Transforming Teachers' Work Globally: In Search of a Better Way for Schools and Their Communities (2014)

Kimonen, E., & Evalainen, R. (Eds.) (2013). Transforming teachers' 'work globally: In of a for schools and their communities. Citation: Hargreaves, L. (2014). Review of book Transforming teachers' work globally: In of a for schools and their communities by Kimonen. R, & Evalainen, R. (Eds.), Journal of Research in Rural Education, 29(10), 1-3.This book places teachers' work and its transformative potential, at heart of a collection of perspectives of remarkable depth and breadth. The editors, Eija Kimonen and Raimo Nevalainen, and contributors examine teachers' work in culturally and politically diverse systems. Geographically, their search [for] a way spans northern hemisphere from Japan Washington State, USA, and from India Baltic. Academically it is interdisciplinary, with substantial historical, philosophical, sociological, and political components interwoven throughout, fronted by a psychologically grounded chapter which introduces book's social cognitive constructivist approach learning and pedagogy.The justification for a review in Journal of Research in Rural Education is that while its unifying theme is teachers' work in outdoor-oriented and community education, illustrative material is located principally in mral schools and their communities. In vast educational literature, urban contexts are norm. However, in tliis volume Kimonen and Nevalainen turn tables, and make mral implicit norm.The book's explicit purpose is outline complex character of teachers ' work in their and communities... in light of research findings regarding approaches and reforms (p. x). Teachers are seen as crucial for successful change...for long-term development of their professionalism, and for advancement of school's socio-cultural processes (p. ix). Their work, editors suggest, is to create learning environments in which teaching and are linked real-life situations ... [such that] ... learning [can be] connected with student's life, experiences and practical problems. Their search for a way includes Japan, China, India, Russia, Finland, England and USA. Given tliis wide cultural and political diversity, Kimonen and Nevalainen bravely suggest that innovative teachers should create a culture that lays stress on autonomous control of learning, encourages flexibility, and develops interactiveness both in and between and surrounding community. The notion that teachers create culture should be self-evident, but in increasingly prescribed regimes, tliis could be either daring or romantic.The better way would seem be through outdoororiented education, concerned with interrelationship between in and outside of school (p. 55). Tliis seeks answers the ultimate questions about in school: What is function of education? (p. 56) and what education's content, means and location should be. Kimonen, in Chapter Three, differentiates between outdoor-oriented and education. Outdoor-oriented is a superordinate concept that encompasses education. Here, she cites Donaldson & Donaldson's (1958) classic definition of as' in, about and for outdoors and hence refers reality outside of school. whilst distinguishing between outdoor oriented work education from outdoor oriented activity education (p. 56): both are linked work-based production but latter less visibly so. These two guises are shown reflect different societies' values and aims for education: former describing Indian, Chinese and Soviet approaches, while latter fits US, UK and Finnish forms of oriented education.The book's 11 chapters are grouped into three parts: I Enhancing Transformation in Teachers ' Work; II Examining Changing Nature of Teachers ' Work; III Reforming Teachers ' Work in a Comparative Perspective. …