Barry Down

There are serious concerns around the sustainability of teaching and teacher education given the attrition rate of early career teachers. In Western countries we know that between 25% and 40% of beginning teachers are likely to leave the teaching profession in the first 5 years (Ewing & Smith, 2003; DETE, 2005). Clearly, there is a need to better understand the experiences of early career teachers and to investigate, in new ways, how the problem of teacher attrition can be addressed. This paper is based on a collaborative qualitative research project between the University of South Australia, Murdoch University, Edith Cowan University and eight stakeholder organisations including employer groups and unions in South Australia and Western Australia. The aim of this study is to investigate the dynamic and complex interplay among individual, relational and contextual conditions that operate over time to promote early career teacher resilience.The methodology for the study was a critical enquiry drawing on the traditions of narrative enquiry and critical ethnography. In 2009 sixty beginning teachers from the two states were interviewed at the beginning and end of the year. Towards the end of the year interviews were also held with a member of the leadership team in their schools. Data were also collected from a series of Roundtables held in each of the two states and attended by representatives from stakeholder groups. NVivo8 was used to manage a thematic approach to data analysis. Preliminary analysis has identified five major themes or conditions that support early career teacher resilience. The themes relate to (a) relationships, (b) school culture, (c) teacher identity, (d) teachers 19 work, and (e) system policies and practices. In this paper, we present these themes as a framework that can be used to examine policies, practices and resources that promote early career teacher resilience.

This paper is a part of two ongoing and interconnected Australian Research Council (ARC) projects, one investigating student engagement/retention (Smyth & Down, 2005) and the other school-community renewal (Smyth & Angus, 2006), in two Australian regional communities experiencing significant levels of socio-economic disadvantage. In a collection of articles previously published by John Smyth, Lawrence Angus, Peter McInerney and myself in a special edition of Learning Communities (2006) we attempted to map out not only some of the broader economic, political and social forces at work in constructing persistent patterns of socio-economic disadvantage but the ways in which students, teachers and communities were able to successfully reinvent their identities and practices in an increasingly hostile and authoritarian economic and political reality (Giroux, 2004).

This paper is about the possibility of reconceptualising and reorganising teacher education. It begins by alluding to the current obsession with testing and standardisation as a means of improving education. A central argument here is that the New Right (neo-liberal and neo-conservative) has manufactured a crisis in education which has had profound consequences for public schools and those who inhabit them, especially in disadvantaged communities. Against this backdrop, the paper considers: (i) the impact of narrowly conceived efforts of government to control teacher's work through teacher-proof curricula, test driven threats and punitive forms of accountability; (ii) the usefulness of the notion of the critical reflective teacher as an antidote to these draconian policies and practices; and (iii) the implications for teacher education programmes and ongoing teacher development. The paper sets out to tackle two key questions: (i) what kind of teachers do we need in these changing times? and (ii) how do we go about producing them?

In thinking about how I might usefully contribute to the conference I was reminded of a comment by Stephen Brookfield (1994) who described the sense of impostership he felt when speaking publicly to groups of educators: "The more I know about their work, the more I feel humbled by their abilities ... If I know too much about who they are and what they have done as educators, I start to say to myself 'what on earth can I say to these people that has any chance of being taken seriously, or considered important, by them?'" (1994: 207). Despite these reservations, I suspect that there are two things that bring us together and provide a point of mutual engagement: first, a shared feeling that things aren't right; and second, a desire to change the way it is. In the case of the former, we could spend a considerable amount of time sharing stories of despair, frustration, outrage and even anger about the events, troubles and crises in our world and daily lives. Thankfully, each of us will also be able to share stories of success, joy, inspiration, and hope to nourish our sense of civic engagement. In the case of the latter, we all bring a different set of life trajectories, experiences and expertise to the task of changing our places and world. This conference provides a significant opportunity to both publicly and privately share these stories and in the process, articulate a more just, democratic and sustainable future for our children.