3 Fear and Trembling in the American High School

7/28/2019 3 Fear and Trembling in the American High School

1/19

http://epx.sagepub.com/Educational Policy

http://epx.sagepub.com/content/22/1/45The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0895904807311296

2008 22: 45Educational PolicyJeffrey S. Brooks, Roxanne M. Hughes and Melanie C. Brooks

Reform and Teacher AlienationFear and Trembling in the American High School : Educational

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

Politics of Education Association

can be found at:Educational PolicyAdditional services and information for

http://epx.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://epx.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://epx.sagepub.com/content/22/1/45.refs.htmlCitations:

at Institute of Education University of London on April 20, 2011epx.sagepub.comDownloaded from
http://epx.sagepub.com/http://epx.sagepub.com/http://epx.sagepub.com/http://epx.sagepub.com/content/22/1/45http://epx.sagepub.com/content/22/1/45http://www.sagepublications.com/http://www.fsu.edu/~pea/http://epx.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://epx.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://epx.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://epx.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://epx.sagepub.com/content/22/1/45.refs.htmlhttp://epx.sagepub.com/content/22/1/45.refs.htmlhttp://epx.sagepub.com/http://epx.sagepub.com/http://epx.sagepub.com/http://epx.sagepub.com/http://epx.sagepub.com/content/22/1/45.refs.htmlhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navhttp://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navhttp://epx.sagepub.com/subscriptionshttp://epx.sagepub.com/cgi/alertshttp://www.fsu.edu/~pea/http://www.sagepublications.com/http://epx.sagepub.com/content/22/1/45http://epx.sagepub.com/


2/19

Fear and Trembling in theAmerican High School

Educational Reform and Teacher

Alienation

Jeffrey S. Brooks

Roxanne M. Hughes

Melanie C. BrooksFlorida State University

This article reports findings from a two-year case study of teachers in a

single public high school. Data were gathered and analyzed using a concep-

tual framework that conceived of alienation as a set of five sub-constructs:

powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, and estrangement.

Findings suggested that teachers experienced each of these forms of alien-

ation, but that each individual teacher interpreted them in a unique manner.

Moreover, data suggested that for individual teachers, experiences of alien-

ation varied from situation to situation and evolved over time. The authors

concluded that teacher alienation was a fluid phenomenon, a seemingly basic

assertion that has profound implications for teachers, administrators, and

policymakers as they consider adopting or implementing reform initiatives.

Keywords: alienation; burnout; schoolteachers; high schools

I n Fear and Trembling, Danish Philosopher Sren Kierkegaard (1843/1986)explained a fundamental problem of the human condition: We have bothbase animal instincts and a touch of the divine in our souls. As a result, he

concluded that we live in a constant state of tensionbetween spiritual

perfection and primal urges. Given that these two essential forces cannot be

entirely reconciled in relation to one another, we live our lives in a constant

state of fear and trembling. Although he did not use the term himself, this

tension was later termed alienation by philosophers and sociologists (Israel,

1971). Kierkegaard mused about the philosophical import of these ideas forhumanity-writ-large, but more recent research suggests that a specific group

of professionals experience a similar tension in their work life: secondary

schoolteachers in the United States (Brooks, 2006a). High school teachers

work in a rhetorical space between a utopia in which all children can learn

Educational Policy

Volume 22 Number 1

January 2008 45-62

2008 Corwin Press

10.1177/0895904807311296

http://epx.sagepub.comhosted at

http://online.sagepub.com

45

http://epx.sagepub.com/http://epx.sagepub.com/http://epx.sagepub.com/http://epx.sagepub.com/


3/19

and a (micro)political reality that often makes teaching tremendously diffi-

cult because of complex and interrelated sociocultural and organizational

dynamics (Brooks, 2006b; Ogawa & Bossert, 1995; Wirt & Kirst, 1972).Researchers have documented various ways teachers experience alienation

(e.g., Dworkin, 1987; LeCompte & Dworkin, 1991; Zielinski & Hoy, 1983),

but few have empirically explored how secondary schoolteachers experience

alienation as they engage in educational reform activity.

The purpose of this study was to investigate teacher alienation during

educational reform vis--vis one particular sociological conception of alien-

ation developed by sociologist Melvin Seeman (1959, 1967, 1975, 1983).

From Seemans empirical domain of alienation perspective, alienation consistsof five distinct subconstructs: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness,

isolation, and estrangement (Seeman, 1959). Using this conceptual frame-

work, we investigated teacher alienation in a single public secondary school

during the course of two academic years. As alienation was conceived as both

an individual and cultural phenomenon, data were collected using methods

consistent with ethnographic research (Wolcott, 1970, 1975). Two multifac-

eted research questions guided both fieldwork and subsequent analysis:

How do teachers perceive and experience alienation in relation to the way it

is described in extant sociological conceptions of the phenomenon during

educational reform?

From high school teachers perspectives, do certain aspects of educational

reform facilitate and/or impede a sense of alienation, both to them person-

ally and as a cultural phenomenon?

This article begins with a review of literature and a more thorough expla-

nation of the conceptual framework used in this study. We then describe the

context of the study, briefly discuss our data collection and analysis techniques,

and then present findings grounded in Seemans (1959) empirical domain

of alienation perspective. The article concludes with a discussion of these

findings in relation to their import for researchers and school leaders.

Conceptual Framework: A Sociological

Perspective on Teacher Alienation

In addition to being of interest to philosophers, alienation has been

explored in all the social sciences (Schacht, 1970), including, among others,

political science (e.g. Templeton, 1966), anthropology (e.g. Megged, 1999),

46 Educational Policy



4/19

education (e.g. LeCompte & Dworkin, 1991; Zielinski & Hoy, 1983), psy-

chology (e.g. Fromm 1941/1965; Horney, 1939, 1945), and sociology

(e.g., Bakarat, 1969). Although there is broad and sustained interest in alien-ation and alienation-related themes, there is also great variation among defi-

nitions and meanings of alienation. We place this research in a distinct line

of research based on a relatively recent sociological conception of alienation

as a multifaceted domain of five interrelated empirical subconstructs.

The Empirical Domain of Alienation

In 1959, sociologist Melvin Seemans essay, On the Meaning ofAlienation recast the mold of alienation as an empirical subject of study

by conceptualizing alienation as a multifaceted domain of related constructs.

Through an exhaustive and systematic review of both empirical and theoreti-

cal sociological studies of alienation, Seeman identified an empirical cluster

of five distinct alternate meanings of alienation (Seeman, 1983, p. 783).

These five variants, or subconstructs, of alienation constitute the empirical

domain of alienation: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isola-

tion, and estrangement (Seeman, 1959).Powerlessness is the expectancy or probability held by the individual

that his own behavior cannot determine the occurrence of the outcomes, or

reinforcements, he seeks (Seeman, 1959, p. 784). This view of alienation

is derived from Marxs notion of alienated labor. Marx believed that human

beings are creative by nature and that by working in a system that denies

them ownership of the products on which they work, they lose power over

a fundamental aspect of their lives (Schacht, 1970). Workers experiencing

this form of alienation cannot influence the processes and products of their

work. This strain of alienation studies, powerlessness, includes the school-

based work of those who focus on the (in)equitable distribution of power

within a social system (e.g., Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Giroux 1983a, 1983b;

McLaren, 1989; Wirt & Kirst, 1972) and its attendant alienating social-

psychological effects on members of said system. Seeman (1983) noted that

powerlessness, locus of control, and control itself are closely related ideas;

empirical alienation studies should be sensitive to these notions.

Meaninglessness occurs when the individual is unclear as to what [they]

ought to believewhen the individuals minimal standards for clarity indecision-making are not met (Seeman, 1959, p. 786). Meaninglessness has

to do with the individuals sense of understanding the events in which he is

engaged (p. 786). It is important to note that, in the workplace, meaning-

lessness differs from powerlessness in that the individual feels no sense of

Brooks et al. / Educational Reform and Teacher Alienation 47



5/19

the worth or intrinsic/extrinsic value of what they are doing. They may have

input into the way the work is done or have some stake in the products, but

they do not have a sense that the work is of value.Normlessness, the third variant of the alienation theme, is derived from

Durkheims description of anomie and refers to . . . a situation in which the

social norms have broken down or are no longer effective as rules for beha-

vior (Seeman, 1959, p. 787). In their anthropological study of student

dropouts and teacher burnouts LeCompte and Dworkin (1991) helped append

this definition by explaining that under conditions of normlessness, rules

are either inoperative, such that following the rules will not achieve the

goals to which one aspires, or nonexistent, such that the individual can turnto no rule to guide action (p. 155).

Isolation as a sociological, rather than physical condition, has to do with

an individuals relationship to a community. In its social sense, isolation

has to do with the degree to which an individual feels an affinity to their

communitys values, beliefs, and norms of behavior. Seeman (1959) wrote

of people experiencing isolation as those who . . . assign low reward

values to goals or beliefs that are typically highly valued in the given

society, (pp. 788789). Thus, from this orientation, one can feel isolated inthe middle of a crowd, if they do not authentically share the groups cultural

values, beliefs, and/or norms.

Estrangement can be thought of as a distinction between an instrumen-

tal, rather than authentic involvement in work (Israel, 1971, p. 213). The

estranged individual in the workplace is disaffected toward their activities;

passion is replaced with apathy, care with indifference. They go through the

motions of work without enthusiasm and passion and do not engage in reflec-

tive practice. Estranged teachers could be explained as those who are strangers

to themselves (Brooks, 2006a; Greene, 1973).

Some of the concepts in Seemans empirical domain of alienation have

been discussed in the conceptual frameworks of educational studies (e.g.,

Dworkin, 1987; LeCompte & Dworkin, 1991; Zielinski & Hoy, 1983).

However, these studies tend to focus on one or a few of the subconstructs,

rather then taking them into account as an interrelated whole. For example,

Lortie (1975), Waller (1961), and Zielinski and Hoy (1983) focused on

isolation but did not seek to explore other forms of alienation. This has led

to several useful insights, but it has not allowed us to understand how sub-constructs might exert reciprocal influence on one another, how one form

of alienation might lead to another, or how teachers might experience mul-

tiple forms of alienation that shift and flow as they conduct their work in

various situations and over time. Further, we argue that alienation has been




6/19

misconceptualized in a great deal of educational research as a condition

necessarily synonymous with teacher burnout (Brooks, in press), when long

lines of sociological research in multiple work contexts suggests that alien-ation may indeed be a constant and fundamental phenomenon all teachers

experience in one way or another, rather than an undesirable condition that

befalls an unfortunate few (Fromm, 1941/1965; Israel, 1971; Kaufmann,

1975; Schacht, 1970).

Design of the Study

This study took place at Wintervalley High School, a public school in OwenCity.1 At the time of this study Owen City was a rapidly growing suburban

city, with a population of approximately 100,000 people, located in the

Midwestern United States. The school served students in grades 1012

and had an enrollment of approximately 1,350. The student population was

reported as 84.4% White, 9.8% Black, 2.0% Hispanic, 0.4% Native American,

and 4.3% Asian (a total minority population of 16.5%), and the teaching

population had roughly the same demographic distribution. Empirical data

were collected through documents, interviews, and observations. Thesedata were analyzed using an ongoing, inductive, and iterative process that

spanned the duration of the study.

Data collection lasted 2 academic years. Using semistructured interview

techniques (Wolcott, 1975, 1985), the lead researcher spoke with teachers

to explore themes germane to the empirical domain of alienation conceptual

framework discussed in the previous section (Silverman, 2001). The study

includes a total of 42 interviews with Wintervalley teachers. In addition,

data included observation notes taken in 68 formal planning periods, commit-

tee meetings, classroom instructional sessions, and other school activities

(lunches, assemblies, etc.). Data were also collected during informal inter-

actions and observed meetings, from technical documents such as meeting

minutes and personnel handbooks, and from nontechnical documents such

as personal communiqus (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998).

This study employed a combination of purposive and network selection

techniques. That is, the lead researcher began the study by observing meet-

ings and ascertaining which teachers might be most willing and able to

articulate their experiences of alienation. After choosing a few teachersto approach, network selection began, which was characterized by inter-

viewee recommendation. On completing an interview, the lead researcher

asked interviewees to suggest other subjects that might be willing to par-

ticipate in the study, based on expertise and/or accessibility (Merriam, 1991).




7/19

After meeting a teacher, the lead researcher made use of the connection to

gain greater access to different parts of the teacher community. This tech-

nique allowed the lead researcher to attend a far greater number of meetingsand observed instructional and noninstructional behavior in many naturalistic

settings.

Powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, and estrange-

ment were used as a priori analytic open codes. Then, we used microanalytic

techniques, which entailed a detailed line-by-line analysis (Strauss & Corbin,

1998, p. 57) that helped to suggest avenues for subsequent code refinement

and extension, which guided further data collection. Finally, as codes became

theoretically saturated, evidenced by increasingly redundant data, we soughtto identify patterns within each code. Throughout the study, the lead researcher

conducted member checks with participants to ascertain internal validity of

analyses (Silverman, 2001).

Findings

The subsequent presentation of analyses is organized around the five

subconstructs in the empirical domain of alienation: powerlessness, mean-inglessness, normlessness, isolation, and estrangement. We feel it is impor-

tant to note at the onset that this presentation is selective rather than

exhaustive. These data were chosen to highlight predominant themes in our

analyses.

Powerlessness

Wintervalley teachers often spoke of their frustration or bemusement at thedifference between the way schoolwide decisions were made and the way they

were supposed to be made. Teachers consistently explained that although

they had a great deal of freedom to shape the curriculum as a member of their

department and to engage students with whatever instructional methods they

chose in their classrooms, they had no inputor their input was ignoredon

some school policies or programs that directly affected their work. Typical

statements describing this form of powerlessness included:

Sometimes potentially important decisions are made for me.

We are supposed to be encouraging community involvement and democratic

decision-making . . . but our processes [dont] break down communication

barriers, they make new ones.




8/19

[Administrators take] the decision out of our hands, even though we know the

students best.

I honestly feel like there are times that teachers are asked for our opinion or

we give our opinion and then the school just goes a completely different way.

Anything that goes on outside the classroom, outside these doors, I dont feel

I have much control.

Importantly, teachers powerlessness was in relation to many functions

into which their input might have been useful and/or important, such as

in-building policy interpretation, adoption of large-scale reform initiatives,

and appointments to various building and district level committees.

However, although teachers often felt powerless with regard to school-level

decision making, they commonly asserted that their sense of power increased

the closer the work got to instruction in their classrooms. Powerlessness was

felt less acutely when teachers discussed their work at the departmental

level, and the concept receded further when they discussed their work in the

classroom. Some teachers explained this proximal powerlessness in relation

to their amount of formal authority in various levels of the school, whereas

others suggested that informal dynamics, such as interpersonal relationshipsand micropolitics, also played an important role in their sense of this form

of alienation. As one teacher explained

We have a governance system on paper, and we have another in practice. Im

not saying thats always bad, it just makes you feel like your perspective

doesnt matter if you arent on the inside. I work here and I have ideas, but there

are a select few who have the ability to actually make something happen.

In general, powerlessness increased the further a teacher strayed from their

room, and at the school level, informal and nontransparent decision-making

processes caused many teachers sense of powerlessness to heighten, which

they explained as having a corrosive effective on their own and on collective

staff morale.

Meaninglessness

Many Wintervalley teachers explained that although they felt their instruc-

tional, curricular, and extracurricular activities (e.g., club sponsorship,

coaching, etc.) were important and meaningful aspects of their work, they

often regarded their leadership activities as meaningless. Although there was

variation among teachers, two patterns emerged in the data. First, teachers




9/19

had a perception that their leadership activities were not related to adminis-

trative leadership activities. Teachers explained that they spent a lot of time

going through a prescribed inquiry process designed to help them developsolutions for issues that affected the school community. Many schools have

such aproblem-solution model, which in this case entailed: (a) naming the

issue, (b) deciding what data were relevant, (c) creating an instrument,

(d) gathering data, (e) analyzing data, (f) developing an explanatory theory,

and then (g) crafting and submitting policy recommendations. However, as

teachers commonly explained, at any given point in this process, a policy

might come from the administration that would change everything or render

all their work meaningless. For example, one teacher explained that his teamhad studied four different issues using the inquiry process. During that

time, they had not brought a single study to conclusion before the adminis-

tration announced a new policy that effectively terminated or made their

work irrelevant:

One year we were assigned to study at-risk students. We were supposed to

define who they were and then ultimately make recommendations about how

to improve the services we provide. After a few months we had gotten to the

point where we were deciding what data was relevant and then at one of the

meetings an Assistant Principal showed up and told us that we had defined

at-risk incorrectly and that we would need to start over. It was frustrating

and it happens all the time.

As with powerlessness, teachers explained that they felt a heightened

sense of meaninglessness when they were involved with reform activity out-

side of their classrooms and their departments. As they became involved in

whole-school reform, they suggested that the work was, as several teacherssaid, a waste of time. It is important to contrast this attitude to those that

teachers had toward meaninglessness inside the classroom, which was almost

entirely absent for most teachers. Indeed, many teachers sympathized with

the teacher quoted above and explained that they came to see the events that

happened outside of instructionally related issues within his purview as

meaningless. Shared governance structures and other reform activities were

not generally enjoined with enthusiasm. They were instead distractions that

did little to advance students learning. Although many teachers saw great

potential and retained hope that their work outside the classroom might

eventually be recognized and valued, they overwhelmingly described the

participation as meaningless.




10/19

Normlessness

Wintervalley teachers spent an enormous amount of time discussingshared visions, crafting community value statements, reworking missions,

setting goals, and the like. To some extent this activity was instituted by the

schools principal, and in other cases it was required by accreditation

standards or district protocol. As such, there is ongoing conversation at

Wintervalley about values. Questions like: What do we stand for? or Is

this what Wintervalley means? were popular refrains in meetings. Yet, for

all this interest in principle and reflective practice, questions were nearly

always addressed to and answered by a weas a collective and abstract

entity. Individual philosophies or beliefs were seldom, if ever, the focus of

a conversation. Moreover, when talk of philosophy or principle was central,

it was usually only a starting place and not a destination: Write down what

you believe and well go from there was a common initial prompt for

meetings. The overwhelming sentiment was captured well by a teacher in

one meeting: Well, we have to agree on a philosophy before we can con-

tinue. That is, teachers seemed compelled or predisposed to reach agree-

ment as a precondition of discussions; it was rarely acceptable to disagree in

meetings, and to take such a position openly was generally seen as contentiousor arrogant.

One teacher suggested these collectivist dynamics as he put it, were in

conflict with basic values of many high school teachers:

[High school] teachers are not collaborative creatures. Generally speaking, a

lot of people who go into teaching are attracted to it for exactly the opposite

reason: they have their own classroom, their own students, and their own

stuff. They are a specialist in their school. Even if that attitudes not there on

a conscious level, its there a lot of the time. Thats ironic, considering that

the move is toward more teams, more collaboration, more communitythats

of course not all bad, but it comes with a pricemany people are forced to

go against their nature.

Certainly, some teachers disagreed with this statement, instead suggesting

that they enjoyed collaboration, especially among their content-area peers.

However, a great deal of data corroborated the perception that social norms

in the teacher community were marked as much by a plurality of perspectiveas by agreement. Interestingly, in keeping with previously discussed themes,

social norms were quite clear and consistent at the classroom level, more in

conflict at the departmental level, and most pronounced when considered as




11/19

a whole school. Again, teachers felt that social norms were most relevant

and clear in their classrooms and quite confusing and conflicted at the

school level.

Isolation

One teacher explained teachers sense of isolation through an intriguing

metaphor:

Many of us are the ostrich. We put our heads in the ground. We shut the door

on our domain. And the students are my kids. We are trying to do the best jobwe can, and rather than face the politicking within the teacher communities

and between our communities and the administration, the teachers, the students,

and the parents, you face certain fights that you think are worth the fight and

then the rest sometimes you just ignore; because it takes so much time and

energy and you have only so much time and energy for what you do.

Although the particular object of this teachers ire was politics, many other

teachers expressed distaste for various other aspects of their professional

life: being kept after school for meetings, paperwork, salary, time demandsplaced on coaches, scarce resources, and so on. Although teacher isolation

is usually conceived as negative, to many teachers, the idea that they could

step away from the aspects of the job they did not enjoy, if only for instruc-

tional periodsand achieve some form of closed-door autonomywas

alluring, desirable, and quite easy to achieve. In a school the size of

Wintervalley, achieving closed-door autonomy in this fashion was always a

possibility. Some teachers, especially veterans, went entire school years

without being observed once by the principal, they could take their lunchesalone in their classrooms, and they could plan their arrival and departures

at the building so as to create a few moments of solitude. Paradoxically,

some teachers did not come to feel this way about isolation when they

began to teach at the school.

Several teachers had come to use isolation as a coping strategy only after

a disappointment with the school community. This teachers explanation

was typical of many veteran teachers perspectives:

Being a teacher is like being a member of a wonderful church. People have a

faith, they are there for a common purpose. But when you get active in your

church you see it a different way. You get to the politics of it, and then it almost

ruins your faith. Its kind of the same way with teaching. I love my students,

I love what I do, but I basically want to shut the door as soon as I see some




12/19

kind of politics involved because it just seems to remove so much from what

youre trying to do.

Analyses also suggested that teacher isolation was the result of three

interrelated factors: size, proximity to colleagues, and division delineations.

The size and layout of the building facilitated teachers sense of isolation in

that they simply could not get around to certain areas in an expedient manner.

Some teachers explained that they had not visited certain wings of the building

in years. Proximity was also important in that teachers could not find the time

to meet with peers with whom they might otherwise interact. For example, the

mathematics division was physically isolated, located in a remote part of theschools labyrinthine basement. As one teacher explained

Were all down herethe math divisionpeople dont even know we exist.

Some of the parents and kids not involved with our classes dont even know

there is a basement. They take a tour of the school and dont even make it down

here. I do think we are isolated. That has been both bad and good; we are able

to focus on ourselves, but we arent part of the whole school community.

In addition to physical isolation, the social structures in the building weresignificantly affected by school policies and governance structures that gen-

erally kept teachers professionally siloed. The following teachers quotation

was typical of many teachers positive interpretation of what was a growing

issue for all to consider:

I think were really struggling now that we are getting bigger; with trying to

find a way to keep everybody connected in some way. Thats both at the

school level and in the [department]. I understand how some teachers feel

isolatedespecially the young onesthey dont really see anybody other

than us [peers in adjacent classrooms] and when they pass other teachers in

the hallways they dont know their names. They might have a lot in common

and not know each other. Its too bad.

Estrangement

As one might expect, teachers had disparate visions of what an ideal

school might look like. However, teachers sang in unison with respect to twoaspects of Wintervalley life: (a) that administrators in the school were gen-

erally good people but were focused on abstract ideas like missions, visions,

and long-term change models rather than on-the-ground and (b) that discus-

sions of philosophic issues that occurred outside departmental boundaries




13/19

were generally settled by administrators a priori and ultimately had little

bearing on what was happening in the classroom. As one teacher suggested,

the faculty is floating. Teachers did not agree with the espoused philoso-phy of the school, en toto, and did not feel their voices were part of the con-

versation that affected it in a conceptual or operational sense. Moreover,

teachers were not encouraged to explore their own visions, missions, commit-

ments or principles. This is estrangementthe feeling of separation from

important things with which one should feel a strong connection. Teachers

explained that what was once familiar and desirable, discussions of educa-

tional pedagogy and working toward those visions, was now alien. To illus-

trate teacher estrangement, we present the following two vignettes, whichare in some ways typical of teacher perceptions, but were chosen ultimately

because they delved deeper into this alienation subconstruct:

Teacher #1

You dont connect with the kids by what you teach. Half of them hate what

you teach. My vision of the good school is one where you develop those

interpersonal, emotional relationships; a school where no one is afraid toexpress themselves. A school where you have a lot of work, but its work you

want to doand it all helps the kids. Thats whats important. Its weird, but

Im not sure I know how that would look. Ive never seen it. Maybe no one

has. But thats neither here nor there; lets talk about this school.

We have to find a balance between all these reform things we have going on

and whats really importantwhich is the kids in the classroom. Thats the

bottom line and increasingly we are losing that focus. We want to be better

at instructing them, and this, that and the other. We want to connect with them.

Every teacher would say that. But if you have to constantly be working on

[noninstructional issues and committees], on all his other stuff its harder to

make those connections.

Actually, it goes against our [mission]most of what we do. I dont know

the exact quote, but it says something about keeping it simple, trying to do a

few things well; we do the opposite. Hell, none of those things mean a thing

a bunch of words on paper. Theres another thing in there, about how teachers

shouldnt be asked to do all the work, that the burden should be shared; what

a joke. And those are just issues in school; theres another dimension.

When youre tired, you dont come back after school and see what is most

important to some of these kids: see their basketball game, chaperone a prom,

sponsor a club. Of course people do those things, and they are important

some of those things are more important than anything I do in classbut I cant




14/19

get out to meet the students that way, even though I recognize how important

it all is. What would be the cost of running around like that? You sacrifice the

rest of your life. Its tough to do that. Ive done it. Lots of teachers have. Lookat some veterans, theyre just shellsburned out. You run out of energy daily

but also over years. You just run out of time and the desire to be around here.

Sometimes I cant remember why I became a teacher.

Teacher #2

For teachers, the professional and the private become blurred. Actually, at the

very beginning, I had probably been here for six or seven yearsI cant putmy finger on when or certainly howthat became less of an issue for me.

I guess I just came over to the dark side and just let those wars gowhich is

not altogether a bright thing to do. I suffered for it. My husband suffered, too.

I mean, we hear a lot about letting the job consume you, but my husband is

a professional man, hes upper level management with one of the companies

here in town. Hes in the business out of necessity. Hes very successful at it,

has a real aptitude for it, but he isnt happy. Hes been there for going in

twenty years and hes never been excited about his work. Hes a workaholic

and that has meant a lot of money, but no passion. Our situations are exactlyopposite; I make no money but love my job. Well, I love teaching, Im not

sure I love the job.

I struggled to maintain a balance between my two lives for a long time; the

one with him and the other at Wintervalley. Thats a painful process. Im a guilt

driven personality, so I was always guilty about somethingshortchanging

him or shortchanging the kidsand it wears on you. I kind of just, somewhere,

let it go.

Looking back on it, I used to be almost totally absorbed in the job. Our songot into junior high school and sort of closed the door on his life with us and

there werent a lot of breaks since my husband was working night and day

and raced bicycles on top of that! We all worked hard; when I look at my son

I think we worked too hard. When my husband was not working or out-of-town

traveling as part of his job, he was in the gym or away competing or things

like that.

My personal interests in terms of content dovetailed into teaching already, so

part of me was satisfiedbut in my weaker moments I wonder what Ivedone. Im 53 now and have been at this job a long time. It gets harder all the

time because you learn more about what you ought to be doing and about

what really works and as you try to find ways to make that happen, the one

thing that I have found is that there arent any gimmicks or tricks or magic




15/19

that make it easier. You do it better or try to do it better, but there is always

something in the way, in teaching and in life. So here I am, over fifty years

old trying to get better at teaching but working in a school of distractions,letting it take a toll on my family. Estrangement? Of course I feel that way

. . . alienated.

Discussion

To some extent, this studys findings are in line with researchers at the

Institute for Educational Leadership (2001), who suggested:

It is readily apparent that, except in unusual cases, the basic decisions that

affect the work lives of teachers, as well as the performance of their students,

come from on high, from top-down leadership in its most pristine form. In most

settings, teachers have little or no say in scheduling, class placement, how

specialists are assigned, decisions on hiring new teachers, and, perhaps most

telling at ground level, the preparation of budgets and materials. This is not

the stuff of professionalism. (p. 10)

One of the contributions of this study is that it suggests that the socio-logical cost, in terms of alienation, extends beyond work life and influence

teachers lives en toto. In addition, our exploration of teacher alienation

prompted us to draw six points for discussion. The first two of these focus

on conceptual issues relevant to the study of teacher alienation and educa-

tional reform and the latter four attend to concrete issues germane to day-

to-day teaching in schools.

First, we discovered that using Seemans (1959) conceptual framework

left us with a great deal of interpretative ambiguity. Although we were ableto explore themes in each subconstruct within the empirical domain of

alienation, we felt that it was difficult to separate the domains as exclusive

empirical constructs. Further research is needed to help refine our conceptual

understanding of each of these forms of alienation and to help distinguish

between say, estrangement and normlessness, which were at times difficult

to delineate. This may entail an extension of Seemans domain to include

new forms of alienation specific to teaching and probably a concurrent deep

exploration into each subconstruct in and of itself, similar to Zielinski andHoys (1983) focused exploration of isolation.

Second, we recognize that subconstructs of the empirical domain them-

selves are fluid. Teachers at Wintervalley experienced alienation in different

ways over time and in varying manners from situation to situation. As such,




16/19

it seems appropriate to further explore the possibility that alienation is not

an either/or propositionit is not an issue of whether or not teachers experi-

ence alienation, but rather an issue of how their alienation evolves andchanges as they engage in different activities. For example, teachers in this

study experienced powerlessness as they worked as a member of a commit-

tee in which they felt their perspectives were marginalized but felt tremen-

dously empowered when developing their syllabi, instructing students, or

working with their peers on course sequences within a department. Although

there was some variation among participants, this study showed that alienation

is, to some degree, a matter of proximity to the classroom and that teachers

feel that their experiences in the classroom are most authentic, diminish atthe departmental level, and are even more diluted at the whole-school level

(Brooks, 2006b).

Third, in terms of implications for day-to-day practice for teachers,

administrators, and policy makers our research suggested that each teacher

and school has their own history, definition, and collective understanding of

reform. It is important for policy makers to understand that new initiatives

are interpreted through both an intensely personal and a collective, in situ

lens. There is no clean slate as a new initiative is launched (Brooks, 2006a;Newmann & Wehlage, 1995; Newmann, Smith, Allensworth, & Bryk, 2001).

This suggests that school reforms might not be transportable/transferable

from one school to another, regardless of whether or not they are scientifi-

cally based (English & Furman, 2006; Murphy & Datnow, 2003), in part

because fluid social dynamics profoundly influence their implementation

and in part because teachers interpret new reforms in light of old reforms

(Brooks, Scribner, & Eferakorho, 2004).

Fourth, it seems clear that at this particular school, reforms were formal,

informal, and idiosyncratic all at once. School reformers would do well to

note that what they envision at an abstract, macrolevel is not always imple-

mented in the way they envision, nor does it necessarily attend to what they

seek to address. That is not to say that negative teachers thwart implemen-

tation, but that teachers who feel marginalized in the implementation process

are less likely to buy into initiatives (Murphy & Datnow, 2003; Newmann &

Wehlage, 1995; Spillane, 2006).

Fifth, teachers at Wintervalley suggested that there was simply too much

going on and that they received too little administrative support in their effortsto implement the myriad reforms in which the school was ostensibly involved.

This finding is consistent with previous research that asserts that school

reforms must not be layered one on top of another (Brooks, 2006b; Hess,

2004; Newmann et al., 2001) and should instead be implemented in a manner




17/19

that allows for a reevaluation and streamlining of protocols and practices

that complicate the work.

Finally, this research suggested that if teachers sense of alienation isheightened by a school reform, rather than diminished, their extant sense of

alienation will be exacerbated and prompt them to disengage from the initia-

tive. Although this assertion may seem obvious, it calls into question the

common practice of top-down policy making and adoption of large-scale

reforms. Is there room for teachers perspectives, at multiple levels of each

school site, in the work of reforming education, or are teachers to remain

marginalized and alienated subordinates who are expected to implement

someone elses vision? This basic question is at the heart of this researchand is one that all policy makers, at the federal, state, district, and building

levels should consider, lest they allow teachers to tremble in the space between

a vision of perfect schooling they are meant to attain and a reality that does

not allow them to conduct the work in an authentic manner.

Note

1. Wintervalley High School and Owen City are pseudonyms, as are all names of teachersand administrators in this article.

References

Bakarat, H. (1969). Alienation: A process of encounter between utopia and reality. The British

Journal of Sociology, 20(1), 1-10.

Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (1998). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to

theory and methods. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. (1977).Reproduction in education, society and culture. London:Sage.

Brooks, J. S. (in press). Teacher alienation and burnout. In E. Provenzo (Ed.), Sage encyclopedia

of social and cultural foundations in education. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Brooks, J. S. (2006a). The dark side of school reform: Teaching in the space between reality

and utopia. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Brooks, J. S. (2006b). Tinkering toward utopia or stuck in a rut? School reform implementation

at Wintervalley High.Journal of School Leadership, 16(3), 240-265.

Brooks, J. S., Scribner, J. P., & Eferakorho, J. (2004). Teacher leadership in the context of

whole school reform.Journal of School Leadership, 14(3), 242-265.

Dworkin, A. G. (1987). Teacher burnout in the public schools: Structural causes and conse-quences for children. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

English, F. W., & Furman, G. C. (2006).Research and educational leadership: Navigating the

New National Research Council guidelines. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Fromm, E. (1941/1965).Escape from freedom. New York: Avon Books.




18/19

Giroux, H. (1983a). Theories of reproduction and resistance in the new sociology of education.

Harvard Educational Review, 53, 257-293.

Giroux, H. (1983b). Theory and resistance in education: A pedagogy for the opposition.Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.

Greene, M. (1973). Teacher as stranger: Educational philosophy for the modern age. Belmont,

CA: Wadsworth.

Hess, F. M (2004). Common sense school reform. New York: Palgrave-McMillan.

Horney, K. (1939).New ways in psychoanalysis. New York: W. W. Norton.

Horney, K. (1945). Our inner conflicts. New York: W. W. Norton.

Institute for Educational Leadership. (2001).Leadership for student learning: Redefining the

teacher as leader. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved February 28, 2007, from http://www

.iel.org/pubs.html.

Israel, J. (1971). Alienation: From Marx to modern sociology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Kaufmann, W. (1975).Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre. New York: New American

Library.

Kierkegaard, S. (1986). Fear and trembling. (A. Hannay, Trans.). New York, NY: Viking.

(Original work published 1843)

LeCompte, M. D., & Dworkin, A. G. (1991). Giving up on school: Teacher burnout and student

dropout. Newbury Park, CA: Corwin Press.

Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

McLaren, P. (1989).Life in schools: An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations

of education. New York: Longman.

Megged, A. (1999). The religious context of an unholy marriage: Elite alienation and popularunrest in the indigenous communities of Chiapa, 1570-1680.Ethnohistory, 46(1), 149-172.

Merriam, S. B. (1991). Case study research in education: A qualitative approach. San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass.

Murphy, J., & Datnow, A. (2003).Leadership for school reform: Lessons from comprehensive

school reform designs. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Newmann, F. M., & Wehlage, G. C. (1995). Successful school restructuring. Madison,WI: Center

on Organization and Restructuring of Schools.

Newmann, F. M., Smith, B., Allensworth, E., & Bryk, A. S. (2001). School instructional

program coherence: Benefits and challenges, improving Chicagos schools. Chicago, IL:

Consortium on Chicago School Research.Ogawa, R. T., & Bossert, S. T. (1995). Leadership as an organizational quality.Educational

Administration Quarterly, 31(2), 224-243.

Schacht, R. L. (1970).Alienation. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.

Seeman, M. (1983). Alienation motifs in contemporary theorizing: The hidden continuity of

the classic themes. Social Psychology Quarterly 46(3), 171-184.

Seeman, M. (1975). Alienation studies.Annual Review of Sociology 1, 91-123.

Seeman, M. (1967). On the personal consequences of alienation in work.American Sociological

Review 32(2), 273-285.

Seeman, M. (1959). On the meaning of alienation.American Sociological Review 24(6), 783-791.

Silverman, D. (2001). Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analyzing talk, text, andinteraction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Spillane, J. P. (2006).Distributed leadership. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998)Basics of qualitative research: grounded theory procedures

and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.




19/19

Templeton, F. (1966). Alienation and political participation: Some research findings. Public

Opinion Quarterly 30(2), 249-261.

Waller, W. (1961). The sociology of teaching. New York: John Wiley.Wirt, F. M., & Kirst, M. W. (1972). Political and social foundations of education. Berkeley,

CA: McCutchan Publishing Corporation.

Wolcott, H. F. (1970). An ethnographic approach to the study of school administrators.Human

Organization, 29(2), 115-122.

Wolcott, H. F. (1975). Criteria for an ethnographic approach to research in schools.Human

Organization, 34(2), 111-127.

Wolcott, H. F. (1985). On ethnographic intent.Educational Administration Quarterly, 21(3),

187-203.

Zielinski, A. E., & Hoy, W. K. (1983). Isolation and alienation in elementary schools.

Educational Administration Quarterly 19(2), 27-45.1.

Jeffrey S. Brooks is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership &

Policy Studies at Florida State University. His research focuses on socio-cultural and ethical

dynamics of educational leadership practice and preparation. His work has appeared in the

Journal of School Leadership, theJournal of Educational Administration, and theInternational

Electronic Journal of Leadership for Learning. He is author of the book, The Dark Side of School

Reform: Teaching in the Space between Reality and Utopia (2006, Rowman & Littlefield

Education), a full-length study of teacher alienation.

Roxanne M. Hughes is a doctoral student in the Department of Educational Leadership &

Policy Studies at Florida State University. Her research interests include female students

persistence in science education and science careers.

Melanie C. Brooks is a doctoral student in International Education with the Department of

Educational Leadership & Policy Studies at The Florida State University. Her research inter-

ests include international education, sociology of education, library development as a crisis

response, and transnational studies of religion and education with an emphasis on conversion

from Christianity to Islam.


Documents

3 Fear and Trembling in the American High School