Papers by ışıl ünal
Ünal, L. Işıl (2015) “Eğitimsel Gerçekliğin Araştırılmasında Epistemolojik Sorunlar”, Prof. Dr. İ... more Ünal, L. Işıl (2015) “Eğitimsel Gerçekliğin Araştırılmasında Epistemolojik Sorunlar”, Prof. Dr. İbrahim Ethem Başaran’a Armağan. Eğitimde 52 Yıl. (Ed. İnayet Aydın ve Şakir Çınkır) Ankara: Anı Yayıncılık.
Teacher in the Imagination of Neo-Liberal Education:
Teacher Training in Turkey
Liberal tra... more Teacher in the Imagination of Neo-Liberal Education:
Teacher Training in Turkey
Liberal transformation in education in Turkey, was activated through the educational projects financed by the World Bank year by year, and public administration was restructured by means of recent laws. With these laws, the concept of public services and the practices, appropriate to this understanding, have been eliminated and transformation process gains speed. The intensive economic pressure on education started in the period of ‘planned development’ after the year 1961, following the period of construction of modern society. The process of planning the education, the aim of which is to adjust education according to the needs of economy started in Mediterranean Regional Project by OECD (Organization of Economic Corporation and Development), integrated the education with economic purposes and this process weakened the ground of the discourse of ‘right to education’.
The identity of a teacher has been affected from imagination of education. In Turkey, a strategic role was given to the teacher in the process of constructing the modern society to lead the new generations to gain modern values. Understanding the teaching profession in Turkey has covered the characteristics of a profession in terms of “traditional professionalism”.
With the process of the reconstruction of teacher educational system, beginning in 1997, the neo-liberal transformation of teachers gained speed.
I advocate that the transformation process at school level is mostly important on the changes of teacher’s identity, and the reconstruction of teacher educational system causes the teachers to be trained easily appropriate to the imagination of neo-liberal education, and ensure the ‘new’ identity of teacher in future, in connection with the new curriculum which doesn’t include the courses concerning educational sciences.
The transformation process in education, in Turkey is similar to the process in other countries, especially in the “developing countries”.
A basic process that affected teacher identity towards the imagination of neo-liberal education is the process transformations in school working. By the school working and experiences at school, teachers’ perception about teaching profession, teachers’ self-image, their understanding of student, education and society have been transformed in time. Teachers are affected from ideological hegemony, because school environment is a place which neo-liberal values are reproduced.
School-Based Management practices (applications) have a great role on neo-liberal transformation process in Turkey. Endeavors towards applying Total Quality Management in educational system, especially at schools, wasn’t successful, because of teachers’ lack of harmony with its values and terms like a client (buyer) as a student, and the like. School-based management project could be applied mostly, because this project provide a compensation for schools whose resourses provided by the state have decreased. The nation state have not provided the cost of heating and cleaning in schools. Parents didn’t resist against this application in general. While parent participation in school management is foreseen in school-based management, this participation has become limited (has caused) because of these new monetary resourses.
This application causes a notional transformation for students and teachers. For example, it’s frequently observed that the students and teachers regard “participation” only as “giving money to schools as charity”. In some situations this means that it’s possible to escape doing something for anyone or for a believed purpose, by giving money with a clear conscience. Wide spreading the notion of “governance” affected the process of forgiving the notion of “democratic participation”.
In this process, the ideas that “Not everything can be expected from government” and “Government can’t spare enough recourses for education, so rich people may give some money for education, in schools” are become strong, and teachers begin to favor the ideas like these. Government and school administrations have declared these teachers as the professionals who “have loyalty to their profession” and “take the student in center”.
The central exams are used as a device of transformation process in Turkey. Attending a type of high schools at the end of primary education requires success in a central exam. So, it’s necessary for a student to have exam to attend a type of high school, which provides an advantage for a student to succeed in the university entrance examination taken at the end of secondary education. Entering a graduate program need success in a central exam too. The applications of central entrance examinations the questions of which are prepared by state-institutions, is regarded as if it made the choices “objective” and “equitable”. This idea is not related to the content of exams, it only refers to their feature of being “central. And these applications cause two ideas to be adopted. The first one is that the way of two ideas which are related to each other, “the way of being equitable is choosing the best ones among the candidates by central examinations”, and the other idea is that one must be successful in the entrance exam “to attend any educational institution, instead of providing facilities for all people to attend whatever institutions they want without this kind of “obstacle”. On the other hand, these applications lead students and parents believe that “competition” is inevitable in social life.
Some kind of courses have been opened to the students who want to increase their school success, in public schools which require extra pay from parents. They are almost compulsory, and teachers earn extra income by these courses.
In private and public schools, teachers are firstly expected to prepare students to central examinations, and students’ success bring prestige to both teachers and schools. On one hand this means more “client-students” for private schools; on the other hand “good”, “successful” teachers are created and parents want to give their children to these teachers in public schools. It can be expected that the image of teacher “making students successful in the tests”, and to present this image as a “successful teacher” leads teachers to change the understanding of education and teaching.
The exams given to teachers to decide for their promotion are also devices which speed up the transformation of teacher identity. Preparations for the regulations in this subject are at preparatory level in Turkey. There are exams only for promoting the status of administrator/manager or supervisor. The second basic process which affects neo-liberal transformation of teacher identity is the change in the curriculum for teacher education and in the environment at the faculties. The change in this concern in Turkey was realized in 1997, restructuring teacher education system and institutional structure of educational sciences. It was an endeavor directed removing educational sciences out of the program because of regarding it as not valued in the market, and turning its institutions to a teacher education institutions.The curriculum for teacher education based on the understanding that seeing the teacher as a professional who “acquired the knowledge about what s/he will teach” and “ how s/he teach this knowledge”. It is not aimed that the teachers have to understand the society they live in and to understand education as a whole. Since 1997, teachers are deprived from knowledge accumulation of educational sciences, and they are prepared for the neo-liberal transformations.
The process of making the teachers gain an identity, parallel to imagination of neo-liberal education is similar to the process of unqualifying the workers in the market. The teacher who is recognized as a professional “understand the social meaning of education and has been equipped with the basic knowledge; and the teacher has a social responsibility for the process of learning and has decided on the topics related to her/his professional; and rejects external control”. This kind of teacher has been transformed to the “new professional”. The “new” teacher is a professional, “whose activities are controlled by the mechanism of external accountability indicators such as the professional standarts, performance indicators and productivity”. Both the teacher training system and process and procedures working at the schools are reconstructed for this purpose.
The teacher who is formatted basis on “new professionalism”, has been oriented “doing”rather than “thinking” and sets up her/his experiences on “teaching” instead of “learning”. S/he is oriented to gain competences and skills, not to gain values and ethics.
In the projects financed by WB concerning the programs of reconstruction in Turkey, it’s clear that teacher training programs are essential parts of the projects, to ensure teacher transformation. So, every project itself absolutely includes teacher training programs. The main transformative process consists of pressures, interrelations and experiences at the schools. Of course, school environment is identified as an atmosphere where resistances, reactions, struggles and protests against the transformation process but on the other hand, it speeds up the factors. For this reason, it is the schools which hinder the neo-liberal mechanisms from arising.
Ankara: Epar Yayınları, Jan 1, 1996
özgeçmiş by ışıl ünal
kimlik, farklılık, eğitim by ışıl ünal
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Papers by ışıl ünal
Teacher Training in Turkey
Liberal transformation in education in Turkey, was activated through the educational projects financed by the World Bank year by year, and public administration was restructured by means of recent laws. With these laws, the concept of public services and the practices, appropriate to this understanding, have been eliminated and transformation process gains speed. The intensive economic pressure on education started in the period of ‘planned development’ after the year 1961, following the period of construction of modern society. The process of planning the education, the aim of which is to adjust education according to the needs of economy started in Mediterranean Regional Project by OECD (Organization of Economic Corporation and Development), integrated the education with economic purposes and this process weakened the ground of the discourse of ‘right to education’.
The identity of a teacher has been affected from imagination of education. In Turkey, a strategic role was given to the teacher in the process of constructing the modern society to lead the new generations to gain modern values. Understanding the teaching profession in Turkey has covered the characteristics of a profession in terms of “traditional professionalism”.
With the process of the reconstruction of teacher educational system, beginning in 1997, the neo-liberal transformation of teachers gained speed.
I advocate that the transformation process at school level is mostly important on the changes of teacher’s identity, and the reconstruction of teacher educational system causes the teachers to be trained easily appropriate to the imagination of neo-liberal education, and ensure the ‘new’ identity of teacher in future, in connection with the new curriculum which doesn’t include the courses concerning educational sciences.
The transformation process in education, in Turkey is similar to the process in other countries, especially in the “developing countries”.
A basic process that affected teacher identity towards the imagination of neo-liberal education is the process transformations in school working. By the school working and experiences at school, teachers’ perception about teaching profession, teachers’ self-image, their understanding of student, education and society have been transformed in time. Teachers are affected from ideological hegemony, because school environment is a place which neo-liberal values are reproduced.
School-Based Management practices (applications) have a great role on neo-liberal transformation process in Turkey. Endeavors towards applying Total Quality Management in educational system, especially at schools, wasn’t successful, because of teachers’ lack of harmony with its values and terms like a client (buyer) as a student, and the like. School-based management project could be applied mostly, because this project provide a compensation for schools whose resourses provided by the state have decreased. The nation state have not provided the cost of heating and cleaning in schools. Parents didn’t resist against this application in general. While parent participation in school management is foreseen in school-based management, this participation has become limited (has caused) because of these new monetary resourses.
This application causes a notional transformation for students and teachers. For example, it’s frequently observed that the students and teachers regard “participation” only as “giving money to schools as charity”. In some situations this means that it’s possible to escape doing something for anyone or for a believed purpose, by giving money with a clear conscience. Wide spreading the notion of “governance” affected the process of forgiving the notion of “democratic participation”.
In this process, the ideas that “Not everything can be expected from government” and “Government can’t spare enough recourses for education, so rich people may give some money for education, in schools” are become strong, and teachers begin to favor the ideas like these. Government and school administrations have declared these teachers as the professionals who “have loyalty to their profession” and “take the student in center”.
The central exams are used as a device of transformation process in Turkey. Attending a type of high schools at the end of primary education requires success in a central exam. So, it’s necessary for a student to have exam to attend a type of high school, which provides an advantage for a student to succeed in the university entrance examination taken at the end of secondary education. Entering a graduate program need success in a central exam too. The applications of central entrance examinations the questions of which are prepared by state-institutions, is regarded as if it made the choices “objective” and “equitable”. This idea is not related to the content of exams, it only refers to their feature of being “central. And these applications cause two ideas to be adopted. The first one is that the way of two ideas which are related to each other, “the way of being equitable is choosing the best ones among the candidates by central examinations”, and the other idea is that one must be successful in the entrance exam “to attend any educational institution, instead of providing facilities for all people to attend whatever institutions they want without this kind of “obstacle”. On the other hand, these applications lead students and parents believe that “competition” is inevitable in social life.
Some kind of courses have been opened to the students who want to increase their school success, in public schools which require extra pay from parents. They are almost compulsory, and teachers earn extra income by these courses.
In private and public schools, teachers are firstly expected to prepare students to central examinations, and students’ success bring prestige to both teachers and schools. On one hand this means more “client-students” for private schools; on the other hand “good”, “successful” teachers are created and parents want to give their children to these teachers in public schools. It can be expected that the image of teacher “making students successful in the tests”, and to present this image as a “successful teacher” leads teachers to change the understanding of education and teaching.
The exams given to teachers to decide for their promotion are also devices which speed up the transformation of teacher identity. Preparations for the regulations in this subject are at preparatory level in Turkey. There are exams only for promoting the status of administrator/manager or supervisor. The second basic process which affects neo-liberal transformation of teacher identity is the change in the curriculum for teacher education and in the environment at the faculties. The change in this concern in Turkey was realized in 1997, restructuring teacher education system and institutional structure of educational sciences. It was an endeavor directed removing educational sciences out of the program because of regarding it as not valued in the market, and turning its institutions to a teacher education institutions.The curriculum for teacher education based on the understanding that seeing the teacher as a professional who “acquired the knowledge about what s/he will teach” and “ how s/he teach this knowledge”. It is not aimed that the teachers have to understand the society they live in and to understand education as a whole. Since 1997, teachers are deprived from knowledge accumulation of educational sciences, and they are prepared for the neo-liberal transformations.
The process of making the teachers gain an identity, parallel to imagination of neo-liberal education is similar to the process of unqualifying the workers in the market. The teacher who is recognized as a professional “understand the social meaning of education and has been equipped with the basic knowledge; and the teacher has a social responsibility for the process of learning and has decided on the topics related to her/his professional; and rejects external control”. This kind of teacher has been transformed to the “new professional”. The “new” teacher is a professional, “whose activities are controlled by the mechanism of external accountability indicators such as the professional standarts, performance indicators and productivity”. Both the teacher training system and process and procedures working at the schools are reconstructed for this purpose.
The teacher who is formatted basis on “new professionalism”, has been oriented “doing”rather than “thinking” and sets up her/his experiences on “teaching” instead of “learning”. S/he is oriented to gain competences and skills, not to gain values and ethics.
In the projects financed by WB concerning the programs of reconstruction in Turkey, it’s clear that teacher training programs are essential parts of the projects, to ensure teacher transformation. So, every project itself absolutely includes teacher training programs. The main transformative process consists of pressures, interrelations and experiences at the schools. Of course, school environment is identified as an atmosphere where resistances, reactions, struggles and protests against the transformation process but on the other hand, it speeds up the factors. For this reason, it is the schools which hinder the neo-liberal mechanisms from arising.
özgeçmiş by ışıl ünal
kimlik, farklılık, eğitim by ışıl ünal
Teacher Training in Turkey
Liberal transformation in education in Turkey, was activated through the educational projects financed by the World Bank year by year, and public administration was restructured by means of recent laws. With these laws, the concept of public services and the practices, appropriate to this understanding, have been eliminated and transformation process gains speed. The intensive economic pressure on education started in the period of ‘planned development’ after the year 1961, following the period of construction of modern society. The process of planning the education, the aim of which is to adjust education according to the needs of economy started in Mediterranean Regional Project by OECD (Organization of Economic Corporation and Development), integrated the education with economic purposes and this process weakened the ground of the discourse of ‘right to education’.
The identity of a teacher has been affected from imagination of education. In Turkey, a strategic role was given to the teacher in the process of constructing the modern society to lead the new generations to gain modern values. Understanding the teaching profession in Turkey has covered the characteristics of a profession in terms of “traditional professionalism”.
With the process of the reconstruction of teacher educational system, beginning in 1997, the neo-liberal transformation of teachers gained speed.
I advocate that the transformation process at school level is mostly important on the changes of teacher’s identity, and the reconstruction of teacher educational system causes the teachers to be trained easily appropriate to the imagination of neo-liberal education, and ensure the ‘new’ identity of teacher in future, in connection with the new curriculum which doesn’t include the courses concerning educational sciences.
The transformation process in education, in Turkey is similar to the process in other countries, especially in the “developing countries”.
A basic process that affected teacher identity towards the imagination of neo-liberal education is the process transformations in school working. By the school working and experiences at school, teachers’ perception about teaching profession, teachers’ self-image, their understanding of student, education and society have been transformed in time. Teachers are affected from ideological hegemony, because school environment is a place which neo-liberal values are reproduced.
School-Based Management practices (applications) have a great role on neo-liberal transformation process in Turkey. Endeavors towards applying Total Quality Management in educational system, especially at schools, wasn’t successful, because of teachers’ lack of harmony with its values and terms like a client (buyer) as a student, and the like. School-based management project could be applied mostly, because this project provide a compensation for schools whose resourses provided by the state have decreased. The nation state have not provided the cost of heating and cleaning in schools. Parents didn’t resist against this application in general. While parent participation in school management is foreseen in school-based management, this participation has become limited (has caused) because of these new monetary resourses.
This application causes a notional transformation for students and teachers. For example, it’s frequently observed that the students and teachers regard “participation” only as “giving money to schools as charity”. In some situations this means that it’s possible to escape doing something for anyone or for a believed purpose, by giving money with a clear conscience. Wide spreading the notion of “governance” affected the process of forgiving the notion of “democratic participation”.
In this process, the ideas that “Not everything can be expected from government” and “Government can’t spare enough recourses for education, so rich people may give some money for education, in schools” are become strong, and teachers begin to favor the ideas like these. Government and school administrations have declared these teachers as the professionals who “have loyalty to their profession” and “take the student in center”.
The central exams are used as a device of transformation process in Turkey. Attending a type of high schools at the end of primary education requires success in a central exam. So, it’s necessary for a student to have exam to attend a type of high school, which provides an advantage for a student to succeed in the university entrance examination taken at the end of secondary education. Entering a graduate program need success in a central exam too. The applications of central entrance examinations the questions of which are prepared by state-institutions, is regarded as if it made the choices “objective” and “equitable”. This idea is not related to the content of exams, it only refers to their feature of being “central. And these applications cause two ideas to be adopted. The first one is that the way of two ideas which are related to each other, “the way of being equitable is choosing the best ones among the candidates by central examinations”, and the other idea is that one must be successful in the entrance exam “to attend any educational institution, instead of providing facilities for all people to attend whatever institutions they want without this kind of “obstacle”. On the other hand, these applications lead students and parents believe that “competition” is inevitable in social life.
Some kind of courses have been opened to the students who want to increase their school success, in public schools which require extra pay from parents. They are almost compulsory, and teachers earn extra income by these courses.
In private and public schools, teachers are firstly expected to prepare students to central examinations, and students’ success bring prestige to both teachers and schools. On one hand this means more “client-students” for private schools; on the other hand “good”, “successful” teachers are created and parents want to give their children to these teachers in public schools. It can be expected that the image of teacher “making students successful in the tests”, and to present this image as a “successful teacher” leads teachers to change the understanding of education and teaching.
The exams given to teachers to decide for their promotion are also devices which speed up the transformation of teacher identity. Preparations for the regulations in this subject are at preparatory level in Turkey. There are exams only for promoting the status of administrator/manager or supervisor. The second basic process which affects neo-liberal transformation of teacher identity is the change in the curriculum for teacher education and in the environment at the faculties. The change in this concern in Turkey was realized in 1997, restructuring teacher education system and institutional structure of educational sciences. It was an endeavor directed removing educational sciences out of the program because of regarding it as not valued in the market, and turning its institutions to a teacher education institutions.The curriculum for teacher education based on the understanding that seeing the teacher as a professional who “acquired the knowledge about what s/he will teach” and “ how s/he teach this knowledge”. It is not aimed that the teachers have to understand the society they live in and to understand education as a whole. Since 1997, teachers are deprived from knowledge accumulation of educational sciences, and they are prepared for the neo-liberal transformations.
The process of making the teachers gain an identity, parallel to imagination of neo-liberal education is similar to the process of unqualifying the workers in the market. The teacher who is recognized as a professional “understand the social meaning of education and has been equipped with the basic knowledge; and the teacher has a social responsibility for the process of learning and has decided on the topics related to her/his professional; and rejects external control”. This kind of teacher has been transformed to the “new professional”. The “new” teacher is a professional, “whose activities are controlled by the mechanism of external accountability indicators such as the professional standarts, performance indicators and productivity”. Both the teacher training system and process and procedures working at the schools are reconstructed for this purpose.
The teacher who is formatted basis on “new professionalism”, has been oriented “doing”rather than “thinking” and sets up her/his experiences on “teaching” instead of “learning”. S/he is oriented to gain competences and skills, not to gain values and ethics.
In the projects financed by WB concerning the programs of reconstruction in Turkey, it’s clear that teacher training programs are essential parts of the projects, to ensure teacher transformation. So, every project itself absolutely includes teacher training programs. The main transformative process consists of pressures, interrelations and experiences at the schools. Of course, school environment is identified as an atmosphere where resistances, reactions, struggles and protests against the transformation process but on the other hand, it speeds up the factors. For this reason, it is the schools which hinder the neo-liberal mechanisms from arising.