ERIC Number: ED662472
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2024-Sep-18
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Why 'Defensive' Pedagogies Matter: The Necessity of Expanding Teachers' Agency to Inform Educational Transformation
Warren Lilley
Advances in Research on Teaching
In an age of educational reform which incentivises increased digitisation and standardisation, teachers are expected to embrace the rise of 'new' tools and pedagogies with limited agency to inform, question or direct what 'newness' must be brought into their classrooms. Drawing on my research with English as a Foreign Language (EFL) educators in South Africa and using an 'excessive entitlement' lens, I showcase how teachers' lack of agency can result in 'defensive' and 'coercive' practices in the classroom which are a far cry from the education transformation imagined according to either global and local imaginaries for teaching and learning. If we are interested in an educational revolution, I argue that a fundamental reorientation in education recognising teachers' agency in informing change is necessary. To do so requires theoretically driven intervention methodologies which view the competing demands placed on teachers as entry points to developing their agency and volition to find practices which work for them and their students in the classroom. To that end, I illustrate how Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) informed interventions like Change Laboratories could aid in this fundamental repositioning for teachers regarding transformational efforts and their far-reaching potential for educational revolution becoming conscious of and overcoming their feelings of excessive entitlement. [For the complete volume, "After Excessive Teacher and Faculty Entitlement: Expanding the Space for Healing and Human Flourishing through Ideological Becoming. Advances in Research on Teaching. Volume 47," see ED662291.]
Descriptors: Teacher Role, Change Agents, Educational Change, Teacher Attitudes, Expectation, Second Language Instruction, English (Second Language), Language Teachers, Foreign Countries, Professional Autonomy, Teacher Centers
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Publication Type: Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: South Africa
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A