In time of crisis, the quest for education becomes increasingly urgent and crucial. This goal, however, is lined with doubts and pitfalls, and the meaning and aim of modern education need to be clarified. Nevertheless, an increasing number of national and international policies recognize the role and the importance of educational processes for human development in a flourishing society.
Schools, in particular, have a duty to provide pupils with an education which will enable them to adapt to an increasingly diversified and complex environment, in which creativity, the ability to innovate, entrepreneurship and a commitment to continue learning are just as important as the specific knowledge of a subject (EU, 2008). Schools and teachers need a major support to integrate, systematically, the key competences (EU, 2006), in the teaching and learning processes. It is needed also a reflection about schools and teachers’ ability to rethink their architectures and designs, to make them able to transform themselves in real time, responding to the stimuli that come from context and society. There are alternative directions to reaching this goal, each influenced by the range of epistemological and or ontological frameworks behind today’s main theories of knowledge. These frameworks lead to various pedagogical models, which orient instruction more towards personal individualization, communal socialization and environmental evolution. The various theories of knowledge are also responsible for various methods of teaching and learning in school, which are conceived and proposed as monologic, dialogic or polyphonic processes (Pasgaard, 2009; Wegerif, 2011). The underlying acknowledgement guiding these educational proposals is that instruction, like life, cannot always be planned, especially when students are being taught the skills for interacting with real-life situations and problems (Donmoyer, 1983; Jackson, 1977; Lortie, 1975). In this perspective, the idea that instruction should be considered both as a system of “ordered experience in the life disorder” and/or “a disordering experience in the life order” becomes theoretically and practically interesting. We believe that the time for recognizing that education needs more pedagogical improvisation and an open-ended view of curriculum, is finally on its way.

The educational components present in improvisational process can be explicitly recognized (Santi, Zorzi, 2016), but they are still neglected in traditional pedagogy. The curriculum itself can become an opportunity to create new melodies in the classroom by harmonizing the suggestions raised by disciplinary contents with the struggle to question knowledge. The environment of the classroom becomes the extraordinary scenario to play and improvise ordinary occasions of life development, for students and for the teacher too.

As a consequence, “teaching becomes an art when the teacher is struck by the power of a curriculum to dignify a life and by the students’ need for that dignity” (Tomlinson, 2001). In particular, what the teacher needs and reveals within an inquiry-based learning perspective is the capacity to modulate classroom activities with the professional skills and techniques she/he acquired during her/his vocational training, improvising instructional acts that involve multiple pedagogical and disciplinary structures managed at that moment (Tochon, 1993).

A recent exploratory research (Santi, Zorzi, 2014) has produced as outcome, an articulated and complex profile-map describing the constituents and the characteristics of a “Teacher improviser” (Zorzi, Santi, 2016). This profile is the theoretical starting point from which this following research phase wants to start.

Which characteristics of the “teacher improviser” are recognizable as useful or close to the real school context, by school teachers? Which beliefs or implicit knowledges have school teachers about improvisation at school in general, and about the teacher-improviser profile in particular?

Bogdan, R. C., Biklen, S. K. (2007). Qualitative Research for Education. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc, (5th edition). Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory. London et al: Sage Publications. Creswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Denzin, N.K, Lincoln, Y.S. (eds) (2005). Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, (3rd edition). Donmoyer, R. (1983). “Pedagogical improvisation”. Educational Leadership January, 39-43. Ericsson, A., Prietula, M. J., Cokely, E. T. (2007). “The Making of an Expert”. Harvard Business Review, July-August, 1-8. European Union (2006). On key competences for lifelong learning. Official Journal of the European Union. European Union, C319 (2008). An Agenda for European Cooperation on Schools. Official Journal of the European Union. Jackson, P. (1977). The way new teachers think. The social context of learning and development. New York: Gardner Press. Lortie, D. (1975). School teacher. A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pasgaard, N.J. (2009). Erkendelsensbetydning for skolenogsamfundet. Unpublished dissertation. https://www.academia.edu/10939546/Erkendelsens_betydning_for_skolen_og_samfundet Santi, M., Zorzi, E. (eds.) (2016). Education as Jazz. Interdisciplinary Sketches on a New Metaphor. New Castle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Santi, M., Zorzi, E. (2014). Improvisation as teaching methodology and attitude: Which Limits and Potentialities for the School of Today and Tomorrow? ECER – Porto, 2-5 September. Strauss, A. L., Corbin, J. M. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Tochon, F. V. (1993). “Le fonctionnement «improvisationnel» de l’enseignant expert”. Revue des sciences de l'éducation 19 (3), 437-461. Tomlinson, C. (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed ability classroom. 2nd edition, Alexandria VA: ASCD. Vanassche, E., Kelchtermans, G. (2016). “Facilitating self-study of teacher education practices: toward a pedagogyof teacher educator professional development”, in Professional Development in Education. Vol. 42, n.1, pp. 100-122. Wegerif, R. (2011). “Towards a dialogic theory of how children learn to think”. Thinking Skills and Creativity 6, 179-190. Zorzi, E., Santi, M. (2016). “Teacher as Improviser: a Jazz Perspective for Reciprocal Learning”, in M. Santi, E., Zorzi, (eds.). Education as Jazz. Interdisciplinary Sketches on a New Metaphor. New Castle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Zammuner, V.L. (2003). I focus group. Bologna: Il Mulino.