don't feel like there's a lot of
collegiality and I don’t like that.
(Päkehä female, 36-30, intermediate)
32
Demotivators

Too many demands
I mean I don’t want to sound lazy or anything but I
think it would be so much easier for me just doing
the arts and at the moment I find everything that's
going on and then you've got all the other things
on top of it. You have all the different, I think it's
because we over plan at this school and it
becomes kind of tedious, you know.
(Päkehä
female, 31-40, primary)
(Has found new job this year)
33
Demotivators

Getting bored
I know it changes throughout the year like at the moment I'm
frustrated and the motivation is waning because it's a critical time
of year as far as revision goes but the kids still haven't come on
board yet. I get annoyed. Motivation of course is still there but
sometimes you have to try and motivate these really annoying
useless kids and yeah. We've finished all the courses now so it's
just revision at the moment and that is also hard as a teacher
because it is boring to be honest. You're not teaching them new
stuff so you're not being a practitioner anymore you're just
getting them to do work and then you're just walking around and
answering questions so it's a fairly boring time of year but vital
time of year of course….
(Päkehä male, 31-40, secondary)
34
Demotivators

Culture of “blame”
It's all the way you're treated as a member of the
staff 'cos it always seems to focus on the negative,
there's no positive reinforcement and when it
comes it's not from the heart. You know, you try
and do all things for the children but you're told “if
your children aren't behaving then you have to
look at your programme”.
(Päkehä, female, 31-40, primary)
(Has left school teaching)
35
Demotivators

Exhaustion
I absolutely drain my batteries like I just get exhausted,
end of the day I go home and I find it hard to sleep 'cos
I'm so tired then you're exhausted the next day and you
know and there's always something on outside of your
own teaching in terms of what's going on in the school
that will either interrupt in some way or will involve you in
some way and will take some of your time and your
energy again and so yeah it is, it’s a case of wanting to
do a better job but just all of those little things talked
about just they don't work towards that, they hinder that
definitely.
(Päkehä male,20-25, primary)
36
Demotivators

Inadequate support for teaching children
with significant learning needs
I've got this new child and she has zapped my energy already. She started
at the beginning of the term so that has been a big change for me to have
a child come into an already established classroom of beautiful
hardworking children, to have that new personality come in and I've never
had an autistic child before so it has been even in the first three weeks, a
big learning curve. I am still supported with this new student but it does
make it hard when you think you've got to the end of the year and
everything's ticking along nicely and then something new and unexpected
comes in and causes changes and disruption. She's not fully funded so I
have teacher aide coming in three times a day just for three half hour
blocks. It’s not a lot and she needs support in the playground at lunch time
too.
(Päkehä female, primary 26-30)
37
Moving on to management
T: Less [motivated] Because I, having done all this kind of
deaning stuff it's you know, being in the classrooms alright but
doing all the pastoral stuff, I absolutely love it. So I've been
more motivated to you know, sit in an office all day and do
pastoral stuff, deal with problem kids and you know, 'cos we
have, there's two roles in the school, the two deputies. Two
of them just do strictly discipline and that's it and I'd love that
job. I like teaching, not to say that I've lost interest in
teaching, probably not but I like doing this more.
Right, so what is it that makes this better than classroom
teaching?
T: It’s better interactions with the students. You know, I think it's
the power, I love the power.
(Male, Päkehä, secondary, 20-25)
38
Working conditions
n= 35 primary, 18 secondary

The majority of teachers




Felt part of an effective team (40)
Worked in a collegial atmosphere (44)
Were encouraged to be innovative (39)
Felt proud to work in their school (46)
39
Working conditions

Only half said there was enough time for
them to work with their colleagues on
planning and assessment

A minority agreed that they tended to be
left alone to teach and sometimes felt
isolated in their classrooms

While 21 felt recognised for their teaching,
the same number was ambivalent, and 11
disagreed
40
Working conditions

Half felt that they were involved in
decisions that affected them

Over half agreed that there were
opportunities for them to develop their
leadership skills
41
Primary and secondary
experiences

2/3 primary, less than half secondary received
feedback from performance appraisals that
helped and motivated them to improve their
teaching

¾ primary, half of secondary agreed their
principals were consistently supportive

15 primary spent on money on classroom
resources ( usually in low decile schools)

Only 2 secondary teachers spent own money
42
Primary and secondary
experiences

Only 7 primary and 7 secondary agreed
that their current salary was appropriate
for their work. Half disagreed

Half primary and secondary agreed that
their workload was manageable, but
sizable strong disagreement

Half secondary, and somewhat less
primary did not think their workload was
acceptable
43
Opportunities for further learning

Overwhelmingly: Learning from their
colleagues
For me it's seeing teaching fleshed out. Being told something,
getting something on paper, doesn't matter how good the
presentation is, it's still not real. When you see a classroom in
action you've got everything in front of you and you've got the
contacts basically. You're seeing how things work in the
classroom, how the children respond, you just get, it's
probably the feel factor that you get. You get a feel for what's
happening whereas you don't get that when you're just sort of
taught it or told it.
(Päkehä male, 31-40, primary)
44
Opportunities for further learning

Reflection on practice
Reflection I suppose, a general one. Thinking about, oh I always
think about what I've done and how I could do it better, it's just
something that you know, you learn it at college and you find
you're doing all the time anyway, yeah thinking oh did that work,
why didn't it work?
(Päkehä, female, 31-40, primary)
Reflecting. I remember we got so sick of that word at teachers
college but it is true, it is so important to actually look at what
you’re doing and think about well is that working and if not well
I’ll stop doing that and I’ll try something else. I think that is a
really important part of growth.
(Päkehä, primary, 20-25, primary)
45
Opportunities for further learning

Feedback
Getting feedback from children and allowing
time for lots of conferencing with them and the
appraisal has highlighted some of my needs or
things I could be doing to improve my teaching
Päkehä, female, 31-40, primary

NCEA assessment
46
Opportunities for further learning

Further education (only one teacher)
Yeah definitely that, my Post Graduate Education paper at Massey,
it's called Current Issues in English and it's dealing with current
issues and it's definitely developed my teaching techniques in
English this year.
(Päkehä female, 26-30, secondary)

School based professional development
(several in primary)
The ICT lady comes in and actually works with you and you can
share work on the spot. That's the best way I can learn with them
right there and doing things. It has kind of opened the door for
other things.
(Mäori female, 20-25, primary)
47
Opportunities for further learning

Personal effort
Reading anything I can get my hands on, you know, newspaper articles with
regard to my subject with health, keeping up to date with the latest trends. I
often think if there's been subjects in the past that I haven't been sure about,
you know, when I've been looking at, for self defence or sexual harassment,
going and getting books out and reading all or I actually, anything, anything I
can get my hands on.
(Päkehä female, 31-40, secondary)
(Still hasn’t a permanent job)
This year I've been reading quite a bit about the history of science and just
general interest biology reading.
(Päkehä male, 31-40, secondary)
Mostly by my own efforts. You develop as a teacher every time you moderate
with your colleagues or discuss the subject area and try to improve it, but most
of the improvements have been done by me in the last couple of years, my
ability to talk to other people from other schools, my ability to stay up at night
and research as much as possible. Apart from that, no.
(Päkehä, female, 20-25, secondary)
48
Constraints to learning

Structural
Something I’d like to do more of would be to go into
the classrooms of other good teachers which is I think
something that doesn't happen much at many
schools. It should happen more.
(Päkehä male, 31-40, secondary, Yr 9 Dean)

Lack of resources
 No computer in classroom (secondary maths)
 No training to use interactive whiteboard
 Minimal professional reading available in school
49
Constraints to learning
Probably not having the books, you know,
college was brilliant because the books were
there, you know, all the psychology and
sociology books and things like that were
there and I don't get the time to go to the
public library. I mean I'd love to have some
of those books here.
(Mäori female, 26-30, intermediate)
50
Constraints to learning

Lack of access to wider professional
learning communities
What I should've done especially in regards to PE because I'm in
charge of PE, is I should've gone and visited more schools and
spoken to heads of PE and looked at their systems and looked
at the way they did things and learnt from them and just sort of
challenged myself in that way.
(Päkehä male, 26-30, intermediate)
There is a geography teachers association. I think we've been to
one meeting. I think that was to do with NCEA when they started
introducing it, that's a couple of years ago. They've often sent
messages out to us as geographers but we our HOD never
really emphasised to go or, no one's really interested in joining it.
(Pasifika, male, 31=40, secondary)
51
Constraints to learning

Time
Time constraints and trying to do too much at once, trying to get too tricky too
far ahead of ourselves, taking on too much and not sticking to the basics and
sometimes feeling as though we have to do it, we're obliged to do it rather than
doing it because it feels right.
(Päkehä female,26-30, secondary)
Time is another thing because if you want to do one thing then usually you
might have to reschedule something else or you might be moving something
else along to fit that in. I've just never felt so at the mercy of a clock or hours in
a day.
(Päkehä male, 26-30, secondary )
But that's when it annoys me because there's so many new and interesting little
things that I could be trying and thinking and doing and I can't do it because I
don't get time to sit down and plan it. So I think how busy things tend to be
really inhibits innovation.
(Päkehä, female, 31-40 secondary)
52
Constraints to learning

Administration demands

Negative school culture
Yeah this is appraisal time now when
everybody's observed, but you see I don't get to
go and see other people's classes. I asked
specifically this guy if I could go and have a look
at his class but all the teachers here, they don't
want you to come and have a look at their
classes.
(Male,31-40, secondary)
53
Constraints to learning

Unhelpful professional development
Having to do development that I see is pointless.
I'm a pretty black and white type of person when
it comes to that. If I don't want to do something
or I think it is boring or useless or unenjoyable
then I'm quite hard to motivate too. But if I see it
as being meaningful and useful and it grabs my
attention then it's valuable. Having presenters
that don't know their stuff too.
(Päkehä female,31-40, secondary)
54
Future career plans-next 5 years

Classroom focussed (most)

Classroom plus wider roles
 ½ primary, 2/3 secondary

Change schools
 ½ primary, 1/3 secondary

Move to a different kind of educational
work
 ¼ primary, only 3 secondary
55
What happens next?

2006 dissemination (papers, newsletter, presentations)

Informal contacts with teachers through emails:
I am nearing the end of the second term as a senior teacher at my
school. It has been an exciting and challenging task so far. I recently
applied for a permanent position as a senior teacher at [my school]
and won that position, so that was good. It has been interesting
attending extra management meetings and working with and
organising my team. We are still in the Literacy project so I have been
helping new staff get up to speed on that. It has also been a new
experience observing and appraising other teachers (especially those
more experienced). I am enjoying this role a great deal and am excited
about the rest of the year, as there is another new staff member
starting in my team next term.
(Päkehä male, 26-30, primary)

2007 participant forum
56
Discussion

Over to you!!!!!
57