CPD as an emotional, social and political act; A reply to The Researcher Teacher's blog

I enjoyed reading Nimish’s blog about how professional development needs to be connected to the emotional nature of teaching. This idea that CPD should, at least in part, support teachers’ emotional needs links to the thinking I am doing around teachers’ self-efficacy and identity as they engage with educational research. The paper Nimish summarises outlines what those of us who have spent a depressing afternoon in November during assessment season in a training session already know well… how we feel about our professional development matters.

Nimish’s blog raises interesting questions about what effective CPD looks like, and my reply here will add to this by linking in some interesting studies from my literature review so far and snippets of what I’ve learned whilst conducting my EdD. What I will argue is that it is important to remember that CPD is an emotional journey for teachers, but that it is also a social and political endeavour. If we don’t remember this, then we are missing the aspects of CPD that teachers may feel emotional about!

Summary of Nimish’s blog

To quickly summarise Nimish’s blog which you can read here, professional development that does not take into consideration teachers’ thoughts and feelings risks disengagement. Where CPD treats teaching as technical, this can negatively impact culture. Instead, effective CPD considers teacher’s perceptions and is intentionally designed to foster trust, emotional safety and honest reflection on practice. The literature by Keller-Schneider and Meier (2023) argues that reflecting on the emotional element of CPD in a routine way, training facilitators in emotion-sensitive pedagogy and humanisation of the process will lead to a more effective and inclusive CPD process.

PD as a social endeavour

A logical link can be drawn between the need to see CPD as an emotional endeavour and the chance to connect with others. As they say, a problem shared is a problem halved and ‘learning becomes interactive when teachers share problems, viewpoints and ideas and work together towards solutions’ (Meijs et al., 2016, pp. 88-89). Either as time to talk informally about experiences related to the topic at hand on tables, or a more structured discussion about how an approach may or may not be useful within a particular subject or key stage, we are gaining a wealth of knowledge by speaking to our colleagues. Ensuring that there is a discursive aspect of CPD is beneficial for achieving whole school priorities also, as ‘ongoing collaboration is important for negotiating beliefs about effective instruction and aligning teachers’ work with schoolwide improvement goals’ (Stosich et al., 2018).

PD as a political endeavour

Professional development is inevitably a political endeavour as what teachers are told and what aspects of pedagogy we are trained on is part of an agenda of school level improvement, trust level beliefs and national level agenda. I’m not going to argue the case for some kind of CPD revolution (… not today anyway!), but there is space to acknowledge this and contextualise the decisions being made. Whilst there is an argument that teacher autonomy can ‘hinder’ students’ progress in some context (Day, 2020), there is a point to consider about how teachers feel about their ability to make decisions: particularly in England where teachers are less likely to be able to make decisions compared to their counterparts elsewhere and in comparison to their friends in similar professions (Worth & Van den Brande, 2020). Teacher Tapp undertook a survey of staff that attended inset at the beginning of the school year (I have used this data in a previous blog as I find it so compelling) and 38% of SLT found it useful compared to 13% of classroom teachers. This makes sense as those who are at the receiving end of transmitted information value it less than those who orchestrated it.

Conclusion

In summary, the point about teacher emotion is an important one. How teachers feel about their professional development is something school leaders should take into consideration as the leaders of school culture and within the context of the teacher recruitment and retention crisis. Being transparent about your views and being open to improving your practice is dependent on a culture of psychological safety in schools. It is no longer enough to send out a forms post-session to which teachers can ‘agree or strongly agree’ to the statements linked to the usefulness of CPD. In order to take the emotional aspects of teaching seriously, we must also acknowledge that CPD is a social and political endeavour also.

Reflective Questions

1. How can school leaders effectively address the emotional aspects of CPD within their context?

2. How do you/your CPD leader ensure a sense of psychological safety for staff undertaking training?

3. How do you plan for social interactions as part of CPD?

4. How open is your culture? Do all actors feel confident to share their views? How do you know and how do you plan for this?

References

Day, C. (2020). How teachers' individual autonomy may hinder students' academic progress and attainment: Professionalism in practice. British Educational Research Journal, 46, 247-264.

Keller-Schneider, A., & Meier, A. (2023). The role of teachers' emotions and their assessment in professional development research; A systematic review Educational Research Review, 39. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2023.100547.

Meijs, C., Prinsen, F. R., & de Laat, M. F. (2016). Social learning as approach for teacher professional development; how well does it suit them? . Educational Media International 53, 85-102.

Stosich, E. L., Bocala, C., & Forman, M. (2018). Building coherence for instructional improvement: A design-based implementation research study Educational Management, Administration and Leadership 46, 864-880.

Worth, J., & Van den Brande, J. (2020). Teacher autonomy: how does it relate to job satisfaction and retention? . NFER. https://tdtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/teacher_autonomy_how_does_it_relate_to_job_satisfaction_and_retention.pdf