An undergraduate at Oxford Brookes is aiming (or being aimed?? Now, there’s a whole other discussion! ) at becoming someone who understands “what it means to think and behave as a member of that disciplinary and/or professional community of practice.” Thus far the current statement on Graduate Attributes. For a student in Education Studies or Early Childhood Studies – undergraduates interested in education and care but not on a direct route to teaching – this may well mean exploring how schools work, how teachers teach, how learners learn.

The difficulty comes for some of them when we shift the expectation from a disciplinary discourse to that of a community of practice. Thus, when a student writes “The adult got the kids really wound up” it’s relatively easy to discuss how the language might be clearer if the incident is couched in less colloquial terms (although see below). A tutor might suggest that “get” as a phrasal verb is clumsy, that “kids” should be children, that “wound up” is too vague, or is too judgemental. There is something here about the range or tone that suggests that some distance expressed in language helps the disciplinary argument. Some of this is simply stylistic, and the Upgrade service at Brookes is very good at helping students with this.  Off at a tangent, I might spend ages arguing about class and colloquialisms, or US TV imperialism, or whatever, girlfriend. It is less easy when we come to the following:

• Teachers should ensure that children have sufficient time outside every day.

• Parents should read to their children, not just hear them read.

• Children need to come to school ready to learn.

None of these three statements are necessarily untrue, and at the right place in an argument might be just what is needed – at the right place in the argument. However for the kind of distance an academic argument requires, writers may need to tourniquet their recommendations and personal opinions. This is because an academic argument cannot be based on recommendation, even if it has at its heart a set of beliefs. An essay aiming at the practical considerations of a particular project – phonics, outdoor learning, the care of looked-after children – might consider how a belief, or the conclusion of research is put into practice – but cannot be based on out-of-the-blue “teachers should” statements.
Consider, therefore, how the three statements above are transformed below:

• Curriculum documentation [reference] recommends that teachers ensure that children have sufficient time outside every day.

• The report [reference] concludes that parents should read to their children, not just hear them read.

• Work by [author n – reference ] suggests that children need to come to school ready to learn.

In other words, the writer is openly entering into the “club” where these things are debated. It would also – might also – prevent the other bugbear of practically based essays: the way that personal opinion is allowed to trump any other argument. “I’m not really very fond of Piaget on this point,” as one student wrote recently. “My opinion is that children…” And while I wouldn’t want to raise Piaget to a godlike status, it did remind me of the story of the Bishop whose sermon included the words, “As Jesus said – and, mind you, I agree with him…” Assertion from personal insight, especially at undergraduate level, needs to be grounded not simply in the day-to-day experience of the writer, valuable though that may be, but also in the debate of the other members of the club. Do vobis potestatem…disputandi, as the charge for one of the ancient degrees at Oxford states: “I give you the authority to enter into a disputation.” “You now have the power to argue effectively.”
But at a time of rapid change there is a sting in the tale here, and the final question is this: How far should academics as teacher-trainers enter into academic debate, and how far are they trainers urging compliance with government directives?

It’s a slightly different case, perhaps, when we look at Initial Teacher Education. Here, the voice fr0m the community of practice the student is joining is stronger than it is for ordinary undergraduates. While I would still want to see a very healthy amount of reference to literature – curriculum documentation, research, evaluative reports by OfSTED, &c. – the voice of recommendation is (maybe) closer, and the possibility of dissent from commonly accepted notions of good practice is less. A good essay might therefore conclude with some explicit recommendation, and should include insights from the writer’s own professional refection, a simple exercise of editing out an undue number of “teachers should” statements would go some way to giving a better academic balance.