C OUNTRY OVERVIEW

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The leaders of all four schools were also very conscious of the importance of a comprehensive and continuous approach towards how the school is managed and organised. Therefore, who is going to be the successor was an important and difficult question, as pointed out in one of the interviews:

“The thing is how to find a best successor. One is very good in managing things and the other is very good in quantitative stuff and assessment. But when my predecessor selected me she saw humanistic characteristics in me. And while the system is working well, this is still not rooted within the system. I know the feeling of the community, some kind of spirit, and I'm trying to develop it and maintain it. I would like it to be sustainable. I do emphasize the human connection. Like a community that takes care for each other. It is very difficult to be a leader, and be part of the system for 30 years, and then you have to leave and you have to find that person that you think will take care best” (Principal, School 2).

For both the principals and teachers, the success of the school together with the satisfaction of the teachers was a direct consequence of the leadership style. And interviews to a great extent recognized that the role is not an easy one, as this teacher adds: “I am sure it is up to a good leader, one that does not get tired and that wants to keep it alive. Coordination is really difficult, because it’s not easy to see the results immediately.” (Teacher 3, School 1).

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Almost all schools in Hungary, including the ones selected for this study, have gone through somewhat turbulent past in the last three-four decades, with both small and drastic changes. It is important to emphasise that according to Halász (2007) the transformation of education in Hungary can be seen from nine different aspects including: (1) aims and functions, (2) management and administration, (3) financing, (4) structural issues, (5) quality control, (6) school autonomy, (7) teaching profession, (8) support structures, and (9) social aspects. The interviews provide a wide range of information on almost all of these aspects, particularly stressing on transformation in terms of teaching profession, school autonomy and structural issues. By looking at the primary data, there are reasons to confirm the existence of this ongoing transformation in the schooling system, in particularly from the perspectives of aims and functions, management, school autonomy, teaching profession and social aspects. It is argued by two important national studies that this current stage was substantially improved by schools’

participation in educational reforms that targeted development of innovations. Fazekas (2018) and Halász (2018) provide highly valuable conclusions on the extents of both top-down reforms and developmental interventions that get generated at the level of school, concluding that the participating teachers have a higher inclination towards continuous learning and towards positively perceiving educational innovations. Figure 13 offers additional evidence.

Figure 13: The impact of development interventions aimed at curriculum improvement

125 Source: Halász (2018)

The higher intensity of appreciating knowledge creating and sharing opportunities, as presented in Figure 13, is also significantly evident in the data from four visited schools, which reported that these values are intrinsic to their functioning. This brings in two of the very important elements, namely collaboration and mind-change. The interviewees in this study commonly reflected that they consciously abandoned the idea that a teachers’ job is to teach in solitude, behind the closed door. Rather, the value of opening the classes for occasional peer-observations, discussing the pedagogical methods and exchanging ideas and material is seen as beneficial and inevitable for professional growth.

This also connects to how the teachers change their mindset about their own learning, primarily pointing out that this is a lifelong process. In Hungary, according to the findings of the two national research projects, more than 50% of schools have participated in development programmes that aimed at improving teaching and learning. These development interventions commonly had training programmes and among the surveyed teachers 70% reported that they took part in such trainings. A striking third of them also noted that in their trainings they were in charge of creating their own pedagogical tools and new curricular elements, and devising pedagogical methods (Halász, 2018). This was implicitly and explicitly the case in all four schools and among many interviewees in this study which did note that they would regularly devise and change elements of their practice. Furthermore, this would always be in tight connection with their analysis of the changes in social structure of their student bodies. The notions that the society has changed and that the students are different than previously, as well as the mounting pedagogical idea of delivering student-centred learning opportunities, have been noted as the main drivers for developing new pedagogical solutions.

It can be also argued that the sense of professionalism and strong emotions towards the profession play a significant role, and the innovative method only makes this bond stronger and more meaningful. Teachers and principals expressed clearly that they go the extra mile because they truly like their jobs and working with children. They believe in the potential of educational provision that they are carrying and they feel satisfied with the outcomes, which in many occasions is solely connected to students’ happiness and progress. Yet, the power of emotions was also mentioned in the opposite direction, where those teachers who train other teachers noticed that there is fear and revolt in some schools in accepting novel practices. The teacher trainers noted that in most cases it is a disbelief that the method will work, stubbornness

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in changing the mindset towards being open to learn, and unwillingness to invest time in learning and perfecting the new practice. While these might be very specific cases in Hungary, they do generate further understanding of the mechanisms that stimulate teacher professional learning.

A significant driver for teacher learning was also seen through the specific school networks in Hungary. The continuous meetings and sharing of practice indeed support teachers in getting new ideas, re-examining their practice, and making connections with other teachers working with the same methods. Based on the previous research in Hungary, bottom-up school networks have become a significant mechanism for sharing practice. In Hungarian context these are closely related to bottom-up developmental interventions and Halász argues that “formal, non-formal and innon-formal learning events built into these interventions became the most important terrain of teacher learning, more important than initial teacher education” (2018, p. 14).

Furthermore, the previous studies as well as this one, also provide evidence that those schools that managed to change their practices in previous decades by benefiting from both state-driven reforms and bottom-up interventions portray stronger capacities for learning and innovating.

Such repercussions of school-based changes, for instance in the previous political regime, have been immense when it comes to teacher learning. First of all, just the mere fact that teacher collectives were given the opportunity to judge over their own curriculum could have significantly improved the image of teachers about themselves as well as that of the wider public. There is a high importance of a teacher being in charge of the educational processes in their classrooms as well as being entrusted as professionals to decide on the ways and contents of knowledge sharing. Secondly, decentralisation and school autonomy allowed for greater collaboration between school-based educational staff. Having prospective ideas and experimentations welcomed was another important element for increased teacher learning.

Therefore, the implications of reforms as well as greater social and political changes have also reflected on how teachers conduct themselves as professionals.

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