As teachers, we make so many decisions every day that when you stand back and look at what we are doing, it’s amazing to think that we do so much of this automatically. Phronesis is Aristotle’s notion of linking wisdom or intelligence to practical action through the use of our judgement (Pickup, 2020; Winch et al., 2015) and I think this concept applies to the way we work in classrooms every day.
This makes me think… how does decision-making work in the classroom? What ideas should underpin what we think is right and what does this look like on a practical level?
I love working with ITT students and the main reason for this is that you get the chance to really break down the processes in the classroom. One of the first things I tell new teachers is that they need to prepare for the simple things to go wrong, because in classrooms there are no simple things. Take for example my ‘do now’ questions, which were the topic of discussion this week.
Even something as simple as picking five questions is multi-dimensional; I need to determine what questions are the right ones and which students do I select to answer them?
This is the end product of my example of how I use these questions as both a retrieval exercise and a behaviour management tool. Choosing a pupil who is more likely to become disengaged or distracting others for my first question allows me to praise them and also test the waters to see how they are that lesson. Insisting on silence ensures a calm environment, particularly with Year 9 Thursday period 6. The questions I ask are a mixture of core concepts for the unit, ideas that they need to know for today’s lesson and a nice ‘hook’ to get us started.
All of these things are pretty complex when you break them down, but most of the time, experienced teachers don’t break them down. They are innate. Through practice, we seem to end up doing these things because we know how and it makes sense.
This is fantastic and I’m not advocating that we unpick the philosophical motives behind mini-whiteboards, but having the time and space to think: Why do I do this this way?… This works, but why? Is there a better way of doing this?
This focus on reflection is important for school leaders as well as teachers. In this example, a member of SLT could come into my lesson and wonder why I was asking a question that all pupils should know the answer to. I must have low expectations. Challenge may well be my development target if this were a drop in (observation or whatever you call it at your school). However, the thought process behind my decision is perfectly sound.
This links us back to Aristotle’s concept of phronesis. The idea that there is an ethical element to the decisions we make in the classroom means that there must be a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ choice as we seek to achieve certain outcomes or reach certain goals (Winch et al., 2015). This is by no means a simple feat. Phronesis focuses on the need for teachers to understand and navigate the complex environments that are classrooms in a way that allows them to do the right things in a practical situation (Pickup, 2020).
For me, this is why teaching is a profession rather than a craft, trade or any other name we might have heard for what we do. There is an emphasis on the teacher to understand how important this is, but even more so on the senior leaders to observing them to respect the professional knowledge and nuanced understanding of their environment that teachers bring to the table.
This is why the thought process teachers go through is just as (if not more) important than how well particular activities are executed by individual teachers in the classroom. We have mechanisms for helping teachers to improve their implementation of an idea through methods such as instructional coaching. We use Steplab and find it incredibility helpful to see where our next steps are in terms of practical knowledge. But what about when you need to take a step back and consider what the aims of the activity were or if the action matched the initial idea/need?
To support our teachers with the idea of putting the aims ahead of the actions, I created a four-step approach to planning that is used in our school at joint planning meetings and our communication of what ideas might look like in the classroom when the quality of education team communicate with staff. Using the questions shown below, teachers can ensure that the actions being undertaken in the classroom are aligned with the needs of their pupils:
I talk more about why this has important implications for the way in which senior leaders quality assure classroom practice here, but the main outcome of this process is far more important: we have a shared language of explaining why we do things the way we do and a method through which we can undertake self-reflection.
Whilst traditional, transmissive CPD methods (inset days, after school sessions etc.) seem to be the norm in most schools, when I reflect on my own development as a teacher and the development of teachers I really admire, no one really uses this form of CPD to articulate how they got better. Instead, the teachers who have developed, improved and cemented their practice over time have done so through a combination of thinking about their own teaching and talking to others about theirs in informal settings like staffrooms. I’ve written a more academically minded piece about this topic here, but ultimately this focus on phronesis provides spaces for individual teachers to grow and genuine school cultures and context-specific uniform practices to form.
Reflective questions:
What actions do you take in the classroom regularly that are complex once broken down? How did you come to do things this way and why?
What is your thought process when you’re planning your lessons? Do you ask yourself the questions explored above?
Does your school provide opportunities for informal discussion around lesson planning to facilitate teacher self-efficacy/practice?
Does your school provide opportunities for teachers to share their thought processes with senior leaders as part of the feedback process?
If you use collaborative planning, to what extent does your department consider what classrooms look like when everyone is doing things well?
References
Pickup, A. (2020). Embodied Phronesis: Conceptualizing Materially Engaged Practical Wisdom in Teaching, Teacher Education, and Research. Journal of Thought, 54(1/2), 4-22. https://www-jstor-org.nottingham.idm.oclc.org/stable/26973741
Winch, C., Oancea, A., & Orchard, J. (2015). The contribution of educational research to teachers’ professional learning: philosophical understandings. Oxford Review of Education, 41, 202-216.