Professionalism and Teachers as Designers.

This paper addresses the issue of teachers' professional knowledge and professionalism in relation to the growing design aspects of teachers' work. The teaching profession is described as a profession characterized by ruptures as a consequence of school reforms. New demands on teachers are made as a result of reforms and, as a consequence, the character of the teaching profession is changed. The paper focuses on one aspect of the recent 'reconstruction' of the teacher, namely changes in teachers' work outside the classroom. These changes presuppose a new kind of professionalism related to the virtual aspects of design work: the way teacher knowledge has been embedded in practice must be replaced by a 'disembedding' of this knowledge. The changes also imply a new view of teacher planning which has not been seen as a practice in itself, but something that happens 'before action'. Seeing curriculum making and the designing of school work as a virtual practice which is different from teaching in the classroom...