Struggling Teachers and the Recognition of Effective Practice

Abstract

This paper discusses the ways in which the teacher is recognised through the formulation of evaluation frameworks which encompass criteria for so‐called effective teaching and, by extension, effective learning. It argues that the emphasis on that which is ‘effective’, and therefore measurable, is symptomatic of an overly technicist understanding of teaching and learning, and the rapport between both. However, the recognition of the teacher as (in)effective in this way eclipses some of the other, more fundamental components of the act of teaching. Most importantly, the recognition that is conferred on teachers through effectiveness discourses serves to devalue the important ‘struggle for recognition’ that is inherent in such situations, and thus, fails to capture the lived, and often messy, experiences of being a teacher. Using the idea of the ‘look’ as explored by the philosopher Jean‐Paul Sartre, as well as an example from the BBC TV programme ‘Tough Young Teachers’, this paper attempts to demonstrate what this ‘struggle for recognition’ looks like in classroom practice, why it is insufficiently accounted for in evaluation frameworks, and why it is important to consider when thinking about the work that teachers do.