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Five flaws of staff development and the future beyond

By Andrew Hargreaves
June 2007
Student learning and development do not occur without teacher learning and development. Not any teacher development will do, though. The old flaws of weak and wayward staff development are well-known — no staff development, in which trial and error are assumed to be enough; staff development that’s all ideas and no implementation, i.e. the professor’s prerogative; staff development that is offered only off-site and is disconnected from practice; staff development that is excessively individual and has no follow-through with the team; and staff development that’s overly instrumental — all training and tricks with no purpose or reflection. If these are the old enemies of staff development, today’s staff development has at least five new foes and flaws. Presentism. In some school and system cultures, staff

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References

Rowan, B. (2001). The ecology of school improvement: Notes on the school improvement industry in the United States. Journal of Educational Change, 3(3/4), 283-314.


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