An Introduction to the Problematic of Teacher Identity: The Agentive Employee? : A Dialogue with Saeed Ghapanvari, Distinguished Scholar

Introduction:
The subject of education has always been at the centre of attention for thinkers, policymakers, and actors in the fields of culture and society. Among the pillars of this complex system, the "teacher" holds a pivotal and decisive position. However, the professional and social identity of the teacher in the contemporary era, particularly within the context of centralised and bureaucratic education systems, has become a contentious and dualistic issue. The question of the teacher's existential nature—whether they are an "executive employee" within a hierarchical structure, or a "human-cultural sphere" with an ethical and emancipatory mission—is, more than a theoretical discussion, a reflection of a tangible and concrete tension in today's educational space. This tension affects both the quality of teaching and learning, and the lifeworld and motivations of teachers themselves.

In order to examine this key issue and to understand its various dimensions, a dialogue has been arranged between two concerned teachers with distinct intellectual and experiential backgrounds (sociology and literature) in the office of Haj Valiollah Hamidi High School in the city of Nahavand. This dialogue aims to address this fundamental question from sociological, philosophical, and literary angles, and to provide the possibility of creating a comprehensive and illuminating perspective. The first interlocutor is Mr. Mohammad Amin Chahardoli, holder of a PhD in Sociology and a teacher in the Nahavand education district with 4 years of teaching experience. The second interlocutor is Mr. Saeed Ghapanvari, a graduate of Persian Language and Literature and a teacher in the Nahavand education district with 30 years of teaching experience.

Chahardoli:
In the realm of education, the question of teacher identity—"Is the teacher an employee?"—is the locus of a deep crisis. From a legal and administrative perspective, the teacher is undoubtedly an employee within a hierarchical structure, with a contract, salary, and defined duties, operating within a centralised, exam-oriented system. But on a philosophical and mission-oriented horizon, the teacher is the heir to a completely different tradition: they are a fellow-traveller of knowledge, an awakener of conscience, and an agent of emancipation, whose relationship with the student is founded on trust, care, and dialogue, not merely on the exchange of services.

This dual tension is not merely a theoretical discussion; it constitutes the heart of the contemporary teacher's identity crisis. The sheer reduction of the teacher to an "executive employee" desiccates the soul of education and turns it into a mechanical process. Conversely, completely ignoring the supportive and legal frameworks of employment also leaves the teacher in a vulnerable and unprotected state. The principal challenge is to find a way to safeguard the teacher's missional dignity within the structures, such that the teacher remains not a passive functionary, but a cognizant and committed agent who can, even within the system, create spaces for thought, critique, and emancipation.

Ghapanvari:
A few pens' fingers for writing, a few pieces of stone for sitting, and the presence of someone near the blue slate of the sea. The migration of the crows of ignorance from the skull of the earth, and a legacy of chalk and whiteness that has always been carried in the spare provisions of your knowledge. For years, your knowing has brought the lamp home. For centuries, the sun has dawned as ancient as you, and shadows have faded colourless in strange corners. Your wounded existence, more vivid than any pain, has held you captive, for you have never yielded to mere colour. A confrontation in your life has clawed against claw, and weary of every lack, you have infused honour into your words. Not in the guise of an employee emptied of your knowledge, but in the likeness of a myth, you reign over the timeless realm of essences. In time and simultaneously absent-present, unpossessed, in your language you have bestowed the wealth of knowledge for free. You lay the morning down from your shoulders upon the earth, and on the other side of the equation you stand equal with children in whose eyes you cross out the homework of sleep. You are thought and speech, rooted in good deeds, and you escort the sun with your footsteps to the classroom. A metaphor hidden in your gaze has made you a guest to the anxieties of livelihood. You wash your old and dark pains in love, to become more transparent, so that all may see the painting of words on the canvas of your body.

Chahardoli:
I thank you for your response in the form of a text so full of life and emotion, which gives me the vigour to continue this dialogue. I will proceed with a story from Columbia University in the late 1950s, where the then-president of the university, Eisenhower, in a confrontation with faculty members and professors, described them as his employees. One of the professors stood up and said: "We are Columbia!"

Reconciling these two seemingly contradictory aspects (the employee or the missional) requires a rethinking of the concept of "professionalism" in education. The genuine professionalism of the teacher is neither summed up in the blind following of directives and filling out forms, nor in a mysticism detached from material realities. Rather, it is rooted in "conscientious responsibility"—a responsibility that stems both from specialised knowledge and up-to-date skills, and from an ethical commitment to the growth of the learner. This model defines the teacher as a "reflective practitioner" or a "critical employee" who, while enjoying the rights and support of a formal occupation, sees their mission as re-reading, interpreting, and even constructively critiquing existing frameworks. Such an integrated identity requires institutions to provide support through the creation of promotion systems based on pedagogical merits (not merely administrative ones), the allocation of space for intra-professional critique and dialogue, and the recognition of the teacher's "professional judgement" in the classroom. It is only through this path that structure transforms from a confining cage into an enabling platform, and the teacher can, while enjoying job security, remain that "fellow-traveller of knowledge" who is the core of the educational process.

Ghapanvari:
Thought is a component that stands in strange conflict with employment in education. A thoughtless foundation, in its very thinness, is defeated by a debilitating economy. Commitment removes anything from the authority of thought to the assignment of any form of duty—a being-without-an-interior, trapped in a defective cycle, caught in bloodless appointments. Arteries that have forgotten how to surge, and have nurtured a famine of thought within themselves. Education is passive, and biting objects render the leaves without property. A serious challenge that draws the giant of economics out of its ambush. The dominion of this non-being fragments identity, and brings forth a combination of deference to power from beside the moments of becoming. The external manifestation of this combination is devoid of desire and extinguishes the thirst for thought. Somewhere in the desert, free of any re-emergence, it returns to a historical isolation. Such that from modernity we are diluted back into weightless, medieval, and insubstantial old schools.

Chahardoli:
Very well. What I gather from our dialogue can be expressed as follows: a rigid, economically-driven employment system desiccates the critical thinking and inner vitality of the teacher. What is eliminated in this structure is "concern"—that concern which is the source of intellectual authority and genuine creativity. This structure traps the teacher in a defective cycle of pre-determined tasks and soulless appointments, and blocks the generative arteries of thought. The result is a passive, weightless, and property-less education in which "becoming" and spiritual transformation have been replaced by mechanical obedience. This process places the giant of economics in dominance over the realm of education, separating the teacher from their authentic identity (which is precisely critique and the creation of new spaces), and ultimately leads us back from the enlightenment of modernity to schools empty of soul and meaning.