Earlier this year, Dr Pauline Stephen succeeded the long-serving Kenneth Muir as chief executive and registrar of the General Teaching Council for Scotland [GTC Scotland], following Muir’s retirement. In her first keynote address in Teaching Scotland since taking the helm, Stephen writes that the long-standing regulatory body is in a unique position to action change in Scottish education, emphasising that now - as the nation looks to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic - is the time for the teaching profession to decide what future Scottish education will have.
I have recently been immersed in a lecture that John MacMurray gave at Moray House in 1958. In the lecture, Learning to be Human, MacMurray asserted that while the “imperatives of earning a living” must feature in education, they should not “comprise the whole or even the most important part of it”. This remains an area of debate today: schools as the producers of the citizens of tomorrow versus schools as the enhancers of a language and love of learning for now and forever.
The past year has been like no other. While the pandemic has unearthed stark inequalities, there is some light as we see the incorporation of the UNCRC into Scots law. This requires us to embrace a proactive culture to children’s human rights and consider in which ways education provides opportunities for children’s rights to be realised. Now is the time to create space for important conversations the profession needs to have about how our collective experiences can inform the future of Scottish education.
MacMurray stated that while we are born human, we also must learn to be human and we can only learn by being taught, reinforcing that the first priority in education “is learning to live in personal relation to other people, let us call it learning to live in community”. There is, in my view, a significant role for teachers in seeking to understand community and helping our learners to understand what it means to be a citizen of now. The Professional Standards for Teachers in Scotland 2021 define what it means to be a teacher in Scotland, giving greater emphasis [among other aspects] to the teacher as a form of ‘social glue’. They clearly outline what the profession wants for itself.
Our communities are much more diverse than when MacMurray raised these important issues in 1958, but the continued lack of diversity in the teaching workforce is an issue that needs to be directly tackled. This is just one example of what needs to change in education. There are many more. We need to move beyond ‘problem elaboration’, we know what the issues are, we need to deliver solutions. Bringing these issues into sharp focus brings us back to questions relating to our understanding of community, defining what school and education are for and ensuring the space is there to learn to be human.
There are big questions for me too, as the new chief executive and registrar for GTC Scotland. In his last article in Teaching Scotland, Kenneth Muir challenged the profession to question if Scottish education had learnt the lessons of the past. I now need to learn from the past to help us look to the future.
GTC Scotland operates in a unique space in Scottish education: an independent space. GTC Scotland was established in 1965 after teachers raised concerns about the increasing number of uncertified teachers in Scotland’s schools. There was a strong view that establishing GTC Scotland was an important factor in enhancing the public status of the teaching profession by giving itself responsibility for its own standards.
In 2000, statutory aims were established for GTC Scotland for the first time and our role was extended to provide advice on the continuing professional development of teachers. Ten years later, and The Public Services Reform [General Teaching Council for Scotland] Order 2011, placed GTC Scotland on a new statutory footing and established it as an independent body. GTC Scotland was given much greater flexibility to perform its role and was given two main aims: to contribute to improving the quality of learning and teaching; and to maintain and improve teachers’ professional standards.
The last year has been challenging for everyone in Scottish education, from learners and their families to student teachers, teachers, lecturers and pupil support assistants. This has also been the case for GTC Scotland. While much has been achieved in partnership, much too has been identified as areas for development. There is scope for GTC Scotland to help component parts of our education system understand the impact and consequences of their actions on other parts of the system. I believe a fundamental aspect of learning to be human is helping individuals put themselves in the shoes of someone else and see the world from their point of view. This is also a real need within the education community. We all have roles to play, some outlined by law, some not. Where these roles overlap with the potential to create tension, we need to embrace this and have direct and productive conversations.
In February, The Right Drivers for Whole System Success, written by Michael Fullan, was published. It is a big proposal where Fullan states that “systems change when there are degrees of dissatisfaction at every level – bottom-middle-centre. Such is the power of paradigm shifts that when things seem impossible, they can still have a number of potential supports beneath the decaying surface, which become breakthrough forces for change individually and in combination.”
Fullan advocates for a focus on the right drivers for change – wellbeing and learning, social intelligence, equality investments and systemness – describing these as the human paradigm and “presently constitute a work in progress. We have barely begun to tap their potential”. MacMurray emphasises that teaching is not an engineering job, it is personal and human. It is therefore complex because humans are complex. Right now, as we continue to manage the immediate needs of our learners, we need to find the space to talk with each other as a community, seek to understand perspectives, learn from the past and build the future together. I look forward to the role GTC Scotland can play in holding the space open for untapping the right drivers for success.
