Changing Teachers, Changing Times: Teachers' Work and Culture in the Postmodern Age

This work has truly inspired me. Hargreaves begins and ends with the challenging observation that the rules of the world are changing. It is time for the rules of teaching and teachers' work to change with them. For me, in his section on futures, Andy underscores the issues facing education reform in the nineties. Hargreaves stresses that understanding the context,process and consequences of change help us clarify and question the choices we make.From the 'malaise of modernity' questioning the corporate analogies of educational discussion, Hargreaves refers to Robert Merton's theory that cumulative attention to the change process often leads to "goal displacement", through to the chapter titled the Balkanization of Teaching, Hargreaves is always focussed on the teacher's work and culture in the postmodern age.Hargreaves finishes with a quote I have used often, as it resonates so clearly and profoundly for me." Teachers know their work is changing, along with the world in which they perform it. As long as existing structures and cultures are left intact, repsonding to these complex and accelarating changes in isolation will only create more overload, intensifictaion,guilt,uncertainty,cynicism and burnout".