Teachers are in the awkward position of exercising authority, yet have dubious control over the conditions within which they do so. The ideal teacher role is authority exercised in good faith and a commitment to the burdens and uncertainties of educational authority. (CB)

The process of learning to teach is comparable to learning to write because the fundamental activities in which teachers take part are in many ways like the activities of writers. Implications for teacher education are discussed, especially with regard to the trend to establish a scientific knowledge base for teaching. (IAH)

Improving teachers' professional status involves identifying salient professional characteristics. The paper compares teaching with other professions. Teachers belong to a group of craft professions different from elite expert professions. Teacher education must produce skilled practitioners with a consciousness of craft to guide their work. (SM)

This is a self-study of an elementary teacher's emotions during the year he took a sabbatical from a position as an education professor. He worked as an elementary classroom teacher, and he kept a journal of his daily experience as a teacher of a nongraded primary class. With the journal as a data source, the study examined the feeling…

The causes, conditions, symptoms, and treatment of teacher burnout are discussed. The remediation of teacher burnout requires change strategies that consider psychological and social factors of the educational environment. (CJ)

Teacher empowerment requires investing in teachers the right to participate in the determination of school goals and policies and the right to exercise professional judgment about the content of the curriculum and means of instruction. Implications of this conception and the kind of school leadership it requires are discussed. (IAH)

The attrition of both new and experienced teachers is a challenge for schools and school administrators throughout the United States, particularly in large urban districts. Because of the importance of this issue, there is a large empirical literature that investigates why teachers quit and how they might be induced to stay. Here we build upon…

Focus of Study: This article investigates how teachers' relationships with boys can be central in bolstering boys' resilience and connection to their work in schools. Specifically, we examine how teachers understand the ways that their relationships with boys shape their teaching practice as well as their understandings of boys' learning in…

Parallel issues in work and schools are cited and discussed. This article suggests that the organizational structure of schools contributes to lowered teacher morale and creativity; and concludes that school policymakers must learn the lessons of industry: Give employees a stake in the system by decentralizing decision making. (IAH)

The intensification thesis of change in teachers' workload and responsibilities suggests teachers' work is increasingly intensified, with teachers expected to respond to greater pressures and multiplying innovations under stable or deteriorating conditions. The article presents data from a study of how elementary teachers used newly provided…

In this article I attempt, through stories and reflections, to give voice to some contemporary experiences, including fears and difficulties, of being a teacher in the early 21st century. I explore the idea that contemplative practices might open paths for negotiating and rediscovering depth, grace, and courage in our work as teachers, in a time…

An exploration of the assumptions, implications, and consequences of eight Wisconsin experimental projects concerned with creating career ladders and teacher incentive programs suggests that the reforms resulting from the projects intensify the work of teaching rather than redefine its conditions to make them more intellectually and socially…

Teaching has endured largely as an assemblage of entrepreneurial individuals whose autonomy is grounded in norms of privacy and noninterference and is sustained by the very organization of teaching work. This article examines prominent forms of collegiality and discusses their prospects for altering the fundamental conditions of privacy in…

Reports on ways English primary teachers' work perspectives changed following the 1988 Education Reform Act, noting the significance of teacher professionalism as a mediating influence. Most teachers had changed their teaching approach, classroom practice, and role perceptions in ways they did not choose, resulting in pressure and loss of…

Certain dissatisfactions emerged as a universal theme among 200 teachers observed and interviewed during a study of school environments. Teachers are charged with increased responsibility, while they suffer from a loss of authority. Reasons for the loss of authority and its effects on teacher morale are discussed. (PP)