Anxiety of performativity and anxiety of performance: self-evaluation as bad faith

Abstract

Self-evaluation, a devolved, rigorous form of teacher inspection, has increasingly been promoted in educational circles as a way to balance both teacher autonomy and accountability. Such balancing acts help to alleviate anxiety around inspection, for the teacher who would otherwise face a visit from an inspector, and for the public who are concerned about self-evaluation being less objective. Using the Irish policy of self-evaluation, this paper will first explore the evidence-based approaches and the appropriation of a 'language of evaluation' that are inherent to so-called low-stakes accountability systems. In part, such mechanisms are used in order to alleviate anxiety. The anxiety that self-evaluation focuses on, however, corresponds only to aspects of teaching that are conducive to measurement, and therefore refers solely to what may be called an anxiety of performativity. Furthermore, its attempts to repress an anxiety of performativity ironically fails to acknowledge a more fundamental form of anxiety that teaching as a 'performance' involves. Using Sartre's idea of 'bad faith', this paper will ultimately argue that teaching inevitably involves an element of anxiety that should not be repressed but rather should be lived and worked with well, something which selfevaluation in its current form fails to capture.

From the reflective to the post-personal teacher

“…But it is nevertheless important to allow things to fall into the background sometimes, to become fully engrossed in the educational moments we share with the entire classroom (including its physical space). Doing so allows us to reshift our focus not towards anxieties around performativity, but to the performance of education itself (Brady, 2019). It also means an abandonment of the proclivity towards making everything explicit in education, something that is seen to be necessary in order to allow for greater objective measurements of educational activities.…”

“…In other words, this feeling of exposure is experienced almost as if one's 'self' has been put on display, open to evaluation, and a palpable sense of anticipation. Indeed, teaching is always a 'performance' of sorts (as distinct from 'performativity' -see Brady (2019), and as such, an important part of teaching involves an anxiety that that self is now open to the forces of recognition from the students -an anxiety circumscribed by potential shame or mockery, by being seen as an 'imposter' of sorts, but also by being seen as someone who is doing something important and worthwhile, and who cares about what they are doing, and who they are doing it with. The key here, however, is the very fact of being seen.…”

“…Such languages relate to wider regimes of governance and accountability, regimes that are often criticised in the educational literature as leading to inauthentic forms of 'performativity' (See, for example, Ball, 2003Ball, , 2012Harris, 2007). This performativity arises from the perceived need of teachers to 'perform' in a way that is not only in line with standards or profiles set out in educational policies (such as those relating to teacher inspections), but also in such a way that their practice is reduced to what is conducive to measurement (Brady, 2019).…”

Response and Responsibility: Rethinking Accountability in Education

“…This performativity terrorises the soul (Ball, 2003; Lyotard, 1984), not only dictating how one should behave, but actively contributing to the internalisation of norms such that teachers need not be policed in any explicit sense. Performativity is connected to an anxiety around appearing ‘effective’, an anxiety that often arises when one is focused on the technical aspects of their role—what ‘techniques’ can I employ in the classroom in order to make sure that I am seen as effective by students, by inspectors, and also, perhaps, by a dissociated ‘me’ reflecting on my own practices (Brady, 2019). But does the tyranny of performativity always account for the nuances in practices, that even if there is an imposition on teachers from external bodies in an explicit sense, they are nevertheless always implicitly responding to this?…”

Struggling Teachers and the Recognition of Effective Practice

“…These more suspect motives are often hidden behind a rhetoric of greater ownership over developmental goals, and should thus be met with caution. (For a more sustained critique of these conflicting motivations, see Brady, . )…”