Professional space

Lately there has been a lot of talk about the professional space of the teacher. But what space are we actually talking about?

Paul Schnabel introduced his '4R model' in 2001. The 4 R's stand for Direction, Space, Result and Accountability. We can also apply this 4R model well in education (Schnabel, 2001).

Direction : the school management, in consultation with the team and the other stakeholders, indicates the direction by formulating and adopting policy. For example, we are talking about the mission (what we stand for), vision (what we are going for) and the associated organizational goals. The organizational goals are sometimes also described as the 'what'. What must be achieved when? Weggeman (2015) speaks in this context, among other things, about the importance of working from a collective ambition .

He indicates that one of the ways to focus more consciously on the intrinsic motivation of employees and the mental models required for this is to focus on a collective ambition (Weggeman, 2015). He refers to Sinek. After all, according to Sinek (2011), the energy level and focus of professionals is a function of the ability to identify themselves with the values ​​or higher goals of the organization. And it is these core values ​​(shared values) that form the building blocks for the collective ambition.

Space : the professional space is mainly about the 'how'. How can the goals (within the agreed time) be achieved with the available resources? Here it is mainly about the strategy to be used .

Result : part of the 'what' is also the result to be achieved. Agreements are made about the result to be achieved (targets) and the professional is accountable for its achievement.

Accountability : in addition to the results, the education professional must also be accountable to the school management and other stakeholders about the way in which the goals have been worked on.

Making better use of teachers' professional space contributes to more involvement in school development and the ability to experience Flow at work (Csikszentmihalyi, 2003). In other words: it empowers the teacher!

Give space, leave space and take space

Andersen, Jager and Koning (2012) also refer to giving space, leaving space and taking space in the context of the teacher's professional space.

With regard to 'give space', Vrieze, van Daalen and Wester (2009) state that it is important that the school leader offers the teacher space for:

•    the possibility of experiencing passion and motivation;
•    the opportunity to work in a professional community;
•    the opportunity to gain experience in new roles and tasks;
•    the opportunity as a teacher to experience 'ownership' of innovation processes.

According to Andersen, Jager and Koning (2012), a shortage of professional space arises when rules are applied in a rigid manner, teachers have to ask permission for everything and teachers are left little room to experiment. This kills the dialogue. According to them, the dialogue starts with individual experiences and ideas. If a teacher does not have the space to gain his or her own experiences, he or she has few ideas to contribute to the professional dialogue.

According to them, passion is addressed when teachers feel that activities contribute to the objective of getting the most out of each student, or contribute to the primary (teaching-learning) process (Andersen, Jager, & Koning, 2012).

With regard to taking up space, Andersen, Jager and Koning (2012) state that an important distinction is made in the literature between the actual or objective space for action and the experienced or subjective space for action (Hupe, 2009), the latter having to do with the space that actually used by professionals. According to them, factual and experienced professional space can differ greatly. Some people dare to take more risks and are more inclined to take action to change things than others. According to Andersen, Jager and Koning (2012), Kruiter et al. (2007) note that professionals do not always use the space they have and hide behind rules, sometimes even non-existent ones. There is therefore an important relationship here with the organizational culture and thenormative professionalism of the teacher.

Teachers can be given space, but they must also take that space, according to Andersen, Jager and Koning (2012) and if they are not given enough space, they should also let this be known. The prevailing culture, which emphasizes management, control and management, but also the far-reaching standardization of teaching materials and methods, do not contribute to this, according to them.

According to Andersen, Jager and Koning (2012), leaving room means that, for example, with regard to gatherings and meetings, there must be room to respond to new developments and that teachers must be able to think along about what will be on the agenda. Leaving room also means, they say, that priorities must be set with regard to the number of (improvement) topics to be worked on during the school year. Of course, the context of the school also plays a major role in this. If the quality is in order, there is more room to make choices yourself.

Giving and taking space goes hand in hand with a professional dialogue about the frameworks within which work is done. The discussion about the meaning given to the agreed frameworks is perhaps even more important than the agreed frameworks themselves (Homan, 2014).

Steering on self-steering

One of the ways to give teachers more professional space is to work with Professional Learning Communities . These learning communities offer professionals the opportunity to work together on adaptive changes and therefore also on their professional development. Robert Mentink uses the following definition for a Professional Learning Community in his article 'Sturen op zelfsturing':

“a community of teachers who are jointly responsible for the learning and development of pupils, in which there is ownership and room for regulation, in which teachers take initiatives for their own professional development and collective learning, where teachers work who are and remain motivated, involved and passionate, and use all their talents together for the broad development of the students.” (Mentink, 2014).

According to Mentink, the school leader does not belong in this definition, because he, as a result of the hierarchy, stands in a vertical line with respect to the members of the learning community. According to Mentink, membership in the Professional Learning Community is reserved for members who are in a horizontal position in relation to each other. According to Mentink, a Professional Learning Community therefore asks the school leader for what he calls 'Steering on self-management'.

Mentink says about this:

“The key words in 'Steering on self-management' are autonomy and connection'. The teachers in the Professional Learning Community feel collectively and individually responsible for the learning and development of students and of each other and are accountable for the results to the manager and society. The manager has a strong guiding presence when it comes to the lower limit of the functioning of teachers and the learning efficiency of students. He is stimulating and facilitating when it comes to learning and development and takes a restrained attitude. The manager is a client who agrees on goals and facilitates them. In this way, the relationship becomes less sensitive to responsibility-undermining transference phenomena.” (Mentink, 2014) p. 57.

Distributed leadership, teacher leaders

If a Professional Learning Community is to be successful, it is therefore important that the school leader focuses on self-management (Mentink (2014) and that teachers can make good use of their professional space. The presence of (certain forms of) distributed leadership within the school contributes to this on at.

In his dissertation, Snoek (2014) links distributed leadership to the concept of 'Teacher leaders', which he describes as follows:

“The process by which teachers, individually or collectively, through development, inspiration and research, provide direction and exert influence on their colleagues, school leaders, and other school community members to improve teaching and learning practices that enhance student learning and achievement'” ( Snoek, 2014, p.20)

About what it requires from the teacher to be able to fulfill this role well, he says:

“Teacher leadership demands specific skills and knowledge related to building trust with colleagues, understanding organizational context and dynamics, managing change processes, supporting adult learning, designing curricula, and participating in action research (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2009; Lieberman et al., 2000 ).” (Snoek, 2014, p. 20)

Stimulating distributed leadership in the form of Teacher leadership can therefore make an important contribution to increasing the teacher's professional scope.

Leading without commands

Vandendriessche & Clement (2012) speak in the context of leaving room for 'leading without commands'. They point to the difference between steering on input and steering on output. Input refers to the means (the what and how) and output refers to the goal (the why or to what end).

“The problem with output is that it is often so self-evident that people don't think about making it explicit.” (Vandendriessche & Clement, 2012).

According to them, a simple way to determine whether one is dealing with input or output is to ask the questions 'why' and 'for what'. As long as those questions yield a sensible answer, input is involved. Only when it is impossible to ask any further questions and you have found out the 'why of the why', you are at output level. According to them, the biggest pitfall for every manager is that he focuses on defining, controlling and adjusting the input. In doing so, he 'interferes' with a field that is essentially that of his employees. According to Vandendriessche and Clement, it is therefore recommended to formulate an assignment as output and also to provide criteria that make self-checking possible for the employee(s). 'Input guarantees conflict', they argue, output refers to needs one wishes to meet or objectives one sets. Characteristic of both cases is that they are generally not or hardly open to discussion. Input, on the other hand, refers to the means used to achieve these goals. There is, they say, much more discussion about this. (Vandendriessche & Clement, 2012).

Decision making processes

Good decision making processes can make an important contribution to the development of a professional culture (and vice versa). A decision-making method that fits in very well with a professional culture is meritocratic decision making(Hetebrij, 2011). This involves a steering party that plans, organizes and supervises the decision making process according to clear procedures. The participants in the decision-making process are selected on the basis of a knowledge and interest analysis. This ensures that the right people (with relevant knowledge and good representation of the various stakeholders) participate in the decision making process. In meritocratic decision-making, the rules are agreed in advance about the legitimacy of exercising power (legitimization). This includes issues such as (Hetebrij, 2011):

•   Who gets to make a decision when?
•   Will one person make the decision or a group?
•   If a group: what is the voting procedure?

Bibliography

Andersen, I., Jager, M., & Koning, R. (2012). Professionele ruimte. Ruimte geven, ruimte laten, ruimte nemen. Utrecht: NSA.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2003). Flow in zaken: over leiderschap en betekenisgeving. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Boom.

Hetebrij, M. (2011). Een goed besluit is het halve werk. Van politieke spelletjes tot excellente besluitvorming. Assen: Van Gorcum.

Homan, T. (2014). Interactieperspectief op leiderschap. De Nieuwe Meso, 28 – 33.

Hupe, P. (2009). De autonomie van de vakman (m/v): Over regeldruk en handelingsruimte. In T. Jansen, G. v. Brink, & J. Kole, Beroepstrots: Een ongekende kracht. (pp. 129-149). Amsterdam: Boom.

Kruiter, A., Jong, D. d., Niel, J. v., & Hijzen, C. (2008). De rotonde van Hamed. NICIS Institute.

Mentink, R. (2014). Sturen op zelfsturing: leiderschap en professionele leergemeenschappen. De Nieuwe Meso(1), 55 – 60.

Schnabel, P. (2001). Bedreven en gedreven. Den Haag: SCP.

Sinek, S. (2011). Start with why. How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. London: Penguin Books Ltd.

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Vrieze, G., Daalen, M. v., & Wester, M. (2010). Ruimte van de leraar: Helpt LINC om de ruimte van de leraar vorm te geven? Nijmegen: Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.

Weggeman, M. (2015). Essenties van leidinggeven aan professionals. Hoe je door een stap terug te doen, beter vooruit komt. Schiedam: Scriptum management.