Not Even Close: Teacher Evaluation And Teachers' Personal Practical Knowledge

Abstract

This paper presents an epistemological critique of the traditional model of teacher evaluation, questioning the view of knowledge underpinning the process and, what counts. It is argued that teachers' personal practical knowledge is not recognized or valued in teacher evaluation. Teacher evaluation is revealed as emerging from an objective view of knowledge, guided by principles of scientific management with its goals of efficiency and control. Such a view does not allow for subjective knowledge, particularly the ways of knowing that teachers derive from their practice. A teacher's narrative of her experience of being evaluated (positively) for promotion is woven throughout the critique to provide a focus for questions and argument. A new story of teacher evaluation which values teacher knowledge.