Carl Rogers’ book “Freedom to Learn” emphasises the role of learners’ autonomy, along with their personal experiences and feelings in creating an effective and fulfilling educational experience. But we can only develop autonomous learners through autonomous teachers. We simply cannot say we want happy, healthy, resilient, independent, confident, creative learners if we don’t enable those same characteristics in educators.
There is a significant body of research suggesting that when teachers have autonomy in their work, they are more committed motivated, engaged and innovative. Not only that, they enjoy better job satisfaction, and are more likely to stay in their jobs – a important factor when considering the current recruitment/retention issues that the sector is facing.
Of course, it can be said that autonomy is something teachers already have. After all, they work alone, and are free to make their own decisions about what they do in learning sessions. However, it is not quite as simple as that. Things that leaders do and say influence the way that teachers work, and can lead to them feeling that they need to teach in a certain way to meet expectations.
