27 - The Ethical Dimension of Educating Educators

Summary

This chapter takes up the ethics of how educators are educated with special attention to in-service teachers who spend a career being “developed.” First, the authors clarify how the ends and means of professional development are wrapped up in dreams of the “good life” in a marketplace that replicates and sells cruel optimisms to educators and school leaders. Next, they situate the historical realities that led to the proliferation of professional development crisis narratives in education since the National Defense Education Act of 1958 and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Then, they critically discern what happens when educators’ attachments interact with crisis narratives through a neoliberal, for-profit professional development (PD) industry. Finally, the authors outline a path forward for educators to recognize the crisis narratives of PD as attachments, to resist such a PD industry by theorizing an anarchic professional development for educators emerging from what Berlant calls the “impasse” – PD that is local, situational, and supportive of teachers’ learning. The chapter concludes by arguing that educators should work collaboratively, intellectualize teaching, focus on classroom inquiry, foster networks of practice, and reclaim the moral dimension of their practice.