ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes both the nature and the direction of the attack on teaching, and provides constructive proposals for meeting it. It analyses the challenge to the teaching profession and describes the political context in which the battle for resources takes place. The book examines the issue of accountability and considers the essence of professionalism – what makes a good teacher and a good school. It shows that the outstanding need for teachers is to answer the attack on the profession by enhancing their own professionalism, to resist the encroachment of politics on the teaching process, and to promote the essential harmony rather than controversy, which schools and children need. At the beginning of the 1980s, the teaching profession has to work in an increasingly hostile environment.
