BETWEEN INNOVATION AND DISCONTENTS: HOW SCIENCE TEACHERS DEAL WITH THE DEMAND FOR CHANGES IN EDUCATION
Teacher discontent; innovation in education; teacher identity; autobiographical research.
The notion of innovation is quite present in contemporary education. Despite the growing demand for innovation in education, however, its meanings are rarely evident. The constant and frequent pressure for teachers to innovate presents a significant potential to engender identity crises in these individuals. Our research revolves around this idea. Our goal is to understand how science teachers deal with the frequent demand for innovation in contemporary education and how they feel about it. We do this through life stories and experiences of teachers recognized by their school communities as innovators, as well as school administrators with the same recognition. It is a (auto)biographical research in which we seek novel interpretations of the relationship between innovation and teacher discontent. First, we identify how these teachers understand the idea of innovation in education, and then we seek to understand if they express the idea of teacher discontent and how this state is translated by them. We explore the fragility of the term "innovation in education" and conclude that the concept of "innovation in education" is complex, polysemic, and problematic. It does not have a univocal definition, and its meaning varies in different contexts. Despite this diversity, the demand for innovation in the educational field is increasing, and teachers are frequently called upon to promote such changes. Another central concept in our work is contemporary identity, focusing on current identity crises. Based on the works of Zygmunt Bauman and Stuart Hall, we characterize contemporaneity as a time when individuals can have multiple identities, which are constructed through a narrative process. Drawing from Manfré's work (2014), which investigates teacher discontent, we arrive at the notion of identity crisis related to the issue of "innovation in education." Teacher discontent is understood as a state, and not just a phenomenon, in this context. Our findings point to the fact that the feeling regarding the constant and frequent demand for innovation in education is one of discontent. To a greater or lesser degree, the demand for innovation is understood as dissatisfaction with who they are or propose to be. The perception of teachers is that possessing some technical expertise is essential to attend the demand for innovation in education, but it is not clear exactly what such expertise entails. One way to deal with the feeling of discontent that we identified is by establishing learning commitments with their students. Ultimately, these teachers fundamentally claim a sense of belonging.