RADICAL TEFL

EFLT), and of the work of James Calderhead, the classroom researchers Brown &
McIntyre write (1993: 7 & 10, my emphasis):
“Schon's work (places) emphasis on the great importance of memories of
previously experienced situations and on the far from straightforward use
of these memories … (and) Calderhead draws attention to … repeated
findings …. that teachers' knowledge tends to be structured in terms of
cases, so that they have repertoires of significant or remembered
situations, events and pupils which help them in dealing with new tasks or
situations …” 28
If, as seems to be the case, an enquirer often learns something new from a fresh
problematic situation, it follows that her knowledge and understanding of similar
cases is accumulatively developing. Her enquiries and her longer-term growth in
understanding are related, and her specific enquiry and her CPD are part of a long
term process of learning. (In his How we Think, Dewey regarded learning, thinking
and enquiry as often synonymous enterprises, capable of being described and
understood in the same way. )
I conclude that the description and understanding of enquiry given by Dewey is not
only convincing and relevant for short-term teacher problem-solving enquiry, but that
it seems closely linked to some understandings of CPD. Dewey's understanding of
enquiry implies that 'knowledge' grows, for the individual, in a long-term and selfcorrecting
looping process. In this sense, enquiries are accumulative as well as oneoff
undertakings. The process of reflection and of probing her students' problems and
difficulties, drawing on past experience, will result, over time, in an inexperienced
teacher becoming an experienced one. As a corollary, the teacher who does not
enquire and reflect will not develop. What is learned is 'stored' [Dewey's word] for
future use. Whilst there are certainly other conditions required for CPD to occur,
constant referral to memories of past enquiries would seem to be one of them.
4. 3 Re-conceiving teacher research
Anne Burns (2005) argues that the conception of teacher research should move
forward 29. This evolutionary notion could allow us to re-conceive teacher research
again, and again, and we could for example, I propose, deriving from the above
arguments, broaden and re-conceptualise 'teacher research' as follows:
l Based on informal experience and observation in the classroom, and not
on more formal investigation or experiment;
28 In the conclusions section of this book (ibid: 109), which reported on a major empirical study of
teaching, Brown & McIntyre write (their emphasis) “We can make no claims to have discovered
anything about the processes of teachers' classroom thinking … (teachers) were able to recall the
conclusions of their classroom thinking about what to do, and how, and why …. (but) they could not
recall their own mental processes”. In other words, teachers were unable to observe their own
subjectivity and their processing of information, which seems to have been subliminal and not open to
being (empirically) observed and recorded, not even by themselves. Also see (ibid: 95, 106, 108).
29
See Borg (2013: ch. 1, esp. pp. 18-22) on problems with teacher research, and see (Borg ibid. ch.
3) on different conceptions of teacher research. Also, see Borg (2003) for a survey of research studies
on teacher cognition; & see his (2010).
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