Apologies for break in posts, owing to activities writing for publication. You can catch some of this, if you wish, on http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/view/author/Bigger,_Stephen.html.
See also my blog http://1930-1960.blogspot.com where I have added discussions of second world war literature.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Wisdom and education
I remember an 8 year old girl once telling me, "A wise person is someone who knows a lot about many things, but is humble and not proud and uses what they know to help other people". She must have been talking to Robert Sternberg.
Robert J. Sternberg explores (2004) the balance theory of wisdom. At heart it claims that a wise action works towards a common good.
Judgements that actions are wise or not may depend on our approval or disapproval of the actions - are actions we disapprove of automatically thought of as unwise? Even if they meet all of the above criteria. The criteria may help us to reject such subjective views of wisdom, but there may be subjectivity in each of the criteria. If the only actions that can be considered wise are those which have a consensus, there is no room for the paradigm-breaking steps which will take people a while to get used to. The need for consensus will in fact hold development back, linking action to the lowest common denominator of understanding. We have to view such paradigm-breaking actions as being in the common good even if they are not so recognised. Sternberg notes elsehere (2003:180):
[Sternberg, Robert J. (2003) Wisdom, intelligence and creativity synthesised, Cambridge University Press; Sternberg, R. J. (2004). ‘What is wisdom and how can we develop it?’. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 591, no. 1, pp. 164-174. Online: http://ann.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/591/1/164.]
Robert J. Sternberg explores (2004) the balance theory of wisdom. At heart it claims that a wise action works towards a common good.
Wisdom is the use of one’s intelligence and experience as mediated by values toward the achievement of a common good through a balance among (1) intrapersonal, (2) interpersonal, and (3) extrapersonal interests, over the (1) short and (2) long terms, to achieve a balance among (1) adaptation to existing environments, (2) shaping of existing environments, and (3) selection of new environments. This article discusses the balance theory of wisdom, and how wisdom can be assessed and developed.The phrase 'common good' can be problematic unless it is shaped democratically. The Nazi definition of common good was aimed at only part of the population, and was probably not even true for them. Sternberg describes his book (2003) as exploring perceptions of wisdom in America, and may therefore not be generalisable elsewhere. Wisdom is a concept rather than a reality - the balance sought in the definition is more effectively a tool to analyse actions - are the actions for the common good? are they based on sound reasoning and research? have people's needs and views been taken into account? is it likely to be effective long term as well as short term? does it help to improve our world/environment?
Judgements that actions are wise or not may depend on our approval or disapproval of the actions - are actions we disapprove of automatically thought of as unwise? Even if they meet all of the above criteria. The criteria may help us to reject such subjective views of wisdom, but there may be subjectivity in each of the criteria. If the only actions that can be considered wise are those which have a consensus, there is no room for the paradigm-breaking steps which will take people a while to get used to. The need for consensus will in fact hold development back, linking action to the lowest common denominator of understanding. We have to view such paradigm-breaking actions as being in the common good even if they are not so recognised. Sternberg notes elsehere (2003:180):
Whereas the wise person is perceived to be a conserver of worldly experience, the creative person is perceived to be a defier of such experience.A wise person however it not someone who protects ancient beliefs but someone inspires people now to make a better world for tomorrow. That person is likely to be a paradigm breaker, a thinker of new thoughts, and above all a person who inspires.
[Sternberg, Robert J. (2003) Wisdom, intelligence and creativity synthesised, Cambridge University Press; Sternberg, R. J. (2004). ‘What is wisdom and how can we develop it?’. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 591, no. 1, pp. 164-174. Online: http://ann.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/591/1/164.]
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Language learning: sociolinguistics and education.
I am reading currently The Handbook of Educational Linguistics edited by Bernard Spolsky and Francis M. Hult, in 2008, 44 chapters and 675 pages. This handbook has a huge scope, so my comments are selective. The Handbook’s concern is how children learn to speak, read and write, whether in one language or several. The discipline of the sociolinguist is to observe, listen and report. Mostly they are not teachers, but their observations are likely to be very relevant to learning and teaching.
A third of children in the world do not have an education in their first language. In some English medium schools (i.e. who teach in English) in the UK, there can be over a hundred different first languages spoken by pupils. Although it is true that English is a useful language for them to have, research strongly indicates that those who do not use their first language in school do not develop language or understanding as readily as those who do. If they can use both first language and English together, they get the benefit of proper development and bilingualism. It is important therefore that all children are able to approach learning through their first language. James Cummings conducted intensive research into this issue over several decades. He demonstrated that although conversational language can be picked up relatively quickly, the development of academic (more abstract) language is a much more difficult and long-term skill. This he termed ‘context reduced’ language, in that ordinary language is about objects, people in context. In other words, it is easier to be descriptive than philosophical. A child who has not been educated through a first language may consequently be several years behind those who have.
Of course, these children are also from lower status homes in that their language does not dominate the culture. Advantaged children are those who are educated in their first language, and they are in a position to perpetuate their advantage by achieving higher qualifications. This process of being a dominant language we term hegemony. This term draws from the Marxist observations of Antonio Gramsci, discussed elsewhere in this blog: he, writing in the 1930s, discussed political and ecclesiastical hegemony in his native Italy. Hegemony is now widely used of the privileges of power anywhere, for example in colonial and post-colonial contexts. In Curacao, for example, the Dutch colonial power runs Curacao schools through the Dutch language and using Dutch textbooks, even though the children speak Papiamentu as their first language. Where teaching is not bilingual (for example when Dutch teachers are used rather than islanders) the children are at a disadvantage with academic concepts. The same applies with English, French and Spanish medium schools.
In the UK, the tradition of having bilingual support teachers flourished in the 1980s, but became replace by monolingual teachers using the dominant language (English). This brought back the disadvantage. It becomes expensive and difficult to organise support when many first languages are found in a school. One implication is for parents and other family to become involved in the first language education of young children, from infancy and into the school years. Implications for schools are:
To value first languages, never making the use of first language a punishable offence. (This still often happens).
To encourage first language speakers into school and to work closely with parents and families, perhaps taping stories and lessons in minority languages.
To encourage peer support, with inexperienced children being helped by older more confident children.
To encourage the use by staff of common words of praise (Well done! Good!).
For the education system more generally, advisory teams need to prepare and train staff in how to cope with multilingual classrooms, for example:
A third of children in the world do not have an education in their first language. In some English medium schools (i.e. who teach in English) in the UK, there can be over a hundred different first languages spoken by pupils. Although it is true that English is a useful language for them to have, research strongly indicates that those who do not use their first language in school do not develop language or understanding as readily as those who do. If they can use both first language and English together, they get the benefit of proper development and bilingualism. It is important therefore that all children are able to approach learning through their first language. James Cummings conducted intensive research into this issue over several decades. He demonstrated that although conversational language can be picked up relatively quickly, the development of academic (more abstract) language is a much more difficult and long-term skill. This he termed ‘context reduced’ language, in that ordinary language is about objects, people in context. In other words, it is easier to be descriptive than philosophical. A child who has not been educated through a first language may consequently be several years behind those who have.
Of course, these children are also from lower status homes in that their language does not dominate the culture. Advantaged children are those who are educated in their first language, and they are in a position to perpetuate their advantage by achieving higher qualifications. This process of being a dominant language we term hegemony. This term draws from the Marxist observations of Antonio Gramsci, discussed elsewhere in this blog: he, writing in the 1930s, discussed political and ecclesiastical hegemony in his native Italy. Hegemony is now widely used of the privileges of power anywhere, for example in colonial and post-colonial contexts. In Curacao, for example, the Dutch colonial power runs Curacao schools through the Dutch language and using Dutch textbooks, even though the children speak Papiamentu as their first language. Where teaching is not bilingual (for example when Dutch teachers are used rather than islanders) the children are at a disadvantage with academic concepts. The same applies with English, French and Spanish medium schools.
In the UK, the tradition of having bilingual support teachers flourished in the 1980s, but became replace by monolingual teachers using the dominant language (English). This brought back the disadvantage. It becomes expensive and difficult to organise support when many first languages are found in a school. One implication is for parents and other family to become involved in the first language education of young children, from infancy and into the school years. Implications for schools are:
To value first languages, never making the use of first language a punishable offence. (This still often happens).
To encourage first language speakers into school and to work closely with parents and families, perhaps taping stories and lessons in minority languages.
To encourage peer support, with inexperienced children being helped by older more confident children.
To encourage the use by staff of common words of praise (Well done! Good!).
For the education system more generally, advisory teams need to prepare and train staff in how to cope with multilingual classrooms, for example:
- To develop appropriately the education and confidence of parents from minority communities
- To develop bilingual/multilingual dictionaries
- To become more confident in name forms
- To become more aware of cultural (including religious) practices such as festivals
- To develop curriculum resources, such as simple stories and lessons in the whole range of languages in video formats.
- But above all in how to encourage first language use in diverse classes.
This is an important agenda for raising children and families out of disadvantage. It means developing a partnership between the dominant cultural and linguistic community and minorities within it. Being bilingual is a significant skill that ought to be recognised culturally and in the market-place. Monolingual English children are disadvantaged in various ways. They have not developed language through regular use of more than one language; they can only use their first language in their work; they have no access to many of their neighbours, leading to cultural isolation. That bilingual pupils are advantaged, and monolingual pupils disadvantaged in life ought to be the focus of more discussion.
Monday, 23 February 2009
Dynamic Evaluation
Is evaluation research or not? This is a complex question, the answer to which is that it can be but need not be. Let us inquire into what might turn an evaluation into research.
The simplest form of evaluation is the feedback questionnaire. They are given out at the end of staff-development courses, as a client satisfaction form. They might give an indication of quality, and ideas for future improvement, if they are seriously filled in. In reality some are and some aren't, some give comment and others ticks in multi-choice boxes. If a quality session is recognised as such by one perceptive person, whilst ten press-ganged attendees offer low scores, the result will be too low a score. Thus it is fundamentally not reliable. These questionnaires tell us more about the attendee than about the session. To be sure of reasonable feedback, a session needs to ensure that people are not taken out of their comfort zone; this also means that they will not move on. I remember race awareness training in the 1980s. This took people so far out of their comfort zones that anger inhibited rational learning. A session needs to push people out of the comfort zone but not too far - staged knowledge construction rather than revolution.
An evaluation might try to find out whether pupils or students have progressed during an intervention. Thus a pre- and post- questionnaire on the topic under consideration, establishing baseline and summative data, can chart progress. Knowledge and skills are simpler to handle than softer aspects such as emotions, behaviour, attitudes and values. Broadening the questioning to take in different stakeholder perspectives (e.g. pupils, teachers, parents, therapists) produces more broadly based feedback data, and spreading that data over time strengths it further. Studies like this are routinely published as research. However, their ability to generalise may vary, since there are many factors which affect the success or failure of a programme. Which processes are effective and which not may be very hard to discover.
A research might look elsewhere for ideas about such processes and seek confirmation in the data. These ideas are contained within the notion of 'theory'. For example the processes of learning draw on the work of Lev Vygotski, on how adult teaching and mentoring help to boost and structure knowledge. The word 'scaffolding' is now commonly used. Social process might draw on the work of Victor Turner, on how social performance or ritual smooths the way for social progress. The processes within individual well-being might use Abraham Maslow's work. New lines of theorising rarely come from a single piece of work but are associated with the life-work of particular individuals. Typically, a piece of research will gather its unique data, and theorise about it using appropriate models from others.
Dynamic evaluation takes us one stage further. Often evaluation simply records what has happened and seeks to grade its effectiveness, using instruments which range from crude to over complex. A crude feedback questionnaire may get many returns but contain no useful information. A 20 page questionnaire may get very useful information but have few returns.
I call this a static evaluation. After the event there are recommendations on how to do it better next time. Over the time of a long project there might be annual recommendations to allow for some formative development, if the project structure allows it. The relationship between the project and the evaluation is mechanistic - recommendations are ticked off during the following year, when the next phase of the evaluation makes further recommendations.
Dynamic evaluation seeks to improve and develop processes day by day. The project needs to allow for growth in the flexibility of its targets. The growth is produced not by the recommendations of the evaluator but by the quality discussions that the evaluator facilitates. The project team, by responding to these, find more effective ways of achieving their goals. The evaluation instrument is likely to be the policy discussion group; if questionnaires are used it will be to feed into this discussion. The facilitator will seek to open up perspectives in the group, and look for inhibitions and negative practices to counter. The group will be encouraged to focus on the real objective of the programme (e.g to help pupils progress in specified ways) rather than on numbers and mechanistic box ticking. The evaluation should therefore get to the heart of the issue and seek ways in which the team from an early stage establish positive strategies to meet their real objectives.
Because of the nature of the relationship, the evaluator is intimately involved with all aspects of the work in hand, attending and actively participating in every significant meeting. This therefore cannot be done by skimming over the surface of the project. There is a value for the project in the quality of internal debate and strategy setting; there is a benefit for knowledge generally (that is by turning this relationship into research) if the change processes are made explicit and investigated more theoretically.
The simplest form of evaluation is the feedback questionnaire. They are given out at the end of staff-development courses, as a client satisfaction form. They might give an indication of quality, and ideas for future improvement, if they are seriously filled in. In reality some are and some aren't, some give comment and others ticks in multi-choice boxes. If a quality session is recognised as such by one perceptive person, whilst ten press-ganged attendees offer low scores, the result will be too low a score. Thus it is fundamentally not reliable. These questionnaires tell us more about the attendee than about the session. To be sure of reasonable feedback, a session needs to ensure that people are not taken out of their comfort zone; this also means that they will not move on. I remember race awareness training in the 1980s. This took people so far out of their comfort zones that anger inhibited rational learning. A session needs to push people out of the comfort zone but not too far - staged knowledge construction rather than revolution.
An evaluation might try to find out whether pupils or students have progressed during an intervention. Thus a pre- and post- questionnaire on the topic under consideration, establishing baseline and summative data, can chart progress. Knowledge and skills are simpler to handle than softer aspects such as emotions, behaviour, attitudes and values. Broadening the questioning to take in different stakeholder perspectives (e.g. pupils, teachers, parents, therapists) produces more broadly based feedback data, and spreading that data over time strengths it further. Studies like this are routinely published as research. However, their ability to generalise may vary, since there are many factors which affect the success or failure of a programme. Which processes are effective and which not may be very hard to discover.
A research might look elsewhere for ideas about such processes and seek confirmation in the data. These ideas are contained within the notion of 'theory'. For example the processes of learning draw on the work of Lev Vygotski, on how adult teaching and mentoring help to boost and structure knowledge. The word 'scaffolding' is now commonly used. Social process might draw on the work of Victor Turner, on how social performance or ritual smooths the way for social progress. The processes within individual well-being might use Abraham Maslow's work. New lines of theorising rarely come from a single piece of work but are associated with the life-work of particular individuals. Typically, a piece of research will gather its unique data, and theorise about it using appropriate models from others.
Dynamic evaluation takes us one stage further. Often evaluation simply records what has happened and seeks to grade its effectiveness, using instruments which range from crude to over complex. A crude feedback questionnaire may get many returns but contain no useful information. A 20 page questionnaire may get very useful information but have few returns.
I call this a static evaluation. After the event there are recommendations on how to do it better next time. Over the time of a long project there might be annual recommendations to allow for some formative development, if the project structure allows it. The relationship between the project and the evaluation is mechanistic - recommendations are ticked off during the following year, when the next phase of the evaluation makes further recommendations.
Dynamic evaluation seeks to improve and develop processes day by day. The project needs to allow for growth in the flexibility of its targets. The growth is produced not by the recommendations of the evaluator but by the quality discussions that the evaluator facilitates. The project team, by responding to these, find more effective ways of achieving their goals. The evaluation instrument is likely to be the policy discussion group; if questionnaires are used it will be to feed into this discussion. The facilitator will seek to open up perspectives in the group, and look for inhibitions and negative practices to counter. The group will be encouraged to focus on the real objective of the programme (e.g to help pupils progress in specified ways) rather than on numbers and mechanistic box ticking. The evaluation should therefore get to the heart of the issue and seek ways in which the team from an early stage establish positive strategies to meet their real objectives.
Because of the nature of the relationship, the evaluator is intimately involved with all aspects of the work in hand, attending and actively participating in every significant meeting. This therefore cannot be done by skimming over the surface of the project. There is a value for the project in the quality of internal debate and strategy setting; there is a benefit for knowledge generally (that is by turning this relationship into research) if the change processes are made explicit and investigated more theoretically.
Saturday, 14 February 2009
Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire was born in Brazil and worked as teacher in the shanty-town slums. He criticised the tradition approach of the teacher giving knowledge to passive students, comparing it to putting money in the bank - the students accumulating given knowledge. His approach required dialogue, discussion and debate, with students being active in their learning. He affirmed that such an education process should be empowering for the learner, helping them raise their consciousness about the world and about political issues. Education should, he affirmed, help people see their world differently. He was firmly opposed to workbooks, for example for adult literacy, which dominated most of his work. People learn best if the knowledge and skills they are building up are useful to their lives, even life changing. The power between teacher and learner is narrowed, removing if possible the status gulf between the two so that the learning experience is two-way, built on relationship and joint effort towards a single goal. This dynamic approach to teaching and learning he described as praxis.
More detail can be found in the on-line Encyclopedia of Informal Education .
There are lessons for teaching today.
First that teaching means establishing a positive dialogue with learners which is rooted in a good relationship.
Second that there is more to teaching than administering workbooks or worksheets. It is about creating an interest in the topic which is shown to be relevant to life.
Thirdly, that knowledge is not given and received; rather understanding is constructed together.
Fourthly, education should change the way pupils and learners think about their lives, making them more aware, more ethically concerned, and politicised (i.e. inspired to change their world).
The effectiveness of provision in schools, colleges and universities could profitably be measured against these criteria. Where structures make such dynamic learning impossible,, they should be dismantled.
More detail can be found in the on-line Encyclopedia of Informal Education .
There are lessons for teaching today.
First that teaching means establishing a positive dialogue with learners which is rooted in a good relationship.
Second that there is more to teaching than administering workbooks or worksheets. It is about creating an interest in the topic which is shown to be relevant to life.
Thirdly, that knowledge is not given and received; rather understanding is constructed together.
Fourthly, education should change the way pupils and learners think about their lives, making them more aware, more ethically concerned, and politicised (i.e. inspired to change their world).
The effectiveness of provision in schools, colleges and universities could profitably be measured against these criteria. Where structures make such dynamic learning impossible,, they should be dismantled.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age
The report, A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age for the Children's Society by Richard Layard has just been published. Details are on The Children's Society website
Recommendations include:
Teachers should:Help children to develop happy, likable social personalities. Base discipline on mutual respect. Eliminate physical and psychological violence from school. Make Personal, Social and Health Education statutory. Present sex and relationships education not as biology but part of social and emotional learning. New tests on emotional and behavioural well being should be carefully piloted.
There are various recommendations for parents, governments, advertises, media and others but these are summarised by the final recommendation:
The report, now arrived, is a slim Penguin paperback. It is written in simple language, so simple that it seems like obvious common sense and hardly worth writing about. Yet, if it is common sense, why have opposite policies and strategies been in place for 20 years? - a curriculum more enamoured with testing than with enjoyment; a mechanistic demand for literacy and numeracy than with their development within a relevant and appropriate context which excited the children; an ethos of 'managing' behaviour with punishments rather than developing positive attitudes and self-control? The alternative answers are out there, and were in common use before these new 'reforms' in 1988. Further, the critique of this report was being shouted out loud across these 20 desert years - what about relevance such as work on the environment and citizenship? So these were tacked on to the margins, to be done in stolen time. What about enjoyment and achievement as well as good scores? So new guideline were given to require teachers to get children to enjoy the unenjoyable curriculum. This is non-political. The Tories started it, New Labour continued it equally enthusiastically. Someone has to change it. I hope that the Children's Society report gives a nudge in the right direction.
Facts and figures:
Percentage of children 5-16 with
Anxiety disorders 3.3%
Depression 0.9%
Conduct disorders 5.8%
ADHD 1.5%
Autism/ASD 0.9%
Eating disorders 0.3%
Total, any disorder 9.6%
Treatments: family talking therapy is highlighted, but the quality of the interaction is crucial. The best can improve the situation by up to 28%; this goes down as quality of the therapist decreases (based on family ratings). A very poor therapist can make things worse. Pages 121-3.
Costs of social care, remedial help and crime, per child (averages, 1998 prices)
About half of the children held in custody were 'looked after' in care.
Recommendations include:
Teachers should:
There are various recommendations for parents, governments, advertises, media and others but these are summarised by the final recommendation:
All Society should:
- Take a more positive attitude to children. Welcome them into society and help them.
The report, now arrived, is a slim Penguin paperback. It is written in simple language, so simple that it seems like obvious common sense and hardly worth writing about. Yet, if it is common sense, why have opposite policies and strategies been in place for 20 years? - a curriculum more enamoured with testing than with enjoyment; a mechanistic demand for literacy and numeracy than with their development within a relevant and appropriate context which excited the children; an ethos of 'managing' behaviour with punishments rather than developing positive attitudes and self-control? The alternative answers are out there, and were in common use before these new 'reforms' in 1988. Further, the critique of this report was being shouted out loud across these 20 desert years - what about relevance such as work on the environment and citizenship? So these were tacked on to the margins, to be done in stolen time. What about enjoyment and achievement as well as good scores? So new guideline were given to require teachers to get children to enjoy the unenjoyable curriculum. This is non-political. The Tories started it, New Labour continued it equally enthusiastically. Someone has to change it. I hope that the Children's Society report gives a nudge in the right direction.
Facts and figures:
Percentage of children 5-16 with
Anxiety disorders 3.3%
Depression 0.9%
Conduct disorders 5.8%
ADHD 1.5%
Autism/ASD 0.9%
Eating disorders 0.3%
Total, any disorder 9.6%
Treatments: family talking therapy is highlighted, but the quality of the interaction is crucial. The best can improve the situation by up to 28%; this goes down as quality of the therapist decreases (based on family ratings). A very poor therapist can make things worse. Pages 121-3.
Costs of social care, remedial help and crime, per child (averages, 1998 prices)
- with conduct disorder £70,000
- with conduct difficulties £24,000
- without disorders or difficulties £7,000 (source: p. 126 and note 260).
About half of the children held in custody were 'looked after' in care.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Experience is Pedagogical - John Dewey
John Dewey was a psychologist and philosopher when has had over the decades a profound effect on education. e championed informal learning within the formal education system. These points are taken from 'Experience is Pedagogical', first published in 1897. I present them here as not of historical interest only but helping us to reconstruct what education could become. Here, highly simplified:
Article 1, I believe Education is ...
the individual is a social being, society is an organity unity of individuals. Education must begin with individual capacities, interests and habits. The purpose of education is to improve society.
Article 2. What the school is...
a social institution, involved in a social process, a process of living today and not preparation for living in the future. Schools must represent real life, and grow out of family life. It must encourage children to participate in the process. School should be about personal growth. Examinations are only of use if they determine the potential role the child can play in community life.
Article 3. The curriculum. The child's own social experiences need to be the start of the curriculum. Subjects need to begin with ways in which they are experienced in everyday life.
Article 4. Methods. Only activity can deliver the various aspects of education and learning without dullness or sentimental emotionalism. For activities, interests can be observed.
Article 5. The School and Social Progress. Education needs to be a mechanism to achieve social progress. It should merge arts with sciences. The teachers need to recognise the dignity of their calling as helping to form a better society.
It will be interesting to map this against current educational provision.
Sample quotations from Experience & Education (1938), a lecture series which offers a mature synthesis of his ideas on education:
Article 1, I believe Education is ...
the individual is a social being, society is an organity unity of individuals. Education must begin with individual capacities, interests and habits. The purpose of education is to improve society.
Article 2. What the school is...
a social institution, involved in a social process, a process of living today and not preparation for living in the future. Schools must represent real life, and grow out of family life. It must encourage children to participate in the process. School should be about personal growth. Examinations are only of use if they determine the potential role the child can play in community life.
Article 3. The curriculum. The child's own social experiences need to be the start of the curriculum. Subjects need to begin with ways in which they are experienced in everyday life.
Article 4. Methods. Only activity can deliver the various aspects of education and learning without dullness or sentimental emotionalism. For activities, interests can be observed.
Article 5. The School and Social Progress. Education needs to be a mechanism to achieve social progress. It should merge arts with sciences. The teachers need to recognise the dignity of their calling as helping to form a better society.
It will be interesting to map this against current educational provision.
Sample quotations from Experience & Education (1938), a lecture series which offers a mature synthesis of his ideas on education:
"basing education on personal experience may mean more multiplied and more intimate contacts between the mature and immature than ever existed in the traditional school, and consequently more, rather than less, guidance by others." [p.21]
"How shall the young become acquainted with the past in such a way that the acquaintance is a potent agent in the appreciation of the living present?" [p.23]
"Experience and education cannot be directly equated to each other. For some experiences are mis-educative. Any experience is mis-educative that has the effect of arresting or distorting further experience. An experience may be such as to engender callousness; it may produce a lack of sensitivity and of responsiveness...
It is not enough to insist on the necessity of experience, nor even of activity within experience. Everything depends on the quality of the experience to be had... [It is the task of the educator] to select the kind of present experiences that live fruitfully and creatively in subsequent experiences." [pp.27-8]
"Every experience is a moving force. Its value can be judged only on the ground of what it moves towards and into" [p.38]
"When education is based upon experience and educative experience is seen as a social process, the situation changes radically. The teacher loses the position of external boss or dictator but takes on that of leader of group activities." [p.59].
Thursday, 5 February 2009
Ivan Illich and Deschooling
Back in the early 1970s Ivan Illich was persuaded that school education was so bad that the only answer was to scrap them. His book, Deschooling Society was iconic. He contrasted learning with schooling. Schooling is about compliance and obedience whilst learning is about excitement, motivation and empowerment. He referred both to an inappropriate curriculum, and an undemocratic school ethos. Schooling is done to children and not with children. His vision was of a global network of expertise that people could buy into (and offer good or bad feedback) instead of the state providing an education system. To the call to introduce free schooling worldwide, his view that this was the most unhelpful thing to impose onto a developing country. More knowledge, yes, more learning, yes, but NOT more schooling.
This has been a challenging thought. The 1980s UK government imposed a National Curriculum to improve things - it was even called the Education Reform Act in 1988. That was a botched disaster which saw annually revised versions, important afterthoughts such as citizenship, environmental education and careers education. Then a bolted on personal and social education permeation. Angst about standards, behaviour and school quality provide annual post-mortems. Employers still campaign about low literacy and numeracy levels. Campaigns about respect, and 'behaviour modification' are constantly reinvented. Education costs billions, but the problems have not gone away.
Of course, the issue for Illich was what would take the place of schools. He said, a network of expertise. We now have the internet so there is a means for delivering such a network. Of course, the good needs sifting from the awful, but that is not impossible.
It is time to reconsider Illich's arguments. Do schools need to disempower pupils? How could they in contrast empower them? Do schools (or colleges, universities) need to pretend to be the only holders of knowledge? Can education institutions prepare students to become adaptable thinking adults who will live in a world where knowledge is unrecognizably different from what we now think we know? Is the internet the best way of achieving this? Or will other things follow?
So Illich argued that schools made pupils dependent and not independent. That the NHS makes people dependent on experts rather that independent pursuers of healthy lifestyles. That in general all government institutions should empower rather than disempower, and produce motivated and enterprising people. That is still an important national and global aspiration. Schools, Colleges and Universities are only as good as they are at delivering such an enriching agenda.
This has been a challenging thought. The 1980s UK government imposed a National Curriculum to improve things - it was even called the Education Reform Act in 1988. That was a botched disaster which saw annually revised versions, important afterthoughts such as citizenship, environmental education and careers education. Then a bolted on personal and social education permeation. Angst about standards, behaviour and school quality provide annual post-mortems. Employers still campaign about low literacy and numeracy levels. Campaigns about respect, and 'behaviour modification' are constantly reinvented. Education costs billions, but the problems have not gone away.
Of course, the issue for Illich was what would take the place of schools. He said, a network of expertise. We now have the internet so there is a means for delivering such a network. Of course, the good needs sifting from the awful, but that is not impossible.
It is time to reconsider Illich's arguments. Do schools need to disempower pupils? How could they in contrast empower them? Do schools (or colleges, universities) need to pretend to be the only holders of knowledge? Can education institutions prepare students to become adaptable thinking adults who will live in a world where knowledge is unrecognizably different from what we now think we know? Is the internet the best way of achieving this? Or will other things follow?
So Illich argued that schools made pupils dependent and not independent. That the NHS makes people dependent on experts rather that independent pursuers of healthy lifestyles. That in general all government institutions should empower rather than disempower, and produce motivated and enterprising people. That is still an important national and global aspiration. Schools, Colleges and Universities are only as good as they are at delivering such an enriching agenda.
Monday, 2 February 2009
Gramsci, hegemony and social complexity
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was born in Sardinia and his work focused on Italy. A marxist, he was co-founder of the Italian Communist Party, working on their newspaper Unita. He was imprisoned by Mussolini from 1928-33 where he produced 'Prison Notebooks' which have turned him into a marxist theorist of some note. On release he continued writing until his death in 1937. A selection in English was edited by G Nowell Smith and Q Hoare in 1971, with a useful introduction. There is also a helpful discussion by Stuart Hall, reprinted in Stuart Hall: critical dialogues in cultural studies, ed David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, Routledge 1996.
He is known for developing the concept of hegemony - that is the authority that sustains people or groups in power. He identified a continuum between hegemony by control/ constraint, and by social agreement. His analysis was at the practical level of everyday life and national policy rather than a high abstraction. He recognised that real life is complex and was against the oversimplifications of scientism, economism, empiricism and positivism, that is that easy answers cannot be produced by science, economics, measurement or sense-evidence. Reality is much more complex, with all these areas, and others, all contributing. Such complexity needs to be factored into our research and analysis of life. He complained constantly that marxism was oversimplifying Marx.
Periodization: Gramsci recognised that there are periods of stability and periods of unheaval. Therefore a long view charts relations between structure and superstructure (that is, how local upheavals affect the social and political structure of the whole. These upheavals are similar to what Kurt Lewin called 'unfreezing'; changes to the superstructure of the organisation or society resembles Lewin's 'refreezing'. For Gramsci, forces are in relationship. The marxist revolution will not be sudden and total but a gradual process over time. A class, whether workers or bourgeoisie, is not united but very varied. Moving either class towards the other is a process of small steps.
Whichever is in control has hegemony and holds it either by force or by agreement, usually a mixture of the two. The ideal is to move strategies towards consensus and away from force. His examples focused on Italy with different hegemonies exerted by Mussolini and the Catholic church, each with privileges and self-seeking agendas. His campaign therefore was to move closer to the hegemony of the people.
This leads to the distinction between state and civil society. Civil society (the accumulation of all non-state activity) provides the way to neutralise any excessive hegemony by the state. In other words we all need to play our part, in our own way and our own fields, in social change.
Stuart Hall took these principles and applied them, as Gramsci had never done, to issues of race, racism and anti-racism. The long view shows gains and losses, and the best we can hope for is gradual progress, so long as everyone with a stake plays their part. The revolution from racism to antiracism creeps therefore along the continuum; racists will stop affirming their racism long before they change their attitudes, if ever they do.
This idea of slow revolution (non-marxists tend to call it improvement or progress, without always defining the criteria) is one we can apply to many aspects of education, attitude and practice. The 'intellectual world' is inclusive of everyone who thinks and articulates clearly, which should ideally be everyone. 'Thinks' means to think about life, experience, society, community, politics, justice and democratic empowerment. That is a challenge, and alas runs counter to the concept of intellectual found in the Academy.
Link: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-gram.htm
He is known for developing the concept of hegemony - that is the authority that sustains people or groups in power. He identified a continuum between hegemony by control/ constraint, and by social agreement. His analysis was at the practical level of everyday life and national policy rather than a high abstraction. He recognised that real life is complex and was against the oversimplifications of scientism, economism, empiricism and positivism, that is that easy answers cannot be produced by science, economics, measurement or sense-evidence. Reality is much more complex, with all these areas, and others, all contributing. Such complexity needs to be factored into our research and analysis of life. He complained constantly that marxism was oversimplifying Marx.
Periodization: Gramsci recognised that there are periods of stability and periods of unheaval. Therefore a long view charts relations between structure and superstructure (that is, how local upheavals affect the social and political structure of the whole. These upheavals are similar to what Kurt Lewin called 'unfreezing'; changes to the superstructure of the organisation or society resembles Lewin's 'refreezing'. For Gramsci, forces are in relationship. The marxist revolution will not be sudden and total but a gradual process over time. A class, whether workers or bourgeoisie, is not united but very varied. Moving either class towards the other is a process of small steps.
Whichever is in control has hegemony and holds it either by force or by agreement, usually a mixture of the two. The ideal is to move strategies towards consensus and away from force. His examples focused on Italy with different hegemonies exerted by Mussolini and the Catholic church, each with privileges and self-seeking agendas. His campaign therefore was to move closer to the hegemony of the people.
This leads to the distinction between state and civil society. Civil society (the accumulation of all non-state activity) provides the way to neutralise any excessive hegemony by the state. In other words we all need to play our part, in our own way and our own fields, in social change.
Stuart Hall took these principles and applied them, as Gramsci had never done, to issues of race, racism and anti-racism. The long view shows gains and losses, and the best we can hope for is gradual progress, so long as everyone with a stake plays their part. The revolution from racism to antiracism creeps therefore along the continuum; racists will stop affirming their racism long before they change their attitudes, if ever they do.
This idea of slow revolution (non-marxists tend to call it improvement or progress, without always defining the criteria) is one we can apply to many aspects of education, attitude and practice. The 'intellectual world' is inclusive of everyone who thinks and articulates clearly, which should ideally be everyone. 'Thinks' means to think about life, experience, society, community, politics, justice and democratic empowerment. That is a challenge, and alas runs counter to the concept of intellectual found in the Academy.
Link: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
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.
Thursday, 20 November 2008
Personhood, community and social nurture
Thanks to Anna Popova for an interesting discussion of vospitanie or social nurture in Russia.
I suggest the following in applying her description to Britain:
Our schools are pressed by government and OFSTED to be engaged with citizenship, personal and social education, social and emotional aspects of learning, a wide range of different initiatives which engage in some way with social nurture. This is part of the great concern for schools to produce productive and contributing members of society. The Respect Agenda emphasised that respect for others should be emphasised. This is top-down desperation, generated by teenage murders, muggings, and anti-social behaviour. What is needed is a bottom-up respect process in which pupils generally leave school feeling respected. That is, dialogue and discussion has happened, not recriminations, criticism and sarcasm. Pupils, teachers and parents together need to reflect on what it means to be a person-in community, and for that to be central in the curriculum. It is what we mean deep down by citizenship, but it is much more, it is a moral and ethical way of living in the world.
I suggest the following in applying her description to Britain:
After the Russian revolution, there seems to have been a deliberate attempt to rethink the notions of personhood-in community (as opposed to previously being 'feudal serfs'), and the concept of community (as opposed to hegemony/authoritarianism). The result was grass-roots 'socialist' reshaping or redefining of what it means to be a Russian 'citizen' (and indeed more generally a 'person in community'). The community ceased to be based on patronage and needed to develop cooperatively on self-help principles. Vospitanie ('social nurture' was the means of passing on these new definitions to the following generations, and operated independently of whatever was going on in macro-politics. It became 'tacit knowledge', the common sense of this generation and the last. It is now coming into conflict with chaotic market capitalism and the rise of individualism and the resulting fat-cats, and fuels a backlash which asserts the best values of the soviet years.Social nurture is the responsibiliy of both home and school. It involves 'what kind of neighbour are you?', 'are you helpful to your colleagues?' and other such questions. Social awareness is rooted in an awareness that others have needs and emotions, and that it is better to help rather than hurt. Such a simple start belies the fact that some children grow up to be violent killers or masochistic hoodlums. What went wrong was probably a long time ago, in their childhood. And there has been a continued failure to intevene and put things right. This is a challenge to community, society and the education process.
In contrast, in Britain there has been no grassroots reflection on citizenship as 'persons in community' or on the nature of community. The Plowdon Report (following John Dewey's philosophy) encouraged primary schools to develop active persons in community, but that was destroyed by our own market capitalist chaos from 1980, the negative consequences of which we are still experiencing in the banking sector. At policy level (top-down) we are trying to assert 'persons in community' and 'social nurture' but without a popular grassroots tradition to support it. We need to consider how to encourage such grassroots reflection on personhood in community, perhaps using vospitanie as a guide.
Our schools are pressed by government and OFSTED to be engaged with citizenship, personal and social education, social and emotional aspects of learning, a wide range of different initiatives which engage in some way with social nurture. This is part of the great concern for schools to produce productive and contributing members of society. The Respect Agenda emphasised that respect for others should be emphasised. This is top-down desperation, generated by teenage murders, muggings, and anti-social behaviour. What is needed is a bottom-up respect process in which pupils generally leave school feeling respected. That is, dialogue and discussion has happened, not recriminations, criticism and sarcasm. Pupils, teachers and parents together need to reflect on what it means to be a person-in community, and for that to be central in the curriculum. It is what we mean deep down by citizenship, but it is much more, it is a moral and ethical way of living in the world.
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Restorative Justice and Practice
How do you change criminals, the anti-social, offenders, people who cause conflict? Perhaps you can't with some, and we have locked most of them up in prison just in case. And prison has not improved them. Also, what part does the victim play in the justice system? Nothing, they are entirely sidelined. The offence against them personally, and the compensation that ought to be their due is hijacked to become an offence against the state. The adversarial way the case is heard might mean the best barrister wins and the guilty offender is declared innocent, sometimes to terrorise the victim. So, all is not well in the so-called justice system.
Restorative Justice seeks to make restoration by attempting to resolve the conflict caused by the offence and as much as possible 'restoring' the situation as close as possible to how it was before the offence took place. The offender meets with the victims in the company of a facilitator. Having ascertained the facts from both offender and victim, the facilitator asks the offender firmly and persistently who has been affected by the offence, and how. The victims are asked the same question. Then the offender is asked how the harm can be repaired, and an agreement is made. If this agreement is broken, then the case moves out of restorative justice and into court. It can be used from low level nuisance to violent crime. Research show a high satisfaction rate for victims - 85% - and much lower rates of reaffending. The perpetrator often for the first time understands that his victims have been hurt and can no longer block this out.
In schools, conflicts can be dealt with similarly, by establishing the facts, discussing who has been affected and how, and making an agreement to put right the harm. This turns a situation of conflict and confrontation into a learning experience for the perpetrator, who then has a chance to apologise and make restoration, and build a new relationship with the victim. It is the opposite of a soft option - it destroys any defensive front that perpetrators have been used to hide behind. It makes them very vulnerable, and by doing so enables them to build new values.
The principles of restorative justice can be used to discuss everyday practice - how to behave in a fair and equitable way. There does not need to be an offence, simply the context which allows young people to imagine a scenario and discuss the implications. This would then merge naturally into restorative justice, since this style of questioning simply is applied to any minor conflict that takes place, resolving an issue quickly and without confrontation.
At a conference in Swindon hosted by the Mayor and led by Sir Charles Pollard of Restorative Solutions, supported by headteachers, the police and community justice, applications were discussed and research data given. The importance of adopting this approach in the justice system, and in schools, was described as a 'no brainer' - there are only benefits, in success rates, costs and community cohesion. The only impediment is a conservatism that prefers vengeance and punishment to reconciling the conflict with a long term solution.
Restorative Justice seeks to make restoration by attempting to resolve the conflict caused by the offence and as much as possible 'restoring' the situation as close as possible to how it was before the offence took place. The offender meets with the victims in the company of a facilitator. Having ascertained the facts from both offender and victim, the facilitator asks the offender firmly and persistently who has been affected by the offence, and how. The victims are asked the same question. Then the offender is asked how the harm can be repaired, and an agreement is made. If this agreement is broken, then the case moves out of restorative justice and into court. It can be used from low level nuisance to violent crime. Research show a high satisfaction rate for victims - 85% - and much lower rates of reaffending. The perpetrator often for the first time understands that his victims have been hurt and can no longer block this out.
In schools, conflicts can be dealt with similarly, by establishing the facts, discussing who has been affected and how, and making an agreement to put right the harm. This turns a situation of conflict and confrontation into a learning experience for the perpetrator, who then has a chance to apologise and make restoration, and build a new relationship with the victim. It is the opposite of a soft option - it destroys any defensive front that perpetrators have been used to hide behind. It makes them very vulnerable, and by doing so enables them to build new values.
The principles of restorative justice can be used to discuss everyday practice - how to behave in a fair and equitable way. There does not need to be an offence, simply the context which allows young people to imagine a scenario and discuss the implications. This would then merge naturally into restorative justice, since this style of questioning simply is applied to any minor conflict that takes place, resolving an issue quickly and without confrontation.
At a conference in Swindon hosted by the Mayor and led by Sir Charles Pollard of Restorative Solutions, supported by headteachers, the police and community justice, applications were discussed and research data given. The importance of adopting this approach in the justice system, and in schools, was described as a 'no brainer' - there are only benefits, in success rates, costs and community cohesion. The only impediment is a conservatism that prefers vengeance and punishment to reconciling the conflict with a long term solution.
Girls' Education
A Commonwealth Foundation report opens with the statistic that 75 million children are “denied their right to an education” and that most of these are girls, using a World Bank report to emphasise the importance of girls’ education. The Millennium Development Goals include one (no.3) to establish equity between girls and boys in primary and secondary education by 2005. This report features four commonwealth countries which are off-target – Cameroon, India, Pakistan and Papua New Guinea. Significant players in these places identified factors which are contributing to the lack of success.
Systemic issues include better access to education (especially having more reachable girls’ schools); the need for more gender-sensitive qualities throughout education; the need for free or affordable education; better infrastructure; more suitable and suitably trained teachers; and the need for a degree of compulsion. Societal issues include parental perceptions; socio-cultural demands for girls to do housework and childcare; security of travel to school; and poverty. A final issue was defined as “the misinterpretation of religion” (p.41), that is keeping girls from school on misplaced religious grounds. Each country is then assessed in depth through the questionnaire returns. Two central issues throughout are poverty and socio-cultural norms. In other words long term solutions need to involve economic and educational components, taking people out of marterial deprivation and ignorance.
These international issues have implications for schooling in Britain – and for secondary schooling in particular. When girls from some ethnic and religious backgrounds reach secondary age, domestic help and childcare are deemed by some families to be more practically useful than schoolwork, so these counter pressures affect progress at school and in qualifications. Early marriage may be encouraged, so girls could be married and pregnant while still at school – which again runs counter to school progress. The knowledge that they will be married at 16 upsets concentration and motivation – the girl barely thinks of the necessity of a career and therefore the relevance of qualifications. The local presence of a girls’ comprehensive can encourage these girls to progress to age 11 and beyond, but the lack or loss of such schools can throw these girls into an educational black-hole if parents do not allow them to attend mixed education. Legal pressures can be averted by sending the girl abroad to family. They simply go missing from social and educational records. This is an unknown and unrecorded failure to comply with the Millenium Development Goal within the UK itself.
Rectifying this situation is partly the responsibility of local authorities to consider adequate provision, and partly the responsibility of the family and community to give a high priority to girls’ education. The World Bank affirms benefits to health, nutrition, mortality figures and family education as immediate social benefits likely to stimulate change. This is apart from issues of general equity between people. Religion can impede progress and so there is a responsibility of religious leaders to represent their faith without prejudice, and the role of the whole community to monitor what is being said and done in the name of the religion. There is thus a need both for the education of children and of their parents and community. Perversely, and under-reported in western news, education for girls in the contested Pakistani hills is seen as western influence so a girls’ schools is burnt down most days, the resulting fear denying children the education that has been provided.
There is a fundamental need for educational quality. The world does not need compulsory inappropriate schooling at great expense. Children deserve appropriate enriching education. Where alternative education is provided by the community, this needs to be appropriate to educational needs rather than being relegated to an instruction into a particular point of view – so even these schools should be exspected to deliver a broad relevant curriculum. The enhancement of education and schooling worldwide, both in terms of spread and quality, is one of today’s greatest development issues. British education is by no means exempt from the lessons to be learnt.
Systemic issues include better access to education (especially having more reachable girls’ schools); the need for more gender-sensitive qualities throughout education; the need for free or affordable education; better infrastructure; more suitable and suitably trained teachers; and the need for a degree of compulsion. Societal issues include parental perceptions; socio-cultural demands for girls to do housework and childcare; security of travel to school; and poverty. A final issue was defined as “the misinterpretation of religion” (p.41), that is keeping girls from school on misplaced religious grounds. Each country is then assessed in depth through the questionnaire returns. Two central issues throughout are poverty and socio-cultural norms. In other words long term solutions need to involve economic and educational components, taking people out of marterial deprivation and ignorance.
These international issues have implications for schooling in Britain – and for secondary schooling in particular. When girls from some ethnic and religious backgrounds reach secondary age, domestic help and childcare are deemed by some families to be more practically useful than schoolwork, so these counter pressures affect progress at school and in qualifications. Early marriage may be encouraged, so girls could be married and pregnant while still at school – which again runs counter to school progress. The knowledge that they will be married at 16 upsets concentration and motivation – the girl barely thinks of the necessity of a career and therefore the relevance of qualifications. The local presence of a girls’ comprehensive can encourage these girls to progress to age 11 and beyond, but the lack or loss of such schools can throw these girls into an educational black-hole if parents do not allow them to attend mixed education. Legal pressures can be averted by sending the girl abroad to family. They simply go missing from social and educational records. This is an unknown and unrecorded failure to comply with the Millenium Development Goal within the UK itself.
Rectifying this situation is partly the responsibility of local authorities to consider adequate provision, and partly the responsibility of the family and community to give a high priority to girls’ education. The World Bank affirms benefits to health, nutrition, mortality figures and family education as immediate social benefits likely to stimulate change. This is apart from issues of general equity between people. Religion can impede progress and so there is a responsibility of religious leaders to represent their faith without prejudice, and the role of the whole community to monitor what is being said and done in the name of the religion. There is thus a need both for the education of children and of their parents and community. Perversely, and under-reported in western news, education for girls in the contested Pakistani hills is seen as western influence so a girls’ schools is burnt down most days, the resulting fear denying children the education that has been provided.
There is a fundamental need for educational quality. The world does not need compulsory inappropriate schooling at great expense. Children deserve appropriate enriching education. Where alternative education is provided by the community, this needs to be appropriate to educational needs rather than being relegated to an instruction into a particular point of view – so even these schools should be exspected to deliver a broad relevant curriculum. The enhancement of education and schooling worldwide, both in terms of spread and quality, is one of today’s greatest development issues. British education is by no means exempt from the lessons to be learnt.
A touching neurosis?
Heather Piper and Ian Stronach have just produced an interesting boot called Don’t Touch. The Educational Story of a Panic. It deals with the “moral panic” about touch in school education. It makes a strong case that this panic has sexualized, even fetishised touch, as even the 99+% of innocent adult staff are left questioning their own and their colleagues’ motives. The result is that the child who needs the consoling cuddle is denied one; and also that older children play on sexual possibilities, misunderstanding or misinterpreting a normal gesture, or making malicious accusations. The panic has played havoc with proper educational practice. Inappropriate fear of risk causes professionals to fear for their careers, and play safe to the extent of creating an emotionally sterile educational environment.
Research ethics committees ‘police’ research but can come to unethical decisions by rejecting research which is potentially beneficial to children, on spurious grounds of child safety coming from a notion of the child as victim. The criminal records bureau activities demonstrate that there are more restrictions on helping children than for buying explosives. Restrictive school and local authority guidelines make irrational and disproportional responses. Then follows case studies from nursery, primary, secondary and special education, and then Summerhill School, the ‘progressive’ democratic independent school. This draws on empirical data from interviews and observations. These give examples of taboos on touch being worked through professional contexts. There is evidence of a mix of defensive and protective behaviours (being accompanied, leaving doors open) and heroic resistance to “the chokechain” (p.7), especially by early years workers. The Summerhill example is interesting in that the openness of the school is declared to be a nightmare for paedophiles. Everything is discussed and debated openly, and positive relationships are promoted. In Ofsted’s concern to close the school down as non-compliant to national standards, one inspector called in the social services when a teacher was observed openly giving a girl pupil a shoulder massage. Such officious behaviour is styled corrupting, making spontaneity in relationship building (within appropriate boundaries) much more difficult, making the good seem evil.
The concluding chapter recommends that touch should be considered as part of relationships. Just as we need ‘good behaviour policies’ instead of focussing on bad behaviour, so we need ‘good relationships policies’ instead of ‘Don’t touch guidelines’ which criminalises innocent touch. Rather, the concern should be to encourage appropriate relationships, child to child and adult to child, in a context of openness to discussion. Most current guidance to schools is viewed as wholly inappropriate, as it treats touch as a problem in itself and not part of a larger concern for good relationships. The democratic and open practice of Summerhill School is presented as the best model for schools to follow.
Most people would agree that paedophiles and other dangerous individuals should not have easy or uncontrolled access to children in school. It is a far cry from this to get to a situation, described in this book, that professionals are not only deeply worried about false unsubstantiated accusations, and begin to question their own motives behind their care of and affection for their charges. This is having the effect that children are denied the physical contact and emotional warmth they need for confidence and consolation, and are becoming part of a generation which sexualises touch, brought up to believe that adult-child touch must always be by definition sexual. Summerhill School is given as a shining example of the opposite approach, where relationships come first and democratic empowering discussion give pupils the skills and understanding to understand when something is wrong, and to take appropriate action.
The tendency to maintain emotional distance between children and unrelated adults brought about by a Don’t Touch culture impedes the development of their relationships with other adults. This diminishes empathy and sympathy for others; this emotional distance makes it easier to victimise and even murder. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child report (October 2008) complains of negative attitudes to children and adolescents in the UK promoting a punishment culture through ASBOs and detention. These things are linked. Helping children improve relationships with others should be a top priority for education, schools and society at large, which should over time reduce anti-social behaviour. That is, educational and school policies need to be positively proactive rather than negatively reactive, raising intrinsic motivation over punishment as the strategy of choice. This book explores one aspect that will make a difference and should be read by both professionals and policymakers. I applaud it. (Full review on http://escalate.ac.uk/4868).
Research ethics committees ‘police’ research but can come to unethical decisions by rejecting research which is potentially beneficial to children, on spurious grounds of child safety coming from a notion of the child as victim. The criminal records bureau activities demonstrate that there are more restrictions on helping children than for buying explosives. Restrictive school and local authority guidelines make irrational and disproportional responses. Then follows case studies from nursery, primary, secondary and special education, and then Summerhill School, the ‘progressive’ democratic independent school. This draws on empirical data from interviews and observations. These give examples of taboos on touch being worked through professional contexts. There is evidence of a mix of defensive and protective behaviours (being accompanied, leaving doors open) and heroic resistance to “the chokechain” (p.7), especially by early years workers. The Summerhill example is interesting in that the openness of the school is declared to be a nightmare for paedophiles. Everything is discussed and debated openly, and positive relationships are promoted. In Ofsted’s concern to close the school down as non-compliant to national standards, one inspector called in the social services when a teacher was observed openly giving a girl pupil a shoulder massage. Such officious behaviour is styled corrupting, making spontaneity in relationship building (within appropriate boundaries) much more difficult, making the good seem evil.
The concluding chapter recommends that touch should be considered as part of relationships. Just as we need ‘good behaviour policies’ instead of focussing on bad behaviour, so we need ‘good relationships policies’ instead of ‘Don’t touch guidelines’ which criminalises innocent touch. Rather, the concern should be to encourage appropriate relationships, child to child and adult to child, in a context of openness to discussion. Most current guidance to schools is viewed as wholly inappropriate, as it treats touch as a problem in itself and not part of a larger concern for good relationships. The democratic and open practice of Summerhill School is presented as the best model for schools to follow.
Most people would agree that paedophiles and other dangerous individuals should not have easy or uncontrolled access to children in school. It is a far cry from this to get to a situation, described in this book, that professionals are not only deeply worried about false unsubstantiated accusations, and begin to question their own motives behind their care of and affection for their charges. This is having the effect that children are denied the physical contact and emotional warmth they need for confidence and consolation, and are becoming part of a generation which sexualises touch, brought up to believe that adult-child touch must always be by definition sexual. Summerhill School is given as a shining example of the opposite approach, where relationships come first and democratic empowering discussion give pupils the skills and understanding to understand when something is wrong, and to take appropriate action.
The tendency to maintain emotional distance between children and unrelated adults brought about by a Don’t Touch culture impedes the development of their relationships with other adults. This diminishes empathy and sympathy for others; this emotional distance makes it easier to victimise and even murder. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child report (October 2008) complains of negative attitudes to children and adolescents in the UK promoting a punishment culture through ASBOs and detention. These things are linked. Helping children improve relationships with others should be a top priority for education, schools and society at large, which should over time reduce anti-social behaviour. That is, educational and school policies need to be positively proactive rather than negatively reactive, raising intrinsic motivation over punishment as the strategy of choice. This book explores one aspect that will make a difference and should be read by both professionals and policymakers. I applaud it. (Full review on http://escalate.ac.uk/4868).
Thursday, 4 September 2008
Forests, woodcraft and the human condition
Today we are interested again in conservation and outdoor pursuits, even adventures as an important part of a child's education. The "forest school" has returned to the fore. I am reading two related books currently, Leslie Paul's An Angry Young Man (1952) and Trail of an Artist-Naturalist, the autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1951).
Leslie Paul's title gave rise to the phrase 'angry young men' being used of various writers and playwrights in the 1950s. Leslie Paul, a Londoner, founded "The Woodcraft Folk" in 1925 to introduce inner-city lads to the joys of the countryside, with an emphasis on building inner strengths and on conservation. Now under the wing of the cooperative societies, the movement is still thriving and has many local groups. Paul took many of his ideas from scouting, but without the militarism it had at the time of the first world war. Beyond that he drew on the work of Ernest Thompson Seton who began the Woodcraft Movement in America, and from it developed the American scout movement, of which he became chief scout. Readers are more likely to have heard of his daughter Ann, who wrote fiction as Anya Seton.
As a boy in Canada, Ernest set up his own Indian tribe in 1874 in order to enjoy outdoor activities. Before long it had been renamed as "The Robin Hood Band", and once outgrown the attraction of the outdoor life continued. He made studies of animals and plants, and published many stories based on the forest. He prized the wisdom of the "Indian" first nation tribes on bushcraft, which he called "woodcraft". In setting up an education programme for boys, Robin Hood became replaced with the last of the Mohicans, of Fenimore Cooper's story. The movement was named The Woodcraft Indians. He devised a range of "exploits", each of which had a badge, starting with physical activities, and developing to mental development towards the highest "spiritual" level of "service".
He described his strict Calvinist Christian upbringing which assumed "the total depravity of human nature" [p.291]. He was a rebel, and (happily) thought himself depraved. As a young cowpuncher, he notes that his very rough mates all loved their mothers, and went to church mainly so they could tell their mother that they had been. In one service in a schoolroom, the preacher said "in sin did our mothers conceive us", at which one jumped up saying his mother was a decent woman and if the preacher insult her he would fill him full of lead. Ernest came to the view: "all children come here direct from God and are pure as God can make them. We do not have to reform them, but rather to keep them from being deformed [p.292]. He bought a derelict farm to turn into a conservation area, complete with Indian village, but the local lads declared total war as their age-old haunts were now off bounds. They did nightly damage. Instead of bringing in the law, as advised, he invited them to an adventure weekend with free food and no rules. 42 came, and the Woodland Indians had begun. The area criminal was democratically elected the Chief, and, taking his responsibilities very seriously, this began his transformation. There were rules - mainly for safety and against vandalism. The cardinal virtues were chivalry, kindness, courage and honour. The motto was "The best things of the best Indians". Feathers were awarded for "exploits", 'can do' skills but not competitive. They all received the 'can swim' feather because they could all swim. Fifty years later, all 42 had made something significant of their lives.
Lina and Adelia Beard, promoting scouting for girls in America,produced An Outdoor Book for Girls in America in 1915, recently republished. There is a chapter on ‘woodcraft’ which begins with the importance of the balsam fir tree: like a Christmas tree, it has aromatic needles and makes the best outdoor bedding. These are the trees on the Woodcraft Folk logo. The book teaches girls about how to track, swim, take wildlife photos, camp, find food and cope with accidents.
There are lessons here for families and schools - such personal strengths are not built up in front of televisions or in the back of people-carriers. Skills for life cannot be taught. But they can be encouraged, facilitated, directed, respected and applauded.
Leslie Paul's title gave rise to the phrase 'angry young men' being used of various writers and playwrights in the 1950s. Leslie Paul, a Londoner, founded "The Woodcraft Folk" in 1925 to introduce inner-city lads to the joys of the countryside, with an emphasis on building inner strengths and on conservation. Now under the wing of the cooperative societies, the movement is still thriving and has many local groups. Paul took many of his ideas from scouting, but without the militarism it had at the time of the first world war. Beyond that he drew on the work of Ernest Thompson Seton who began the Woodcraft Movement in America, and from it developed the American scout movement, of which he became chief scout. Readers are more likely to have heard of his daughter Ann, who wrote fiction as Anya Seton.
As a boy in Canada, Ernest set up his own Indian tribe in 1874 in order to enjoy outdoor activities. Before long it had been renamed as "The Robin Hood Band", and once outgrown the attraction of the outdoor life continued. He made studies of animals and plants, and published many stories based on the forest. He prized the wisdom of the "Indian" first nation tribes on bushcraft, which he called "woodcraft". In setting up an education programme for boys, Robin Hood became replaced with the last of the Mohicans, of Fenimore Cooper's story. The movement was named The Woodcraft Indians. He devised a range of "exploits", each of which had a badge, starting with physical activities, and developing to mental development towards the highest "spiritual" level of "service".
He described his strict Calvinist Christian upbringing which assumed "the total depravity of human nature" [p.291]. He was a rebel, and (happily) thought himself depraved. As a young cowpuncher, he notes that his very rough mates all loved their mothers, and went to church mainly so they could tell their mother that they had been. In one service in a schoolroom, the preacher said "in sin did our mothers conceive us", at which one jumped up saying his mother was a decent woman and if the preacher insult her he would fill him full of lead. Ernest came to the view: "all children come here direct from God and are pure as God can make them. We do not have to reform them, but rather to keep them from being deformed [p.292]. He bought a derelict farm to turn into a conservation area, complete with Indian village, but the local lads declared total war as their age-old haunts were now off bounds. They did nightly damage. Instead of bringing in the law, as advised, he invited them to an adventure weekend with free food and no rules. 42 came, and the Woodland Indians had begun. The area criminal was democratically elected the Chief, and, taking his responsibilities very seriously, this began his transformation. There were rules - mainly for safety and against vandalism. The cardinal virtues were chivalry, kindness, courage and honour. The motto was "The best things of the best Indians". Feathers were awarded for "exploits", 'can do' skills but not competitive. They all received the 'can swim' feather because they could all swim. Fifty years later, all 42 had made something significant of their lives.
Lina and Adelia Beard, promoting scouting for girls in America,produced An Outdoor Book for Girls in America in 1915, recently republished. There is a chapter on ‘woodcraft’ which begins with the importance of the balsam fir tree: like a Christmas tree, it has aromatic needles and makes the best outdoor bedding. These are the trees on the Woodcraft Folk logo. The book teaches girls about how to track, swim, take wildlife photos, camp, find food and cope with accidents.
There are lessons here for families and schools - such personal strengths are not built up in front of televisions or in the back of people-carriers. Skills for life cannot be taught. But they can be encouraged, facilitated, directed, respected and applauded.
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Growing the brain.
When I was young, there was a belief that eating fish feeds the brain, so I guess there are some smart sharks. Today the obsession is that drinking water feeds the brain. The simple truth is that thinking feeds and develops the brain. Over the past decade we have the benefit of various brain scanning devices and are getting to know both what the brain looks like in detail, and how it works. But it is slow business and nothing is definitive yet. So therefore beware of any book or system, especially those over ten years old, that claims to know how the brain works, and worse tells you definitively how to develop it. They are likely to be over-simplistic, or simply wrong.
The brain develops by mental stimulation, by growing connectors between different parts of the brain. The more we think, and the more disciplined we get, the more connections are created and the brain changes as a result. This much is the starting point of modern neuroscience. Children's brains are growing rapidly throughout schooling, and adult brains have a similar potential. Our message to pupils is that their brains are capable of most things, through disciplined hard work, putting their mind to the task. This will permamently make them smarter. It is a message that needs emphasising to children from infancy onwards, by parents, teachers and others; and also that 'can do' attitudes can also be fun and give a great sense of achievement.
See more on: http://www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/
Neuroscience%20Commentary%20FINAL.pdf
The brain develops by mental stimulation, by growing connectors between different parts of the brain. The more we think, and the more disciplined we get, the more connections are created and the brain changes as a result. This much is the starting point of modern neuroscience. Children's brains are growing rapidly throughout schooling, and adult brains have a similar potential. Our message to pupils is that their brains are capable of most things, through disciplined hard work, putting their mind to the task. This will permamently make them smarter. It is a message that needs emphasising to children from infancy onwards, by parents, teachers and others; and also that 'can do' attitudes can also be fun and give a great sense of achievement.
See more on: http://www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/
Neuroscience%20Commentary%20FINAL.pdf
Therapy, education and therapeutic education
I have just reviewed a book on "therapeutic education" (http://escalate.ac.uk/4752) which raises issues. The authors mean positive pupil-centred education which is non-conflictual: since the book's educational focus is a special school, this is described as 'healing', hence therapeutic. It is defended through reference to therapists such as Maslow and Rogers. Of course, the authors are describing 'good', motivating and positive education per se and the work 'therapeutic' is a misnomer. A therapist will have had substantial education and training to develop a knowledge and expertise to contribute to health care and child development. A speech and language therapist for example helps children with communication difficulties. Teachers and educational professionals who are untrained in these fields cannot replicate their work. Equally a talking therapist (a psychologist, psycho-analyst or counsellor) work with particular insights and skills which the untrained cannot hope to match.
However, there are few therapists on the ground and their time and involvement is expensive. They therefore can only deal with acute cases. In practice, pupils are referred and join the waiting list. There are general things that teachers can do to help children with non-acute developmental delay or with emotional and behaviour difficulties which are not severe. Indeed this helps the therapist because some ground has been covered and acute cases better identified - there will be some pupils who make progress and don't need to be referred. Although we might call this 'good' education, based on positive relationships, teachers and others do need both training and consciousness raising to change practice.
For example, behaviourist rewards and punishments are often a school's only strategy to deal with challenging attitudes and behaviour. This aims at submission rather than personal growth and actually doesn't work. Punishments escalate to exclusion when the problem gets passed on to others and the pupil remains stuck. Education should be 'healing' in a broad sense, and promote personal growth. This is main focus for the training needed - a simple message to understand but more difficult to put into practice routinely.
However, there are few therapists on the ground and their time and involvement is expensive. They therefore can only deal with acute cases. In practice, pupils are referred and join the waiting list. There are general things that teachers can do to help children with non-acute developmental delay or with emotional and behaviour difficulties which are not severe. Indeed this helps the therapist because some ground has been covered and acute cases better identified - there will be some pupils who make progress and don't need to be referred. Although we might call this 'good' education, based on positive relationships, teachers and others do need both training and consciousness raising to change practice.
For example, behaviourist rewards and punishments are often a school's only strategy to deal with challenging attitudes and behaviour. This aims at submission rather than personal growth and actually doesn't work. Punishments escalate to exclusion when the problem gets passed on to others and the pupil remains stuck. Education should be 'healing' in a broad sense, and promote personal growth. This is main focus for the training needed - a simple message to understand but more difficult to put into practice routinely.
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Powerful Learning
I am reminded, sorting through my papers, of a paper at BERA in Warwick in 2006 by Peggy Lee (peggy@power-ed.co.nz) from New Zealand. Based on interviews with primary and secondary children, she proposes ten principles of powerful learning:
1. Make learning fun
2. Trust us to choose who we work with some of the time.
3. We need to make some choices about what we learn so we can work on things that interest us.
4. Let us walk around when we are learning. Silent static kids are not necessarily learning best.
5. Learning needs to be hands-on, doing things, even teaching things to others.
6. Using technology helps me - we done use computers enough or properly
7. Let us know how we are doing and how to make better progress.
8. We like to set some learning goals for ourselves.
9. Give us time to do things properly, and don't waste it by repeating over complicated instructions.
10. Make learning more real, going out more, meeting people and linking with children around the world. Learning needs to be communal.
A powerful conclusion is to involve children and young people in their own learning and schooling, and make sure they have a proper voice.
Peggy adds: I have continued to work with these ideas and am currently leading a NZ Ministry of Education project working in 10 rural schools looking at student decision-making: teachers and student views and practices. Our revised curriculum here has allowed this kind of investigation with a focus on ‘key competencies for learning’. I am also working in four other primary/middle schools helping with strategic planning, curriculum & assessment practices and implementing the new key competencies for learning.
1. Make learning fun
2. Trust us to choose who we work with some of the time.
3. We need to make some choices about what we learn so we can work on things that interest us.
4. Let us walk around when we are learning. Silent static kids are not necessarily learning best.
5. Learning needs to be hands-on, doing things, even teaching things to others.
6. Using technology helps me - we done use computers enough or properly
7. Let us know how we are doing and how to make better progress.
8. We like to set some learning goals for ourselves.
9. Give us time to do things properly, and don't waste it by repeating over complicated instructions.
10. Make learning more real, going out more, meeting people and linking with children around the world. Learning needs to be communal.
A powerful conclusion is to involve children and young people in their own learning and schooling, and make sure they have a proper voice.
Peggy adds: I have continued to work with these ideas and am currently leading a NZ Ministry of Education project working in 10 rural schools looking at student decision-making: teachers and student views and practices. Our revised curriculum here has allowed this kind of investigation with a focus on ‘key competencies for learning’. I am also working in four other primary/middle schools helping with strategic planning, curriculum & assessment practices and implementing the new key competencies for learning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)