Autonomy is dangerous

Autonomy is dangerous

Autonomy as a pedagogical idea has been around for quite a while. In many ways though it seems that nobody is interested except perhaps in the academic world and in health care. Teachers, however, seem to be uninterested or even downright hostile.

I have been working with learner autonomy for about 10 years now, having had the privilege of studying under the tutelage of Leni Dam. I hold courses on different aspects of teaching for teachers all over Denmark but if I use the word “autonomy” in a course description I can be fairly sure that the course will be cancelled due to lack of applicants. Why?

The answer I think is twofold: Autonomy is dangerous and unattractive.

Teachers, like many modern employees, experience increasing pressure and attempts at control from many sides. Teachers were once respected figures in society, but the fact that more and more of the world’s population now have university degrees means that teachers no longer have a monopoly on knowledge and learning. In Denmark many adults have much longer academic educations than teachers and earn a lot more too. Thus, the traditional figure of authority (the teacher) must now defend his/her classroom practices as ambitious parents and governments demand that students achieve more and get top grades. The new school law in Denmark says that students must now achieve the same level after 9 years of schooling as they previously achieved after 10 years. Therefore, teachers are regularly asked to account for their teaching results and to prove that they are fulfilling their obligations.

In such a contentious environment, autonomy is downright dangerous. If a teacher sticks to the textbook, starting on page one and finishing just before the end of the year, he/she can say:

“See, we finished the appropriate textbook for this class, I have done what I was supposed to do. If your child has not learnt, it is not my fault. We read all the pages and did all the exercises. He should pay more attention and make a better effort next time.”

An autonomous teacher on the other hand is wide open to attack. If things go wrong parents will say: “It was your job to teach the students, not to give them freedom to fail.” The autonomous teacher allows the students to take responsibility for their learning but simultaneously ends up with far more responsibility. The autonomous teacher ends up with responsibility for not just “8b” but for each of the 26 students in 8b with their different projects, work rates, partner choices, etc. And the autonomous teacher seldom has just one class. In my own case, I had eleven classes last year. That is an awful lot of individual development programmes that I have to keep track of. This is what makes autonomy dangerous. The risk of dropping one of the many balls (students) you have in the air is considerable.

Autonomy is also quite unattractive for many teachers. Most people who become teachers were inspired by talented teachers that they had. They want to be just like them. Then there is the power of the traditional teacher, because while respect for teachers in society may be declining, generally the teacher still has power and authority in his/her classroom. The teacher is the one who makes the rules and enforces them too. In an autonomous classroom one has a much more democratic set-up. That means loss of power and – let’s face it – having power is attractive. It makes life easier not having to negotiate and compromise all the time.

Life is also easier for a teacher with a textbook. If I may be provocative – the teacher does not even have to think. The whole year’s work is planned for him/her with workbooks, CDs, teacher’s manuals, etc. In the autonomous classroom on the other hand, he/she has to be very much aware of what each student is working with, what progress the individual students are making, and whether the individual students on their individual paths are following the road to fulfilling the requirements of the national curriculum.

So what can those of us who believe in autonomy do better to spread the word? I don’t know for sure, but I do have ideas and in the next issue of of Independence I will tell about a six-month project that I conducted with a school last year. In the meantime, Richard Smith’s article in the last number of Independence, where he talks about gathering data from scientific studies to prove that autonomy works, is an essential starting point. We need hard quantitative proof that autonomy works. Otherwise we shall never convince teachers in serious numbers to change to autonomy.

Frank Lacey 2014 Denmark