Why children fail? An excursion into homeroom teachers’ beliefs on the reasons for school failure

Abstract

[eng] Not many are happy with the products of school (Cuban, 2020; Rist, 2017), education scholars have been arguing for long that not much seems to have changed through the many efforts invested to reform almost all imaginable elements of the educational system (Adamson et al., 2016). Reviewing these efforts, it becomes apparent that they cannot be easily organized under any single thematic focus; yet there seems to be a recognition that teacher education is central to the task (Gordon & Ackerman, 1984; Guodong, 1997; Rhodes, 1994).. Although the present paper’s point of departure may sound ambitious, for it suggests that the beliefs of teachers regarding school failure might hold the key to some aspects of educational reform in general and to the betterment of homeroom teacher education in particular, in reality it is very modest. All we will suggest is that without paying attention to the language/discourse (our access point to the assumed teachers’ beliefs) that homeroom teachers hold, not much can be attained. We also suggest that changes in language might help change homeroom teachers understanding of the learner and the learning process and possible open new venues for educational practice. When pointing at language/discourse, we position ourselves within the area of reflection, which since the work of Donald Schön (1983), has been a prominent theme in the literature on teacher education. The value of reflection in teacher education has been consistently reiterated (e.g. Korthagen & Vasalos, 2010; Loughran, 2002), for reflection is a social practice represented in language and inscribed with warranted repertoires for action (Ottesen, 2007).