Can understanding teachers' responses to change improve implementation practices?

By Simon King and Irene King

Can you guess the country of origin of this quote??

“Trouble was, in the initial stages, no one knew how the whole thing would work out in practice. It was like jumping into the unknown; suddenly, everything you knew and did was wrong.”??

This quote is from Irene King, a reading expert advisor who?supported schools and teachers during education reform days in England in the 1980s. Teachers in most countries have often experienced multiple rounds of education reform.??

So, what have we learned from how teachers respond to change that can be used to inform our program implementation??

Teacher response to change varies by context and individual.?

Educational change is an emotional process. Behavioral economics theory suggests that humans are quickly exhausted from mental activities that demand complex computations, and often, the emotional system of decision-making takes over when a decision is required.??

Teaching is one of those professions that merges the personal and professional. For most teachers, who they are in the classroom is a big part of their personal identity.?

However, most education programs demand that teachers apply logic and reason, learn and deliver new curricula, and constantly review pupil assessment data to change their instructional approach. But is it possible to be rational during a fundamentally emotional change??

Personal experience of change?

I’ve seen educational change from a data perspective many times, but my experience of educational change is from being a pupil and teacher in the English education system. I’m a little young ?? to know about the reform as it was going on, so I’m relying on the eye-witness experience of Irene King.??

Education reform in England and Wales?

The Education Reform Act of 1988 in England and Wales is an excellent example of the challenges of change imposed on an education system. Putting aside an opinion of the reform’s impact, what was clear was that?implementing a complex reform agenda without input from teachers created mistrust and frustration. A fundamental difficulty for teachers was shifting away from being autonomous professionals to being required to use an instructional approach generally not aligned with their teaching philosophy.??

Irene explains:?

“It demoralized teachers, so they got defensive. I was running training days without really knowing what was going to happen. Lots of teachers just closed their doors and carried on as usual. Lots retired early (good and bad teachers).? It was a traumatic time.”?

However, we often need to pay more attention to how time significantly influences how teachers adjust to change.?

A few years later. . .?

When I entered the teaching workplace in England in the late 1990s, I taught in the high school I attended as a boy. Seeing teachers who taught me years before, I observed none of the stress and anguish described above. Instead, I noticed teachers who had adopted the reform. However, I’m not sure it was a simple acceptance of change. It was more a case of teachers adapting. In other words, teachers had adopted the new curriculum and assessment, but their classroom instructional approach looked identical to the one I experienced as a pupil. It is very much teacher-centered.?

How does this reflect on education reform worldwide??

We often think of teacher change as an iterative model; teachers try a new approach, see that it works, and keep improving their teaching. However, that model does not account for behavior change due to an imposed change through a hierarchical education system. When education systems impose change, teachers must change, regardless of whether they believe the new approach works. So, the typical result in England or elsewhere is not full adoption but adaptation. Taking the new approach and aligning it with the prior one?often results in a teaching approach that can be less than ideal.??

Does the norm of teacher autonomy differ from country to country??

The change described in England demanded that teachers fundamentally change their approach to teaching, but it also caused many to lose autonomy for the first time, resulting in resistance. Different education systems respond in various ways. Some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have a social norm of less teacher autonomy, so education reform, which includes supplying teaching and learning materials and training, is often more welcomed by teachers.?

So, rather than thinking teachers primarily resist change, we really need to examine how teachers adapt to change over time.??

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Irene King is a happily retired teacher, head teacher, literacy expert and special education needs coordinator. Like all literacy experts, she will always have an opinion on how reading should be taught in the early grades.???

Simon King is an experienced educator, evaluator and researcher. Since completing his Doctorate in Education, he has switched his focus to learning to play guitar. He proves to be a stubborn student. But, as his instructor/daughter likes to remind him, “Dad, Girlfriend in a Coma has just three chords!”?