Teachers’ desire for career-long learning: becoming 'accomplished' -- and masterly. . .

Abstract

The ‘accomplished teacher' has emerged in educational policy as a term designed to capture the dispositions and skills of highly practised professionals. As such accomplishment is enacted within a current policy discourse of life-long, or career-long, professional learning which is concerned with continual self-development. This paper focuses on conceptualisations of ‘accomplishment' by a group of early-career teachers undertaking a masters certificate in professional enquiry. These conceptualisations of accomplishment, and their relation to the course, emerge through the teachers' talk-in-interaction and it is through the ‘small stories' the teachers tell of the everyday that their identities as accomplished teachers, and their desire for career-long professional learning, are constructed and performed. The questions addressed here are therefore: how is ‘accomplishment' construed and performed by early-career teachers; to what extent can ‘accomplishment' be fostered through intellectual engagement at masters-level; and how is the policy imaginary of ‘accomplishment' realised in and through the teachers' narratives?