PhD defence W. (Wouter) Modderkolk

Below is a brief summary of the dissertation:

Teachers continuously make choices, consciously or unconsciously. ‘Do I press on with the syllabus, or take time for the question a student has just asked?’ Almost all teachers in this study want to help students take responsibility for themselves, others and the world. Yet they regularly feel that what they do is not what they want. They are swept along by daily pressures and by what ‘the system’ seems to impose: what gets measured.

Wouter Modderkolk studied when secondary school teachers manage to act on their purpose, and how schools can support this. He did so at Dutch Waldorf (Steiner) schools, where students’ personal development comes first, but the same exams apply as elsewhere. Nearly 300 teachers completed a questionnaire; he also conducted 56 interviews and observed 15 lessons and 15 meetings.

Lesson design proves key. Teachers who feel ownership of that design, because it fits what they care about, feel free to play with it when the class requires it. Without that ownership, the exam, the textbook or the clock takes over. Whether teachers experience that ownership depends on the teacher, the team and the school organisation.

Educational debate often holds that teachers need autonomy to teach well. Yet autonomy alone proves insufficient. What matters at each level is autonomy embedded in connectedness: own choices within a vision shared with colleagues and translated by school leaders into everyday decisions. Enacting purpose in education is therefore a shared responsibility of teachers, school leaders and school boards.