Why Do Good Art Teachers Find It Hard to Stay in the Public School System?

Abstract

According to studies in the U.S. and in Israel, a large percentage of new teachers leaves the classroom within 5 years (Faber, 1984; Geva-May, 1995; Sabar, 2001). Those with higher academic degrees are among the first to leave (Amstrong, 1984; Van Manen, 1991). Many that decide to stay resort to overly conservative, unimaginative pedagogy in order to survive (Wittrock, 1986; May, 1995). As part of studying the ways beginning art teachers negotiate their teaching identity and beliefs within the public educational system (Cohen-- Evron, 2001), I collected their tales of the. challenges, problems, and satisfactions they encountered during their everyday work. Their descriptions of negotiations within their marginal place in the schools provide an opportunity to pay close attention to what they portray as the difficulties and conflicts in their practice and why good art teachers find it difficult to stay in the public school system. The Distinction Between Art Teachers' Role and Art Teachers' Identity What disturbs me is that if you are a good teacher you do not use your potential. Because the educational system demand something else it changes you to become mediocre. It isn't just the demand to cover the material, but also the whole attitude... In the first year I felt like a racehorse that cannot run. And [after 5 years of teaching] I still feel so. (Naomi, a high school art teacher, December 17, 1999) Britzman (1991) writes that as teachers we construct not only our teaching practices and all the relationships this entails, but our teaching voices and (p. 1). In the mainstream discourse of teacher education, teacher identity is viewed as synonymous with teacher's (Britzman, 1992). Nevertheless, there is an the important distinction between the terms and identity. Britzman (1992) explains, role speaks to function whereas identity voices investments and commitments. Function, or what one should do, and investments, or what one feels, are often at odds (p. 29). A teacher's is determined by teaching conditions and the formal expectations of the different people involved in schooling (the superintendent, the principal, parents, students, colleagues, the curriculum, the teachers themselves). This often does not coincide with the beliefs and expectations of teachers. Yet teachers' beliefs and the perceptions they hold about the subject matter to be taught, about their students, and about teaching and learning determine the ways they interpret what is desirable or undesirable (Kagan, 1992; Sivertsen, 1994). Thus there is often a conflict between what is expected and what is believed, and teachers must negotiate their identity within these conflicted representations and expectations. According to this distinction between teachers' and identity, art teachers' preparation programs and educational systems that employ art teachers can pre-describe the of desirable art teachers. They can provide a list of preferable teaching outcomes, pedagogical skills, teaching techniques, teaching strategies, and theories. They can train the teachers accordingly while they are planning art lessons or teaching the students. While the of good art teacher can be a fixed description of desired qualities (which change from one paradigm of art education to another), art teachers' identities are constructed through an ongoing process of becoming and making sense of who they are, who they are not, and who they wish to become (Britzman, 1992). This process involves teachers' knowledge and ideals of art and art teaching, all of which are negotiated within specific discourses. These elements of the art teacher's identity are constructed and reconstructed during their work and lives, and create a different image of being a good teacher than any of the given fixed descriptions of a desirable art teacher. This process is described in the following section. The Process of Constructing an Image of a Good Art Teacher Teachers' knowledge1 is different from the written theoretical knowledge encountered in preservice or inservice programs (Fuller, 1994). …