Autobiographies are tricky things. You wouldn't include what you want to keep secret, and would tell your own version of events favourably to you. So they are not the whole truth and may be nothing like the truth. The trouble is we tell ourselves our own autobiographies in our heads, in denial of uncomfortable bits of truth, blaming ourselves for nothing or everything.
I found Sheila Handcock's autobiography The Two of Us touching last year, her description of her life with her husband John Thaw, and his death. The second volume now out is Just Me. I have found it hard going until she arrived in Budapest, on a singles tour. Her account is self mocking, which helps her be more honest than usual. She asks awkward questions, and is not satisfied with unsatisfactory answers. And this embarrassed her fellow travellers, she thought.
So what about Budapest? Her one week tour gave her no answers, just things that people were not saying. First a fellow traveller from Halifax spoke disrespectfully about 'Pakis' and she challenged him: that led to an uncomfortable discussion about immigration. Then she visited and off-tour museum of the secret police, where torture implements were on show and secret files. She asked a guide, who would not talk about it since members of her family had been incarcerated and tortured there.
Unsatisfied, she stayed on a further week. She found the Holocaust Memorial Museum and was greatly moved by its contents, photographs by zealous Nazis of the selection and the whole killing machine. Children being selected for death. Murder on an industrial scale. But no one in Budapest would talk about it; better to pretend it had not happened.
The museums revealed the meaning of public statues that had puzzled her - shoes by the river; she found these commemorated those who had been shot there and pushed in the river. Those who had resisted. Those who had tried and been unsupported.
Sheila had been open to new understanding, and pursued socially difficult knowledge in spite of discouragement. That otherwise civilised people can turn on their fellows so terribly; and that otherwise caring family folk can turn a blind eye so easily. In considering our own autobiographical accounts, there will be things we find uncomfortable, and must not be met with silence but addressed. When did we not support a victim or face a bully, even in some much less offensive situation? And more importantly, how have we learnt from our past so that what kind of people we are, and will be, is transformed.
Saturday 31 January 2009
Monday 26 January 2009
Britishness and Englishness
In Miseducation and Racism, in the first on-line issue of Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World, Marika Sherwood complains about the lack of government engagement with issues of race and ethnicity, such as in the curriculum, and wonders what the current emphasis on 'Britishness' is all about. Count me in, I too am perplexed.
The political angst, I suppose, is what constitutes Britishness now parliaments are to some extent devolved. What have the English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish in common, yet which is different from other countries or regions. There is an organisational response - they have a British passport and thereby British citizenship. But the sense of angst requires more than that, a loyalty, a common heritage, a desire to contribute to the common good. Yet these citizenship ambitions need not be tied to a geographical area. When Britain went into Europe, many people were clear that they did not wish to be corporate Europeans but knew instinctively that they were British. True that was tribal, us against 'them'. Other states in Europe have a semblance of unity; only Britain contains four separate countries. Also, it is a cultural and political hegemony that 'decides' what our common heritage is. Is it how Britain saved and civilized the world? or how Britain exploited and ruined the world? Who are the heroes, who the forgotten? We recognise our heroes by the Order of the British Empire, so to accept you join the imperial club. In Germany between 1930 and 1945, the only heroic action was to be disloyal to the then government. Loyalty does not exclude moral choices.
Even more perplexing is the angst for Englishness. A Welshman or Scot might be born in England without becoming English in the soul. My mother's came from Nottingham, my grandfather a miner from the age of 12. My father's family came from Dublin, and before that from Scotland via Canada, since they were 'cleared' off the land by British 'nobility'. What is the common heritage I should treasure? I have friends whose ancestors in India, Pakistan, the Caribbean, Africa and America were exploited and harried in other ways, who now find themselves in England as part of the melting pot that is named 'English'.
In America, to be American in spite of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, meant something ideologically. To be America was to create and benefit from 'opportunity' (the reality was more restricting). Americans are even now re-evaluating what it means to be American, since the past fifty years have been found wanting.
I therefore contend that seeking out an English, or British, cultural heritage is a red herring, and is potentially divisive and damaging. What we should be doing is following Barack Omama's lead in the USA and take Englishness, and Britishness by the scruff of its neck, shake it up, re-evaluate it, and decide together as a nation of mixed origins and experiences what Britishness ought to be, what ideals we should be promoting, and what prejudices we should be attacking. Then, and only then, will we have something worthy of our loyalty.
See also M. Toolan
The political angst, I suppose, is what constitutes Britishness now parliaments are to some extent devolved. What have the English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish in common, yet which is different from other countries or regions. There is an organisational response - they have a British passport and thereby British citizenship. But the sense of angst requires more than that, a loyalty, a common heritage, a desire to contribute to the common good. Yet these citizenship ambitions need not be tied to a geographical area. When Britain went into Europe, many people were clear that they did not wish to be corporate Europeans but knew instinctively that they were British. True that was tribal, us against 'them'. Other states in Europe have a semblance of unity; only Britain contains four separate countries. Also, it is a cultural and political hegemony that 'decides' what our common heritage is. Is it how Britain saved and civilized the world? or how Britain exploited and ruined the world? Who are the heroes, who the forgotten? We recognise our heroes by the Order of the British Empire, so to accept you join the imperial club. In Germany between 1930 and 1945, the only heroic action was to be disloyal to the then government. Loyalty does not exclude moral choices.
Even more perplexing is the angst for Englishness. A Welshman or Scot might be born in England without becoming English in the soul. My mother's came from Nottingham, my grandfather a miner from the age of 12. My father's family came from Dublin, and before that from Scotland via Canada, since they were 'cleared' off the land by British 'nobility'. What is the common heritage I should treasure? I have friends whose ancestors in India, Pakistan, the Caribbean, Africa and America were exploited and harried in other ways, who now find themselves in England as part of the melting pot that is named 'English'.
In America, to be American in spite of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, meant something ideologically. To be America was to create and benefit from 'opportunity' (the reality was more restricting). Americans are even now re-evaluating what it means to be American, since the past fifty years have been found wanting.
I therefore contend that seeking out an English, or British, cultural heritage is a red herring, and is potentially divisive and damaging. What we should be doing is following Barack Omama's lead in the USA and take Englishness, and Britishness by the scruff of its neck, shake it up, re-evaluate it, and decide together as a nation of mixed origins and experiences what Britishness ought to be, what ideals we should be promoting, and what prejudices we should be attacking. Then, and only then, will we have something worthy of our loyalty.
See also M. Toolan
Saturday 24 January 2009
What is knowledge and what is real?
To an extent, life is an illusion and a delusion. Just because we think something is real does not make it so. In research which aims to produce new knowledge, we need to come to a view of where reality lies in old knowledge, where we are theorising, and what evidence we need to bridge gaps. Knowledge is different from belief in that knowledge is always based on evidence, whereas belief is given, accepted and passed on. Knowledge therefore changes as new evidence emerges, whilst belief normally remains the same. We might seek out the evidence behind our knowledge and deliberately try to disprove it or extend it. This is the purpose of research. So 'knowledge' is incomplete, transient, constantly revised. It is 'what we think we know at the moment'. My 'knowledge of Russia' would change if I went there. My knowledge of Maths would change if I studied and practiced it. We talk about knowledge as 'constructed' - that is, the evidence is weighed and from it we attempt to build the jigsaw. The jigsaw metaphor only goes so far, since there is a final form of the jigsaw, but no final form of knowledge. It evolves, and always will.
Nevertheless, and indeed because of this principle of uncertainty, the evidence has to be weighed and handled carefully, rigorously and reliably. It has to bear the weight we put upon it when constructing our version of knowledge. We have to satisfy other rigorous researchers who wish to know whether our work has implications for their own. We need therefore to be persuasive through our evidenced argument - demonstrating that our evidence reflects what is real and we have not selected only what we want. We need to consider whether the evidence is ambiguous, capable of being interpreted various ways. We have to distinguish between evidence, belief and opinion. These can cross contaminate.
The evidence has at some stage to be packaged, that is, put into a coherent explanatory argument. This is the construction of theory. It is a balance between understanding pre-existing theories - e.g. learning theories, development theories, management theories, organisational theories - and working out the most coherent way of explaining our own data in the light of the particular question we are asking.
A theory will develop over time. Evolution has been tested and modified for so long that no biologist would consider it insecure as an explanation of physical development mechanisms. But sometimes, researchers are conservative and it can be hard to overturn theories which have run their course because there is too much vested interest. Thomas Kuhn demonstrated this in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1961. New theories can change the way we view the world: plate techtonic theory and continental drift changed our way of approaching geology and physical geography. The theory of relativity changed physics for ever.
Qualitative research must be no less rigorous. It measures less and interprets more, so interpretation has to be multi-dimensional, polyvocal (drawing on many sources and points of view), and securely evidenced, not only using field notes but also recording methods of many kinds (voice and video recordings, photographs and documents).
Do we ever find "the real"? Scientists have traditionally believed that they are dealing with reality, and are called positivists. Yet explaining gravity, or light, or matter has been anything but clear over the centuries, and the future may still find us wanting. In the qualitative area, quality, feelings, motivations, strategies and so on are not difficult to evidence but rather more difficult to explain fully and deeply.
Thus we need to be cautious about claiming something as real. We hope that the issue we are working on is a real issue, and we can only demonstrate it by explaining why we have, through our life experiences, come to recognise that issue as real and in need of a solution.
Nevertheless, and indeed because of this principle of uncertainty, the evidence has to be weighed and handled carefully, rigorously and reliably. It has to bear the weight we put upon it when constructing our version of knowledge. We have to satisfy other rigorous researchers who wish to know whether our work has implications for their own. We need therefore to be persuasive through our evidenced argument - demonstrating that our evidence reflects what is real and we have not selected only what we want. We need to consider whether the evidence is ambiguous, capable of being interpreted various ways. We have to distinguish between evidence, belief and opinion. These can cross contaminate.
The evidence has at some stage to be packaged, that is, put into a coherent explanatory argument. This is the construction of theory. It is a balance between understanding pre-existing theories - e.g. learning theories, development theories, management theories, organisational theories - and working out the most coherent way of explaining our own data in the light of the particular question we are asking.
A theory will develop over time. Evolution has been tested and modified for so long that no biologist would consider it insecure as an explanation of physical development mechanisms. But sometimes, researchers are conservative and it can be hard to overturn theories which have run their course because there is too much vested interest. Thomas Kuhn demonstrated this in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1961. New theories can change the way we view the world: plate techtonic theory and continental drift changed our way of approaching geology and physical geography. The theory of relativity changed physics for ever.
Qualitative research must be no less rigorous. It measures less and interprets more, so interpretation has to be multi-dimensional, polyvocal (drawing on many sources and points of view), and securely evidenced, not only using field notes but also recording methods of many kinds (voice and video recordings, photographs and documents).
Do we ever find "the real"? Scientists have traditionally believed that they are dealing with reality, and are called positivists. Yet explaining gravity, or light, or matter has been anything but clear over the centuries, and the future may still find us wanting. In the qualitative area, quality, feelings, motivations, strategies and so on are not difficult to evidence but rather more difficult to explain fully and deeply.
Thus we need to be cautious about claiming something as real. We hope that the issue we are working on is a real issue, and we can only demonstrate it by explaining why we have, through our life experiences, come to recognise that issue as real and in need of a solution.
Wednesday 21 January 2009
Heroic resisters in rotten systems
Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment in 1971. An experimental prison was set up: carefully screened volunteers were assigned roles either as warders or prisoners. The two week programme would record the interactions between they two groups. Not all volunteers could keep going. The prisoners who did so became increasingly compliant and institutionalised. The warders increased in control and aggression, unchallenged by their fellow warders. A prisoner revolt was met with savage reprisals. After six days the Stanford Prison Experiment had to be halted lest psychological damage ensue. Most of those assigned to be warders became sadistic, revelling in the power they had been given. The researchers had a no intervention policy, and the situation went out of control. In writing up the final form of this experiment three decades later, Zimbardo has the advantage of knowing that the most 'sadistic' warders in the role play had matured into normal good citizens and parents so this was not a diagnostic tool for psychopaths. Ordinary good people became evil when the culture required it. About three quarters of people reacted like this.
Some however resisted the cultural expectations, setting themselves against huge social pressure. These resisters are described as ‘heroes’ as the book overall argues that we should not be pessimistic about humankind, but encourage more people to become resisters through education and other cultural media. The agenda therefore is for the education system to design a plan of action to enable pupils to understand and resist peer pressure. This will include them reflecting on circumstances when they exert pressure on others, as well as when they resist pressure put upon them.
This is serious business. Zimbardo points out that when new staff started work at extermination camps such as Auschwitz, apparently without a full job description, they were inducted with arguments such as 'isn't it better that they die quickly than rot in filth and die painfully of disease?'. Most adapted to their new circumstances.
Zimbardo, in his latest book The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil (Rider) engages with more recent examples of prison extremes - Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. He argues that the system was rotten and evil, and that the so-called 'rotten apples' simply acceded to peer pressure. The system should have ensured that the expectation of the job was humane, and tackled any overbearing and disrespectful assumptions.
Cut out half of the information children are expected to remember - I won't dignify it with the name 'curriculum'. Schools should be encouraging children to consider their actions and the pressures others put upon them, and be strong enough to say 'No'. Schools encourage obedient 'Yes kids' when we need independent 'No kids' - pupils who think clearly for themselves, think ahead, and consider issues, ethics and consequences. Role-play and drama can teach through experience. Literature/stories can help them to empathise with strong ethical characters without being moralising. History and geography can consider social justice and the ethics of ownership, privilege, and governance. Involvement in school decision-making and in the community can underline what we mean by respect and democracy.
Above all, school should be about blame and threat-free discussion about policies, strategies and choices. It should challenge scapegoating and stereotyping, presenting the community as inclusively 'us'. Only then will more people be strong enough and confident enough to object when callousness and disrespect of others is viewed as acceptable.
The school, College or university is also a system with embedded power relationships, which can go sour. There will be bullies, power freaks, managing by sarcasm; the system needs to control such behaviour as unacceptable and to advocate positive and empowering management strategies. Pupils and students should be encouraged to be self-validating and contributing unique individuals (called individuation as opposed the the dehumanising de-individuation (p.242). They need to consider how to cope with peer and power pressure and be able to retain their inner individuality, their sense of meaning an worth, even in dehumanising systems and circumstances. This is a challenging piece of curriculum development. The final chapter is a good starting-point – ‘Resisting Situational Influences and Celebrating Heroism’:
This is heroism in everyday life, as a natural moral response to the unacceptable, not the unreachable elite heroes of fiction. I invite you to visit the related websites, www.socialpsychology.org, www.prisonexp.org, www.lucifereffect.com and www.zimbardo.com and explore the downloads.
Some however resisted the cultural expectations, setting themselves against huge social pressure. These resisters are described as ‘heroes’ as the book overall argues that we should not be pessimistic about humankind, but encourage more people to become resisters through education and other cultural media. The agenda therefore is for the education system to design a plan of action to enable pupils to understand and resist peer pressure. This will include them reflecting on circumstances when they exert pressure on others, as well as when they resist pressure put upon them.
This is serious business. Zimbardo points out that when new staff started work at extermination camps such as Auschwitz, apparently without a full job description, they were inducted with arguments such as 'isn't it better that they die quickly than rot in filth and die painfully of disease?'. Most adapted to their new circumstances.
Zimbardo, in his latest book The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil (Rider) engages with more recent examples of prison extremes - Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. He argues that the system was rotten and evil, and that the so-called 'rotten apples' simply acceded to peer pressure. The system should have ensured that the expectation of the job was humane, and tackled any overbearing and disrespectful assumptions.
Cut out half of the information children are expected to remember - I won't dignify it with the name 'curriculum'. Schools should be encouraging children to consider their actions and the pressures others put upon them, and be strong enough to say 'No'. Schools encourage obedient 'Yes kids' when we need independent 'No kids' - pupils who think clearly for themselves, think ahead, and consider issues, ethics and consequences. Role-play and drama can teach through experience. Literature/stories can help them to empathise with strong ethical characters without being moralising. History and geography can consider social justice and the ethics of ownership, privilege, and governance. Involvement in school decision-making and in the community can underline what we mean by respect and democracy.
Above all, school should be about blame and threat-free discussion about policies, strategies and choices. It should challenge scapegoating and stereotyping, presenting the community as inclusively 'us'. Only then will more people be strong enough and confident enough to object when callousness and disrespect of others is viewed as acceptable.
The school, College or university is also a system with embedded power relationships, which can go sour. There will be bullies, power freaks, managing by sarcasm; the system needs to control such behaviour as unacceptable and to advocate positive and empowering management strategies. Pupils and students should be encouraged to be self-validating and contributing unique individuals (called individuation as opposed the the dehumanising de-individuation (p.242). They need to consider how to cope with peer and power pressure and be able to retain their inner individuality, their sense of meaning an worth, even in dehumanising systems and circumstances. This is a challenging piece of curriculum development. The final chapter is a good starting-point – ‘Resisting Situational Influences and Celebrating Heroism’:
“Heroism supports the ideals of a community and serves as an extraordinary guide, and it provides and exemplary role model for prosocial behaviour. The banality of heroism means that we are all heroes in waiting. It is a choice we may all be called upon to make at some point in time.” (p.488).
This is heroism in everyday life, as a natural moral response to the unacceptable, not the unreachable elite heroes of fiction. I invite you to visit the related websites, www.socialpsychology.org, www.prisonexp.org, www.lucifereffect.com and www.zimbardo.com and explore the downloads.
Tuesday 20 January 2009
Barack Obama
Today of all days, and this hour of all hours, noon in the USA on 20th January, 5 p.m. in the UK, the time of the inaugural presidential speech in Washington DC, I would like to welcome the presidency of Barack Obama in the USA. It will be good to have a world leader who appreciates and treasures words, and reads. Also who cares.
Obama has a big job. The USA is in a mess, in crisis, and therefore the world is in trouble. Today, the USA is a little less divided about skin colour, but the gulf between rich and poor remains cavernous. The USA today renews its vows with democracy, we hope sincerely. In Britain, we pride ourselves about our openness, but we are not unprejudiced ourselves. Prejudice and discrimination remain, and scratch the surface a little, people and institutions are happy to connive. Our poor need opportunities too, and our helpless need support. The time for complacency is not yet. We are all at the beginning of a long and winding road, on which we will struggle to go uphill, and hope our brakes work on tight downhill corners. And there will be bandits. A door has been opened, but paradise is not yet.
Today is a threshold, a turning point. Endless possibilities lie ahead, so long as we have the vision and wisdom to see them.
The speech (click for full text).
Obama has a big job. The USA is in a mess, in crisis, and therefore the world is in trouble. Today, the USA is a little less divided about skin colour, but the gulf between rich and poor remains cavernous. The USA today renews its vows with democracy, we hope sincerely. In Britain, we pride ourselves about our openness, but we are not unprejudiced ourselves. Prejudice and discrimination remain, and scratch the surface a little, people and institutions are happy to connive. Our poor need opportunities too, and our helpless need support. The time for complacency is not yet. We are all at the beginning of a long and winding road, on which we will struggle to go uphill, and hope our brakes work on tight downhill corners. And there will be bandits. A door has been opened, but paradise is not yet.
Today is a threshold, a turning point. Endless possibilities lie ahead, so long as we have the vision and wisdom to see them.
The speech (click for full text).
...For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
...Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.I discover this below from the Illinois Center for the Book, and am pleased with the accidental congruence of the words with my ambitions with this blog:
The Hall Branch Library, located in historic Bronzeville, was named in honor of Dr. George Cleveland Hall, a renowned surgeon, social activist and civic leader who was the second African American to serve on the Chicago Public Library Board of Directors. Dr. Hall played a vital role in connecting the African-American community with resources needed to learn, live, thrive and work by convincing a generous philanthropist to support the library by donating funds to purchase the property for a proposed library to serve a predominately large African-American community located on the south side of Chicago. The Hall Branch opened to the public on January 18, 1932, under the direction of Vivian Harsh, the first African American librarian in the Chicago Public Library. During the 1930's and 40's Hall Branch served as a meeting place for young writers such as Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, Zora Neale Hurston and Claude McKay. FOLUSA and Illinois Center for the Book designated the library a literary landmark because of its close association with distinguished African-American authors and writers.
Secular Spirituality?
Sage have published a long and detailed Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, and my review has just appeared. Word limits truncated the text; my full text is linked below. This reduction persuaded me to write a separate paper, also linked below.
The Handbook thoroughly confuses spiritual development with religious development. Only a few of the 60+ authors begin to tease out differences. Guidance on spiritual education by NCC and OFSTED make it clear that religious aspects are only part of the whole, but that spirituality is embedded also in creativity, emotions and relationships. The book I edited with Erica Brown (of Acorns Children's Hospices) in 1999 on spiritual, moral, social and cultural education across the curriculum located 'the spiritual', whether in maths, science, history or the arts, in deep 'who am I?' questions, as opposed to the 'how do I relate?' question behind moral education.
For all children, the issue of 'who am I, really, deep down' is of supreme importance. For children who cannot answer 'I am the child of loving and caring parents' the implications are far reaching. Where does their image of themselves come from? Some may find other significant adult role models, including teachers (of both children and adults) who are sensitive to the issues and open hearted. Those who joined teaching to help people and give them a chance in life. But their role model might be a gang leader, or an over-paid celebrity with a drink and drug problem. Their life horizons will be affected - for some, their life ambition is to make money, in whatever way necessary.
Spiritual education is not a textbook curriculum but a state of mind, in adults and passed on to children by infectious example. Children have strong innate curiosity about who they are and what they can become, and if they are negative, then the adults around them have knocked the positivity out of them. They are made disspirited, separated from a spiritual way of seeing in which their lives are, and will become, significant in positive ways which promote relationship and community.
I am not institutionally religious and have no great need for belief in the supernatural. I have no need for pat answers, since I love ambiguity and unanswered questions. Its a good job, since that is all we have in life. Yet I have certainties, about respect, equality of opportunity, social justice, the right to life, community, the support of the weak. This is what I mean by sacred. They are things I would die for.
When I talk with members of the various religions, these things are their sacreds too. So our conversations and relationships are easy and positive. There are shared understandings. There is much to share. I may be not 'in' but I am also not 'out'. I personally do not dignify my sacreds as divine revelations, but they are absolutes for me nonetheless. Arguing for my sacreds is why I write. The best of religious thinkers and writes also start inside the soul with the same issues and do not say, 'You must believe what I do. My way is the only path'. At this deeper level, religions can scarcely be divided. The Sikh scriptures have verses from Muslims and Hindus as well as Sikhs. They differ at a superficial level, tribal differences that can kill. At this level religion ceases to be spiritual.
So children being spiritual means that they think deeply about their place in the community and the world, and how they can promote peace through their actions and attitudes. They show respect for others, and learn to respect themselves. Regarding others as their equals, they support others unselfishly and feel enriched by their success. Peace is something to be fought for, non-violently, opposing both conflict and the root causes of conflict since these threaten safety, security and life itself.
Links:
Review of Sage Handbook
Secular Spiritual Education? , Educational Futures, vol.1, no. 1, pp.49-69.
The Handbook thoroughly confuses spiritual development with religious development. Only a few of the 60+ authors begin to tease out differences. Guidance on spiritual education by NCC and OFSTED make it clear that religious aspects are only part of the whole, but that spirituality is embedded also in creativity, emotions and relationships. The book I edited with Erica Brown (of Acorns Children's Hospices) in 1999 on spiritual, moral, social and cultural education across the curriculum located 'the spiritual', whether in maths, science, history or the arts, in deep 'who am I?' questions, as opposed to the 'how do I relate?' question behind moral education.
For all children, the issue of 'who am I, really, deep down' is of supreme importance. For children who cannot answer 'I am the child of loving and caring parents' the implications are far reaching. Where does their image of themselves come from? Some may find other significant adult role models, including teachers (of both children and adults) who are sensitive to the issues and open hearted. Those who joined teaching to help people and give them a chance in life. But their role model might be a gang leader, or an over-paid celebrity with a drink and drug problem. Their life horizons will be affected - for some, their life ambition is to make money, in whatever way necessary.
Spiritual education is not a textbook curriculum but a state of mind, in adults and passed on to children by infectious example. Children have strong innate curiosity about who they are and what they can become, and if they are negative, then the adults around them have knocked the positivity out of them. They are made disspirited, separated from a spiritual way of seeing in which their lives are, and will become, significant in positive ways which promote relationship and community.
I am not institutionally religious and have no great need for belief in the supernatural. I have no need for pat answers, since I love ambiguity and unanswered questions. Its a good job, since that is all we have in life. Yet I have certainties, about respect, equality of opportunity, social justice, the right to life, community, the support of the weak. This is what I mean by sacred. They are things I would die for.
When I talk with members of the various religions, these things are their sacreds too. So our conversations and relationships are easy and positive. There are shared understandings. There is much to share. I may be not 'in' but I am also not 'out'. I personally do not dignify my sacreds as divine revelations, but they are absolutes for me nonetheless. Arguing for my sacreds is why I write. The best of religious thinkers and writes also start inside the soul with the same issues and do not say, 'You must believe what I do. My way is the only path'. At this deeper level, religions can scarcely be divided. The Sikh scriptures have verses from Muslims and Hindus as well as Sikhs. They differ at a superficial level, tribal differences that can kill. At this level religion ceases to be spiritual.
So children being spiritual means that they think deeply about their place in the community and the world, and how they can promote peace through their actions and attitudes. They show respect for others, and learn to respect themselves. Regarding others as their equals, they support others unselfishly and feel enriched by their success. Peace is something to be fought for, non-violently, opposing both conflict and the root causes of conflict since these threaten safety, security and life itself.
Links:
Review of Sage Handbook
Secular Spiritual Education? , Educational Futures, vol.1, no. 1, pp.49-69.
Monday 19 January 2009
Revolutionary change in education.
This blog comes at the end of a reading of the works of the anthropologist Victor Turner who engaged with the ideas first of rites of passage (life crises and transitions) and then ritual. He came to see performance today as an evolutionary development from ritual to appease supernatural forces. Now, those forces are seen as psychological forces, no less problematic and no less dangerous.
For Turner, revolutionary change came from ritual, which tackled a breach and found a solution, a Hegelian synthesis. As a Marxist, evolutionary change never brings political progress; it takes direct revolutionary action to overturn the old system and to get rid of old attitudes. There will be a struggle in which blood is metaphorically shed. In his view, ritual is an important mechanism for social change, in that it mobilises whole populations. Calling it ‘social drama’ he broadened the notion of ritual to ceremony and carnival. This interest in ritual caused him to join the Roman Catholic church.
Unfortunately, ritual and carnival can oppose change. The Sussex Bonfire ceremonies such as “Rye Fawkes” perpetuate anti-Catholic rejoicing at a time of cultural tolerance. Ritual can be used to solve social problems; but not all ritual does so and most western ritual does not. In the west, ritual is the problem, not the solution. Reconciliation is not possible so long as the Orange March winds through Belfast or paramilitaries of both sides fire fusillades at the funerals of murderers. It was the grass-roots discussions which dissolved hostilities, Turner’s concept of communitas, that is community positive participation, which made a peace process possible. It is this that provides the revolution, not ritual. When the revolution has taken place, then ritual (performance, participation and publicity) might seal it.
We have long used the language of change in education, whether it be action research, reform, or accountability. The desire for evolutionary change has to face up to the reality of school conservatism, which will return to the old ways as soon as pressure is released. The current period of top-down teacher competency and accountability (as opposed to bottom-up teacher creativity and inspiration) has lasted 20 years since 1988, mostly because that is how new teachers have been trained, and OFSTED has directly or indirectly persuaded those not of this view to leave the profession. These two decades of ‘reform’ have not produced dramatic change, so there are annual post-mortems about standards. Education is heavily structured, with schooling financed by governments, an authority structure, and a rigorous assessment and monitoring system. ‘Progress’ or otherwise, strictly defined, registers on league tables. However there are pressures against these structures both from pupils and teachers, pupils resisting over-authoritarianism, and teachers resisting top-down demands. Schools are judged on achievements at 16, and to a lesser extent on earlier SATs, but the quality of a school requires more than high results. They need to motivate children, add value, and rescue children from deep senses of failure.
Turner's 'liminality', that is the state of being on a threshold, is a bottom-up reassessment of our values and strategies, democratically reached; and communitas is the social partnership process which brings people into positive relationships which encourage change. This encourages debate at its most open-minded, after putting aside status and personal benefit, for the common good. This means putting all perspectives into the melting pot, deciding the mission and vision (no doubt about rescuing desperate children), and then deciding how best to achieve the resulting ambitions, without the distractions of historic agendas and empires. We all see ourselves as at the doorway, the threshold, of a new journey, a crossroads between a fruitful path and a barren policy. The experience of being on that threshold is what we mean by liminality. That gives us a vision of possible futures if we dare to cross over and embrace them. This is exhilarating, but is a counterculture and has its dangers. It exists because it is telling the power in the land that the vision behind the money - that is, education funding - and inspection (that is, policing) is wrong. And, whether Labour or Tory, it has been wrong for some time.
For Turner, revolutionary change came from ritual, which tackled a breach and found a solution, a Hegelian synthesis. As a Marxist, evolutionary change never brings political progress; it takes direct revolutionary action to overturn the old system and to get rid of old attitudes. There will be a struggle in which blood is metaphorically shed. In his view, ritual is an important mechanism for social change, in that it mobilises whole populations. Calling it ‘social drama’ he broadened the notion of ritual to ceremony and carnival. This interest in ritual caused him to join the Roman Catholic church.
Unfortunately, ritual and carnival can oppose change. The Sussex Bonfire ceremonies such as “Rye Fawkes” perpetuate anti-Catholic rejoicing at a time of cultural tolerance. Ritual can be used to solve social problems; but not all ritual does so and most western ritual does not. In the west, ritual is the problem, not the solution. Reconciliation is not possible so long as the Orange March winds through Belfast or paramilitaries of both sides fire fusillades at the funerals of murderers. It was the grass-roots discussions which dissolved hostilities, Turner’s concept of communitas, that is community positive participation, which made a peace process possible. It is this that provides the revolution, not ritual. When the revolution has taken place, then ritual (performance, participation and publicity) might seal it.
We have long used the language of change in education, whether it be action research, reform, or accountability. The desire for evolutionary change has to face up to the reality of school conservatism, which will return to the old ways as soon as pressure is released. The current period of top-down teacher competency and accountability (as opposed to bottom-up teacher creativity and inspiration) has lasted 20 years since 1988, mostly because that is how new teachers have been trained, and OFSTED has directly or indirectly persuaded those not of this view to leave the profession. These two decades of ‘reform’ have not produced dramatic change, so there are annual post-mortems about standards. Education is heavily structured, with schooling financed by governments, an authority structure, and a rigorous assessment and monitoring system. ‘Progress’ or otherwise, strictly defined, registers on league tables. However there are pressures against these structures both from pupils and teachers, pupils resisting over-authoritarianism, and teachers resisting top-down demands. Schools are judged on achievements at 16, and to a lesser extent on earlier SATs, but the quality of a school requires more than high results. They need to motivate children, add value, and rescue children from deep senses of failure.
Turner's 'liminality', that is the state of being on a threshold, is a bottom-up reassessment of our values and strategies, democratically reached; and communitas is the social partnership process which brings people into positive relationships which encourage change. This encourages debate at its most open-minded, after putting aside status and personal benefit, for the common good. This means putting all perspectives into the melting pot, deciding the mission and vision (no doubt about rescuing desperate children), and then deciding how best to achieve the resulting ambitions, without the distractions of historic agendas and empires. We all see ourselves as at the doorway, the threshold, of a new journey, a crossroads between a fruitful path and a barren policy. The experience of being on that threshold is what we mean by liminality. That gives us a vision of possible futures if we dare to cross over and embrace them. This is exhilarating, but is a counterculture and has its dangers. It exists because it is telling the power in the land that the vision behind the money - that is, education funding - and inspection (that is, policing) is wrong. And, whether Labour or Tory, it has been wrong for some time.
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