Contextualizing Teacher Autonomy

In “Contextualizing Teacher Autonomy in time and space: a model for comparing various forms of governing the teaching profession” by Wieland Wermke and Gabriella Höstfält, I encountered something very new and interesting to me. Before reading this article, I had never heard of the word “autonomy”. I now know that autonomy means the professional independence that teachers have in the classroom and what they teach the students. Of course, this is a great topic because the government is becoming more and more involved in the American education system. When I was younger and I wanted to become a teacher, I always thought of the different ways to teach something or what I may teach; however, now that I am in school for education, I realize that I may not have as much independence on what I teach. On one hand, I believe the teacher knows his or her students best, but on the other hand, I understand, as a whole, the American school system needs improvement and government involvement is required. From the article, I realize that teacher’s autonomy is challenged through both curriculum and evaluations. Both I believe are positive, and can lead to improvement. It also leads to more professional responsibility. I believe there is a balance …show more content…
Teachers have a great professional responsibility and we all want what is best for our students. As a teacher, I will have to understand the balance of my own personal classroom, and the mass American education system as a whole. Personally, I plan to teach in the Swedish education system. So this article was both very interesting, and eye opening. Teacher autonomy is constantly evolving because the education system is constantly evolving and changing over time. I understand that my experience with teacher autonomy will depend on many factors; however, in the end, I will always work for success and improvement in my