Download tea .chers working together: a dialogue on organizational and

CHAPTER
1
TEA .CHERS WORKING TOGETHER: A DIALOGUE ON
ORGANIZATIONAL
AND CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
OF CHINESE TEACHERS
LYNN PAINE and LIPING MA
Michigan State University
Abstract
This chapter is a dialogue between two scholars - one Chinese and one North American.
Each from her own perspective draws on field research and professional experience to
analyze practices of teacher CoIlaboration in China. The chapter considers how Chinese
teachers work together as a matter of both formal organization and informal relations. The
underlying cultma assumptions which support these practices are also discussed. Much of
what is perceived to be dichotomous in the West (such as group vs. individual, hierarchy
vs. equality, and control vs. commitment) is perceived to be reconciled within the complex
historical, cultural, and political patterns which embed Chinese thinking and practice.
Introduction
The idea of teachers working together is both novel and familiar. For teachers in the
U.S.A., many of whom historically chose to teach because of the autonomy teaching
provided them, working together has been neither an orienting goal of their work nor
an organizational reality supported by the structures of school policy. At the same time,
the way in which restructuring has inspired discussion and reform efforts in schools and
communities (not to mention schools of education) has encouraged many, teachers and
education researchers alike, to examine coilegiality as a norm and structural practice.
In this chapter we want to expand and refine the ways in which educators talk about
teachers working together. Our goal is to examine a case of teachers working together.
We have chosen to analyze the practices of Chinese teachers because they have a
decades-long tradition and well-articulated structure for teachers collaborating. The
Chinese example additionally serves our purpose by raising questions about what we
assume by collegiality and working together.
We approach this chapter aware of the difficulties inherent in such work. Examining
cultural assumptions and their expression in social organization requires close knowledge
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of the context studied and awareness of concepts embedded in practices. We write as a
U.S. and a Chinese researcher, encouraged that by working together on this project,
we may both model the benefits and difficulties of collaboration and at the same time
be able to draw on the insights gained by our contrasting perspectives. In an effort to
give voice to this variety of perspectives, we see our analysis as a dialogue. We suspect
that it will be in the interaction of our views that the greatest insights can occur for us
and for our readers, As we write, we also are wary of confusing ideals about teaching
with practice, or blurring the variation that is an inevitable part of teaching practice in
China, as elsewhere. Our goal, as we engage in this dialogue, is to describe certain
dominant practices as they illuminate ideals, norms, and goals of professional practice
in a particular setting.
Lynn Paine (hereafter identified as LP): The Chinese approach to teaching stands
in stark contrast to much of what was familiar to me as a former high school
English teacher. When I began field work in northeastern
China in 1982, words
like restructuring had not entered the discourse of educational research or practice
in the U.S.A. Instead, it was assumed that, while U.S. teachers needed to cooperate
in building a coherent curriculum and effective school climate, in the actual planning
and teaching of courses, teachers preferred to work on their own, responsive to the
uniquenesses of their backgrounds and their students. I found out quickly that such
assumptions were not at work in the Chinese schools and teacher education programs,
in which I spent two years observing and interviewing.
Within the first week of my field research I began to interview in a local high school.
Although my Chinese was at that point quite good, I stumbled over certain phrases
that kept coming up in my discussions with a school administrator and a teacher.
While they were providing an initial overview of the school, they discussed the staff
by talking not only about teachers but also about jiaoyanzu. I did not know that term.
When I asked them to write the word, I recognized the characters as meaning “teach
research group,” but the literal translation did little to clarify my confusion. Over the
next two years of my field work, as I continued to conduct high school interviews, spent
extensive periods of time observing the preparation of novice teachers (in university
teacher education classes and in their student teaching at schools), and interviewed
large numbers of experienced teachers about how they had learned to teach, the term
~iu~yu~z~ kept appearing, as did other evidence that teachers organize themselves in
their work quite differently from how I had taken for granted in my own preparation
and experiences as a beginning teacher. Central to what came to seem to me to be a
Chinese approach to teaching was the assumption that teachers would work together in
virtually every phase of their work. Recognizing what I will call a collective orientation
to teaching in practices I observed and interviewed about, I began to recognize many of
the same threads in research and documents related to teaching and teacher education.
An exploration of these interviews and written materials (and subsequent field research)
now raises questions for me about the range of meanings attached to the idea of teachers
working together, the premises that underlie particular practices, and the implications
of these premises and practices for teaching and learning.
Liping Ma (hereafter identified as LM): In the winter of 1989, I got Lynn Paine’s
(1986) paper “Teaching as a virtuoso performance: The model and its consequences
for teacher thinking and preparation in China.” This was the first time that I had read
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a foreigner discussing Chinese education. It was particularly exciting for me to perceive
a picture of teaching in China - the field in which I had studied and worked for almost
all my life - drawn by an outsider. I was surprised that some features outstanding in
her eyes were so regular and so common for me that they had not drawn my attention.
For instance, I never noticed that Chinese teachers were, as Lynn Paine depicted,
“working together.” In Chinese educational publications there are plenty of articles
narrating stories and achievements of individual outstanding teachers. These teachers,
with the titles of “model teacher,” “special-class teacher,” “first-class teacher,” and
so on, are well known in Chinese education. Even a teacher working in a remote
part of the country can name model teachers. However, the teaching research group
Giuoyanzu), notable as the organization in which teachers work together, is rarely
noticed and discussed in Chinese educational publications. Working together constitutes
the circumstances or environment in which Chinese teachers work; like the air in which
we live, it seems to be too common and too customary for people to notice its existence.
Yet now, 2 years of being in the U.S.A. has distanced me both in space and time from
that circumstance. I have become an outsider. Reflecting on the topic my coauthor
has raised, I can see why the phenomenon of Chinese teachers working together was
obvious to her. However, when I try to make sense of and explain this phenomenon,
I find myself becoming an insider again. Approaching this issue here, I am pursuing
an understanding of some features of Chinese teachers’ work which I did not notice or
could not explain before.
How Teachers Work Together
LP: The ways in which teachers work together take many forms. There are formal
and explicit associations of teachers that support collaboration; there are informal
associations encouraged by designation of differential status among teachers; there is
what Liping Ma calls the invisible relationship among staff in a school; and there are
the ways teachers work together without working face to face, chiefly through a
flourishing literature of teachers’ stories published in educational journals and books,
in what we might consider a kind of distanced collaboration. (For examples of this
last category, see Si, 1982, and Beijingshi Jiaoyu Kexue Yanjiusuo, 1984.) We find
each of these forms deserving of analysis, yet for our purposes, although we touch on
the informal, invisible, and distanced collaboration, we will concentrate on the formal
organizational structures of the jiaoyanzu and its variants as a way of examining a major
form of teacher collaboration.
“Jiuoyunzu”:
Formal Organization,
Tusks, and Relations
LP: Perhaps the most obvious way in which teachers work together, and the one
institutionalized throughout all precollegiate education in the country, is the jiuoyunzu
or teaching research group. The jiuo$znzu is a formal organizational unit within the
school or, in the case of a small school, an organizational structure that connects
teachers across schools. It acts as an individual teacher’s primary work organization.
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Structurally it serves as the intermediate level between the individual teacher and
school administration. Its tasks are varied and its presence creates connections between
teachers while distinguishing role relations between teachers.
Organization
LP: Because it comprises teachers working within the same subject area, the j~auyanzu
in its location on an organizational chart looks very much like a department in a
U.S. high school. The difference, however, is significant in terms of its prevalence
organizationally as well as its tasks. First, the teaching research group is not limited
to secondary schools. Rather, in all schools that have staffs of eight or more teachers,
staff are organized into groups. Since most urban and many rural elementary teachers
teach only one subject, they, like their secondary school counterparts, are organized
into groups on the basis of subject area. Principals work chiefly with the head of the
jiaoyanzu rather than individual teachers.
A jiaoyanzu typically contains three to seven teachers. If a school has more than eight
teachers teaching a single subject, administrators will split the teachers into two or more
teaching research groups according to the grade levels taught (such that, for example,
a lower grade math teaching group and higher grade level group get created). Every
teaching research group has a head who is recognized as the best or one of the best
teachers in the group.
LP: The prevalence of the jiaoyanzu across organizational type and level of schooling
distinguishes it from U.S. departmental structures. The second, and for our purposes
more significant, way in which the teaching research group differs from common U.S.
notions of the department is in its organizational tasks. The jiaoyanzu’s goal is the
improvement of educational practice and the range of its activities is thus quite varied.
LM: What does the jiaoyanzu do? There are two basic kinds of activities: weekly
group meetings and frequent group activities. More specifically, according to our
observations, interviews, and correspondence with teachers and researchers, the common
tasks of the teaching research group include: collectively studying and discussing the
national teaching outline, a common outline which sets the objectives for each subject
at each grade level; designing an instructional plan which, according to the objectives
set out, schedules specific plans for how and what to teach in the academic year,
the semester, the unit, and even individual lessons; studying and exploring subject
matter, focusing as a group on what the Chinese term “important points,” “difficult
points,” and “key points” in the textbook and discussing how to teach these; examining
teaching methods; checking teachers’ work, including examining each teacher’s lesson
plans and their students’ homework; organizing student meetings to get feedback
on teachers’ work; arranging and setting goals for peer observation of colleagues
in the jiaoyanzu, those in other subject areas or even other schools; designing tests
(including unit tests, midterms, and final examinations); organizing and conducting
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inservice teacher education by arranging for teachers to have opportunities outside
the school and organizing opportunities in the school by inviting outside “experts”
to give lectures about their new ideas and reflections on subject matter and teaching;
facilitating the induction of new teachers, each of whom is assigned to a jiaoyanzu;
organizing and supporting preservice teacher education by working as a group with
student teachers assigned to the school and arranging (and coordinating) their student
teaching in collaboration with the university field instructor; and designing, organizing,
and leading the activities of the “subject area interest group” (an extracurricular student
group organized around a particular subject).
Roles and relationships
LP: The nature of the teaching research group’s organizational structure, location,
and tasks defines a set of roles and produces particular kinds of role relationships.
With the jiaoyanzu as the central locus of teaching activity (and decision-making about
teaching), the roles of principal and teacher (that is, roles of those above and below
this organizational unit) are redefined. The principal’s role involves working with the
jiaoyanzu rather than the individual teacher. The teacher, similarly, is defined in his
or her role by the activities of the teaching research group. While the teacher is still
the person chiefly responsible for classroom teaching, many decisions about curriculum
and instruction are made jointly through the jiaoyanzu. In this sense, the teacher’s field
is narrower and more focused than it might be in a U.S. setting. At the same time,
because of the presence of the teaching research group, the teacher’s role is broader.
That is, rather than being chiefly a classroom teacher, the teacher is also a teacher
educator - working with colleagues (experienced and new) to educate each other
about teaching - as well as researcher or inquirer into teaching, curriculum, and
learning. While U.S. teachers are increasingly identified as having these roles, the
Chinese organizational context has long made these functions of teaching visible in and
central to a teacher’s daily tasks.
In considering the ways in which the jiaoyanzu organizes relationships, I see that
the teaching research group both brings teachers together and differentiates them.
The bringing together, discussed briefly above in the outline of activities, means that
teachers have a structured time to work together, that they also have many informal
and regular opportunities to work together, and that their work as individuals is open to
others. In this sense, teaching is not privatized. This collective approach is symbolized
by the allocation of space in schools. Teachers have a common place to work together.
They do not have desks in classrooms but work instead at their desks in an office that
belongs to their jiaoyanzu. All these features bring teachers together physically and
professionally.
But teachers are also differentiated
(and hence in some ways separated) by the
creation of the jiaoyanzu. The head of the jiaoyanzu takes responsibility for all activities
of the group. In most cases this person is seen as one of the best teachers in the group
and is a senior, experienced teacher. Yet sometimes he or she can be a promising young
teacher, one recognized as outstanding or with great potential. In either case, the group
head usually has a special reputation in teaching not only among the teachers in the
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group but also among other teachers in the school and is thereby distinguished from
his/her colleagues.
LM: Under the group head there are also “backbone teachers.” Unlike the group
head, backbone teachers do not have a formal title, yet it seems that everyone
nevertheless knows who the backbone teachers are.
LP: In discussing backbone teachers, here again my difficulties with Chinese provided
an opportunity for insight. The term “backbone teacher,” a literal translation of gugan
jiaoshi, came up in interviews I conducted with principals and teachers. I found it in
articles in research and policy documents. But I could not locate “backbone teacher”
anywhere on an organizational chart nor in preservice education textbooks which discuss
the organization of school administration and teaching. It was not something principals
would mention in their enumeration of types of teachers they had, although other ways
of categorizing teachers - by age, by those who have achieved different professional
ranks, and by gender - were a typical part of any introductory interview I would have
in their schools. Still, the word crept in, most often in discussions about strengthening
the school’s staff.
The term, I gradually came to understand, refers to an informal but widely used
category of teacher. Implicit in the naming of this type is a broader conception of schools
as being places where teachers are connected. Also implicit is an ideal of expertise. A
backbone teacher represents the ideal of the good teacher - good in their classroom
teaching, but also good in that their teaching helps to foster good teaching among other
teachers and affects the overall quality of the school. The idea of backbone teacher
implies a collective orientation to teachers, one that is relational. At the same time,
the term implies another dimension on which teachers can be differentiated.
LM: Backbone teachers are those who are more active in the activities of the
jiaoyunzu and have a good reputation in teaching. Some are even as outstanding in
their teaching as the group head. Backbone teachers contribute much to what and how
the group works to improve its teaching quality. In effect they operate as assistants and
resource people for the group head. When the group sets up a new program, typically
they are the ones who will try it first. They also mentor or coach new teachers. If we
think of the jiaoyunzu as a substantial level in the organization of a school, a backbone
teacher should be seen as a substantial component of the group.
LP: Thus, the jiuoyunzu has not only the formal distinctions between its head and
the other teachers, or between teachers in one teaching research group and another.
There is also what appears to be a set of informal but powerful distinctions between
the roles individual members of a jiuoyunzu play in their group, as exemplified in Liping
Ma’s comments about the backbone teacher’s role. These informal relations represent
an underresearched area (and one I feel is worth exploring). Yet even without a large
body of research to go on, it is clear that phrases in common use in Chinese schools
and literature about education serve as invaluable hints at or markers for a conceptual
framework of teachers’ relations. This framework assumes teacher diversity.
An example is found in the phrase luo dui qing, that is, literally, “the old bring
along the young.” Principals and teacher leaders I interviewed often talked about the
work of the teaching research group in terms of staff with varying levels of experience.
Implicit in their comments is a view of teaching which assumes varied responsibilities,
types of participation, and contributions. Central to this notion of luo dui qing is the idea
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of cormectedness: The old and young are connected. Their connection comes through
knowledge of and skill in teaching (as well as a commitment to that practice). In this
we see a glimpse of a shared collectivist orientation. At the same time, there is an
expectation of difference: that the older teachers, the luo, have something to offer the
young, the ging.
The relations that stem from notions of Zuo dai q&g and backbone teachers work
within a set of formal relations dominated by the jiaoyanzu structure. This structure
and its accompanying relations bring teachers together while nevertheless distinguishing
among them and exemplifying certain ideals of and assumptions about teaching.
Informal Relations
LM: The teaching research group is obviously a formal form of teachers’ working
together in China. It has a formal title, regular schedule of group activities and definite
tasks. Beside this, however, there are also informal ways that teachers work together.
These informal arrangements further exemplify views of teaching and the teacher’s
role at the same time that they support frequent close collaboration among teachers.
An informal linkage which parallels the teaching research group is the relationship
between banzhuren (“class director”)
and renkelaoshi (“subject teachers”).
As
mentioned above, in China most teachers teach only one subject. Hence, for a class
of students, there are several teachers teaching them different subjects. Yet among
these teachers, one, called class director, is assigned to take the main responsibility
for the class or ban, a group of students who take all their classes together and
share their own classroom. The class director usually teaches a core subject (such
as mathematics or literature). Such persons are assigned a regular teaching load (for
instance, teaching two classes) and act as the class director for one of the sections they
teach. The class director is in charge of all affairs of the students in the class. S/he is
supposed to spend the major part of working hours with these students and to attend
the many class activities which occur outside formal classes: a daily class meeting every
morning before school, a so-called self-study class (or study hall) after the school day,
“weekly meetings” (zhouhui) and other class activities which are thought to contribute to
students’ overall growth. The director is responsible for shaping the class into a collective
vvhich supports the growth of every student.
In order to lead the class well, the class director has to keep in touch with the subject
teachers. S/he has to share information about students and the objective s/he set for the
class with them. For example, given that one class teacher finds that the class assigned
to him or her is not satisfactory in discipline, s/he may have an objective for the class
to improve its discipline. Then when working on this objective, s/he has to communicate
it not only to students but also to all subject teachers of the class. Since some of the
subject teachers may be experts on discipline management and some may not, the class
director has to think of how to take advantage of those strong ones as well as how to
help those weak ones. Also, s/he needs information on how students act in their classes
and suggestions from the re~ke~~os~i.
At ,the same time, it is necessary for subject teachers to be in contact with the
class director. They need the class director to help them solve problems such as class
discipline, learning motivation, and students’ attitude.
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The meetings
of class director
and subject teachers,
unlike that of the teaching
research group, are informal,
spontaneous,
and irregular.
They are usually held in
order to solve a specific problem of the class. As an indispensable
supplement
to the
teaching research group, the association
of class director and subject teacher makes
considerable
contributions
to school teaching. While the teaching research group focuses
on the teaching of subjects, the association
of class director and subject teachers works
on facilitating
students’ learning in a more general way. It is charged with students’
moral, cognitive,
and physical development.
This arrangement
allows teachers
to work together
in a flexible and overlapping
way. Subject teachers,
teaching
more than one class, are often involved
in several
associations
at the same time. They carry information
about teaching
and students
from one association
to another;
in this way it is more broadly shared. While the
teaching research group explicitly organizes
teachers according
to subjects, the class
director-subject
teachers’ association
forms a vague, cross-class, and cross-grade net of
teachers working in a school.
There is another aspect which may reflect Chinese teachers’ working together in a
more inexplicit way. Walking in a Chinese school and talking with its teachers, one can
find that the topic they are interested
in is different from that of American
teachers.
The latter will enthusiastically
talk about their own teaching and students in their own
class. Yet the former will be interested
in addressing the purpose of the school and the
achievements
of their colleagues
as well. Given frequent
peer observation
and joint
preparation,
Chinese teachers are well informed
about the teaching quality of their
colleagues in the whole school and able to make comments on colleagues’ teaching style,
subject knowledge
level, capacity for managing class discipline,
strength and weakness
in teaching,
and reputation
among students.
They are proud of good teachers in the
school and feel sorry for some colleagues
who have trouble in teaching.
Outstanding
teachers are respected
among their colleagues
for their excellent teaching rather than
their personality.
The tone teachers
use in describing
their outstanding
colleagues
reminds me of how an actor appreciates
the star in their troupe. Knowing each other
well in professional
aspects is a consequence
as well as a condition for working together.
Appreciating
and being proud of a colleague’s
teaching
reflects how teaching
is a
collective activity.
In fact, Chinese teachers not only know well teachers in their own school, but also are
aware of good teachers in their area or district. The school district regularly organizes
so-called “demonstration
lectures,” which are given by expert teachers and open to the
whole district. Sitting in such classes is an activity of the teaching research group.
Now it seems to be the time to go back to the puzzle I had before: Why Chinese
teachers,
identified
by Lynn Paine as an example
of working
together,
so much
appreciate
outstanding
individuals?
The answer is that these individual
teachers are
not publicized
as real individuals,
but as the model of the collective.
They represent
and embody a common orientation
which all teachers are to pursue. In a sense they
are like a magnetic force that attracts and calls teachers of the whole country to work
together.
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683
Purposes of Teachers Working Together
LM: The main purpose of teachers’ working together is to ensure and improve
teaching quality. This purpose is pursued from several angles. First of all, working
together is a means to make sure every teacher will know what s/he is supposed to
teach and has an appropriate way to teach. This is the task of the teaching research
group. Besides routine weekly meetings, the group has before-term, during-the-term,
and end-of-term meetings for serious discussion of teaching materials, The group raises
and analyzes main points and difficult points in the text it is to teach and makes them as
clear as possible to every member. It discusses how to deal with these points in teaching
and makes outlines of the group teaching plan. Group members also report their own
teaching plans and get comments and suggestions from others. They design unit exams,
midterm exams, and final exams together. After exams, the group analyzes exam papers
together, finds out the weak points in past teaching, and decides how to supplement
them. During this process teachers’ knowledge of subject matter and how to teach it
is under the supervision as well as the help of their colleagues.
Secondly, working together makes teachers know students better. In Chinese schools
there are no experts or consultants for students’ problems. Since a class of students is
not only seen by one teacher but by several, these teachers share their knowledge of and
experience with students and solve problems in cooperation. Knowledge of students is
not only addressed in associations between class director and subject teachers, but also
is a topic in the teaching research group meetings and a subject for chatting in teachers’
offices. Since a teaching research group usually shares an office, conversations between
students and a teacher in the teacher’s office take on a public quality. If a teacher wants
to talk with a student individually, s/he asks the student to come to the office. The talk
does not leave out other colleagues in the office. After the talk, an informal discussion
about the student and the problem often follows.
Thirdly, working together facilitates staff development, especially the introduction
of new teachers. When a new teacher comes to work in a school, s/he will be assigned
to a master teacher. They make a “master-apprentice
bond.” The apprentice and the
master work in the same teaching research group and teach the same subject to the
same grade. By working on the same subject matter and with the same age students,
they have much language in common and the master’s assistance is relevant and timely.
They observe each other’s classes and discuss their teaching. The master explains why
s/he teaches in this way. The apprentice raises questions, articulates troubles, and shares
what s/he is learning from teaching with the master. A new teacher is not limited to a
relationship with the master, however. All the teachers s/he works with, either in the
teaching research group or in the class director and subject teacher association; will be
concerned with helping him or her. For instance, a new teacher may be assigned to teach
a class with an experienced class director. By exposing the new teacher immediately to
a well-managed class, the school helps the beginner to understand what constitutes a
good learning environment for students and gradually to learn how to create it.
Fourth, working together is a reasonable way to take advantage of all the staff. There
is an assumption of the diversity of teachers. Teachers have different teaching styles and
different strengths. Some are good in subject matter and others may be good at dealing
with students. There are always some new teachers who are less experienced. And not
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ail experienced teachers can attain the same high level as expert teachers. By working
together, teachers in a group are able to take advantage of the strengths of the staff
and weaknesses are compensated for by colleagues. Students can get more chance to
benefit from outstanding teachers, either directly through exposure to them or indirectly
through an expert teacher’s.influence on the students’ teacher.
While the teaching research group serves many central purposes of Chinese teaching,
it is important to recognize its history. The formal and informal organizations of
teachers’ work in current Chinese mass schooling, the teaching research group and
the association of class director with subject teachers are not indigenous but were introduced
from the Soviet Union in the early 1950s. However, elements of Chinese cultural traditions
underlie these practices in ways that have made the jiaoyanzu uniquely Chinese, persistent
in the face of reform, and powerful in its effect on teaching practice.
What Underlies These Practices?
LP: The practices we have outlined above take many forms and have associated
with them a range of purposes, activities, roles, and relationships. Undergirding these
practices are certain organizational supports and conceptual traditions which act as
premises.
Structural Supports
LP: Among the structural supports for Chinese teachers’ work together, four aspects
of the organizational life of schools stand out as particularly significant: common
curriculum and examinations, arrangement of the school week, the teacher’s load, and
the allocation of space.
Typically, teachers in China within one school, within a county or municipality, and
within the country share a common set of tasks, thanks to a national curriculum and
a unified national examination system for entrance to higher education. (There are a
few exceptions to the common national curriculum. For example, elite schools have a
separate, though standard, curriculum. But even this variation produces standardized
curricula within a subgroup of schools.) The general practice of a unified curriculum
gives teachers a common content around which they can structure their work. The
examinations also serve to offer a common goal teachers share. Of course, the
common goal can also be seen as a common burden, given the heavy pressure for
exam success that falls on both students and teachers. The shared pressure acts as a
“baton” that directs education in ways currently criticized by educational researchers
and policymakers, though apparently to little effect on dominant school practices (Liu,
1987; Qian and Huang, 1987; Rosen, 1987; Ross, 1991; Thogersen, 1990). Whether this
shared goal is positive or negative, few would argue about its presence in the thinking
and practice of most Chinese teachers.
While teachers share a common, well identified, and frequently articulated purpose (or
pressure), their ability to work together and the forms that work takes are in large part
shaped by the arrangement of the school week and their teaching loads. Most schools
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schedule weekly 2-hour blocks of time for jiaoyanzu
meetings,
as well as frequently
organize other meetings for whole school and other larger groups of teachers to meet
to discuss teaching.
It was striking to me how pervasive this organizational
reality is.
In urban and rural schools; in elite, ordinary,‘and
poor schools; in conservative
schools
and schools actively engaged in-reform,
school authorities
have organized the week to
make time for teachers to work together, and in interviews teachers as well as principals
attributed
much benefit to such opportunities.
Of course the possibilities
for teachers
to work together,
whether
in a formally
scheduled
meeting time, as just suggested,
or in the daily informal collaboration
that
takes place, is aided by the allocation
of teaching load. Chinese teachers have been
described by the World Bank as having a light, inefficient
teaching load compared
to
that of teachers in other countries
(World Bank, 1983). At the 19 urban and suburban
secondary
schools where I have interviewed,
teachers normally taught between 6 and
14 periods a week, depending
largely on their subject area. In the 37 rural elementary
and secondary
schools where I conducted
interviews,
the load ranged between 6 and
25, depending
both on the subject area, level of schooling,
and the school’s status
(as ordinary
or key). For the majority of teachers I interviewed
- urban and rural,
elementary
and secondary,
and working
in seven provinces
or autonomous
cities
(administrative
equivalents
to provinces),
the typical load was under 15 periods of
classroom teaching a week.
This allocation of teachers to teaching reflects assumptions
about the essential features
and demands
of teaching.
Implicit in this teaching load policy is the conception
of
teaching as requiring large amounts of preparation
time (Paine, 1990). Associated
with
the individual
teacher’s schedule and the scheduling
of weekly meetings of groups of
teachers is the assumption
that this preparation
inevitably
involves collective work; the
preparation
requires time for teachers to work together.
The physical arrangements
of schools further illustrate this assumption
(about teaching
as labor intensive
and collective)
and support the practice of teacher collaboration.
Teachers are without classrooms
of their own since each class of students has its own
classroom,
to which different subject teachers come and go during the day. Preparation
instead occurs in the jiaoyanzu
office, where teachers’ desks are crowded together in the
academic equivalent
of dormitory
space.
Conceptual Orientations
LP: Structural and organizational
arrangements
support the sorts of shared work by
teachers that we have described.
Yet structural
arrangements
alone are insufficient
to
explain the persistence
and pervasiveness
of Chinese teacher collaboration.
Particular
structures
vary: Schools are able to allocate more or less space to teachers’ offices,
teaching loads differ, curricula are not entirely unified. Yet the commitment
to working
together appears present in all structural
configurations
I witnessed.
In reviewing how teachers work together and the purposes of such action, conceptual
orientations,
embedded
in cultural traditions,
appear closely connected
to structure and
organization.
Cultural assumptions
about teaching, knowledge,
and expertise help create
an environment
which supports teachers working together. These assumptions
represent
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not practices,
but ideals. Below we highlight briefly
Chinese traditions
that seem especially relevant.
Traditions of knowledge,
scholarship,
and selectively
some
aspects
of
and teaching as a mission
LP: Cultural assumptions
about teachers, the knowledge they possess, and the nature
of their role have a long history and a powerful influence over contemporary
norms.
Chinese
teachers
see themselves,
for the most part, as transmitters
of knowledge
or, for those more progressive
teachers,
as helping students
actively engage with
knowledge.
Both views - the conservative
and the more liberal - take knowledge
as a given. Observation
of teaching
practice,
interviews
with teachers,
analysis of
teacher education
practices,
and texts all suggest that this view of knowledge
is seen
as generally unproblematic
(Paine, 1990). Knowledge
is found in texts. It is something
to be mastered.
This concept of knowledge
as being based in text has two important
dimensions
directly related
to Chinese
history.
The first comes from China’s long history of
scholasticism.
All three of China’s greatest philosophical
traditions
- Confucianism,
Buddhism,
and Taoism - are based on written text. Associated
with these traditions
and the resultant
reverence
for text was the traditional
system of social, political, and
economic mobility, which hinged on careful, close reading of text. This system reached
its height in China’s centuries-long
civil service examination
system, where the possibility
for political and social advancement
rested solely on one’s ability to analyze and write
about passages of Confucian
text. To the contemporary
outsider, the continued
legacy
seems evident.
Students
in China’s schools today no longer concentrate
chiefly on
Confucian
texts, but their social and economic well-being
still has a great deal to do
with their ability to cite and analyze material in their text. Teachers, like students, know
that they must know the text’s meaning. The presence of a new (i.e., different from the
imperial version but nevertheless
dominant)
examination
system reinforces for teachers
the idea that the important
knowledge
they must work with resides in the texts.
China’s more recent history has reinforced the notion of orthodox knowledge residing
in texts. In post-Liberation
China, when Mao Zedong’s writings took on the importance
of a canon, the Communists,
despite their rejection of the Confucian
past, encouraged
the idea that understanding
comes in large part from mastering
a body of approved
material.
Added to that is the history of the Chinese state encouraging,
sometimes
brutally,
the view that teachers are serving the state’s interests
(White, 1981; Deng,
1984; and Jiaoyu gaige zhongyao wenxian xuanbian, 1986). This has led, at least until
recently perhaps, to the majority of teachers accepting the role of the state in identifying,
selecting, and approving knowledge and seeing their role as supporting
that knowledge’s
transmission.
The story goes thus: Teachers
can (and should) work together in part
because they share a common role and body of knowledge
approved by the state.
LM: In China,
teaching
has been a notable
occupation
closely connected
with
scholarship
for a long time. About 500 BC, Confucius worked as a teacher for most of
his life. Following his example, many great Confucians
were teachers as well. Teaching
was considered
as a means to pursue a more comprehensive
scholarship.
Even for primary education,
teachers identified
themselves
as scholars. For about
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687
1500 years, passing the government examinations in order to become an official was the
path which Chinese intellectuals pursued. The examination system had several degrees.
Those who succeeded at the lowest degree (xiucai) yet failed at higher degrees were the
main source of elementary teachers. These teachers, having studied immense classics
and been trained in a kind of scholastic thinking and writing, considered themselves as
shusheng (“scholars” or, literally, a “book person”) and enjoyed scholarship. They (all
male) became teachers because they were interested in classics rather than students.
This tradition permeates the culture of today’s teachers of mass schooling as well.
“Scholarship” (xuewen) is primarily what makes them proud of themselves and respected
by students and colleagues. They are supposed to know much more than what they
have to teach: “If you want to give students a cup, you have to have one bucket for
yourself ,” says a popular adage. Many teachers produce their own publications, not
only on how to teach, but also on the subject they are teaching (for an example, see
Si, 1982). Scholarship (in my words), or knowledge carried by texts and something to
be mastered (in Lynn Paine’s words), provides a commonly shared ground for current
Chinese teachers to approach their work together.
What I want to address here is that scholarship seems to be something broader and
more implicit than knowledge in texts. Scholarship, in Chinese intellectual history, is a
process to reach the Tao (the Way) - the ultimate reality of the universe and human
society. Classics or texts are the vehicles to carry one to that objective. Therefore, being
a scholar at the same time as being a teacher not only provides a common ground for
working with colleagues but also a common objective - to pursue “being with the Way”
(as a scholar) and to “transmit the Way” (as a teacher). Han Yu (786-824), an important
Confucian writer, assumed in his classic treatise on teachers that to transmit the Way is
the first mission of teachers (Han, 1960). The pedagogy classic of Confucianism, Xue
Ji, said, “The teacher should be strict, then the Way will be respected” (Wei, 1983).
This phrase implies that teachers have to work for the dignity of the Way. When
American educators treat teaching as a teacher-student
relationship, or a I-thou-it
triangle (Hawkins, 1974), each element is substantial and of equal status. However,
in Chinese teaching tradition, there is something that is higher than either teacher or
students or any other substantial elements in teaching. That is the Way.
In the last 100 years, traditional thinking, especially Confucianism, has been severely
attacked. However, surprisingly, Chinese teachers’ tendency to regard something higher
than themselves that they should work for still remains. The Way has survived because
of its indefinability. This quality is epitomized in the classic statement: “The Tao that
can be told of is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal
name” (Lao Tze, cited in DeBary, Chan, & Watson, 1960). As a form, a space, the
Way is too empty to be destroyed. Instead of doctrine from Confucius, the space of
the Way which is in current teachers’ mind has a new resident. The “Way” which is
in the mind of current Chinese teachers and which they cooperatively work for is
the educational policy of the Party. The call from Mao Zedong to be loyal to the
Party’s educational undertaking affected teachers much as Han Yu’s call to transmit
the Way. Today that “Way” involves fostering the overall growth of students. This is
the common objective: supporting students’ cognitive, moral, physical, and aesthetic
development, as well as their understanding of work. Therefore, to transmit knowledge
or to “help students actively engage with knowledge,” which contributes to the cognitive
688
L. PAINE
and L. MA
development
of students,
is one of the subroles of teachers.
But as executors of the
Party’s educational
policy, teachers also have other subroles for the growth of students
in other dimensions.
Notions of shared work: teaching as art
LM: I assume that this tradition of teaching as a mission to transmit the Way relates
to what my coauthor
calls “teaching
as a collective
activity.”
Chinese teachers,
who
connect themselves
to scholarship,
have a place in their mind for the Way and consider
transmitting
the Way as their calling. Although
the content
of the Way has been
changed,
the mental
tendency
to work for a common,
noble objective
still drives
Chinese teachers to work together.
LP: Much of educational practice points to an ideal notion of teaching as a collective
enterprise.
As a U.S. observer,
I was initially especially impressed
by what I saw as
an orientation
towards teaching
as a collective
activity.
Education
researchers
and
teachers alike refer to teaching as such (Chang, 1985; Li, 1981). Certainly the concept
is stressed (though not necessarily
explicitly)
in teacher education
programs,
where
students work in groups during their student teaching: preparing their lessons together,
observing
and critiquing
a day’s lesson as presented
in a sort of dress rehearsal,
and
observing and critiquing each other during the actual time they are in charge of a class
(Paine, 1990).
This issue of teaching as collective work raises interesting
questions,
at least for the
American
observer, about the role, presence, and perceptions
of the individual teacher.
Interviews
I have conducted with teachers found them talking about their teaching with
individual
pride or frustration.
That is, teachers definitely saw themselves
as individuals
with agency in their practice. That they also attributed
credit to their colleagues
for
helping them (as individuals)
improve their skills, deepen their knowledge,
or consider
alternatives
posed no conflict with their assuming
responsibility
for their teaching.
U.S. views of individual
rights, responsibility,
and action often lead to the assumption
that emphasis on collectivity reduces the role of the individual
(Tobin, Wu, & Davidson,
1989). The Chinese case encourages
the U.S. observer to rethink some of these simple
dichotomies
about the individual
and the group.
LM: Why is teaching a collective activity? Because it has a common objective that
draws teachers and even students to work on. Since this objective is higher than an
individual,
it makes Chinese teachers’ groups work as a single entity, rather than as a
collection of individuals.
Yet the tradition
of seeing teaching as an art makes teaching both collective
and
individual.
For this feature of teaching, Lynn Paine has created a metaphor - “virtuoso
performance”
(Paine, 1990). Since teachers are the transmitters
of the Way, the way
they transmit
the Way also comes to be admired.
In many aspects, the collegiality
among Chinese teachers is like that among actors and actresses in an ensemble.
They
appreciate
each other’s performance.
As members
of an ensemble
are proud of the
leading actor or actress in their collective,
Chinese teachers are proud of experts in
the faculty. They do not see each other’s performance
as an independent
piece, but
a performance
of the whole art - teaching.
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Notions of hierarchy, expertise, authority, and appreciation
LP: Finally, ideals of expertise and of relations
between expert and novice appear
important
in encouraging
teachers to collaborate.
From a U.S. perspective,
it is easy to
misinterpret
what working together means. Even as Liping Ma and I worked on this
chapter, we found ourselves clarifying problems raised by our choice of words and the
influence English words have in shaping our discussion of this issue. In English we often
impute egalitarian
organizational
forms to notions of working together,
collaboration,
or cooperation.
While it is very difficult to describe Chinese teachers’ practice without
using these phrases, we found it is dangerous
to assume that the work done together
suggests all teachers are equal.
LM: Featuring
Chinese teachers’ working together, it is easy for one to see that they
do not work in a democratic
way. The principle of one person, one vote is not applied
there. However, it seems not to be a static hierarchy either. A teaching research group
leader or a backbone teacher does not have any legal authority.
Their prestige does not
allow them to dictate what another teacher must do. Such a teacher is considered
an
expert rather than a leader. Others will take advantage
of their expertise as resources,
rather than be passively directed by another teacher. The experts are at the center of
an eddy rather than at the top of a ladder.
LP: While I agree with this notion of an eddy, the notion of expertise still suggests
a kind of hierarchy,
even if, as has just been argued, a dynamic one. Tobin et al.
(1989) talk about the ways in which Chinese notions of groups are hierarchical,
and
I learned
early on in my fieldwork
that the collective
orientation
to teaching
was
entirely consistent
with the idea of individual
expertise.
I have argued elsewhere that
implicit in the dominant
Chinese conception
of teaching
is the belief that teaching
excellence is identifiable
(Paine, 1990). This excellence
may well represent
the benefit
of collaboration.
More important,
however, is the view that the expertise that is singled
out can serve to orient how groups work together.
Models are an important
part of
Chinese philosophical
and epistemological
traditions (Munro, 1977), and the assumption
that expertise can be modeled becomes an essential feature supporting
the rationale for
and approach to teacher collaboration.
LM: Certainly, the idea of expertise that can be learned through collaboration
appears
to be a concept which is embedded
in many practices.
It also connects to my image
of teaching as art. When teachers learn how to teach, they spend considerable
time
watching experts’ teaching, just like a new actor watching a star actor’s performance.
Si Xia, a nationally
known elementary
teacher, tells the story of how young teachers
“stole lessons” in the 1940s when she was a new teacher (Si, 1982). They used to hide
by the window of the classroom of expert teachers and listen and observe carefully how
the teachers taught. In contemporary
teacher education
programs,
observing
experts’
teaching
becomes
an important
component.
After observation,
the expert teacher
will explain why s/he has taught in this way. Observing
experts’ class is a means
to develop and to improve new teachers’ connoisseurship.
Chinese teachers believe
that connoisseurship
is necessary
to create good performance.
Experts also observe
new teachers’ classes and discuss these with them. Addressing
this process in which
experts and novices take turns to observe and discuss each other’s class in Chinese
teacher education
reminds me of the coaching through reflection-in-action
that Schon
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(1987) discusses in Educating the reflective practitioner. Since teaching has been seen
as an art, experts of teaching are recognized by colleagues’ and students’ (audiences’)
connoisseurship. The appreciation of good professional performance is a strong force
that drives Chinese teachers to work with experts.
Reconciling Oppositions,
Challenging Dichotomies
LP: To review, Chinese teachers’ working together is shaped not only by organizational and structural practices, but by long traditions of philosophical and cultural
thought. These ideological and philosophical traditions, as well as conceptual orientations towards teaching, knowledge, and expertise, juxtapose what are typically seen
as oppositions: collectivistic vs. individualistic approaches, equality vs. hierarchy, and
novice vs. expert. While U.S. discussions tend to see these as dualities in tension,
Chinese ideals of teaching lead to practices which stress both the group and the
individual, hierarchy and equality, the novice’s connoisseurship as well as the expert’s
authority. What appears as contradictory may in fact be the simultaneous juxtaposition
and reconciliation of oppositions. As my coauthor has shown, these dichotomies are
dynamic; they exist in relation to one another.
So What?
LP: The ways in which Chinese teachers work together have profound implications
for the kinds of teaching, learning, and school reform that occur in China. By considering
the consequences and challenges associated with these structural arrangements and their
conceptual supports, we may also be able to think more broadly about the relationship
between organization and practice.
WhiIe we feel it is important to consider the consequences of organizational practices,
we are reluctant to portray this as an assessment of benefits and disadvantages of a
single approach. That certainly would not be in the spirit with which this chapter
has been written. Rather, we hope that by examining consequences we can be
aware of connections between cultural assumptions, structural forms, and educational
implications. At the same time, we believe that an examination of the implications
of the Chinese teachers’ approaches to working together can challenge some of the
current thinking in the West about choices facing teachers and schools. Some analysts
(Rowan, 1990, for example) describe organizational forms as presenting schools with
a choice of teacher commitment or control. We feel the Chinese case challenges this
dichotomy and, in so doing, may help broaden the range of ways we conceptualize issues
of collegiality.
Below, by way of review, we outline briefly several of the consequences which flow
from a Chinese approach to teacher coilegiality. We consider some of the challenges
raised by the approach for Chinese schoolteachers, administrators, and policymakers and
touch on the discussions of reform that are shaping current strategies in China. Finally,
we consider what challenges are raised by this discussion for a non-Chinese audience
and wonder out loud about ways in which teacher collegiality might be meaningfully
examined in the U.S.A. and elsewhere.
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691
of Working Together
LP: First, let us consider what Chinese teachers’ approaches
to working together
imply for teaching and learning. We have suggested that Chinese teachers have a several
decades long tradition of working together in a variety of ways, in differentiated
roles,
to achieve a range of purposes.
Five consequences
stand out and, interestingly,
these
five are not necessarily
mutually supportive.
Below we discuss each briefly.
To the outsider,
among the most striking of the consequences
of this approach is its
role in inducting new teachers to the profession.
Formally, this is symbolized
by the fact
that first-year teachers are given probationary
status in a school, assigned to work within
a jiaoyanzu, and typically are encouraged
to work with a senior teacher as part of the
lao dui qing policy in schools. In some cases, beginning
teachers are not even assigned
classes of their own, but are asked to work with an experienced
teacher while they also
continue
their preparation
of the class they will be teaching in the future. In addition
to these formal markers,
this process of induction
informally
relies on even more
relationships
and activities (between the subject teacher and the class director, through
the use of demonstration
classes and observation
etc.). Induction,
supported
by these
permanent
yet dynamic structures,
is not limited to a l-year period or any fixed time.
The school is prepared to have teachers work together throughout
their careers, and a
significant part of this work involves helping beginning
teachers in an organic structure
which is distinctly different from the bureaucratic
approaches
more often found outside
China in mentoring
programs bounded by externally determined
time frames, designated
role relationships
that signify some colleagues,
as mentors
and others as simply
colleagues,
and narrowly defined conceptions
of the mentor role (Little, 1990a).
In interviews with experienced
teachers, I found that veteran teachers spoke at length
about the impact of their collegial relations
on their induction
into teaching.
Most
powerful for many teachers was the role of the jiaoyanzu as a place where study of
the subject and texts occurs, as well as appraisal and feedback on one’s teaching. One
interviewee
suggested,
for example,
that in the “university
you study your field,
everything
about it. After studying you feel you know enough.
Then, as a teacher,
you feel you don’t have enough.”
Her response
to this problem
- of approaching
the pedagogical
aspects of her subject-matter
knowledge
- was to study the text and
work with her jiaoyanzu. She explained:
For my first
had me go
In the trial
to improve.
very grateful.
class here, all my colleagues
in the jiaoyanzu came, then assessed the class. Then they
teach a class for the normal university
to observe. This forces you to raise your level.
lesson you go over every part. I was pressed at each step of the way; they press you
You need to push people. It takes about 2 years, then the school can relax. So I’m
By inducting
new teachers into teaching,
the collegial arrangements
within Chinese
schools also induct teachers
into a way of working together,
a way of approaching
teaching, that is, as we have argued above, in many ways collectivist in its orientation.
The forms formal, informal,
and what Liping Ma calls invisible
of teachers
working
together
encourage
a degree of collaboration
that is significant.
It is this
intensive
and highly interdependent
type of collaboration
that we note as a second
consequence
of the ways teachers work together.
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Little (1990b) distinguishes
what she sees as “strong and weak ties among teachers”
in terms of “the degree to which they induce mutual obligation,
expose the work of
each person to the scrutiny of others, and call for, tolerate,
or reward initiative
in
matters
of curriculum
and instruction”
(pp. 511-512).
Using her framework,
it is
clear that the forms Chinese teachers rely on emphasize
interdependence
and lead
to “joint work” (p. 512) and the development
of “collective
autonomy”
(p. 521).
The privatization
of teaching,
an aspect of the profession
so familiar in the U.S.A.,
is not a significant
feature
of Chinese
teachers’
work. Rather,
Chinese
teachers
throughout
their careers are members
of multiple
professional
communities.
They
regularly expose themselves
(their teaching, their ideas about it, and their knowledge)
to their colleagues.
It is significant that the content of their collaboration
- whether it
be through the formal jiaoyanzu,
the class director and subject teacher relationship,
or
other informal connections
- is teaching and learning. Teachers are organized around
their relationships
to subject-matter
knowledge
and to students. From the beginning
of
their teacher preparation
experiences
(where their student teaching practice involves
much peer observation
and joint preparation),
Chinese teachers develop a common
language
and focus for collaboration
(Paine,
1990). The organization
of school life
makes working together
a feature of each teacher’s
work experience,
not just the
experience
of those designated
as mentors,
mentees,
or members
of a reform effort.
The result is a kind and degree of collaboration
that are noteworthy.
Mutuality
and
comprehensiveness,
seen as “distinguishing
marks of genuine mentor relations”
(Little
1990a, p. 342), are common features of teachers’ work relations.
The vitality of networks
that connect teachers within and across schools in China
leads to a third consequence
of this approach - the ability to disseminate
ideas and
approaches
quickly. Structures
within schools and those which connect teachers in a
school to larger constituencies
in a county, province,
or the nation make it possible
for some kinds of reform to happen
quickly. The ability to change practices,
not
just materials,
may be especially noteworthy
when we consider that many of China’s
teachers are themselves poorly educated or lack preservice teacher education
and when
we recall that the schools teachers
work in often are severely lacking in material
resources.
A recent example typifies this capacity of teachers.
In a rural county in
1990 I found teachers,
many of whom were poorly educated
and who were working
in poor schools with overcrowded
classes, were all studying Benjamin
Bloom’s notions
of mastery learning and trying to put these ideas into practice. Not one of these teachers
spoke English and most had never left the region of China in which they lived, but
through the jiaoyanzu
in their schools and in their county, they had become exposed
to Bloom’s work and were enthusiastically
experimenting
with what his approaches
might mean for teaching rural children. The textbooks,
curricula materials, and external
examinations
had not changed, yet these teachers were working together in impressive
ways to experiment
with what were to them innovative
methods.
The capacity of schools to change, a function of the ways teachers work together,
does not mean that schools are changing a great deal. In fact, the ability to disseminate
reform is at the same time an indication
of the degree to which this approach
to
teaching makes teachers vulnerable
to control.
The high degree of interdependence
among teachers results in an integration
of the system. This integration
supports control
and conformity.
An associated
consequence
of how teachers work together,
then, is
conformity.
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Collegiality
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693
Little (1990b) argues that “constraints
on independent
action - the substitution
of
collective autonomy
for a ‘private’ version of autonomy
- do not require and will not
ensure consensus of thought or uniformity
of action” (p. 521). While we certainly agree
that the collective autonomy
found in Chinese teachers’ professional
ties does not lead
to uniformity,
we do note that the structural inducements
for working together and the
ways that work occurs, especially in the jiaoyanzu,
lead more often to conformity
than
to change.
Perhaps
one implication
associated
with the tendency
towards conformity
is the
hierarchical
aspect of teachers’
collaboration.
Liping Ma agrees that the forms of
Chinese teachers’ collaboration
are not democratic.
At the same time, she describes
the arrangement
as more of an eddy than a ladder. Her noting that this differentiation
is
not static is important for us to bear in mind. To an outsider, however, the differentiation
among teachers points to hierarchical
relations: between ordinary teachers and heads of
jiaoyanzu, class directors,
model and special-rank
teachers,
and so on. The roles and
responsibilities
associated
with these different
titles differ. One wonders if it is this
highly differentiated
and somewhat
hierarchical
approach
to teaching
which makes
the mutuality
and comprehensiveness
of mentoring
possible in China, in contrast
to problems
inherent
in the U.S.A.
where mentoring
efforts sometimes
collide with
“the egalitarian
and individualistic
traditions
of teaching”
(Little,
1990a, p. 299).
Differentiation
and hierarchy
are made possible in China in part because teachers
agree on notions of expertise and wisdom.
A negative
side effect of this is the tendency
in many schools for hierarchies
to
be based largely on seniority
and for younger
teachers
to be stifled by conformist
pressures of the group and the assumption
that they should take their directions
from
their elders. While well-publicized
exceptions,
where young teachers gain prominence,
are noteworthy
(Zhongguo jiaoyubao, 19SS), interviews
I have conducted
with young
teachers included many complaints
about these organizational
constraints.
The forms of Chinese teachers’
relations
are significant
in many ways. Here we
have identified
briefly five: their impact on induction
of new teachers,
on teacher
collaboration,
on capacity for diffusion of new ideas, on tendencies
towards conformity,
and on the perpetuation
of hierarchy.
Challenges for Chinese Education
LP: At the outset of this chapter we noted that the ways teachers work together are
not a focus of much systematic inquiry on the part of Chinese education researchers
or
practitioners.
The five consequences
of the ways teachers collaborate,
however, point
to related areas, areas that Chinese scholars and practitioners
have in fact spent much
time debating. While the idea that teachers should work together is not something seen
as deserving debate in China (as Liping Ma points out, it is like air and goes unnoticed),
what is ‘open for discussion is the best form this collaboration
can take.
In recent years, two related topics in particular have received attention.
Interestingly,
where they get discussed and how, differs greatly. The first topic concerns the jiaoyantu.
Since the fall of Mao and the resurgent
interest in modernization,
Chinese educators
at all levels have debated educational
practices that support modernization.
Central to
this debate is the notion that students should engage in active, not passive learning
694
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and L. MA
(Zhongguo Jiaoyu Kexue Yanjiusuo, 1984; Wang, 1987). In searching for forms that
support the transition from passive to active learning, teachers have experimented
with a range of methods. Along the way, the dominant form of the jiaoyanzu has
in some schools been altered. A second concern - that of students’ moral education
- also serves as an impetus to change the ~~ff~yu~z~. In response, some schools have
replaced the subject-oriented form for a student-oriented
one, called the ~~~~~~2~or
class group. Here, teachers come together to prepare their work, help each other, and
exchange ideas about teaching by working together across subject areas with teachers
working with students of the same age group. My interviews in 1986, 1987, and 1990
showed a great deal of flux among schools, as individual schools experimented with the
form that best suited their goals. While the jiaoyanzu still predominates, the present
diversity of approaches suggests that Chinese teachers see a challenge in trying to
understand the relationship between the place of subject-matter knowledge and that
of learner cognitive and moral development in the work of teaching. The arguments
about the formation of teaching work groups - along subject-matter lines or learner
age lines - interestingly is an argument that has taken place largely within the world
of practitioners. Little research appears available, and school and teacher decisions and
preferences seem informed by personal experience rather than systematic inquiry across
a wider group of schools. At the same time, a second kind of debate has occurred in
recent years that also touches on how teachers work together. Yet this debate seems
the inverse of the ~~~~y~~~~discussion, for it has taken place largely in the educational
research and policy circles, while seeming to have relatively little consequence for the
daily work of teachers. This argument concerns the role of competition in education.
Briefly, what has occurred is a transfer of market-oriented reforms from industry to
education. Where the market is seen as stimulating production in industry, researchers
and some policymakers have argued that teachers need to be working under conditions
of competition. (For more on policies of the market in education, see Ross, 1991, and
DeLany & Paine, 1991.) Their individual productivity should determine the rewards
they achieve. As a result, some schools have instituted wage reforms that treat
teachers much more individually and evaluate their work individually in ways that
determine their wages and benefits. The result could lead to a diminution of the
important horizontal ties among teachers and increasing importance on the connection
between individual teachers and those administrators who evaluate their work. While
the reform is quite early and limited in its implementation, it remains interesting that
discussions of this reform do not appear to have connected with the discourse in schools
about teacher collaboration, nor with the education literature that talks about teaching
practice. Rather, it is seen as simply a management reform to stimulate more effective
teaching. To an outsider surrounded by the local rhetoric of school improvement, it
is striking that policymakers’ discussions of effective teaching have not considered
teachers’ professional relations and school structures as important factors.
LP: The U.S. observer may be impressed by the Chinese policymakers’ ignoring of
teacher collaboration’s relationship to effective teaching because this purported relation
Teacher Collegiality and Professional Development
695
is at the heart of much of the education policy discourse in the U.S.A. today (Rowan,
1990). Rowan reviews the ways in which debates about improving schooling have moved
from a 1970s concern with creating effective bureaucratic systems of control to a 1990s
interest in organic structures that sees not control but teacher commitment as crucial to
improving schools. But to those of us considering Chinese teachers’ experiences, this
dichotomy between control and commitment, as drawn from U.S. literature, seems
arbitrary. Chinese teachers’ ways of working together enhance their commitment to
teaching as a way of transmitting the Way. The mutuality encouraged by the multiple
forms of collaboration means that teachers feel a strong commitment to each other and
define their work as a collective enterprise. Yet the very forms which encourage this
commitment also work, as suggested above, to facilitate control from above. These are
not, as we might suppose in the U.S.A., mutually inconsistent, but rather mutually
supportive.
Given the popularity of discussions about teacher collegiality in the West, talking
about teachers working together in China runs many risks. The Chinese case can
serve simply to reinforce notions of exotica; one can reach the end of this chapter and
feel interested in the strange and different ways in which teachers in China approach
their work together. The Chinese case can also be misread as an example of a place
where real mentorship occurs, as an answer to Little’s question about whether formal
arrangements can produce mento~ng (Little, 1990a). Our goal is to do neither of these,
that is? to provide exotic details of a case that bears no relation to the U.S. case, or to
suggest that China offers a model for other countries’ educators to copy.
Instead, we have approached this chapter as an opportunity to consider collegiality
beyond the level of policymakers’ rhetoric or academic discussions of organizational
forms. We beheve there is value in considering the relationship between organizational
structures and teacher practices. Further, the Chinese case suggests that in examining
collegiality we need a cultural analysis to deepen our understanding of organization and
practice. In doing this, we want to build on Feiman-Nemser and Floden’s (1986) effort
to help us consider the cultures of teaching, for the Chinese case suggests that there
is in fact a Chinese culture of teaching that gets created, reproduced, and occasionally
transformed in Chinese schools, at the same time that this culture is sustained by broader
systems of meaning in the wider culture of Chinese society. The structures that we have
elaborated are an expression of these cultures, these subjective understandings and
shared meanings. Little (1990b) argues that the experience of collegiality rests largely
on the content of collegiality - “beliefs, ideas, and intentions that are collectively
held and pursued” (p. 511). This content we see as cultural, and, as we discovered
in the researchers’ silence on teachers working together in China, it is these cultural
understandings and meanings that are too often ignored in discussions of teacher
collaboration and reform of school practices. In Chinese schools, as elsewhere, culture
is filled with implicit meanings. These cultural dimensions of teachers’ work are subtle,
very powerful, and rarely open to scrutiny, examination, or reform.
In the popular debates about changing organizational forms in schools, the discourse
on teacher collegiality has been “conceptually amorphous” (Little, 1990b, p. 509). We
believe that conceptual and methodological rethinking can add much to the discussion.
Examining Chinese teachers’ working together should challenge us to reexamine our
own assumptions about terms (such as collaboration) and organizational forms, at
696
L. PAINE
and L. MA
the same time that it should encourage
a redirection
of our inquiry to the implicit
meanings,
subjective
experiences,
and shared beliefs that make up a teacher’s culture
and which have an often invisible but powerful effect on how teachers approach their
work together.
Support
for data collection
on which this research
draws came from grants
Acknowledgements
from the Committee
on Scholarly
Communications
with the People’s Republic
of China and Michigan
State University.
The authors
wish to thank Jack Schwille, Terry Allsop, Margret
Buchmann,
Sharon
Feiman-Nemser,
Jeremy Greenland,
Michelle Parker,
and Sheikh Abul Qasim for helpful comments
on
earlier drafts.
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Biographies
Lynn Paine is an associate professor of teacher education at Michigan State
University. She conducted a 2-year participant observation study of teacher education
in China in the early 1980s and has subsequently engaged in field research there in 1986,
1987, 1990, and 1991. Her key areas of research interest are the social organization of
teaching, teacher education and its reform, and the connections between education,
stratification, and social change.
Liping Ma is currently a doctoral student at Stanford University, concentrating her
studies on curriculum and teacher education. She collaborated on the present article
while a graduate student at Michigan State University. Before coming to the U.S.A.,
she worked in China for many years as an elementary schoolteacher, principal, and
education researcher.
Both Paine and Ma are presently working on a cross-national comparative study of
teachers’ learning through mentoring and other forms of situated guidance, under the
auspices of the National Center for Research on Teacher Learning, based at Michigan
State University and primarily funded by the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.