What does love look like in this classroom? Love as motivation for teacher professionalism
Written by: Huw Humphreys
8 min read
HUW HUMPHREYS, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON, UK
Both as teacher and as school leader, I have interviewed large numbers of people for teaching roles. When asking the perennial ‘why did you choose to become a teacher?’ question, nobody reports being motivated by the need to fulfil the teachers’ standards (DfE, 2011). These standards, now recognised as distorting teacher professionalism (Müller and Cook, 2024), nevertheless govern the Early Career Framework for new teachers in English maintained schools, and the Core Content Framework used by ITE providers (DfE, 2019a, 2019b). Despite recent advances in understanding teacher professionalism, the teachers’ standards still frame ‘professionalism’ in the minds of teachers and school leaders. This short perspective piece challenges that framing and argues that in order to grow a caring and flourishing school system, we need to look elsewhere.
A philosophical perspective
Instead, in answer to my interview
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