The Trials and Tribulations of Postgraduate Study While Also Being a Teacher: A Reflective Trilogy
Part Three: You've Finished. What Next?
By: Dr Mike Whalley
This is a series of three short articles on my experience of studying for a Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) whilst in full time employment as a teacher in a UK independent school. What I present is a collection of thoughts, emotions, and memories from the experience, beginning with the decision to embark on such a difficult journey, the practicalities of studying at such an advanced level whilst in full time work, and the surprisingly mixed emotions on completion. I hope these thoughts might serve as advice and guidance for fellow educationalists considering the PG journey.
In parts one and two of this trilogy I described my journey of undertaking postgraduate study whilst in full time employment. I described the deliberations I made prior to study and then the events and issues surrounding study during the completion of the course. In this last part I describe how the completion of my EdD impacted on my professional and personal life, and the surprisingly mixed emotions experienced as I returned to a more ‘normal’ lifestyle.
Once I had graduated in December 1998, I returned to work after a Christmas break as normal. Apart from adjustments that the clerical and administrative staff at school had to make in adjusting my nomenclature in official documentation, and I was now known as ‘Doctor Whalley,’ my doctorate had absolutely no impact or influence on what I did on a day-to-day basis. This came as no surprise to me. I did not embark on the study to raise my profile in school or to generate the possibility of promotion within this setting. I expect this to be the case in the experience of others in a similar position.
Having a doctorate also made no difference in my relationship to my family or friends. They were proud of my achievements, but I was still the same friend, parent, husband, and father I was before the years of study. I offered advice to my son on his own academic journey as he studied to become a psychologist, but I cannot remember any other occasions in my private life that warranted a referral to my elevated academic status.
The immediate period after the completion of the postgraduate study was therefore a bit of an anti-climax. I believe that when you are pursuing a goal, the body produces a neurotransmitter called dopamine which helps you feel accomplished, pleasured, and satisfied as you complete milestones along the way. On completion of the task, the dopamine levels drop, leaving a sense of loss and disappointment. So, there you have it, its science that makes you feel down after the completion of a challenging task.
However, I did harbour hopes that the qualification might lead to the possibility of a change of career direction in Education Studies and/or Initial Teacher Training in Higher Education. I was confident that this qualification in addition to the skills and experience I had gained over twenty years (as a teacher Head of Department, Head of Pastoral sector, and Head of Boarding) would leave me ideally placed to enter the Higher Education sector. I applied for numerous lecturing jobs within the Education department of many universities and Higher Education institutions.
All to no avail.
I had spent all my career in schools, gaining the experience and skills that would be so valuable to pass on to prospective teachers, but without any experience lecturing in Higher Education or undertaking research and then publication I would undoubtedly fail the person specification in an application for a relevant post. It seems that the very people who are most qualified to mentor the next generation of teachers are disqualified from doing so because they have devoted their time to the profession rather than working in Higher Education.
Perhaps I am missing something here?
On return to work in January 2012, I became immersed in the daily intensity of being a Head of Department and a Head of Pastoral sector. Although I was remarkably busy, I could not help but compare what I had written about with the reality of my school life. I think the characteristics of performativity as a dominant discourse that I had been discussing were indeed confirmed as a part of my working environment, and those of my friends and colleagues in other schools Yes, the regulatory and judgemental processes were manifest in continuous mechanisms to ensure cost-efficiency and value for money, climbing academic standards, ubiquitous assessment and appraisal processes, scrutiny of departmental effectiveness and performance, high visibility publicity and marketing and other measures in this ‘tick box culture’.
This indeed was the reality of our work, but it is true to say that I (and many of my colleagues) resented these intrusive mechanisms with the perception that they took valuable time away from the ‘real’ business of teaching.
I also paid more attention to the managerial behaviour, roles, and strategies of one or two colleagues who demonstrated an ‘assumed’ type of masculinity, one characterised by purposeful rationality, instrumentality, and control linked with a new professionalism, clearly influenced by market driven forces and regulatory mechanisms of performative discourse. Although their behaviour was irritating under my recent critical assessment, it gave me somewhat a sense of validation that the theory underpinning my research stood up to reality.
However, it was also increasingly apparent that there were too many variables in performative managerial cultures to confirm a privileged masculine code of behaviour and practice and I could see more clearly that other colleagues could switch between newer versions of managerial professionalism influenced by performativity in a rational, controlled, often aggressive manner in one situation, and then be much more collaborative, cooperative, and emotive, in another.
I self-identified as one of these fragmented manager-subjects, identified, proudly capable of utilising multiple identities and a wider range of tactics and strategies emergent in response to the multiplicity and fluidity demanded in my school environment. I would like to think (but cannot absolutely guarantee!) that throughout my working life I was authentic and did not have to resort to the fabricated responses and presentations of self as plural appropriate responses to certain situations necessary to play out roles to achieve a satisfactory conclusion to a demanding situation and no doubt ease ontological anxiety.
In my study I also recommended that further study should examine, in more depth, women’s relationship to performativity (and other discourses). This analysis of the gendered- self in such contexts, would identify further alternative strategies and techniques to respond to the demands of discourse crucially free form masculine-driven practice. I concluded that the promotion of a wider range of roles, versions, and images of the contemporary professional manager as an alternative to exercises that serve to maintain the historical association between masculine-driven and effective organisational practice is therefore creative and realistic.
I wrote:
“Only time will tell if the existing mutually reinforcing and seductive relationship between performativity, masculinity and professionalism found in this study can be contested, disturbed and redirected by an alternative discourse that highlights the possibilities for agency and resistance, and ultimately shapes a new accepted space for ontological survival by ‘un-gendered’ professional subjects, characterised by skill, adaptability and multiplicity in management structures.”
My experience in schools in the period after this statement was that management and leadership styles and techniques were in a period of change in response to the evolving demands in the independent school sector. This included skilled managers crucially ‘un-gendered’ professional subjects as described above. It was true that performativity was a dominant discourse in which these professionals circulated, but others, for example the increased need for ubiquitous safeguarding and child protection protocols were of rightfully equal importance. But there were other greater changes that had to be made in all aspects of education.
Society was undergoing massive changes brought about by the digital revolution, the increase in social media and rapid advances in communication and technology. We now live in a society where information is accessible and available everywhere, where communication and human interaction can be made in many different ways. The social network has changed the way we communicate, privacy is scarce, and although identity and equality really matter individuals reside in cultural bubbles ready to contribute to the polarisation of society through woke and cancel cultural movements.
Schools face an enormous challenge to provide a modern education that can respond to and reflect these evolving societal and cultural demands and expectations. Management discourse must therefore reflect the ever- increasing consumer demands of society, where diversity, equality and identity are so important, but must also be careful not to remove completely the essence of what it means to be educated, and there is a danger that educational communities have little sense of history, tradition, norms, shared experience, civility, art, literature, and celebration if we completely submit to ‘correctness’ in all its various forms.
To discuss whether managerial discourse now is performative and legitimises masculine driven managerial behaviour and practice as written about in my study, seems extremely dated and naïve now. In 2006, these ideas were contemporary and relevant and were of great interest to research, study and write about. The effort and sacrifice were worth it. I am pleased that in education we have moved on from discussions about whether men legitimise their professional identity in response to performative discourse and we must now consider modern educational discourse and professional identity in terms of multiplicity, gender fluidity, adaptability, and equality as it responds to the technological and communication demands of society. This is another dissertation, but I think I will leave it for someone else!
Now, ten years later, I am retired. Nobody where I live now and meet in my everyday life knows I am a doctor. I walk my dogs, I read, I work part time tutoring pupils Maths and English in Alternative Provision. I have coached sport part time in a local school. I have worked for a private company assessing and evaluating teaching resources for GCSE and A level Physical Education. However, I feel I could still offer advice to new and existing teachers and those in positions of responsibility. A combination of a career in extending over thirty years alongside an academic prowess in education leaves me in a position to say I could.
I gained so much experiencing the journey of studying that has stayed with me. There is no doubt that the necessity to become ultra-organised and time efficient undoubtedly improved my ability to do my job more efficiently. I was concurrently the Director of Sport and Head of Middle School where I worked, and shortly afterwards in 2013 became Head of Boarding. I would not have been able to do these jobs without the time management skills and organisational acumen that studying developed. I always worked hard, but the study journey had given me the self-discipline and determination to complete tasks to an even higher standard.
Studying at this level also developed my ability to read and analyse documents with increasing ease. Now I can read whatever I like and have no problem understanding what has been said. At work, it became easy to look at documentation involved in the various posts I held, and in my private life I can now read whatever I like and am able to digest and embrace the information. No books now remain unfinished, and I have developed my interest in history, politics, and law which I was not able to cope with before I gained the analytical skills gained during advanced study.
The same applies to preparing documents and written pieces of work. I had the responsibility to prepare policies and documents for my department and sectors. I no longer found this an arduous task. Laborious yes, but no longer a test of my ability to write in an articulate manner. I prepared many documents after the completion of the doctorate and have done so in other aspects of my post teaching carer such as in reviewing resource materials for examination courses. I would have no problem writing documents in any field, such is my confidence in writing gained from the skills required for sophisticated academic study.
If I had been told by someone as a teenager that I would have a doctorate in my later career I would have suggested that they take their temperature. I would say if I can do it anyone can. I was a mediocre ‘O’ Level and ‘A’ level student back in the 80’s but found an interest in study when I became passionate about education, teaching and PE when I scraped into, HE and Teacher Training College. I was determined to become a good teacher and soaked up and learnt so much from my colleagues when I entered the profession in 1986. This motivation to learn about education led to a MEd and then the decision to study for the EdD in 2006.
If you have this passion about a subject and are prepared to make all the arrangements to be able to dedicate the time and energy to pursue this level of qualification I would recommend you do it.
Having the doctorate is not about having a certificate or letters after your name. It is the sense of achievement and validation that you have the capability to excel in your field and to be accepted as part of the academic community in which your work has contributed to thought and discussion.
By: Dr Mike Whalley
PGCEi: WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The Warwick name opens doors.
Warwick’s PGCEi has been designed to be robust and rigorous - and, with a fully assessed teaching component plus 90 Masters credits, it has quickly gained respect amongst international schools.
Warwick offer more contact, more support, more advice and more credibility. A teaching placement and link tutor visit are compulsory elements of the course.
More than just a certificate, Warwick's PGCEi is a passport to employment at high-quality schools worldwide.