Teaching as a research-engaged profession: Uncovering a blind spot and revealing new possibilities

Anyone running their eyes down the contents list of this London Review of Education special feature on knowledge and subject-specialist teaching will quickly get the idea that the three recurring keywords are teaching, knowledge and curriculum. These words capture a good deal of what schools are for. They are, in a sense, defining categories, for whatever the multiplicity of roles and functions that are thrust onto schools, what remains at the core is knowledge -and teachers who interpret and enact the official curriculum. 'After all,' as Michael Young (2018) writes, 'what else could schools be for if it were not to provide access to knowledge that children would not have if they were forced to rely, as most were prior to the nineteenth century, on their families, communities and workplaces.' This is not to convey a 'deficit' view of those children, nor of the families, communities and workplaces from which they came. Teachers can -perhaps, must -show an unconditional positive regard for the children they teach. Indeed, as David Hopkins stresses 'a key characteristic of outstanding teachers [is] their love of children ' (1996: 98). And yet this, clearly, is not enough. Arguably the most profound demonstration of respect that teachers can show for children is their 'moral purpose' (Fullan, 1993: 10), which includes clarity over the value of what they are trying to teach to whoever they are teaching.