This issue of The Morning Watch marks the beginning of our twenty-fifth year of publication. Launched in 1973 under the editorship of Ishmael Baksh, Amarjit Singh and William J. Gushue, the periodical was intended to facilitate discussion of issues in education, particularly those of relevance to Newfoundland. As Gushue noted in 1977,

I am pleased to have been asked to speculate on the future of the Faculty of Education. One of the things I like best about my job is the opportunity, indeed the responsibility, to think and speculate about the future of education. The future is partly shaped by the past, of course, and for Memorial University's Faculty of Education, there are certain events in our past that have influenced the course we are setting ourselves for the future. In the next few pages, I would like to reflect on some of those events and to describe the direction I think the Faculty will take in the next quarter century.

The Provincial Department of Education commissioned a study into small schools directed by Dr. Frank Riggs, now retired from the Faculty of Education. The primary purpose of the project was "to investigate problems peculiar to small schools with an aim toward developing proposals to enhance educational opportunities for students in these schools." The Department and the report affirmed that teaching and learning in small schools has special characteristics. The report recommended the greater use of technology for program delivery in small schools, especially in high schools. In making this recommendation, the authors of the report obviously responded to certain educational realities: not every school can afford the te achers and the materials to mount all the courses that students and their parents have a right to expect; not every school can afford a full time music teacher, and the distance between schools is often too great for an itinerant teacher to work effectively. As the range of program and course options narrows, the viability of the school is threatened, and the viability of these schools is essential to the viability of their communities. The importance of, and the need to support, small schools was thus affirmed .

In August of 1987, Memorial President Dr. Leslie Harris established a committee to review all aspects of teacher education in the province. Chaired by Madeline Hardy from London, Ontario, the committee was given very broad terms of reference to conduct a complete and unbiased study of the state of teacher education. In November of 1988, the committee's report was released, and it was to have a profound impact on the direction and the structure of the Faculty of Education. It is impossible here either to summarize the report or to capture the full extent of the Faculty's response to it. Nevertheless, certain of the recommendations and the way the Faculty has responded to them seem to point us in a particular direction.

There were a number of recommendations in the report dealing with the internship, but two deserve special mention not only because they have been demanding a great deal of Faculty time during recent years but because they signify a different kind of relationship with the schools. In brief, the report recommended that a model for internship be developed that provided for closer involvement of teachers in the supervision of interns and a clarification of the roles of all participants. Under the leadership of Dr. Dennis Treslan and Dr. Alice Collins and with the assistance of many members of the faculty, including Drs. Andrea Rose, Barrie Barrell, Amarjit Singh, Bill Kennedy and Elizabeth Yeoman, a new model for the internship has been implemente d in the province and in Harlow. We are excited about this model because it changes the University's role in the supervision of interns and gives greater professional responsibility to teachers, principals and other school district personnel. To venture just for a moment into the future, I see the Faculty in the next decade working with the profession to create a development plan for master teachers and supervisors and to refine the selection criteria and role of all participants in the enterprise of student internships. What is especially exciting about the new model is the opportunity it affords for the University to work in true partnership with professional teachers.

Focussing our Future recommended that the Faculty extend its distance offerings, and that is a recommendation that we have been very active in following. We have added substantially to our list of distance offerings, especially at the graduate level, and have diversified the delivery modes as well. This is a theme to which I will return shortly.

The Royal Commission was established to inquire into the delivery of programs and services in the schools. While the committee was not charged with assessing programs in the Faculty of Education, we are in the business of educating teachers, and so much of the report had implications for the Faculty. During the last few years, we have turned our attention to a number of matters that were identified by the Royal Commission as needing attention although, in fairness to the Faculty, it must be said that many of these issues were already on the agenda. In this latter category, for instance, was the recommendation that the Faculty, undertake research into the school contexts in which first year teachers are placed with a view to gathering realistic information to help shape preparation programs" (p. 31 of summary report).

The Royal Commission recommended the establishment of School Councils to ensure that parents and communities had a voice in the education of their children. The Faculty of Education, largely through the work of Dr. Alice Collins, has played a significant role in establishing and monitoring the work of these Councils. The Royal Commission also recommended "that the Faculty of Education establish a Centre for Small Schools which would address problems of particular concern to small schools and approaches to teaching in multi-grade classrooms." In a slight variation on this theme and with the help of a substantial grant from Industry Canada, we opened in 1997 the Center for TeleLearning. What began as a Center for TeleLearning became effectively a home for both Telelearning and rural education since the context for TeleLearning in this province is chiefly rural or small schools.

Recommendation #86 of the Royal Commission report was that the Faculty of Education, in conjunction with school boards, designate selected schools as University Schools which would assume a cooperative role with the Faculty of Education in order to prepare teachers adequately for the realistic demands of teaching and to enable the Faculty to experiment with innovative teaching ideas and practices." We have begun to meet the spirit of this recommendation through projects initiated by individual faculty members. In particular, Jean Brown and Bruce Sheppard were instrumental in formalizing a partnership arrangement with the Western Integrated School District (as it was then known), and Ken Stevens and I were instrumental in fostering a similar relationship with Clarenville High School. This latter project is part of the school's renewal plan and will see different faculty members involved at different times as the school turns its attention to changing various aspects of its curriculum and administration. Other faculty members are working closely with schools in ways that may be formalized later. Even if they are not, the spirit of such cooperative arrangements is to create environments that truly facilitate learning, both for the pupils in the schools and the teachers and potential teachers who teach there. There were a great many other recommendations made by the Royal Commission that have influenced the Faculty's direction since the report was released and will continue to do so in the coming decades. I have mentioned only a few. The point is that the Faculty has responded to the call for change and has done so quickly and positively.

In this document, the University affirmed its commitment to education for students whose needs might differ from those of traditional students. It also acknowledged the University's obligation to the community of the province and the region. With regard to the Faculty of Education, many interpretations are possible, but two things seem abundantly clear. One is that we must take a hard look at exactly who our non-traditional students are in the Faculty. Are they part time students? Are they rural? Or are they defined as having particular needs as teachers that we are not meeting? Another perspective on this issue has to do with demographics. As out-migration continues to result in a declining population, a fact that is felt in school and university registrations, the Faculty may well find itself looking beyond the shores of the island and the boundaries of Labrador for students in our courses. Second, we must never forget that however far off shore we may look for our students, our primary responsibility is to students and teachers in Newfoundland and Labrador, and that responsibility extends to all schools and teachers in the province, not just those conveniently located in St. John's.

With this appointment, the Faculty signaled its participation in the information age. Dr. Stevens' mandate is to facilitate research on teaching and learning in the TeleLearning environment. His background and interests in rural schools situate him well to realize that goal within the context of small and rural schools in Newfoundland and Labrador. In my view, that is entirely appropriate. It is consistent with the broader goal of the University as articulated in Launch Forth, it is consistent with many of the recommendations made in the other reports mentioned above, and significantly, it is symbolic of one of the directions the faculty is taking as it prepares to educate teachers for the 21^st century.

There is much about which I could write, many strengths of this faculty that I see developing over the next few decades. The events from the past I have highlighted above, however, point to two particular areas of growth, one related to distance delivery of our existing programs and the other related to the possibility of creating new programs to focus on the needs of small schools.

We are in the early days of a communications revolution that will have a profound impact on teaching. Evidence that this is true comes from the number of courses we now offer via the internet, by the number of courses faculty members are developing for delivery using cd-rom, the world wide web and a number of other delivery options that were not available when the Morning Watch made its debut. (I invite you to visit the Faculty's home page and explore some of the options available .) We will continue to move in this direction although there are a great many obstacles to overcome. One is attitudinal.

I often wonder what kinds of discussions occurred at Oxford and Cambridge and at continental universities when the printing press was an emergent technology. Did our academic predecessors engage in speculation about the future of education? Did they worry about the cost of producing books? Did they worry that the publication of books, especially in the vernacular, would change the very elite character of university? In other words, would demands on the universities change as more people had access to books? What would happen to quality? And what about tradition? I don't know whether such discussions took place, but they very well could have, and if they did, our predecessors faced the same questions that we face today. There is not the space here for a full discussion of these issues, but let's take a brief look at a few of those most often heard in connection with computers and on-line teaching.

The most common argument against major expansion into hi-tech delivery is the cost. Certainly this is a serious objection when every public educational jurisdiction in North America is fighting to maintain any kind of capital budget. The fear that computers will wipe out the entire resource budget is a real one. Do we want more modems at the expense of books in the library? The solution to the problem of cost is by no means simple, but we can take some comfort in Moore's Law. This precept holds that the same amount of money spent on a computer today will buy twice the power in 18 months' time. Twenty years ago pocket calculators represented a much larger "hit" to the budget than they do today. In ten years' time, we will be a ble to buy more powerful computers for much less money. What we are spending now is, in Kilian's words "tuition expenses: some of us have to learn when it's costly to do so, so that we can transmit our hard-earned knowledge to the next generation. Pioneers always have to pay a higher price" (1997, p. 33).

Critics also make the point that not everyone is comfortable using computers and, more specifically, that however effectively they may be used for instruction, on-line instruction is not better than face to face. As to the comfort factor, as computer applications become more diverse and easier to use, more people are finding some use of the computer with which they are very comfortable. Many people are expanding their computer use to new applications, whether to word -processing, e-mail, or w eb browsing. In classrooms, teachers are using computers in art and music class as much as in science and English, and they are increasingly using them with students who are themselves familiar with some applications before they come to school. There is little doubt that comfort levels are improving.

I doubt that many educators would claim that computers will replace teachers or argue that there are many instructional applications that can take the place of personal contact. What the computer can do, of course, is provide an amazing array of resources to teachers, and for students who are isolated or home-bound, education delivered over the internet or by cd-rom may be the only alternative to none at all. What is important to remember is that computers, smarter than they once were, are still essentially only dumb machines. Humans still provide the structure and content for teaching. The computer is just a very efficient tool.

Still, there are important pedagogical questions that must be asked, and they are properly asked within faculties of education. This one will be no exception. At the same time that we are looking at the use of technologies to equalize opportunities in small schools, we will be looking at more fundamental issues. We will be asking questions such as what kinds of teaching are most effectively done on line. What happens to the student-teacher relationship and how does it influence learn ing? What is the effect of putting children in front of computer monitors for extended periods of time? What are the psychological and sociological consequences of our increased reliance on computers? Some would argue that we need the answers to these questions before we commit more of our scarce resources to technology. But of course we can't do that. We cannot sit back and wait for someone else to answer the questions. We have to find out for ourselves what the best uses of the various technologies will be , and we can only do that through active experimentation with those technologies.

I was asked by the editors of The Morning Watch to speculate. The most interesting question to speculate about is not what technologies of the future will be or even what they can do but rather what we can do with and because of them. If I thought the answer had to do only with increasing resources and access, I'd still be interested, but I'd also be a lot less excited. I think that the potential of technology lies in the possibility of radically reconceptualizing what it means to learn and to teach. We have an opportunity, an exciting one, I think, to revitalize or even recreate the roles of teachers and learners. What is truly exciting is that this broader perspective crosses discipline boundaries. I am not so worried about creating techno-junkies or about focusing our attention too exclusively in the sciences rather than the arts. Here in Newfoundland, I see the potential of technology to enrich and protect rather than to replace the strong traditions in music and the arts. If it were otherwise, I would not be interested. The work I see faculty members doing nearly every day in drama and music, to name only two areas, convinces me that that is the power of technology and that its potential is being realized in exciting ways.

In short, I believe that technology may well provide us with the opportunity to reclaim education. In ruminating about the future of on-line teaching, Kilian puts it very well:

Nor can I, and if we can recreate learning and give learners the permission and the tools to take charge of their own learning, we will be well rewarded for the expense and the effort. We will have provided them with the real tools to become life-long learners. This freedom that transcends discipline boundaries, that creates thinkers whether they be mathematicians, poets or musicians, this is what excites me about technology and the future.

I would like to thank the editors of the Morning Watch for the work they have done during the last quarter century. They have provided us a forum for thinking and talking about a great many educational issues over the years, a platform to debate and, as for me in this issue, an opportunity to dream.

Government of Newfoundland and Labrador (1992). Our children our future, the Royal Commission of inquiry into the delivery of programs and services in primary, elementary, secondary education. Summary report.

Hardy, M., Mackey, E., Martin, W., Pope, T., Russell, W., Scarlett, M. & Vardy, D. (1988). Focussing our future, the report of the presidential committee to review teacher education in Newfoundland and Labrador. Memorial University.

Kilian, Crawford (1997). Why teach online? Educom Review, July/August, 31-34.

Riggs, F., Anderson, S., Cutler, N., Fagan, L., Hatcher, G., Press, H. & Young, D. (1987). Report of the small schools study project. Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Many educators are aware of changes taking place in educational systems as computers, the Internet, interactive television, satellite dishes and an ever expanding range of software provide new and often exciting ways of bringing teachers and learners together. The development and convergence of information and communication technologies provides opportunities for leaders in education to organize inter-school networks, collaborate with one another and administer schools in new ways. This has been particularly important in rural areas with very small schools. The viability of small schools has been the subject of debate in both Canada and New Zealand and the provision of education to rural communities has, accordingly, been a policy issue in both societies. The 'cost effectiveness' of small schools (Bray, 1987) has to be considered in relation to the issue of equity if young people are not to be disadvantaged by the location of their homes.

The following observations are from the author's recent experience working with several regional telelearning networks in New Zealand. Most of the issues raised are relevant to electronic networks that link schools in other parts of the world, while others are peculiar to the unusually deregulated and decentralized system of education in New Zealand.

Telelearning was adopted in many rural areas of New Zealand as a means of keeping schools open in small and isolated communities. By sharing teaching and learning resources through the electronic networking of small schools over wide geographic areas, many small schools have become, in effect, constituent parts of a large school (Stevens, 1995b). In the process, many learners in rural areas are provided with a considerably enlarged range of curriculum choices as well as extended on-line peer groups. In a report on the development of rural school networking (Stevens, 1995a) it was noted that leadership by Principals who recognized the potential of new technologies in classrooms is critical to the survival of many small schools.

The academic and administrative interfacing of schools into local, provincial and even national networks using audiographic and video technologies, satellite dishes, the internet and interactive television is changing the way in which education in whole regions of New Zealand is organized. The networking of small schools on dispersed sites into virtual classes has the potential to provide rural students with access to an increased range of teaching expertise and with learning environments comparable to those available to their peers in large urban institutions. According to Tiffin and Rajasingham (1995), a virtual class is "where two or more people can come together as telepresences for instruction." This involves a situation " where everyone can talk and be heard and be identified and everybody can see the same words, diagrams and pictures, at the same time. This calls for the use of telecommunications and computers. At its simplest, it can be done using two conventional tele phone lines at each site, one to link telephones and one to link computers."

Schools that are networking with one another and thereby providing a basis for virtual classes to develop, use computers and other technologies as integral parts of the day to day life of both teachers and learners. By integrating information and communication technologies in classrooms and by applying these to the development of educational networks, schools can provide students and teachers with access to non-local industrial and commercial environments. Links with industry, commerce, polytechnics and community colleges considerably extend the scope of the education that young people, particularly those in rural areas, can experience from their schools. These technological developments provide students with expanded horizons when cons idering their educational and vocational futures. The introduction of computers, the internet, email and, in some schools, satellite dishes, to develop virtual classrooms covering dispersed sites has the potential to redefine the ways in which teachers and learners interact. Within a virtual class there may be more than one teacher with a telepresence at a particular time. Decision making, teaching-styles and inter-personal relations are much more public in electronically-networked classes than they are i n conventional classrooms and for some teachers this may initially be threatening. For other teachers, new communication technologies are liberating as they have their skills exposed to an expanded audience. Virtual classes can be a vehicle for profession al and public recognition.

There are a number of leadership issues in the interfacing of schools and the development of virtual classes. As one school culture meets other school cultures in the academic and administrative interface of the virtual class, leaders have to be particularly sensitive to potentially competing agendas. In networks that have been developed in schools across rural New Zealand, for example, it has been necessary to have a hub school as the administrative, technological and curriculum centre. Not al l teachers want to teach on-line and school leaders will recognize that some teachers will adapt to the emerging tele-environment more readily than others. Tele-teaching is essentially collaborative when provided within school networks and, for this to succeed, a well-developed inter-school framework is most important.

In a one-room, usually rural school, consisting of a single class of less than twenty students under the care of one teacher, we are likely to find a complex educational environment. Learners in a one room small rural school, however, unlike their counterparts in other educational institutions, usually range widely in age and in educational level while all sharing the same space. It requires considerable organizational and pedagogical skill of the teacher if all students are to receive educational opportunities equal to those of their urban counterparts who are educated in much larger institutions where they will share classrooms with a cohort of peers of approximately their own ages.

It is not necessarily appropriate for all students in a one-room school to participate in the same lesson with their teacher. It is sometimes appropriate for certain students to take time out, without leaving their classroom, if they have access to a computer that is attached to a network which will provide them with access to classes in other schools. It is possible for a small, geographically isolated and diverse grouping of students to be together in a single classroom under the direction of one teacher while participating in a range of other classrooms simultaneously, none of which is necessarily located in the student's own district. Through judicious application of modern information and communication technologies, teaching and learning can be increasingly individualized and the educational significance of the location of the student's home and size of his or her school becomes unimportant. This, however, requires a considerable measure of organizational skill.

In some of the very smallest schools, teachers have developed organizational and teaching skills with direct application to networked, on-line learning. For many years teachers in these schools have taught students of different ages, with varying levels of academic achievement, different learning styles and different levels of interest in what is presented to them, within one room. The study of multi-grade classrooms (e.g. Mulcahy, 1993) has particular relevance to rural school teleteaching and telelearning.

As an increasing range of technologies becomes available, some teachers recognize the possibility of combining traditional face-to-face teaching and on-line learning in the course of a school day. In New Zealand, some teachers in rural networked schools initially attempted to teach in a traditional classroom fashion when their class was 'on-line' with other schools. A common problem was talking on-line as though they were in front of their traditional classes, something that was not always appreciated by distant learners. Questioning skills become particularly important in the course of an on-line lesson to ensure participation by all students. A degree of independence in a student's learning is required when on-line, including the abilit y to work without a teacher in the same room.

At present many teachers require assistance in preparing learning resources in ways that are suitable for delivery to students across electronic networks. There are a number of questions to be considered by educational leaders: How is the curriculum to be developed in a multi-media format? Is teaching across networks to be made available to all students in secondary schools or just senior students? How should professional development be provided for teachers within an electronic school net work?

Positive outcomes have been found by some rural networked schools in terms of increased student motivation when learning is provided by audiographic technology (Stevens, 1995a). The student's need to concentrate very closely on the audio-graphic lesson as it is taking place to fully participate in it was noted by some principals. Students cannot anticipate when they would be asked a question on-line and, accordingly, usually came to these classes very well prepared. Particularly positive outcomes were reported in the learning of other languages using audio-graphic technology, including Maori.

There is considerable scope in the development of rural school networking for the provision of individualized learning programs for students. However, as one skilled on-line teacher pointed out to the writer, "it is what goes on in the head of the teacher that matters." The teacher is the essential resource base of a successful lesson taught over any electronic network linking schools.

There can be considerable expense involved in maintaining hardware, including the costs of repairs, on-line time, preparation time, 'down time', staff training time as well as the cost of software. Not all schools in New Zealand have computers that can be dedicated to audiographic teaching, an issue that is symptomatic of the bigger problem of the co-ordination of hardware and software across all institutions participating in an electronic network. The abolition of regional school boards in New Zealand has not helped in the development of school networks. Many regional networks began to take shape before the need for inter-school co-ordination of hardware and software was fully appreciated. The constant changes in the design of hardware and software and the need for continuous upgrading is now recognized by networked schools as a shared cost. "Bulk buying" for a network rather than for an individual school is now widely accepted by principals, as is the need for a close relationship with the suppliers of technology to obtain expert advice and support.

It is often difficult to coordinate the timetables of schools across a network and, accordingly, a considerable measure of inter-institutional and intra-institutional cooperation is required. Much of the success of rural school networks to the present time has depended on the goodwill and enthusiasm of participating teachers and principals. In an educational system in which educational institutions often compete with one another for students, many small rural networked schools have developed collaborative teaching and administration structures. Rural school networks in New Zealand have, remarkably, developed in the absence of any national program to support them.

At present small rural schools that are networked are providing a model for teaching, learning and the delivery of the curriculum that makes considerable use of new technologies. The advent of electronic networking of schools has encouraged a view of the school that is academically and administratively open to other schools. In many parts of rural New Zealand, communities have schools which are, in effect, sites within teaching and learning networks. Some parts of a small rural school, such as the teachers of subjects not provided locally, may be located in widely dispersed locations. Many of the students in a networked rural school in a particular location attend only 'on-line' - as tele-presences for part of a day.

School networks are ceasing to be regional in nature as telephone costs are reduced. Increasingly, regional networks share resources with one another and links have been forged with other educational institutions - community colleges, polytechnics and selected large urban schools. The management of tele-learning in New Zealand has been critical to the survival of many small schools in rural communities. In the struggle to keep small schools open in many parts of the country, a new phenomenon has been created - the virtual class.

Bray M. (1987) Are Small Schools the Answer? Cost Effective Strategies for Rural School

Provision, London, Commonwealth Secretariat.

Howley C.B. and Eckman J.M. (1997) Sustainable Small Schools, ERIC Clearinghouse on

Rural Education and Small Schools, Charleston, West Virginia.

Mulcahy D. (1993) Learning and Teaching in Multi-grade Classrooms, St Johns, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Stevens K. J. (1995a) Report to the Minister of Education on the Development of Telelearning Networks Between Small Rural Schools in New Zealand, Rural Education Reference Group, Wellington.

Stevens, K.J. (1995b) Geographic Isolation and Technological Change: A New Vision of Teaching and Learning in Rural Schools in New Zealand, The Journal of Distance Learning Vol 1, No 1, pp: 32-38.

Tiffin J. and Rajasingham L. (1995) In Search of the Virtual Class - Education in an

Information Society, London, Routledge.

For many years the Faculty of Education at Memorial University of Newfoundland has relied extensively on the teaching internship as a means of affording prospective teachers an opportunity to integrate theory and practice in an educational setting. More recently within the Reflective and Critical Internship Programme and resulting QUAD relationship of cooperating teacher, intern supervisor, intern and subject matter, efforts have been undertaken to enhance and facilitate valuable educational experiences through which interrelationships among components of the university program might be brought into focus through the teaching experience. This exercise of facilitation has assumed different formats over the past decade leading to development o f the present internship delivery model.

Notice from Government on July 1, 1988 concerning introduction of a compulsory internship as the prerequisite for teacher certification mandated that all student interns spend one semester (approximately thirteen weeks) in a school setting engaged in teaching activities. To meet this demand faculty members, normally as part of their teaching responsibility, were encouraged to assume supervisory roles -- undertaking the supervision of some five to ten students as the equivalent of one instructional course section within their workloads. The difficulty with this arrangement was that there were simply never enough faculty members available to supervise the large number of student interns. To overcome this situation efforts were underta ken to second practising teachers to the supervisory role on both a per school and regional basis with very positive results. However, two major problems emerged at this stage of evolutionary development -- minimal intern placement in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and spiralling financial costs.

Under this supervisory arrangement a majority of interns were placed in schools within St. John's/Mount Pearl and surrounding areas resulting in too few students being located throughout rural Newfoundland and Labrador simply because intern supervision was difficult to arrange. As a result many schools and school districts were being denied an opportunity to participate in the professional development of future educators. Along with this logistics shortcoming the sheer cost associated with supervisory secondments exceeded the ability of the Faculty of Education to finance. As a result, attention was turned to exploring alternative delivery modes.

There is an old saying that necessity is the mother of invention! Certainly forces at work within the Faculty of Education served as a catalyst for the need to seriously pursue the issue of an alternative mode of internship supervision. To begin with the Faculty underwent a radical downsizing from 91 members in 1986-87 to 48 members in 1996-97. This sizeable decrease in staff complement dictated that with fewer bodies to cover existing programmes, insufficient faculty were available for supervising interns. Moreover, the total faculty budget was continuously being pared, thereby eliminating any possibility of continuing with teacher secondments or realizing faculty expansion. And so the stage was set for some very serious decision maki ng. Since the very existence of the Faculty of Education hinged on the preparation of teachers, and since the preparation of teachers necessitated undertaking a full semester of internship, a bold and innovative solution to the existing dilemma had to be crea ted . The result has become what we now refer to as the University-School District Partnership.¹

The initial building blocks for the current model of internship delivery lay in the very essence of the internship QUAD. Clearly both the field and the Faculty of Education were active participants in the professional formation of student interns, with the former serving as cooperating teachers and the latter fulfilling a supervisory role. Why not consider the possibility of forging a partnership between school district and Faculty whereby the district would be paid to orient, place and supervise interns while the Faculty would fulfil an overall coordinative role? If the Faculty would supply each district with all necessary placement and evaluative material relative to the student interns, why couldn't the district in turn assign intern supervisory responsibilities to competent and capable educators -- principals, central office staff, teams of teachers, etc.? Thus the stage was set in the Fall of 1993 to launch this delivery mode in five Newfoundland and Labrador school districts. A l egal contract duly signed by each participating party -- district and Faculty -- formalized the undertaking of responsibility for internship supervision by each district partner.

From the outset the University - School District partnership proved quite popular with those districts involved. Student interns who otherwise could not have been directly supervised by the Faculty in the more rural areas of this Province were now able to be placed in their home districts. Each district assigned a central office staff person to the task of placing, orienting and ensuring that each intern was supervised and evaluated according to the expectations of the Faculty of Education. Each school in turn assigned the intern to a cooperating teacher. For the most part school principals acted in the role of intern supervisor. While this input from principals has been appreciated it has proven to be a restrictive factor of the model which is only now being addressed. It was never the intention of this partnership to have principals assume supervisory responsibility unless that individual wished to do so. The reason for this was quite obvious -- role responsibilities of principals simply precluded the contribution of time required for effective intern supervision. Yet, despite concerns of principals of being overburdened and the best efforts of this Faculty to encourage teachers, vice-principals, department heads and/or central office coordinators to assume this supervisory role, many school principals still view their supervisory participation as essential to the success of this model and are therefore determined to remain so involved.

Throughout the first years of operation this partnership model both the Faculty of Education and districts were frustrated by a lack of procedural consistency regarding intern observation and evaluation. This was a fair criticism but interestingly the model itself was not the problem. Instead it was obvious that the plethora of forms used to observe and evaluate interns were in need of revision in accordance with the new delivery model. In fact these forms were so poorly received that some districts began to create their own instruments -- something that was not allowed under the terms and conditions of the contract entered into by the district and the Faculty. The message was again loud and clear: districts were asking this Faculty to re-examine the evaluation and observation instruments with a view to developing new formats and create instructional guidelines for their use. These newly designed instruments and handbook are now being piloted during Fall 1997.

Achieving standardization in practice required the Faculty of Education to follow further advice from districts to improve the presence of the University in school districts over the duration of the semester long internship. To accomplish this two additional roles were created, namely, district liaison officer and internship professional development officer. Again, it can be seen that this partnership has thrived on the responsiveness of each participant's requests for refinements -- the Faculty to requests for improving standardization in practice and improvement of communication, and the districts to requests for improved communication between central office and schools along with improved clustering of interns throughout each district to facilitate district liaison. Through continuous monitoring by the Office of Undergraduate Student Services, this partnership model has expanded in usage throughout the Province, becoming more effective and user friendly in the process. Currently nine of the Province's ten school districts are involved in this partnering process². The large urban district of Avalon East with its close proximity to the University has not yet participated but is considering the possibility of doing so in the near future once a piloting process has been put in place.

The current University-School District Partnership is predicated on the underlying assumption that an extended practicum is necessary to the training of teachers. Delivery of the teaching internship through this model has greatly assisted the Faculty of Education in affording prospective teachers an opportunity to acquire already critical teaching skills while interning in various provincial school districts. Clearly this partnership has already exhibited a number of strengths, some of which include an opportunity for students to return to their home districts during the internship; an opportunity for students to be placed within districts so as to maximize their contact with district resources; and the opportunity for school districts to observe potential employees. Too, this partnership has enabled experienced teachers in rural Newfoundland and Labrador to pass on their expertise to interns.

This internship partnership operates across the semester in a manner similar to many other teaching internships throughout the country--the difference being the extent of school district involvement in the supervisory role. The district assigns each intern to a cooperating teacher and also identifies a supervisor to work with both the intern and cooperating teacher over the 13 week internship period. Formative and summative evaluation of intern performance is conducted through the use of university-approved evaluation instruments. As usual the cooperating teacher and supervisor prepare individual reports on each intern's progress.

University assistance is provided to each partner district throughout the semester. The district liaison officer has responsibilities for meeting with cooperating teachers, interns, supervisors and principals in individual school districts within the first three weeks of a semester; facilitating at a further point in the semester a reflective session for interns in each district to focus on topics of general concern such as teacher welfare matters, reflective journal writing, evaluation, etc.; maintaining communication links with intern supervisors in the school districts to ensure procedural standardization; serving as a troubleshooter; and liaising with the coordinator of undergraduate programs. The internship professional development office r is a faculty member who is responsible for the development and delivery of professional in-service for cooperating teachers and supervisors as deemed necessary. A major initiative in this regard took place in the Fall of 1997.

Successful operation of this University - School District Partnership has required the Office of Undergraduate Student Services, as that arm of the Faculty of Education directly responsible for undergraduate programs, to assume an active role in the overall coordination of the internship experience.³ This Office answers questions pertaining to all aspects of the internship program; advises on matters of attendance, unprofessional conduct, intern performance, etc.; arranges for all required materials to be sent to the districts; trouble shoots; liaises with the district liaison officers; and updates the Associate Dean, Undergraduate Programs on all ongoing internship matters.

The very nature of this partnership model requires each district central office to assume critical role responsibilities. These include selecting cooperating teachers and supervisors; providing (and updating) the Faculty of Education with details of the placement and supervision arrangements for interns; briefing school personnel about the internship program and distributing material provided by the Faculty of Education; providing information to school personnel regarding the professional background of interns; working with cooperating teachers and interns in designing a program of activities; arranging an orientation session for interns at the beginning of the semester; whenever possible including interns in district professional developm ent activities; holding discussions with cooperating teachers, supervisors, and interns; keeping the Faculty of Education informed of any problems in the intern's program; compiling and returning the district grade report (to contain grades for all interns in the district) to the Faculty of Education as soon as possible following the end date of the internship; and ensuring that the Faculty of Education receives a complete evaluation file for each intern.

Role responsibilities assigned to cooperating teachers, interns, and principals follow on those traditionally ascribed to these positions. However, in those instances where the principal is also the supervisor he/she assumes the following supervisory responsibilities: observing the intern teaching at least once every 6-10 school days; assisting the intern in the critical-reflective analysis of the relationship between theory and practice with the intent of improving practice; conferring wi th the cooperating teacher regarding the intern's progress; preparing reports of the intern's progress and discussing these reports with the intern; and monitoring the overall professional development of the intern.

The Faculty of Education at Memorial University of Newfoundland remains confident that the University-School District Partnership will continue to provide an effective avenue for encouraging increased school district involvement in the formation of prospective teachers. To this end the Faculty is committed to providing opportunity for professional in-service of cooperating teachers and supervisors. Whereas this has been a long held goal of the Faculty, the first such undertaking occurred in October, 1997. During this time a two-day pilot seminar was held for representatives from four Newfoundland and Labrador school districts. Each participating district sent two experienced cooperating teachers (one primary/elementary and one secondary) a long with the central office staff member responsible for district internship coordination to an intensive two-day session at Littledale Conference Centre in St. John's. Participants lived in residence during the two day seminar during which critical-reflective pedagogical presentations were made by members of the Faculty of Education. While attending this Professional In-Service and Strategic Planning Seminar, participants dialogued with members of the Faculty of Education to accomplish two major goals: a critical examination of the pedagogy underlying the role of the cooperating teacher in a critical-reflective internship experience, and collective development of a strategy for meeting the ongoing professional needs of cooperating teachers and supervisors in all districts currently participating in this partnership model. This two-day experience was designed to contribute to improved communication between the field and the Faculty as well as pave the way for district identified lead/master teachers to assume, in addition to their cooperating teacher role, greater prominence in the supervision of interns. Given that the Faculty of Education bears ultimate responsibility for the teaching internship, this session represented one of the few occasions when re presentatives from the faculty and the field were able to sit down together in a "think tank" environment to communicate and improve upon an already successful partnership venture.

The future of the University-School District Partnership is promising. Born from a need to deliver an internship unique in its innovative outreach to provincial school districts, the partnership model is rooted in the strong belief that the pre-education of teachers is a jointly held responsibility of the Faculty of Education and the profession. This belief has not been based on any desire to shift or deny the responsibility of the Faculty of Education for initial teacher education but on t he firm belief that the best teacher education programs in the country are those with active participation by practising teachers. The real benefit has been to interns who can now be totally supervised by current practising teachers. Under this approach, interns can become more fully integrated into the school and thus the profession at an earlier stage.

Considerable work remains to be done to hone the effectiveness of this model. Partnerships by their very definition require continuous attention to the needs satisfaction of participants. That there remains those who are somewhat skeptical regarding the long term viability of this venture is understandable. Change is a phenomenon affecting individuals, groups and organizations in a variety of ways. However, time, effective communication and increased opportunities to become involved in th e operation of this partnership are essential to the garnering of individual/group support and ownership. While there are those who may feel that the Faculty has given up control of the internship, there is every opportunity to demonstrate that rather than losing control this Faculty has gained a partner in delivering a more effective internship experience and, in the process, has experienced a sharing of control. There never has been nor will there ever be any attempt to move the internship away from the Faculty of Education whose responsibility it is by legal mandate. Rather this model has provided a professional working partnership with the field which many say is long overdue. It remains for this Faculty, through ventures such as the Professional In-Service and Strategic Planning Seminar this Fall, to provide ongoing guidance and direction to the field regarding internship delivery and, in return, be receptive to advice received. After all, is this not the very essence of an effective partnership ?

What can student teachers expect to make of courses in effective teaching? Can they expect to glean from the epistemological cream of distilled knowledge anything that is scientifically solid, reapplicable, or movable from class to class or from school to school? Are there markers which will emerge for students which give a good sense of what is effective in teaching? One would hope so, but Gary Thomas's (1997) recent article, "What's the Use of Theory?, made me wonder if the whole notion of effective teaching isn't a bit of a shame. Indeed, I am never really sure what has been effective in my own classroom practice. Inner feelings that I have been particularly effective in class have often been dashed by an overheard conversation in the hall just after class. Conversely, I have been told that, what I thought was a minor point, mentioned only in passing, radically changed someone's thinking about a topic. Thus, I am led to wonder how much we say about effective classroom practice is often a vague romanticism in which a pedagogical moment is turned into a nostalgic idealistic ghost. It would seem that any rules for best practice based on such romantic notions as "teachable moments" need further study and explanation about what is going on in the teacher's mind in these instances. To test Thomas's provocative arguments against the continued use of theory in education, I decided to look at the field of effective teaching to see if there are any rules that could be sifted fr om the literature on effective teaching to help guide the novice towards what might be considered best practice.

First off, Borich (1992) warns that there are no tests of personality traits, attitudes, aptitudes, or psychological characteristics that can be used to single out prospective effective teachers. Borich sees too many variables in classroom practice for such tests or lists of characteristics to emerge.

In the past, classroom teaching has been studied from a number of vantage points and empirical studies have focused on a variety of research areas, e.g., the cognitive and intellectual behaviour of students, classroom communications, the emotional and social climate of the school, and the various teaching techniques and instructional strategies. Traditionally, and especially since the early 1950s, methods of educational inquiry have generally been empirically based and scientifically oriented. They have often tried to generate data that could be transferred into an easily accessible and quantifiable format. Terms like "knowledge delivery systems," "assessment strategies," "peer tutoring and evaluation," " growth schemes," "discovery based learning," "supervision for growth," and "the six-day cycle" foster the idea of teaching as being both technical and scientific. However, whether teaching is viewed and studied from a behavioural, sociological, psychological, or anthropological perspective, our understanding has frequently seemed incomplete or unsatisfactory.

In the 1960s and 1970s preservice teacher education was dominated by both an applied science or technical view of teaching and by a craft conception of practice. States Zeichner (1983),

These skills led to a student teacher's classroom 'performance' being evaluated along prespecified levels of proficiency. Little time was given to critical reflection on social continuity, meaning, or change. Thus, it was the acquisition and demonstration of very basic and general skills which were of central importance.

The craft conception of teacher education is viewed as a process of apprenticeship and/or internship. Tom (1980) traced this approach toward teacher education back over a period of one hundred years, but points out that because of the dominance of the behaviouristic approach to teacher education and because of attempts to 'professionalise,' teaching the craft conception of teacher education has had few proponents since the normal school era.

Behaviourism, in one form or another, came to dominate the research into effective teaching in the 1970s. Its preeminence can be demonstrated by the influence it has had on teacher preparation in the United States. Various states have legislatively mandated teacher education and/or evaluation programmes¹ that rely heavily upon behavioural research. Indeed, a review of the sections that cover tests of 'professional knowledge' in a number of preparatory study guides for the N ational Teachers Examination (NTE) reveals a preponderance for behavioural related questions (see for example Weinlander). What is emphasised in these texts is the acquisition of special and specific skills. Speaking to this point, Zeichner states,

He goes on to say in the next paragraph that underlying this view of teacher education and competence,

Hence, the means of producing and distributing knowledge about teaching can be controlled by those who set the parameters for performance and the criteria for competence. Zeichner recognised a behaviouristic view of teaching as falling with in the technical tradition of teacher education which allows little room for the teacher's own practical knowledge.

Although research about reflective teaching is relatively new, research about teacher effectiveness has a long history (see Charters, 1918; A.S. Barr, 1929; Gage, 1970). Historically, teacher effectiveness studies have grown in numbers over the past fifty years. Indeed, by 1974 over 10,000 published studies were available. Dunkin and Biddle (1974) quote Gage's 1960 reported in which he states, "not only is the literature on this subject overwhelming, but even the bibliographies on the subject have become unmanageable" (pp.12-13). However, the results essentially have been ineffective and disappointing.

In 1952, the American Educational Research Association's Committee on the Criteria of Teacher Effectiveness reported a list of discouraging findings:

In 1976, Shavelson and Dempsey reported that, so far, none of the research results into teacher effectiveness had "identified consistent, reapplicable features of...teaching that lead directly--or even indirectly---to valued student outcomes " (p. 553). In 1978, Doyle reported that his analysis of nine studies on teaching produced "few consistent relationships between teacher variables and effectiveness criteria..." (p. 161). In his 1989 address at the annual meeting of AERA, Gage (1989) quoted the work of both Tom(1984) and Barrows (1984) to sum up his own review of the research conducted on teaching during the sixties, seventies, and eighties by saying that such research had been characterised as "at best, inconclusive, at worst, barren" and "inadequate to tell us anything secure and important about how teachers should proceed in the classroom" (p. 135). To quote Tom directly, "even a cursory historical review of the meagre research results from this tradition should cause teacher effectiveness researchers to consider abandoning their approach" (p. 53).

Given the negative results of these studies, something seems dramatically askew with the research about effective teaching or with its premise. Indeed, in the 1980s researchers began to recognise problems with the scientific or quasi-scientific approaches to the study of teaching. Kagan (1988), writing in a paper reviewing a multitude of studies on how teachers have conceptualised and ordered their instruction in both the United States and Europe since 1974, concluded her findings by saying tha t the model for studying teacher cognition is showing teaching to be a more complex and dynamic activity than originally thought. She states that because teaching involves the weaving together of various intellectual structures, and because so much of a teacher's lesson is improvised once it has begun, recent results of studies into teacher cognition (Leinhardt and Greeno, 1986; Brown, McIntyre, and McAlpine 1988; Krabbe, McAdams, and Tullgren 1988) have "effectively moved teaching further from science and closer to art" (p.497). Though Kagan does not specifically delineate what she means by 'art' she is essentially suggesting that research on teaching needed to shift away from the scientific and technical ways of perceiving and analysing the teaching act and to move closer to an artistic position similar to that suggested by Eisner (1968, 1982).

It has often been common practice for educational researchers, whenever they reach an impasse in their definition of teaching, to allude to the art or the artistry of teaching to explain any enigma. What is significant about Kagan's analysis is th at she has tried to go beyond affixing the label 'art' to that which is difficult to scientifically delineate and is calling for an abandonment of effective teaching research and for an analysis of teaching with artistic principles in mind.

In 1982, Eisner, as one of the few proponents of an aesthetic conception of teaching, encapsulated the numerous problems associated with prescriptive models of teaching. Among his arguments are what he calls the four fallacies of the scientific view of teaching.

The Fallacy of Additivity. Eisner states that it cannot be assumed that the various parts of a teaching behaviour can be afforded equal weight nor can the frequency counts of 'good' teacher behaviour be totalled to determine a teacher's competency. Eisner argues that the quality and depth of each of the various teaching behaviours must be accounted for within the context of the teaching activity. Thus, the tone and the quality of a teacher's remarks take on significant, but varying, importance to each individual student within a particular class. As Kagan observes, the false but "implicit assumption of the scientific knowledge base provided by process-product research is that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts...." (p.4 97).

The Fallacy of Concreteness. It is falsely assumed that all the act of teaching encompasses is observable in the behaviour of the students and teacher. This fallacy shows a disregard for perceived meanings and intentions of students and teachers.

The Fallacy of the Act. Here Eisner points out the assumption that teaching can be evaluated in a single detached event. Inherent in this fallacy is the belief that perception can be increased by controlling the variables within the teaching act. When evaluators go into classrooms to observe and record questioning techniques, verbal rewarding systems, probing methods, or other phenomena, there is the conviction that their frequency counts or noted data can be used in exclusion of ot her classroom events or teacher-directed activity.

The Fallacy of Method. Importantly, Eisner questions the methodologies used by those who advocate a scientific view of teaching. He says that teachers assume classroom behaviour can be validated by using multiple observers to record classroom teaching activities. However, by using inter-rater reliability counts or tabulations from observed behavioural check lists and other 'objective' measurements, all a teacher's subjective views as to why he or she proceeded to create meaning within a given context are removed. The observers' perceptions are all that count in gathering data and drawing conclusions in the methodology.

At the heart of any analysis of effective teaching are the conflicting conceptions of what exactly should be observed and considered when viewing classroom action, and precisely what it is that constitutes teaching proper within that action. We are again forced to consider how teachers think about their work as opposed to how researchers traditionally conceptualised it.

Additional problems arise with the prescriptive views of teaching which need to be articulated. First, in many cases there is an attempt to 'teacher-proof' the curriculum. This phrase highlights the current practice of manipulating and controlling the end results of classroom instruction. (Ontario's recent move into Outcomes Based Education epitomises this conception). The view of teaching as a precise technical activity has been used as a model for framing restrictive educational goa ls and objectives. This preordination of the curriculum in behavioural terminology then allows for preselected objectives to be tested and evaluated once the teaching act has taken place. The effect of this positivistic oriented process/product conception of education is that for both teacher and student there are built-in pathways constructed for thinking about and arriving at prescribed curriculum destinations.

This view of teaching fosters control by managerial evaluation. When enough students do not arrive at their prescribed 'destination,' the school management team can be brought in to trace back along the 'instructional' route and find out where things became derailed. Subsequently, teacher's instructional techniques can be assessed, modified, and brought back on line. The 'product' can be manipulated to flow more easily and more directly to its predetermined destination. Future tests can then be run to examine if the preset behavioural objectives are being met. Assuming they are, the teacher can be told that he or she is doing a satisfactory teaching job. Since the 'product' is now classified as satisfactory, the teacher need only to monitor h is or her process (teaching) to keep production on line. Any deviations, digressions, or alternative methods of teaching the prescribed curriculum run the risk of negatively affecting the preselected goals as outlined by the systems management team. The result of any experimentation or digression by the teacher could cause a future visit by the bureaucracy to assess what has gone 'wrong'. Obviously, when teaching is conceptualised in this manner, there is a desire to gain exacting control over all the dimensions of the teaching act, to insist on the mastery of a series of effective teacher behaviours, and to limit direct teacher input. Hence the new phrase 'teacher-proofing the curriculum' can only be seen as an effort to downplay the human interaction side of teaching. This seriously limits the effects that teachers can have on curriculum outcomes.

A second problem with the scientific view of teaching is the failure to recognise that teaching phenomena are fabricated and that teaching problems have a variety of possible solutions (solutions which may be unknown prior to the start of the teaching act itself). Hence, any generalities or patterns thought to be found are likely to shift or be lost over time with the arrival of new or different classes of students. The effective teacher could indeed turn out to be a person who is able to ch oose the 'right' course of action from a diverse teaching repertoire, which has been assembled over a long and varied teaching career, and apply it situationally.

A third problem with the prescriptive view of teaching is that at its base is the notion of manipulation and control. It starts from the assumption that teachers can be viewed as technicians who are hired to apply prescribed curricula. A teacher's (or student's) own agenda is given little weight and seen as an addendum in curriculum planning. As Apple (1979) has pointed out, the systems managers, in their quest for certainty and regularity in human behaviour, must be manipulative if they are to achieve their goals (pp. 110-111). To admit individual teacher goals into subject planning would require giving up some authority.

A fourth problem with the scientific or technical approach to teaching, is the belief that pervasive educational problems can be solved by outside specialists and experts. It is believed that when the specialist finds a 'solution' to a particular problem, the teacher need only apply the right technique or remedy to the problem and it will be solved. Often the individual teacher is totally removed from the equation (or is questioned on the periphery for specific pieces of information) because answers are seen and assumed to be 'technical' in nature. Hence, resolution can only be achieved by the specialists--the ones who have the appropriate 'technical' knowledge and know how.

The process/product way of looking at educational planning is, by its very nature, a simplistic approach and methodology. It seldom takes into account the realities, the diversity, nor the complexity of classroom life. Teachers who have taught the same elementary grade for a number of years reach a point where they can look back on past years and extract the elements that made a particular year go well or pinpoint the worst experience they have ever had with a mathematics group, or detail the willingness of a particular class to stretch their investigation skills and sweep the awards in a local science fair. Whatever elements made those classes good or difficult or exciting came together at a particular time and in a particular room for those involved and could not be preplanned or predicted nor repeated. A technical view of teaching has difficulty accepting the transience or randomness of these factors.

A fifth problem is the quest by some to transplant systems management techniques into educational institutions, it is believed that certitude, regularity, and efficiency will be established. However, as Apple has tried to make clear in Ideology and Curriculum, this is based on an assumption that systems management is neutral:

This assumption is grounded, not only in the supposed neutrality of science, but also in its supposed efficiency and crisp effectiveness. Additionally, it is taking into account only the skills involved in practice. But as Kuhn (1970) has quite clearly demonstrated, science can be a very messy business. Indeed, good science allows for and works with ambiguity, incertitude, and suspicion; paradigms compete against one another, wrestle with each other's theories and notions, pulling apart and reconstructing various ideas. Good science, it can be said, seeks out conflict and ambiguity in its effort to make new discoveries and explain phenomena. It also can be said that 'failure' is far more often the case in science than 'success'. Setbacks are all part of thoughtful experimentation and exploration; they are all part of the risk taking, the leap of faith, the creative processes involved in good experimentation and laboratory work.

Critical theorists (Apple, 1970; Giroux, 1981; Beck, 1990) have shown that scientific investigations into the nature of teaching are often not scientifically neutral or without cultural bias. They have linked the political, economic, and social powers in society to the overall structure within educational institutions. They stress the view that the present conception of education is serving the dominant social classes and perpetuates this dominance by controlling certified knowledge, curriculum materials and content, and teacher actions. Because research into teaching has consistently focused most of its attention on the technical aspects of the profession, the critical theorists accuse educational researchers of having avoided any political commitment regarding educational research design, questioning, or classroom relationships. Furthermore, critical theorists accuse the educational researchers of having, more or less, ended up serving the dominant classes by reproducing existing inequalit y and perpetuating dominant class interests and agenda. Thus, the aims of such positivistic research approaches are seen as trivial in light of the need to restructure society more equitably.

While focusing on the qualitative, holistic, and interpretive approach to classroom instruction, qualitative researchers reject, as Eisner does, the notion that teaching can be studied as individual pieces of behaviour, or that classroom activities can be viewed and quantified without regard for the subjective or inside view of classroom phenomena. They also reject the assumption of uniformity in nature. Hence, observed educational events cannot be expected to occur similarly in different places or under different classroom circumstances. To pin down objective causality in the shifting moods and nuances of the classroom is seen as fruitless from their perspective.

Thus, to conclude this analysis of the scientific and technical conception of teaching, we must place alongside the historical documentation for the failings of the scientific and technical approaches to the study of effective teaching over the past fifty or sixty years, the more recent issues raised by the critical theorists and the qualitative researchers.

If it can be assumed that the educational research community has continued to generate (at a modest rate) additional studies on effective teaching during the three decades since Gage identified the 10,000 studies in 1960, a staggering figure begins to emerge. Something is dramatically wrong with research that consistently fails to produce any significant findings or results. Surely by now we should have a sound body of codified knowledge derived from the empirical findings of the discipline from which to add to or branch out from. Observers (e.g., Barrow, Tom, Eisner, Kagan, Gage, Raven) offer a number of detailed reasons for the failure of the research. Whatever the reasons for this failure both here and abroad, not every one of the thousands of researchers can be doing bad science. The fact remains that, because so many studies have failed to document any significant findings on effective teaching, the underlying assumptions upon which this research has been based must be questione d.

It has been the quest for efficiency and certitude that has governed a prescribed and technical approach to the study of teaching. The underlying metaphors are of production and measurable outcomes. Thus, hard binary improvements are sought in the products of students. But what of the other competencies we wish students to possess which are not easily measured or quantified? These competencies include communicating, observing, finding information needed to achieve a particular goal (collected by observation or by talking to people rather than by reading books), inventing, persuading, or showing leadership. How do we quantify a student's ability to take what was read and to think laterally about it or to discard what is irrelevant and to reformulate required information? Indeed, Raven (1992) has argued that "learning" has invariably been referred to as a mastering of the content areas. Yet he sees no reason why learning should not be conceptualised as including an ability to d o

To include these types of learning outcomes and others like them muddies the waters for those wishing to quantify the results of effective teaching. The items on Raven's list, after all, are difficult to measure and need large amounts of time to penetrate and assess.

It is time for researchers to look to other metaphors of teaching to explain the actions of the thoughtful teacher. Teaching might better be thought of as 'a work in progress' for it does not seem to get any easier of time.

Apple, Michael W. (1979). Ideology and the Curriculum. London: Rutledge & Kegan Paul.

Barnes, B. (1985). "Thomas Kuhn," in The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences, ed. Q.Skinner. New York: Cambridge University Press .

Barrow, R. (1984). Giving Teaching Back to Teachers: A Critical Introduction To Curriculum Theory. Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble.

Borich, Gary D. (1992). Effective Teaching Methods. 2nd Edition. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Brown, S., McIntyre, D., and McAlpine, A. (1988). The Knowledge Which Underpins the Craft of Teaching. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

Dunkin, Michael J. and Biddle, Bruce B. (1974). The Study of Teaching. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,Inc.

Eisner, Elliot W. (1985). The Educational Imagination: On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

_________. (1968). "Qualitative Intelligence and the Art of Teaching." Teaching, Ronald T. Hyman, ed. Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Co.

Gage N. L. (Winter 1989) "The Paradigm Wars and Their Aftermath: A 'Historical' Sketch of Research on Teaching Since 1989," in Teachers College Record, Vol. 91, No. 2.

_________. (1985). Hard Gains in the Soft Sciences: The Case of Pedagogy. Bloomington, Indiana: Phi Delta Kappa's Center on Evaluation, Development and Research.

_________. (1978). The Scientific Basis of the Art of Teaching. New York: Teachers College Press.

_________. (1970). "Can Science Contribute to the Art of Teaching?" in Contemporary Issues in Educational Psychology, eds. Harvey F Clarizo, Robert C. Craig, and William A. Mehrens. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.

_________. (1963). ed. Handbook of Research in Education. Chicago: Rand McNally and Company.

Kagan, Dona M. (1988). "Teaching as Clinical Problem Solving: A Critical Examination of the Analogy and Its Implications." Review of Educational Research, Vol.58, No. 4.

Krabbe, M. A., A. G.McAdams, and R.Tullgren. (April, 1988). Comparisons of Experienced and Novice Verbal and Nonverbal Expression During Preview and Directing Instruction Activity Segments. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the A merican Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

Kuhn, Thomas S. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Leinhardt, G. and J. G. Greeno. (1986). "The Cognitive Skill of Teaching," Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 78, pp.75-95.

Raven, John. (1991). "The Wider Goals of Education: Beyond the 3R's." The Educational Forum, Vol. 55, No. 4.

Tom, Alan. (1984). Teaching as a Moral Craft. New York: Longman.

Weinlander, Albertina Abrams. (1994). How to Prepare for the National Teacher Examinations. Woodbury, New York: Educational Series, Inc.

Zeichner, Kenneth M. (1983). "Alternative Paradigms of Teacher Education", Journal of Teacher Education, (May-June, 1983), Vol.34, No.3.

1. The National Teachers Examination is administered by Educational Testing Services of Princeton, New Jersey, and is made up of a core battery and speciality area tests. These tests are administered several times a year throughout the United S tates. Test scores are sent from Princeton to the various state departments of education. Each state is responsible for setting the minimum passing score it will accept for teacher certification.

2. In the United States, where even some individual school districts ask for a prospective teacher's NTE test results in addition to their state certification, a case can be made that faculties of education are limited in the amount of control they have over the content of their own curriculum. Since their students are required to take an external examination, there is pressure, if not an obligation, for education faculties to 'cover' material thought to be on such teacher examinations.

Leadership studies have a long tradition. O'Toole (1995), in reviewing and comparing ideas about basic philosophies of leadership, begins with the ideas of Plato and Confucius. He draws the conclusion that one model of leadership, that of the "strong leader", has dominated the thinking of society and that model has become part of our cultural conditioning. He affirms:

He argues that although society has tolerated and endorsed other forms of leadership, "when push comes to shove, the two-thousand-year-old attitude about the superiority of strongmen emerges from the collective unconscious" (p. 90). If that assessment is accurate, then it is little wonder that schools intent on implementing team leadership and moving to shared decision-making and collaborative work cultures are experiencing difficulty.

This paper is a description of one school's attempt to move away from the model of the principal as "the solo act" and "the strong leader" to one in which shared decision-making is emphasized, where teachers are expected to assume the role of leader, and formal leaders therefore to act as leaders of leaders. The findings of this study support O'Toole's conclusion that such a movement is difficult, forcing participants to challenge their old mental models of what leadership is and how it is practised. This is understandable for it challenges the cultural norms that determine the role and function of both administrators and teachers.

As Brown (1993) discovered in her study of ten secondary schools, there is a major division in schools between administrators and teachers. Classroom teachers, departments heads, guidance counsellors, special education teachers, other curriculum resource teachers, and teacher-librarians, all see themselves as teachers, not administrators. The use of the terms "leader" or "leadership" is problematic in educational research, in that teachers also tend to associate these terms with formal leaders (administrators) and administration (Brown, 1993). Therefore, teachers, regardless of their role, do not tend to identify or to describe themselves as leaders. In this paper, an attempt is being made to close the gap between these tw o major divisions, to examine and discuss the roles of both formal (administrators) and informal (teachers) leaders.

Red River Elementary School¹ is a kindergarten to grade six school with 450 students and a staff of 28 teachers, with one full time administrative unit which is shared between the principal and the vice principal. It is next door to Red River Junior High School, a modern building which draws approximately 470 students for grades 7 to 9 from various schools. The school is served by a district office that is responsible for a large geographical area based in the town of Red River. Recently Red River Elementary has experienced a large turnover in staffing with 60% of the staff having taught there less than three years. Students range in socio economic background from upper middle class to poor. The school is located in a town tha t is also the local area service center.

Red River Elementary² has made substantial gains in moving towards a collaborative work environment. The principal, Mrs. Senior, described how, ten years earlier, there were two distinct staffs, primary and elementary, who did not even talk to one another:

Mrs. Senior, who was the vice-principal for most of these ten years, worked hard with the principal at the time and several other staff members, to bring teachers together. It began with social events, such as brunches, cross-country skiing outings, and supper parties. Staff meetings became opportunities to share coffee and muffins. As soon as space became available, a classroom was renovated to make a large staff room, big enough to accommodate the whole staff. Mrs. Senior reflects:

In the previous two years, the school had been involved with multiple initiatives. The main ones were:

Stage One: New Beginnings for Leadership

The school had already experienced a failed first attempt at a formal School Improvement process a few years earlier. One teacher commented that it never really got off the ground, so a new approach was begun after a four-member Leadership Team (vice-principal and three teachers) attended a district sponsored Leadership Institute in the last week of August, just prior to school re-opening. When school began in September, an invitation was extended to other teachers to join the Team, and two volunteered. With the addition of the principal, a seven-member Leadership Team was formed in the school.

The staff decided to become part of the Team Leadership project, a continuation from the August Institute. In a staff leadership survey administered at that time, 92% of the respondents strongly agreed with the statement: "Teachers work in teams with colleagues across grade levels in our school" and 100% described their school as participatory, democratic, and collaborative. Eighty-four percent of the respondents attributed "a lot" of leadership coming from a committee composed of administrators and teachers. With such results, it was felt that the school was a likely site for successful team leadership. There was considerable evidence of the existence of a culture that would support such leadership, illustrated by th is remark by one teacher immediately following the Leadership Institute:

Therefore, at the beginning of the new school year in Stage One, Red River Elementary appeared to be positioned to move towards a decentralized leadership approach and shared decision-making. The principal, who described herself as a collaborative leader, demonstrated a commitment to shared decision-making and an enlarged role for the Leadership Team. Although she had missed attending the Leadership Institute due to a prior family commitment, she was briefed by her vice-principal and independently read all the reading material from the Institute. She was willing to try new forms of leadership, including the use of a Leadership Team, and had agreed to the idea that the chair for Leadership Team meetings would rotate (a suggestion made in one of the Institute readings). The principal, vice-principal, and two of the teachers on the Team, kept journals for the first four months after the Leadership Institute. An examination of entries made by all four in the first two months reveals contrasting views between administrators and teachers, a significant finding which will be explored more deeply in this paper.

Although the principal had endorsed the Leadership Team, she was sceptical about the idea of a rotating chair. She was willing to give it a try, but she was doubtful about its potential -- in her journal she noted that it may "possibly" work, but "I think we will find that 'the Principal' will have to act as the chairperson continually out of necessity. But we'll see." Six week later , in her journal, she was sceptical about the whole concept of a Leadership Team and questioned its applicability to a school:

To add to her problems, the members of the Leadership Team had made a decision that their only committee work would be that of being a member of the Team. Mrs. Senior was forced to soon question the wisdom of that decision.

The problem was that there were numerous other school committees but all her best leaders were on the Leadership Team. She began to be plagued by self-doubt, seeing herself as less effective as a leader. She began to question the whole Team Leadership initiative:

Nor was she alone in her concerns. The vice-principal, also a member of the Leadership Team, had similar concerns:

She was also feeling overwhelmed:

However, the teachers were seeing things differently. A teacher on the Leadership Team was much more positive: "Our principal also said we will all take turns chairing our committee meetings. I really feel a sense of being an active participant in decision making." At the end of two months, when the two administrators are questioning the whole process, the same teacher observed: "Our voice truly counts in these meetings and all sides are weighed. Our principal really does sit back, listen and value our input." Another teacher on the Team who kept a journal was also positive about the whole process and had begun to assume responsibility outside her own classroom. After having attended a conference on global education on behalf of the school, she commented that school-wide leadership for this initiative would work, that leadership "will filter down from the leadership team."

By Spring, the Leadership team had worked out their roles and Team members were assuming a major leadership role in the school. The idea of a rotating chair for the Team had been dropped by the previous Christmas. There was agreement for this move. One teacher member of the Leadership Team recorded in her journal that much of the work of the Committee was driven by "directives" from outside the school, and therefore it made sense to have the principal assume the chair permanently:

Time was indeed a concern, for the school was a busy place, with a complicated committee structure coordinated through the Leadership Team. The way to have ongoing consultation with teachers and involve them in the decision-making process was seen as through committees. Separate committees were already in existence from previous years for: Primary, Elementary, Global Education, Enrichment, Extra Curricular, Student Evaluation, Public Relations/Yearbook, Social, Learning Resources/Technology, Mathematics, Science, Health, and Spelling. Each of the seven members of the Leadership Team were chairing one or more of the school's major committees. The Principal expressed satisfaction with the coordination through the Leadership Team, because she felt it provided good communication between the Team and all the Committees. However, scheduling in order to accommodate the members and also to allow the principal to attend as many different meetings as possible, became complicated. The first Monday o f each month was for staff meetings, the second week was used for committee meetings, with different committees meeting on different days, allowing the principal to attend them all. The third Monday of the month was used for an extra staff meeting if needed, and the fourth Monday was for grade level meetings (as needed). The principal and vice-principal devised a committee reporting form designed to record the actions undertaken and decisions made for every committee meeting. These forms were to be passed in to the principal, who would read them all (to keep herself informed) and then file them in a section of the School Profile binder.

The Principal, aware that the members of the Team were full time teachers and received no release time to undertake extra responsibilities, thought it ought to be her role to undertake actions that were necessary but would be extra work for teachers. The result for the principal, and many of the teachers, was that almost every afternoon was blocked with after school meetings. To catch up on administrative work, the principal admitted that she was back in her office most nights: Monday to Thursday evenings until 10 or 11 p.m., except for two Tuesday nights a month which she and the vice-principal took off to attend a Women's Group, and she usually also worked a half-day on Saturday and/or Sunday, depending on the amount of work piled up. The work was such that seldom, she explained, was she the only one back after hours; often the vice-principal was, and some other teachers.

Some teachers felt that there was a change in the leadership approach in the school. One teacher commented: "There has been a move away from top-down leadership to consensual decision-making where all staff are involved." Although teachers generally felt that their voices were being heard and they were included more in the decision-making process, this was especially true for those teachers who were on the leadership team. One such teacher, when asked if she saw herself as a leade r, commented:

The role of the principal was seen by a staff member as changing with the introduction of a Leadership Team:

A veteran teacher in the school commented, "There is not as much one-sided information sharing. It has been more collaborative and getting concerns from the staff."

A year later, an interview with the principal revealed that committees were still functioning and the Leadership Team, meeting twice a month, coordinated the committee activities. The principal still tried to attend all meetings, for as she explained: "I do go, I like to keep my finger on things, that's my option though. They go and take care of it. I don't feel obligated to go to all of them. I do try, but they know it's their responsibility." No new initiatives had been introduced, although the principal had undertaken to work closely with parents, attempting to establish a school council. Parents and students were involved with the school council steering committee, the discipline committee, and the global education committee. The principal explained that the Leadership Team had been trying to decide where to focus their energies. The members of the Team had developed a democratic way to choose "which initiatives to keep an eye on" (through chairing the appropriate committee).

There was no doubt but that the principal was proud of Red River Elementary. She took pride in the fact that the school tried "a lot of things because we're interested in breaking with tradition". One such example was the global education initiative which was wanted by all the staff, Mrs. Senior felt, because "We are constantly looking at such things." She concluded, "I would say we are probably the most nontraditional school" in the district.

The question of concern in this study, however, was whether or not the leadership initiative had made a difference in leadership approach and in shared decision making in the school. To obtain an answer to that question, the principal and one teacher were asked, during separate interviews, to sketch a diagram to show how leadership looked in the school. The principal's sketch revealed that collaboration and shared decision making existed, but only within the parameters of the traditional hierarchy. Although her illustration was that of an interactive web which included parents, students, teachers, and administrators, the principal's role was shown as traditional, for as she said: "I'm the ultimate decision maker, I have to be. I'm part of the team, but eventually I'm the one who has to make the decisions. The buck stops with me." She placed herself in the center of the Leadership Team's circle. She noted that the vice-principal's role was important in making decisions but it is interesting to observe how the vice-principal's role supported the traditional role of the principal:

The vice-principal had no problem with this role, for as she explained, while discussing the use of consensus in staff meetings, "Regardless of the procedure, the Principal is ultimately accountable and has final say."

Within this traditional role, Mrs. Senior explained that she consulted with the Leadership Team, that when items came across her desk, "Then I'll go to the Team and ask what they think." This, she explained, was a change in her way of consulting with teachers: "Now I bounce it off the Leadership Team but before I would bounce it off the entire staff." The new process, then, was seen by the principal as one in which there has been an extra step created between her and the st aff . That extra step, she felt, caused her to be frustrated during the previous fall, when she was trying to understand and introduce the concept of a Leadership Team in the school. Prior to this, her leadership approach was to first discuss things with the vice-principal, then take it directly to the full staff. Now she consulted with both the vice-principal and the Leadership Team prior to taking matters to the full staff. Therefore, she concluded that a Leadership Team was probably not necessary nor needed. She felt she could "live with" such a Team since, as she explained, "I think they've helped me do what I normally would have done." Although she recognized a slight shift in leadership approach, she did not see that it contributed to better decision making: "I felt we were there before we ever went to a Leadership Team Approach. I really did."

Teachers, however, did not see it this way. In sharp contrast to the principal's perception, another member of the leadership team, a teacher leader, interviewed at the same time as the principal, saw leadership as more equalitarian. In his discussion of schoolwide leadership, he limited his discussion to leadership for curriculum delivery. In his sketch of leadership in the school, curriculum was placed in the centre, surrounded by a group of co-workers (principal, teacher-librarian, class room teachers, special services teacher), all of whom delivered the curriculum to the students who were placed in an outer circle. The co-workers within the circle were closely connected, although some individuals were more closely connected to some colleagues than to others. He saw leadership being provided by "a group of equals working to deliver the curriculum" with the emphasis on the student:

This close examination of implementation at Red River Elementary reveals that team leadership is much more complicated than it first appears. One of the most serious problems for educational researchers seeking to understand the process of implmentation of such a concept is that of incompatibility in the perceptions of the degree of shared decision-making actually taking place. There is no doubt but that the principal was a key player in introducing the concept, and that she has struggled and worked hard at trying to understand it and to implement it. What is noteworthy, however, is that she was never convinced of a need to change the leadership structure in the school, nor did she seem to question her own conception of her role as principal . Describing herself as a collaborative and consultative leader from the very beginning, she did not appear to see a contradiction between that image and the other image she later paints of herself as "the ultimate decision maker". In fact, she has never really challenged the old ways of making decisions in the school. Why then did she participate in the Team Leadership Initiative? In her interviews, she provides two reasons: first, she wanted to cooperate and be involved with what is a district endorsed initiative, for she wanted her school, Red River Elementary, to be on the leading edge of innovation in the district; and second, as a professional, she wanted to the best principal she could be, and was willing to try new leadership approaches. Although she was doubtful about its use and potential, she did put a Leadership Team in place, but as she herself admitted, it was initially a source of frustration. At the end of the first year, a Leadership Team was in place and its role mainly revolved around the coordination of committees within the school. In the principal's view, it had strengthened and reinforced the old way of doing business, which was making the committees work better. However, the principal felt that nothing had really changed except that, before going to the whole staff, the Leadership Team advised her rather than her having to rely solely on the advice of the vice-principal. Mrs. Senior remains, at least in her own view and that of her vice-principal, the ulti mate decision-maker.

Yet, many of the teachers see things differently. Throughout this process, in their survey responses, their journals, and their interviews, they revealed that they perceive the teachers' role in decision-making as having been enlarged. Eight of the ten teachers interviewed reiterated the same message, that they were consulted, that they did have "a great deal to say over those matters which our school controls". Of the two who expressed negative views, one teacher responded, "In some areas, all teachers are given a chance to voice their opinion; other areas not, it seems that administrators decide what gets opened up for discussion." The other, when asked if decisions are reached in a collaborative matter, simply answered, "No, top down."

What can we make of the differences in the perceptions of the administrators and teachers? Are teachers influencing the decision making process as much as they think? Is the principal really the ultimate decision maker in the school? Is she collaborative and consultative? Can she be both? What, if anything, has anything really changed in decision making in the school? There was increased teacher involvement through membership on the Leadership Team, but most teachers' input continued to be through committees, the same as it had been before the Leadership Team was formed. The teachers on the Leadership Team, because they were better informed and met with the Principal regularly, felt that they were influencing decision making in the school . Whose perceptions are accurate?

At least two different interpretations can be offered. It can be argued that rather than a decision-making role, the teachers on the Leadership Team have been coopted by the administration to assume a monitoring and administrative role, as they monitor committee activities, report back on it to the principal, and generally facilitate the committee work as chairpersons. Although everyone is working extremely hard and feeling the time pressures from all the committee and Leadership Team meetings, this would suggest that the power relationship between the administrators and the teachers have remained basically unchanged. Now, instead of one vice-principal acting as a "sounding board" between the principal and the whole staff, the Principal can use the six people on the Leadership Team for that purpose. The difference between being a "sounding board" and a genuine participant in shared decision-making is immense. The result is that the principal remains the " ultimate decision maker." But this interpretation does not appear to consistent with the survey data, in which 100% of the respondents described this school as "participatory, democratic, and collaborative."

But maybe there is another interpretation that could explain this difference in perception. Maybe Mrs. Senior believes that as "the principal", the formal leader, she ought to be "the ultimate decision maker", and is uncomfortable admitting even to herself, and certainly to outsiders (in this instance, university researchers) that she depends on others to help her make the best decisions. Maybe Mrs. Senior is, in practice, actually "collaborative and consultativ e" (as she claims to be) and maybe she does, in fact, rely on shared decision making with the Leadership Team and the rest of the staff to a greater degree than her responses in this study would suggest. Mrs. Senior, like many other formal leaders, may ver y well hold, buried deep in her unconscious mind, an unexamined, tacit view of leadership such as the model described by O'Toole and quoted in the introduction of this paper: the model of leadership as "a solo act" by the "strong leader. " Perhaps Mrs. Senior's own self-doubts about leadership are being revealed in her responses in this study. Can it be that, wanting to give the appearance of being a strong leader to outsiders, she feels compelled to draw on the notion of being the strong, solo leader, the ultimate decision maker? If this is the case, then the teachers' perceptions may indeed be more accurate, and shared decision making may indeed be stronger in the school than the first interpretation would suggest. The inconsistency between administrators' and teachers' perceptions might therefore be explained as the difference between the principal's explicit theory (in which the principal describes herself as collaborative and actually acts that way in practice) and h er tacit theory (in which she sees herself as the ideal principal: the ultimate decision maker; the strong, solo leader). This explanation is more consistent with the responses in the staff survey.

There is insufficient evidence to strongly support either interpretation. What is clear is that understanding such a process requires intimate knowledge of the context: the people, the process, the culture. It reveals that implementation and change of leadership approach is a complex process, not transparent even to those involved. This single case study raises interesting questions that can guide future work. Such questions include:

• Are teachers who normally do not see themselves as leaders easily coopted into a facilitative rather than a decision-making role? Or is the facilitative role a valid form of leadership and instrumental in shared decision making? How do teachers define genuine decision-making? Do teachers have low expectations for their role in school-wide decision-making, willing to settle for less than full participation, since they do not see themselves as leaders? What does full participation in school wide decision making look like in practice? What images do teachers have of teacher leaders engaged in shared decision making?


 

• What images do principals have of shared decision making? Are principals bounded by traditional, tacit models of leadership, of leadership as a "solo act" of the "strong" leader? If so, what support do they need to challenge their traditional, tacit view of being the ultimate decision maker? Are there differences between principals' tacit and explicit theories of leadership?


 
• How do school practitioners (administrators and teachers) find the time to engage in genuine shared decision-making?

 

Conclusion

It is clear from the case study of Red River Elementary that moving towards team leadership and shared decision making is complex and extremely personal. If Red River Elementary is to engage in genuine shared decision-making, Mrs. Senior and the teachers on staff must re-examine the role of committees in decision-making, and discuss frankly the expectations of administrations and teachers surrounding leadership roles. It appears that there is a strong interest in collaboration and shared decision-making in Red River Elementary, but an uncertainty of what this looks like in practice. This case reveals that we cannot assume that those who are willing to explore the potential of team leadership will be able to make such shifts in leadershi p approach without effort or difficulty. It illustrates that such a leadership model will require participants to challenge their old mental models of what leadership is and how it is practised. Understandably, successful implementation of shared decisionmaking and team leadership is difficult for it challenges the cultural norms that have determined models of leadership in schools for the past century.

  REFERENCES  

Brown, J. (Jan-Feb, 1993). Leadership for School Improvement. Emergency Librarian, 20 (3), 8-20.

O'Toole, J. (1995). Leading Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

  NOTES  

1. Red River is a fictitious name. To protect confidentiality, names have been changed.

2. This case study was conducted over a two year period, with site visits, institute interventions, interviews, observations, and document analysis (including journal analysis).

  ADULT BASIC EDUCATION (ABE) AND LITERACY: NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR   William T. Fagan Visiting Professor, Memorial University

Reading and writing are necessary but not sufficient conditions for literacy. Reading and writing both involve the construction of meaning via print and prior knowledge. Literacy entails both attitude and action with respect to reading and writing and is influenced by social, economic, political, and cultural conditions.

Adult Basic Education and literacy are two significant constructs for adult learners who have not completed high school and who choose to increase their level of school achievement, possibly leading to a high school certificate. The purpose of this paper is to try and understand the relationship between literacy and adult basic education as educational experiences for the attainment of this goal.

Historical Insights

Literacy programs have a long history in Newfoundland including the Opportunity Schools of the 1930's. These entailed six permanently employed teachers who travelled from community to community assisting people with their reading skills. The work of Dr. Florence O'Neill continued this tradition in the 1940's. In the 1950's and 1960's the approach to literacy (called reading then) was much more traditional and any adult programs tended to use reading materials from elementary schools.

Adult Basic Education was initiated in 1968 when the first Basic Training and Skills Development (BTSD) program (a federally funded program) was established in the province at Stephenville. For students who were unable to cope with the academic demands of this program, a pre-BTSD literacy component was developed. By 1970, the Literacy portion of the BTSD program "had become clearly established as a program in its own right and the Adult Education section of the Department of Education undertoo k to put a curriculum in place" (p. iv). The Educational Development Laboratories (EDL), a United States program formed the basis of literacy instruction in the province for the next eight years. The BTSD program had a pre-employment orientation. Initially there were courses offered in mathematics, communication skills, science, and social studies; the latter was dropped from the curriculum as it was not a prerequisite to any trade. The BTSD program was a mastery based, individualized program pa tterned after the Saskatchewan Newstart Program. In 1973 the BTSD program was revised and three basic streams were developed: technical, biological, and commercial. The Generic Skills Research conducted by the Occupational and Career Analysis Development Branch of the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission was used to determine which parts of the program would be prerequisites for entering different occupational training programs. As part of this revision, a life skills course was added. The Department began issuing certificates for the BTSD program based on the completion of courses in three areas: mathematics, communication skills, and science. Students who received certificates were eligible for admission to trade and technical program s in vocational schools.

With a downsizing of Federal support for the BTSD program, the Division of Adult and Continuing Education established a Provincial Literacy Committee in 1978, the mandate of which was to develop a Literacy program for the province, suitable for full-time and part-time delivery. The Literacy program introduced in 1978 was very similar to the EDL program - a self paced literacy skills instructional program. In the 1980's with the restructuring of the high school program by level, the ABE program was revised to parallel this approach. In 1985, ABE certification was accepted for entrance into Memorial University.

In June 1988, the Department of Career Development and Advanced Studies established a committee to examine the Literacy Program, the ABE Program, the BTSD program, and the Academic Support (Concurrent Training) Program. In March 1989, the committee recommended that the Department "create one provincial program consisting of Levels I, II, and III, to encompass and integrate the Literacy, ABE, and BTSD Programs" (ABE Level I Program Guide, 1995, p. i). A 1990 revision to the ABE Level I (Literacy) program marked a significant shift in the approach to literacy programs. Instead of basing the program on a set of resources, such as EDL, it was based on general learning objectives. The manner in which the program was to be executed was n ot specified so that the onus lay on the instructors. In 1993, the ABE Monitoring Committee was established to continue to examine and evaluate the program; this committee evolved into the ABE Standing Committee in 1994.

Purpose of ABE Levels I, II, and III

Literacy preceded ABE as an area of study. Quigley (1997) points out that the origins of ABE must be understood within a human capital model. In 1962 the first bill to promote literacy education in the United States House of Representatives did not get beyond the Rules Committee. It was then considered more "politically and economically correct" to have adults enroll in ABE programs which would tie their educational experiences more closely to the labour market. Literacy as expertise in , and critical use of language (reading and writing) was perceived as too general for this purpose. This was an unfortunate turn of events as the basis for the development of critical reading and writing skills transferable to a wide range of contexts was minimized. The focus on the relationship between ABE programs and entry into the workforce is characteristic of the Newfoundland and Labrador ABE program.

According to the ABE Level II/III Instructors' Handbook (1995), the ABE program was "designed with the intent of providing adults who have not completed high school with the opportunity of acquiring a solid, high quality educational background to allow them to function in society, and to access avenues to further education, training, employment, and personal enrichment" (p.10). The ABE Level I Program Guide (1995) delineates this goal somewhat by specifying that learners enter the ABE program for a variety of reasons. While some may aspire to obtaining a certificate, others may use this as a stepping stone to further education, or trade skills instruction, while others may attend to assist their families, or for their own personal go als. However, there appears to be a discrepancy between the stated goal of the program and the content. As indicated above, social studies was dropped from the ABE curriculum, not because it did not contribute to a "solid, high quality, educational background" but because it was not a prerequisite to any trade. The prominence of the work orientation is evidenced by such statements as "Prevalent education and training theory . . . stresses the importance of providing more rounded basic educational opportunities to prepare people to cope with the pressures of information technology and a fluid labour market" (ABE Levels II/II Instructors' Handbook, 1995. p. 10). The Handbook authors also quote from Carnevale, Gainer, and Meltzer (1990, p. 2), "Tod ay's workplace demands not only a good command of the three R's but more. Employers want a new kind of worker with a broad set of workplace skills - or at least a strong foundation in the basics that will facilitate learning on the job". The Handbook autho rs continue that "Confidence and independence, and the ability to seek and use many learning resources are desirable attributes to foster in adult learners" (p. 11).

Literacy Within the ABE Program

Regardless of the focus on preparation for the workforce, there is provision for literacy instruction within ABE. Literacy at the three ABE levels is briefly distinguished by describing Level I as being synonymous with literacy, Level II as constituting a transition between literacy and high school, and Level III as being synonymous with high school. In more detail, Level I is described as "designed to enable adults to achieve the fluency in reading and writing, to acquire the knowledge, and to develop the skills required to participate fully in their day to day lives as citizens, workers, parents, consumers, and students (ABE Level I Instructors' Handbook, 1995, p. vii). The encompassing objective of ABE Level I "is that at the time th e adults leave the program their facility in reading, writing, and critical thinking, and their ability to transfer knowledge to the development of life coping skills will be enhanced" (ABE Level I Program Guide, 1995, p. x). "Level II is meant to provide the transition between the literacy skills adults need to function in our society and those that are associated with high school completion" (ABE Level II Program Guide, 1995, p. xi).

Literacy components/courses are addressed within the Communication Skills section of the ABE Program. ABE Level I also contains a content area section, the overall objective of which "is the development of functional literacy" (p. 43).

Program Requirements

Following are a list of required courses with a literacy component at the three ABE levels:

ABE Level I Communication Skills, including:

Reading

Writing

Oral Communication

Mathematics

Science

General Knowledge

ABE Level I - 18 courses

Communication Skills, including:

Reading

Writing

Spelling

Oral Communications

Mathematics

Science

General Options (Level III Credits)

ABE Level III 36 credits required

Minimum of 6 Communication Skills

Minimum of 6 Mathematics

Minimum of 6 Science

Minimum of 4 Employability Skills

Plus 4 additional credits from above

Maximum of 10 General Options (may include equivalency and maturity credits)

 

Estimated Time for Completion

The suggested time for the completion of one course is seven weeks or one-half semester, part-time at 3 hours a week. Full-time day attendance would allow a learner to complete the course in 2 weeks.

Level II would take a year to complete on a part-time basis, or 6 to 8 weeks on a full time basis. Completing Level I would depend on how quickly the learner completed the general learning objectives specified for that Level. The ABE Level I Program Guide states that "Students whose reading skills are already fairly advanced usually need a few months to brush up on their skills and get used to being in an educational program before going on to Level II" (p. 5). It is recommended that "About three weeks after the initial assessment, a student who has attended classes regularly could be introduced to the reading and writing evaluation charts" (p. 173) which are given in the Handbook.

The ABE Level II/III Handbook states that full-time students who are HRDC funded are often under pressure to complete the program in 65 weeks. Another statement indicates that "Those who enter at a low level usually take a long time to complete, at least three years" (p. 53). It is not clear if this reference is to students in Levels II and III or one or the other.

Issues in the ABE/Literacy Program

The experiences which adult learners have in ABE/Literacy Programs depend on a number of factors or issues. Because of space, a few of these which are under the control of program developers will be addressed here. These include: nature of literacy, nature of instruction, and instructor preparation/support.

Nature of Literacy

There is no single definition of literacy so one must abstract its meaning from the proposed content and intent of the Program. There is no doubt that literacy is the main function of Level I for the Program Guide states that "While it can be argued that basic math skills are a part of functional literacy, the ability to read and understand and communicate in print are more central to what it means to be literate" (p. 32).

Literacy for ABE Level I is addressed in 25 general objectives. Some are prefaced by a condition, such as: "Given a text of appropriate difficulty, relevant to personal interest or program content areas . . ."; also each general objective may have sub-objectives. The main objectives are:

Critical Reading Skills

1. Paraphrase to demonstrate clear understanding of author's message.

2. Identify author's purpose and audience.

3. Distinguish between fiction and non-fiction.

4. Distinguish between fact and opinion.

5. Identify major ideas and supporting detail that is explicitly stated.

6. Identify unwritten meanings.

7. Evaluate for personal significance.

8. Scan to locate specific information.

9. Skim to choose a book or item or (a) interest, or (b) relevance to the purpose.

10. Locate, interpret, and apply information.

11. Classify and categorize information.

Purpose of Reading

1. Identify ways in which reading is used.

2. Identify different forms of printed information.

3. Select appropriate reading or print material for the location of required information.

4. Identify situations in which printed materials may be presented orally.

5. Use appropriate study skills.

Oral and Written Communications

1. Present personal information orally and in writing.

2. Present personal experience orally and in writing.

3. Express personal opinion orally and in writing.

4. Write a narrative paragraph.

5. Write a descriptive paragraph.

6. Extend the principles of paragraph writing to a short composition of 3 or 4 paragraphs.

7. Perform practical writing exercises using the appropriate format.

8. Perform handwriting exercises with reasonable speed and legibility.

9. Read orally with expression and a reasonable degree of fluency.

In addition to these general objectives there are 126 Skill Areas, and 7 Pre-Reading Skills listed. The relationship between these skills and literacy is explained at various points. ABE Level I Program Guide states that "While the attainment of the general learning objectives assumes full literacy (my emphasis), the skill areas refer to very basic steps in the development of literacy" (p. xvii). This point is made elsewhere in the Program Guide that the simple acquisition of the skills required to read cannot be equated with literacy. The Skill Areas appear to be prerequisites for literacy. The assumption appears to be that if the Skill Areas and Pre-Reading Skills are developed, they are done so separately, or in addition to these exercises which would be used for the general literacy objectives.

It is not expected that students will attain the full literacy implied by the general objectives at Level I. The ABE Level II Program Guide states: "Because most adults entering Level II will have underdeveloped reading skills, it is imperative that every instructor encourage students to read as often as possible, and as widely as possible" (p. 1). There is no similar admonition with respect to writing. There is a shift in philosophy and emphasis on the nature of literacy in Level II. Rather than being guided by general objectives, there are three specific courses plus one in literature. The three courses directly dealing with instruction in literacy are:

IC 2012: Vocabulary

IC 2013: Reading Comprehension

IC 2015 Writing Skills

(IC 2013: Literature)

There is also IC 2011: Study and Research Skills, which includes topics related to literacy development. There seem to be more commonalties between the suggested reading course at Level II and the Skill Areas in Level I, than with the General Literacy Objectives at Level I. The writing course for Level II contains much more content on the mechanics of writing (Grammar, Punctuation and Capitalization) than is implied by the General Literacy Objectives at Level I. The sequence of literacy development appears to move from a more general to a more narrow perspective across Levels I, II, and III.

Level III continues the philosophy guiding the nature of literacy at Level II. A rationale is provided: "Writing, reading, speaking, listening, viewing, study, and all communication skills are crucial to learning in all content areas. Development of these skills must continue throughout all Levels of the ABE program, in all content areas" (ABE Level II Program Guide, p.1). Apart from four literature focussed courses, there are 7 courses devoted to the development of literacy. These are:

IC 3211: Basic Grammar

IC 3112: Writing Skills

IC 3113: Evaluative Comprehension

IC 3214: Oral Communications

IC 3215: Research Writing

IC 3116: Business Communications

IC 3117: Vocational English

There is some overlap between the Oral and Written Communications General Objectives at Level I and the related Skill Areas, and the Writing Skills, and Oral Communications courses at Level III. The courses relating to literacy at Level II appear to be isolated from the literacy activities that a learner would encounter in her/his environment. Business Communications is a written language course; the first section, Basic Skills Review appears to be a review of the Vocabulary and Writing Skills courses from Level II. Vocational English, with the exception of a section on "Technical Writing" is very much a "job search" course.

The graduation requirements for Level III (Program Guide, p. 275) specify the following required courses from Communication Skills.

IC 3211: Basic Grammar IC 3116: Business Communications

IC 3112: Writing Skills plus one of: IC 3215: Research Writing

IC 3221: Optional Literature

No course in reading is required for graduation at Level III.

Overall, the literacy program may be described within an autonomous model of literacy (Street, 1984). The objectives are based on content/skills to be mastered rather than arising from the personal/social/political/economic needs of the learners . The focus in on text (the nature or structure of the written passages) rather than on task (the event or occasion when literacy may be used) (Purves, 1991). A writing stage framework (Graves, 1991, 1978) does not guide the writing courses. For example, rather than being addressed as significant to the "editing" stage of writing, grammar, spelling, and punctuation are studied in isolated courses. The literature courses tend to be focussed within Rosenblatt's (1978) efferent model as opposed to t he aesthetic model, and there appears to be minimal emphasis on "response to literature" (Langer, 1995).

Nature of Instruction

Language is perhaps one's worst enemy in trying to delineate or explicate a particular construct, such as nature of instruction, because there are often so many meanings of the same words. For the purpose of consistency in meaning, the following terms often occurring in discussion on instruction will be defined as indicated:

Delivery: this relates to the manner or the mechanisms by which a learning experience is provided to the learners, and may include: instructor, computer, video, teleconference, internet, etc.

Organization (for delivery): this relates to how learners are structured, assigned, or organized to take advantage of the experiences. This may include: individualization, small groups, large groups. There may be interaction between the mode of delivery and the organizational arrangement; for example delivery by computer would more likely entail individualization organization.

Methodology: This may be used synonymously with instructional procedure, or instructional strategy. Methodology may be superficial such as "exposing" learners to an experience (asking them to read a section of text, write a summary, read the newspaper). This often entails learners practicing or demonstrating what they already know. It may also entail in depthstrategy by which the instructor attempts to engage the learner both cognitively and affectively in the learning act. An example would be to help the learner acquire the steps for writing a summary, the techniques for effective study of words for spelling, how to monitor one's comprehension and what steps to take should the learner go "off track. " (Examples of literacy strategies may be found in Fagan, 1992). There is also interaction between methodology and organization and delivery. For example, superficial methodology is often found in computer programs, while highly interactive methodology, with a give-and-take between learner and instructor is best accommodated in a small group situation.

Integration: This usually entails an interaction between methodology (or process) and content. One may be expected to memorize content without any knowledge of how to best process this information for memorization, or strategies for memorization can be interwoven into the goal of remembering or mastering the content.

A rationale for stating general objectives of literacy at ABE Level I is that there will be flexibility in how the program is delivered, how learners are organized, what methodology is selected, and how integration may take place. This places a major responsibility on the instructors. There are many suggestions throughout the ABE Handbooks that instruction should be learner-centered; however, the definition of this concept is not always clear. The ABE Level II/III Handbook states that "the instructor creates an educational environment in which learning can occur. A variety of instructional techniques can be used. Learners are expected to assume ever increasing responsibility for specific content determination and acquisition" (p. 57). However, this suggestion is not compatible with a program in which course content is specified. It does not appear that learner-centered necessarily means individuals engaged solo in activities. In fact, there are many supportive points for group instruction and interaction. The following are taken from the ABE Level II/III Handbook. Individual instruction "emphasizes individual responsibility for efforts in performance" (p. 58). However, individual does not mean isolation, and individual responsibility could be promoted in a group situation. "An investment of time is required to build a community of learners" (p. 61). "Interactive teaching methods and materials allow adults to actively use the information they are seeking to learn" (p. 89). "Group support is important for effective learning" and "social and personal development are important facets of the learning experience" (p.89). However, in contrast to this emphasis on group learning and interaction, there is also strong support for particular computer instructional programs.

A difficulty with the use of computer instructional programs as a means for delivering communication skills is that they are limited to providing reading and writing skills. Literacy, involving attitude and action in response to reading and writing in current, everyday activities cannot be easily developed via computers. It is very difficult to provide for the insert of new material (such as today's newspaper) or to engage in spontaneous interaction between learner and instructor over an i ssue initiated by either of them.

While the concept of integration is promoted in the ABE Handbooks, the focus is on content: "What the integration means, rather, is that the major focus of the program in terms of resources should be on material relating to the program content are as" (p. 37). An examination of the balance between focus on content and methodology in the Program Content section of ABE Level I indicates that the emphasis appears to be on mastering content rather than on developing effective reading and writing strategies for mastering content.

Instructor Preparation/Support

When many decisions on delivery, organization, methodology, integration, and selection of content for literacy development are left to the instructor, it puts a significant responsibility on the instructor's professional preparation/support, time, and experiences, and further responsibility for provision for support and professional development experiences. Several references are made in the Handbooks regarding this responsibility: "Although the majority of ABE teachers may not have specifi c training in the teaching of adults, many will be familiar with some of the literature on adult education" (ABE Level I, p. 8). "Teachers should have a basic knowledge of word processing before attempting to use it as a teaching tool" (ABE Level I, p.143 ). "Most instructors in ABE arrive there indirectly. Many have experience in secondary or even elementary systems. Consequently they bring many routine practices which served them well or were required in dealing with children and adolescents" (ABE Level II/III, p. 35). The focus appears to be on having instructors understand reading and writing skills rather than on understanding literacy and what it means to be literate. And even the requirements to understand reading and writing skills necessitates a broad background of knowledge by the instructor. For example, at Level I, an instructor would have to be knowledgeable of 126 Skill Areas and 7 Pre-Reading Skills and know when these are pertinent to one of the 25 general literacy objecti ves and know how to best develop them so that they enhance the attainment of the general literacy objectives. The "andragogical principles" promoted by Knowles are addressed and compared to "pedagogical principles". While the andragogical principles stil l apply to working with adults, one must be cautious in the nature of the comparisons, for with the introduction of "whole language" in schools, the pedagogical principles suggested by Knowles are long outdated.

There are no suggestions as to the literacy knowledge and experience that literacy instructors should have. It is assumed that the instructors understand "literacy", "skill areas", "pre-reading skills", and how these relate. The International Reading Association, the largest professional reading organization in the world, provides standards of knowledge of reading for different educational personnel. For adult literacy instructors, 102 knowledge goals are suggested under the following headings.

Philosophy of Reading Instruction

Language Development, Cognition and Learning

Knowledge of the Reading Process

Creating a Literate Environment

Organizing and Planning for Effective Instruction

Knowledge of Instructional Strategies

Demonstrating Knowledge of Assessment Principles and Techniques

Communicating Information about Reading

Planning and Enhancing Programs

The relationship between instructor support interacts with the generality-specificity of the program objectives. When objectives are stated generally or globally, and there is considerable flexibility in how these are implemented, there is a much greater responsibility on the part of instructors to have a comprehensive understanding of the discipline and to make many decisions; on the contrary, when objectives are specified, and the delivery is controlled, such as by computer, there is little responsibility on the instructor for decision making about program implementation.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that literacy is a major part of the Newfoundland and Labrador ABE Program. It encompasses almost all of Level I, much of Level II, and six credits within Level III. The sequential relationship across Levels, however, is not that clear. "Full literacy" appears to be a goal of Level I and is guided by a number of general objectives and specific skill areas and pre-reading skills. Courses with specific literacy related content occur at Levels II and III, sometimes wit h overlap of the Level I program.

The literacy program is traditional in nature and may not be conceptualized within reading/writing, literacy theories of such educators/researchers as Street, Graves, Rosenblatt, or Langer, or within the nature of literacy by such writers as Courts , Lankshear, Meek, Mitchell and Weiler, Morris and Tchudi, Shannon, and Taylor. However, there is an expressed need for literacy development to be meaningful for the learners. "A program which reserves meaningful material until a student has achieved a certain reading level, will in all likelihood lose the majority of the beginning level students before they ever significantly increase their reading level" (ABE Level I Handbook, p. 39). While, there is suggested flexibility in the nature of the del ivery, organization, methodology, and integration of the literacy program, the effectiveness of any such decisions is dependent on the support given instructors and on the opportunities for professional development. The instructor is a key factor in the success or otherwise of the program.

In order to get a better view of how the literacy components of the ABE program meet the needs of learners and of society, an evaluation checklist could be drawn up covering both theory and practice against which the current program could be rated.

Recommendations

1. There should be a clear definition of literacy so that it is related to and distinguished from reading and writing. As the initial quote in this paper states, reading and writing are necessary but not sufficient conditions for literacy. The word "literacy" is a frequently used but often misunderstood term. The study of almost every subject, whether science, computers, or religion, is prefixed with the word "literacy", which in these cases, simply means knowledge. Literacy is best reserved for the applicability of a knowledge of reading and writing to peoples' lives, an applicability that entails critical awareness, attitude and action.

2. The purpose of literacy at each of the three ABE Levels needs to be clarified. For example, the purpose stated for Level II is that literacy is to provide transition from society to high school functioning. But literacy can never be separated from society and peoples' lives. (The words reading and writing rather than literacy, would be more appropriate in this stated purpose.)

3. Reading and writing should be taught interactively with literacy development. When reading and writing are taught separately as in a computer program, there must be provision for developing a literacy context for these skills.

4. A basic and comprehensive reading/writing/literacy program should be available for Level I and Level II learners. The focus on reading and writing may vary, depending on the current reading and writing expertise of the learners.

5. At ABE Level III, more specific courses in reading and writing, such as Reading in Response to Persuasive Writing, or Writing for Research Purposes may be included.

6. Specific aspects of writing such as Grammar or Spelling should be introduced as part of the Editing Process of Writing.

7. Reading and writing skills and strategies as taught in specific reading and writing courses/components, should be integrated with the study of content area courses. That is, there should be simultaneously teaching or planned transfer of strategies appropriate for content area study.

8. There should be an optional literacy component that focusses on leisure time reading and writing for those learners who seek literacy for these purposes.

9. In light of the fact of the high out-migration rate of residents from Newfoundland and Labrador, and that the majority of those are the most educated, it is likely that people with ABE certificates rather than university degrees will remain in small communities. In light of the fact that if rural communities are to be sustained and remain viable, then there is a need for strong leadership. This point was made in a study by the Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development (1995) after a study of 12 communities in Atlantic Canada (six in Newfoundland and Labrador) that had become dependent on TAGS for their main source of income. A literacy component focussing on literacy for leadership should be included within the ABE Level II I program.

  REFERENCES  

Adult Basic Education Instructors' Handbook (Levels I, II/III). (1995). St. John's, NF: Department of Education and Training.

Adult Basic Education Program Guide (Levels I, II, and II). (1995). St. John's, NF: Department of Education and Training.

Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development. (1995). Economic adjustment in selected coastal communities (No source of publishing given).

Carnevale, A. P., Gainer, L. J., & Meltzer, A. S. (1990). Workplace basics: The essential skills employers want. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Courts, P. L. (1991). Literacy and empowerment. New York: Bergin & Garvey.

Fagan, W. T. (1992). A framework for literacy development. Montreal: Les Editions de la Chenelière.

Graves, D. (1978). Balance the basics: Let them write. New York: Ford Foundation.

Graves, D. (1991). Build a literate classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Langer, J.A. (1995). Envisioning literature: Literary understanding and literature instruction. New York: Teachers' College, Columbia University.

Lankshear, C. (1997). Changing literacies. Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Meek, M. (1991). On being literate. London: The Bodley Head.

Mitchell, C., & Weiler, K. (1991). Rewriting literacy. New York: Bergin & Garvey.

Morris, P. J., & Tchudi, S. (1996). The new literacy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bassey.

Purves, A. C. (1991). The textual contract: Literacy as common knowledge and conventional wisdom. In E. M. Jennings & A. C. Purves, (Eds.), Literate systems and individual lives. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Quigley, B. A. (1997). Rethinking literacy education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Rosenblatt, L. (1978). The reader, the text, the poem. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Shannon, P. (1992). Becoming political: Readings and writings in the politics of literacy education. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Street, B. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Taylor, D. (1996). Toxic literacies. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

  THE STATE AND EDUCATION IN NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE AGE OF MARKET GLOBALIZATION   Ki Su Kim Faculty of Education

Concerns about the Non-Denominational Future

When I returned to St. John's from a sabbatical leave, I was somewhat surprised to see the resurgence of the debate on denominational education. It was the second time in two years that the government had called referendum on the same issue. This time, the question for the purpose of public consultation was bravely set as whether the government should seek the revision of Term 17, the constitutional document governing Newfoundland's schools, to omit clauses protective of denominational rights and privileges in education. The proposed Term 17 read: "The [provincial] Legislature shall have exclusive authority to make laws in relation to education, but shall provide for courses in religion that are not specific to a religious denomination,"¹ and allow religious observances "in a school where requested by parents."² As in the previous referendum, the people of Newfoundland accorded their government a consent clearly and neatly, if not overwhelmingly. They thus endorsed the policy of education reform which had led their government to call the referendum.

Some of the denominations concerned--the Roman Catholic and Pentecostal churches in particular--express a fear that the referendum result will eventually secularize schools. This fear does not seem to be unfounded. Although I am not sure whether the government intends to make schools godless, one point that is obvious to me is that the proposed Term 17 will place the denominations in an unaccustomed difficult situation in maintaining schools. For the denominations which believe only they are truly godly, this may well be seen as a move to the secularization of schools. But secularization in itself, even if the government pursues it, is not a problem at all educationally speaking. So long as the schools concerned are public schools, the prob lem rests, rather, with their denominational affiliation, especially the arrangement in which religious denominations operate "public schools" although they are private organizations serving private interests. The government's policy to reform the denominational system of schools is commendable, for it promises to modernize the province's public education.

Saying so, however, does not mean the referendum result guarantees a bright future for Newfoundland's public education. Actually, I have some concerns which are, in my view, far more serious.

Term 17: the Original and the Revised

One of my concerns is related to the fact that education reform is pursued on the basis of a generally taken for granted interpretation of the provisions in the original Term 17. It was the interpretation which has complicated the school system in Newfoundland as well as the strategy for its reform. The two referenda, as well, were called on the basis of the same interpretation. That interpretation is that the original Term 17 stipulates that Newfoundland's public schools are to remain denominational so long as the denominations concerned so wished, and that the provincial government's education funds are to be dispensed only through the denominations. From this, people often jump to the conclusion that the denominational schools are p ublic schools, that public schools in Newfoundland have to be denominational, and that the only way in which the province can have non-denominational or secular schools is the denominations' voluntary relinquishment of their constitutionally-guaranteed rights and privileges. The state--the provincial government which is by Term 17 the exclusive authority as to schools in the province--is in this interpretation deemed to be unable to do anything about schools unless the denominations consent.

Criticisms of this constitutional document arise mainly from the economic side rather than from the legal side. A familiar example of such criticisms is that the duplication of school facilities and services based on denominational division makes it unavoidable that the poorest province in the nation will waste valuable education dollars. As if to confirm this criticism, comparisons of students' academic performances demonstrate Newfoundland students' ranking well below the national average. It is thus argued that the integration of the denominational systems of schools into a single system will maximize the use values of the province's scarce education funds. Such an argument is too familiar for us to document. Suffice it to point to the Williams report of 1992, which compared the existing denominational system with three possible models of integration to conclude that a non-denominational system was the most cost-efficient.³

Newfoundland students' poor academic performance--if that is the case--is clearly a problem. If the poorest province in Canada has to waste money due to the denominational system, that too is a problem. Such problems have got to be solved somehow. And the solution of these problems calls for the establishment of a province-wide system of non-denominational schools. But did it require the revision of the original Term 17?

My previous studies yielded a negative answer. All that the union paper provided for were that the denominations concerned would maintain their schools so long as they so desired, and that the provincial government should not discriminate against any of them in the allocation of its education funds. It did not stipulate that the provincial government shall not have its own schools, non-denominational or secular. Nor did it stipulate that all education funds available for schools shall be allocated to denominational schools only. Despite the protective provisions for the denominations, the provincial government still maintained rights to have its own schools--"public schools" in the proper sense. The available methods for this were two. One was the creation and maintenance of the government's own schools out of its education funds while continuing to offer grants to the denominations perhaps in amounts dramatically reduced but still non-discriminatory, say, from $6,000 to $6 per student.⁴ The other was to persuade the rightful and privileged denominations to voluntarily surrender their schools to the public authority.

In fact, Canada's parliamentary proceedings at the time of union reveal this was exactly the way the officials of the Canadian government understood the original Term 17. Answering questions posed by a CCF member of the House of Commons, for instance, Louis St. Laurent, the then Deputy Prime Minister, stated that the Term was not prescribing a denominational system of schools for the new province, nor did it freeze Newfoundland schools in the existing denominational line-up. In protecting ce rtain denominations' rights and privileges in accordance with Newfoundland's request, his government--he made it clear--assumed that there should be in the future non-denominational public schools as "majority" schools. In his understanding, the provisions for protecting denominational rights and privileges and for a share in the province's education funds had been prepared in the view that such denominations' schools would become "minority" schools similarly to the minority schools in s. 93 of the BNA Act. In his understanding, as well, the denominational schools in the new province would be publicly-funded schools but not necessarily "public schools." After all, Term 17 was not as guilty as many Newfoundlanders believed for the troublesome denominational system.

The origin of this system is not Term 17 per se but, rather, its false interpretation. And the origin of the false interpretation was Joey Smallwood himself, a key member of the Ottawa delegations and later the first premier of the province. Smallwood brought in this interpretation while entertaining questions before the National Convention. And in this interpretation, the two-decade leader of the province gave up the legitimate option of building a non-denominational system by creating "pub lic" schools. Instead, he adhered to the tradition of giving all public education funds to the privileged denominations. The reason for this was that the politician who had established a political career by confederation did not wish to jeopardize it by provoking his opponents, particularly the Roman Catholics in the St. John's region.⁵

The 1995 referendum was conducted for the purpose of preparing a way to a single system of education by redesignating denominational schools to inter- or non-denominational schools. The subsequent revision of Term 17 in April 1997 declared that, with an exception, "schools established, maintained and operated with public funds shall be denominational schools."⁶ The exception was the schools to be created according to a newly added provision that "the Legislature may approve the establishment, maintenance and operation of a publicly funded school, whether denominational or non-denominational."⁷ It is here apparent that the provincial government, in drafting the new Term 17, embraced a double tactic. On the one hand, it chose to allay the denominations' fear of their rights and privileges being affected by making it explicit that Newfoundland's publicly-funded schools were to be denominational as a principle. On the other hand, it sought to prepare within the denominational system a niche for schools with no denominational affiliation. This double tactic was bad not only because it froze publicly-funded schools to be denominational but also because it ended up exacerbating the denominations' fear by the contradictory move to prepare non-denominational schools within the denominational system. Unless the government had committed a large sum of money to setting up new schools, the exceptional clause for non-denominational schools would suggest to the denominations only that their own schools were at risk.

As a matter of fact, the government after the 1995 referendum pushed ahead with a policy to reduce the number of school boards and redesignate denominational schools as inter-denominational. This invited denominational resistance, of which the end result was Justice Leo Barry's July 1997 decision to grant Roman Catholic and Pentecostal churches the requested court injunction to stop the redesignation process. His point was exactly what I have pointed out above, that so long as the constitution guaranteed the denominations' rights and privileges, the government could only "improperly" attempt to take away denominational schools from their denominations. Education reform came to a halt consequently.

The Proposed Term 17 and a Possible Controversy

The government's choice at this time was to revise the Term 17 which had been revised only a few months ago. It thus called another referendum. And the second referendum on 1 September 1997 was successful, as already pointed out. What implications, then, will the proposed Term 17 have for Newfoundland schools?

The proposed Term 17, as summarized at the outset, states that the provincial Legislature shall have exclusive authority to make laws in relation to education, but shall provide for non-denominational religious education and allow religious observances if parents request. According to local newspapers, both the proponents and the opponents of the denominational system seem to expect that this revision will bring an end to denominational education in the province. Since the provincial legis lature has "exclusive authority" to make laws in relation to education--they seem to assume--it will be able to make any law to turn denominational schools to non-denominational schools. Furthermore, they seem to assume that the provisions for non-denominational religious education and religious observances upon parental request suggest the exclusion of denominations even from religious classrooms. The matter, however, is not that simple.

Precisely, the proposed Term 17 does not say anything specifically as to the future of denominational schools. It simply states that only the provincial Legislature shall make laws to govern education, and, it, unlike the previous versions, keeps silent on the denominations' rights and privileges in their schools. What is here to be noted is that the Legislature's "exclusive authority" to legislate in relation to education means merely that, in the province of Newfoundland, the House of Assembly in St. John's--not the House of Commons in Ottawa or the Legislature of any other province--shall be the exclusive authority to do so. And the proposed version's silence on denominational rights and privileges means merely that the constitution does not offer special protection as to such rights and privileges. This silence does not mean that such rights and privileges shall become null and void in case the Term 17 of 1997 is revised as proposed. Had the denominations rights and privileges regardless of constitutional protection, such rights and privileges should remain intact in spite of the anticipated re-revision of the constitutional document. (Furthermore, the obligation to provide non-denominational religious education does not require the change of denominational schools to non-denominational schools, for the Legislature can fulfil that obligation in the schools it newly sets up, not necessarily in the existing denominational schools. The same can said of the obligation to ensure religiou s observances upon parental request.)

Thus viewed, what is of interest is whether the denominations actually have rights and privileges regardless of constitutional protection. I think there are sufficient reasons for advancing an affirmative case. Although the denominational schools have been funded by the provincial government before and after the confederation, and although they were brought under a system of public administration in the early 1970s, the schools had been set up, maintained and developed by individual denominations . Although public funding has been so heavy that most of the spending by those schools was made out of public monies, these monies have been given as grants, that is, monies with no obligation to pay back. Traditionally, moreover, at least a fraction of the spending--up to 3% according to McCann's study of 19th-century documents--have been raised by the denominations in the forms of voluntary contributions and school fees.⁸ This tradition continued to prevail even after the introduction of public administration, in which the Department of Education exercised influence upon schools through denominational education councils (DECs). Throughout the post-confederation era--that is, throughout the reign of the original Term 17--the persisting stance of the provincial government as to denominational schools was what Smallwood established before the National Convention, that the denominations had rights and privileges not only to have their own schools but also to claim a share in pub lic education funds. In this tradition, the denominations have been considered to own their schools.

Given this, the government may not be able to redesignate denominational schools as non-denominational schools without provoking controversy and resistance over the issue of the ownership of the schools. There are of course precedents of state take-over of private properties with or without due compensation. The normal modus operandi of a capitalist state, however, is to avoid that as far as possible. The reason is that the cost of take-over normally outweighs any resultant benefit.

Even though costly and time-consuming, the route of education reform might have been smoother if the government had pursued the reform within the framework of the original Term 17 by taking advantage of the available methods. The denominations which preferred keeping their schools should have been allowed to do so, and supported by public funding, outside the public system of schools. After all, they were private schools although they have been publicly funded. As I shall say shortly, moreove r, their turning to private schools will be increasingly helpful to the financially-constrained government in the upcoming years.

Another Concern

Whether there will be controversy and resistance or not, it is all too clear that the provincial government will accelerate its rearranging of schools along non-denominational lines in the event Term 17 is revised as proposed. As I have stated already, such a prospect is a good one. Paradoxically, however, a concern arises out of this good prospect. In order to explain this, I wish to draw the reader's attention to a few facts about Newfoundland's schools.

The first fact is that Newfoundland has no tradition of what educators call "local control of education," that is, the practice of local residents' electing a school board as the primary authority for public schools. In the rest of Canada, the elected school board controls and operates public schools. It levies school taxes upon the residents, sets up schools, decides on the curriculum, hires teachers, and actually operates the schools. The provincial government, meanwhile, makes laws in relation to education, sets educational standards, examines the outcomes, supervises the operation of the school board, and offers financial assistance where necessary. Elsewhere in Canada, therefore, the provincial government as the "exclusive authority to make laws in relation to education" is the ultimate but indirect authority. Although the government's power has visibly grown over the years, the practice of local control has secured checks and balances between local and central interests. Recently, so me local school boards managed to considerably cushion the impact of drastic governmental policy changes, such as budgetary cuts. Newfoundland, meanwhile, has a very different kind of school boards. Their role is limited to such things as keeping records of teachers and students, maintaining school buildings and facilities in order, ensuring that school operation is not disrupted, and reporting what occurs in the school to the superior office. They were the caretakers rather than the primary authorities of schools. Moreover, up until recently they were virtually appointed by DECs.

The absence of local control in Newfoundland is of course due to the denominational control of schools. Since denominations as religious organizations controlled schools, local residents as members of the denominations had little room for stepping in in matters related to their children's education.⁹ But this reason is superfluous. The real reason is that the numerous small communities in the province have--and have had--no solid local tax basis to raise funds for their children's education. Religious denominations intervened here. They set up and operated schools instead of the residents of the communities. Unless the residents are able to raise some funds for their schools their control of local schools must be either impossib le or severely limited. Looking ahead, as well, the bad economy of the province and the dwindling population in rural communities do not seem to promise improvement in this regard. Thus if local control of 778schools is not likely to be in place in a near future, what is apparent is that the removal of denominations from schools will result in the concentration of power in the hands of the provincial government.

In defending denominational education before the National Convention, Smallwood at one point observed that this kind of situation is apt to lead to totalitarianism. I do not very much concur with him. The concentration of power in the hands of the government is not a problem on its own account as far as education is concerned. As long as efficiency is important in expending public funds for education, a strong state power is a necessary, albeit not exclusive, condition. My concern stems from a different angle, that it can be dangerous if and when the state's political power in the field of education is not appropriately matched by its financial capacity, if--to be straightforward--the state with excessive political power has little money to spend for the people. In such cases, the power concentrated in the hands of the government may do more harm than good.

What, then, is the financial outlook of the provincial government? The northern cod fisheries remaining closed and, with the province having no significant alternative industries, the sources of governmental revenues are not likely to improve. (The oil of Hibernia and the minerals of Voisey's Bay may not as yet allow a great deal of optimism in this regard.) As well, Ottawa, another major source of money for Newfoundlanders, keeps cutting on expenditures. It will do so even after its Finance Minister has declared freedom from budgetary deficits. Every year budgetary shortfalls are a familiar topic to Newfoundlanders in spite of the highest-in-the-nation tax rates they must accept. Can we, in spite of all this, dream of a near future in whic h the government's financial power will dramatically increase? If not, it is obvious that the financially constrained government may have to use the power concentrated in its hands to cut into education programmes and thus make educational services no bette r than before.

This pessimism of mine will sound more plausible if the reader reflects briefly on the reasons why the governments of industrialized nations now undergo financial troubles. The fundamental cause of the trouble is that the economy is now losing its national character. The market becomes increasingly globalized. Consequently, the fall of stock prices in Hong Kong instantaneously call for reaction throughout the world. The reason for the globalization of the market is the fact that capitalists now leave their country for a place where the chances for profit making are greater. Unlike the old capitalists who sought their state's imperialist protection in the foreign market, the new ones abandon their nationality, acquire a new one, then jettison the latter whenever the market dictates. And when they leave for a new place, they leave behind scarce jobs and dwindling state revenues although, as a result, the state's financial burden gets heavier due to the increasing number of unemployed and other welfare recipients. If market globalization goes on--and this world-historical phenomenon will certainly go on--the state's coffer will shrink on and on in industrialized nations.

The Importance of Private Schools

Spending the year of sabbatical leave in South Korea's major governmental think tank for economic policies, and visiting Japan where we hear money abounds, I noted that the globalizing world market was already stamping its negative impact upon those countries. Capital was already pulling out of those countries. Like Canada, therefore, those countries too were cutting governmental budgets and seeking a restructured, "smaller government" by privatization and deregulation. Their education reforms were pursued in this light.

This is, I think, the context in which to consider education reform in Newfoundland. We are heading for a non-denominational, state education while the countries with a long history of such education are now restructuring their education system to a smaller and more affordable form. We are seeking a highly centralized system of public education in which the state will bear an absolute power with all financial responsibilities. We are doing this although our government's financial outlook is not q uite good. This is a mistake.

Considered in light of the world historical trend, the principle of education reform has to be, as elsewhere, that the size of public education must be small and affordable not only in the number of offices, school buildings and facilities, but also in the numbers of students. This requires the channelling of as many students as possible from the public to the private sector. The denominational schools resisting incorporation into the public system should be allowed and encouraged to grow into self-sufficient private schools if they so desire. They should receive financial and other assistances in that direction. The major reason for this is that private schools will alleviate the financial burden of the provincial government.

  REFERENCES  

1. The proposed Term 17 of Union, (2).

2. Ibid., (3).

3. Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Our Children Our Future (St. John's: The Queen's Printer, 1992).

4. This paragraph draws upon Ki Su Kim, "Reading Term 17 Anew: What the Legislator is Not to Do about Schools," Morning Watch, 19:1-2 (1991), pp. 28-39.

5. Ki Su Kim, "J.R. Smallwood and the Negotiation of a School System for Newfoundland, 1946-1948," Newfoundland Studies, 11:1 (1995), pp. 53-74.

6. Constitution Amendment Proclamation, 1997 (Newfoundland Act), Schedule, 1 (a).

7. Ibid., (b)(ii).

8. P. McCann, Schooling in a Fishing Society: Education and Economic Conditions in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1836-1986 (St. John's: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1994), p. 94.

9. It was very different from, for instance, Alberta where denominations as a body of local residents belonging to a religious group controlled their schools.

 

   

A journal published bi-anually by the     Editors: Dr. I.J. Baksh     Dr. A. Singh   Technical Advisor: Dr. G.J. Haché