Voices Inside Schools - A Charter to Educate or a Mandate to Train: Conflicts between Theory and Practice

Abstract

In this article, Johanna Elena Hadden distinguishes between two very different ideas of teaching — a charter to educate and a mandate to train — through a retelling of her experience as a fifth- and sixth-grade teacher in Utah. On the one hand, Hadden asserts, some critical theorists suggest that teachers should be given a charter to educate in which they are encouraged, and expected, to challenge normative practices and policy. On the other hand, teachers are routinely given a mandate to train that requires them to follow administrative dictates without question or challenge. Hadden contends that by establishing and supporting a mandate to train, many school environments constrain teachers — through overt and hidden forms of control — from thinking and acting independently and, in turn, from training students to think and act independently. She further argues that the pressures created by administrative expectations frustrate teachers who may ultimately be forced to choose between compliance with pedagogical and curricular standards and leaving their teaching position.