The importance of democratic education in today’s schools is highlighted in this article by Susan Engel and Marlene Sandstrom. This article identifies that, rather than shiny binders and expensive anti-bullying programs, the best way to deal with bullying and its attendant problems is through building a sense of community, where everybody involved in childrens education works to challenge incidences of bullying and encourage the democratic essentialities of
tolerance, participation and inclusivity.

The full article can be read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/opinion/23engel.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=there%27s%20only%20one%20way%20to%20stop%20a%20bully&st=cse

The part I particularly liked was where the authors highlight the problems associated with standardized testing and an increasingly crowded curriculum. They write:

Yet, in American curriculums, a growing emphasis on standardized test scores as the primary measure of “successful” schools has crowded out what should be an essential criterion for well-educated students: a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others

Makes my research seem even more vital in this context.

Traditionally, Freirean pedagogy and popular education and its derivatives (most notably popular theatre) have worked with adult communities in informal settings. This setting has, of course, it’s own particular advantages and disadvantages, but it is worth noting that the applications of Popular Education is not solely restricted to either the informal education domain or the adult education domain.

Indeed, a number of scholars have been exploring the implementation of Popular Educationa theory and methodology in the area of high school education, an area that might be considered to the be the polar opposite of the traditional application of Popular Education. As opposed to adult education, educators working in this domain work with children. And instead of an informal setting, teachers in this area have to work within the boundaries of a strictly formalized curricula and setting.

However, the application of Freire’s work in such an area is an appealing prospect; to me, it seems that few institutions in a state seem to contribute to the acceptance of hegemony as much as schools. After all, one need only examine the work of people like John Taylor Gotto and you quickly come to a realisation that many schools (but not, I think, all) actively seek to not only oppress their students through the rigid application of coercive power, but also condition students to further accept such oppression in their wider and later lives. As an example, one might take the New South Wales History curriculum, which seeks to privilege the contributions to Australia made by certain groups – and in certain ways – over others. Furthermore, the way this curriculum is traditionally delivered – the Banking model that Freire described – only conditions students to further accept their role as passive objects with no further power to become more fully human.

Therefore, the idea of a theory that could empower students in this setting is a tempting one. However, it is a challenging prospect for teachers for a number of reasons. I intend to explore just one, in this blog posting – that of context. Freire’s work often highlights the importance of context, and it is especially pertinent in this discussion. Moving out of adult education into school education, one must recognize that both the age and the motivations of the group have changed. In addition, there are a number of constraining factors, like the demands of government bodies for teachers to cover certain skills and content, of which raising critical consciousness might come a long way down the list.

In addition, whereas traditional popular education works exclusively in the realm of marginalized groups, it is possible that when working in the school environment (and especially in a systemic religious school, like I do) one might be working with students who might be perfectly satisfied with the status quo. In this case, popular education might become more about recognizing privilege than understanding oppression. In this case, one must ask, what is the purpose of the popular educator? Is it to encourage students to recognize this privilege? And then to encourage them to commit, as Freire describes it, class suicide? It’s a confronting thought.

Even more confronting is the research that has been done regarding how an uncritical approach to privileging student experience might lead to the actual encouragement of oppressive views. In some examples that Kathryn Choules writes about, teachers attempting to apply a Freirean methodology to students from mixed groups might only encourage those who benefit from the status quo to speak out, thus concreting marginalised groups thoughts about oppression and their place in society.

Next blog post – Making the Method Fit the Message!

Recently, I met with Dr Rick Flowers, my supervisor, for another doctoral meeting. The purpose of this meeting was to consider how my research has been getting on, and to decide what are the best ways forward regarding said research. It was a really good meeting. Once again, as I was reviewing my notes before the meeting, I was pleased with how far I had come. Then again, as soon as I’d had this meeting, I was reminded by how far there is still to travel!

Anyway, there were a few key learning points about for my research from this meeting. Firstly, Rick suggested that I needed to ground my research in a particular issue. This was of vital importance. To be honest, I think this exposes a bit of a lack of understanding on my behalf; I’d got so convinced of the idea of the importance of a completely student-negotiated curriculum that I’d kind of lost sight of the fact that this is precisely what Freire himself had done. For Freire, it was illiteracy that was the grounding for his work on empowerment.

Therefore, it is important for me to consider what kind of issue that I want to ground my work in. It is easy for me to say that I want to look at citizenship education or active citizenship – but these ideas are probably a little too broad if I’m going to be working on specifically active citizenship. In brief, the students I work – and myself, of course – need something to be active about. Fortunately, there are plenty of possibilities for just such a topic. Rick and I brainstormed a few ideas: the environment, specifically water pollution. Substance abuse. Drink Driving. Alcohol fueled violence. Refugees, racism and asylum seekers.

We did discuss one of these at length: the issue of refugees and racism. It must be stated that, considering the headlines of today, it is certainly a very topical issue, with the talk of the Pacific Solution and so on. Even more so, it is particularly appropriate for Western Sydney, which is often identified as a ‘heartland of racism’.  Originally, I had concerns about this kind of project, because, as is clear from even the most limited understanding of Freire’s work, Freire worked with those who were oppressed; he used a kind of bottom up approach. I didn’t see how it would be possible for me to do this, considering my limited access to people who were refugees; my school is pretty uniform, although there are changes taking place pretty slowly.

Secondly, although I had read quite a lot of Freire, it had been quite narrow in scope. Thus, when Rick asked me about my action research project and how it would be based on Freire’s principles, I struggled to explain how it might work. What I need to do know is read more about the ways that Freire’s work has been applied in particular contexts. Rick suggested that I explore two phenomena in particular; photovoice and popular theatre, so these two ideas will be the focus of my reading for a considerable period to come.

Thirdly, we had the opportunity to discuss what my portfolio might look like. Although we didn’t discuss this much, we did talk about the online forum. Here, Rick cautioned me to make sure that I kept this as an intellectual exercise, because it needed to be this if I was going to keep using it as part of my forum. We talked about the best ways to keep it working, and agreed that the use of social media would be a valuable tool, as well as the university mailing lists. Getting this up and running will be one of my key projects over the holidays.

However, the part of the discussion that I thought was the most important focused on what I’m contributing to the academy by my research. In short, what am I doing that is new or unique? What are the particular features of my research that are important?What is the importance of my research? What am I doing that is new or different? I think that it is important to be clear about the benefits of my work. Here are my original thoughts to answer this question:

• It’s the first time (at least, the first time that I’m aware) that educators in Australia have tried to link Freire’s pedagogy with citizenship education.
• The context of the work is vital – it’s intensely practical. It’s not simply a theoretical discussion of Freire and education, but it is using Freire’s pedagogy to challenge the oppression of Racism in Emu Plains, Sydney. Personally, I think that this makes my research vital.
• Finally, unlike may Freirean approaches to education, this particular project is looking at children and Freire. Most Freirean prjects explore adult education. This too makes it valuable to the academy.

I was speaking to a number of staff at my school the other day, and I commented that I was going to go and see one of our students playing sport on the weekend. This staff member expressed surprise at such an action – and also suggested that I might be crossing the line of staff-student professionalism. I’d never considered it like that, before, but these comments did cause me to think about what I was doing – was I acting unprofessionally? Was I endangering my career, and the safety of the student? This idea had never crossed my mind before – and ever since I was a young teacher, I’ve often gone to see students play sport, perform in theatre shows or similar things. I’d certainly never really considered my motivation for doing so; it just seemed something that I should do.

Ultimately, I don’t think what I’m doing crosses any kind of boundaries of appropriateness. At the end of the day, a school is a community – or more correctly, a community of communities. There are the communities of practice of teachers. There are the social communities of students. There are the religious, ethnic, cultural and sporting communities within these groupings.This is an important point because I believe that communities are sustained – primarily- through relationships. Thus, it is important to develop these relationships to their fullest extent. Any relationship – and interestingly, Freire makes this exact point – must use as its starting point an understanding of where each member of that relationship comes from; that is to say, it is not enough for me to perceive student simply as a student, or as a boy or as gifted. Rather, I must do my utmost to understand their own life experiences and stories – I need to know about them as a unique individual if I am to come to understand them at all.

I like this idea; I think it is clearly linked to a movement away from the banking model of education and towards a better understanding of the human principles that at the heart of learning. Therefore, to address the issue that started this line of thought, what I was doing by going to this was twofold; firstly, I was learning more about this student’s background and motivations, as hell as his interests, and secondly, this student was learning more about me. Hence, our relationship (which was already pretty good) takes another step forward, and I am better able to assist him in his learning. Sounds very professional, if you ask me!

I’ve spent much of my career involved in what you might call progressive education, although that term itself is somewhat problematical. One of the depressing things about education is that some things (like PBL and student centered learning) seem to come back every 30 years or so.

Certainly,  I’ve worked in schools that have thought of themselves as innovative. I’ve experienced 1:1 laptop programs – at a time when they were relatively new and exciting. I’ve worked in schools that adopted flexible learning spaces, and collaborative practice. I’ve seen handheld devices before iPod touches. I’ve done this in a number of different schools, too, both in Australia and in England

I’m not bigging myself up here, just establishing some credentials. Because really, the point for this blog posting is actually all about the perils of working in such a school. You see, creating such a culture – where, firstly, the need for change is recognised, and then there is a culture that supports such change is incredibly difficult. Schools don’t move forward on their own. The school I’m currently working at sometimes feels like it’s stuck in a timewarp, and we’re back in the 1980s.

To begin such a change takes a special kind of principal: one that is highly enough respected by his or her peers that he or she can begin such a project (usually won through hard years working at traditional schools) and is still brave or determined enough that they are willing to take on such a risky project. Above all, such a person must have vision – an idea of what education should look like. It is not necessary to understand how such a vision might be created; that is the work of others.

So, armed with this vision, a principal must endeavour to make it a reality. The only way this can happen is through the staff employed at such a school. They must have the skill and expertise to turn the principal’s vision into reality, along with all the requisite changes that are necessary in transforming theory into practice.

But – and it’s a big but – it’s a double edged sword for principals and the staff they employ. Because they are challenging the status quo, they are surrounded by detractors, who wish to see them and their school fail. Added to that, often these schools struggle for survival, isolated as they are, and surrounded by hostile or ignorant communities. Education’s funny like that: because everyone went to school, many people feel qualified to speak about education with some kind of authority. By this rationale, everyone who’s ever been sick should be capable of performing open heart surgery.

And so, these schools are ultimately forced into either failing or changing their ways. The principal, generally frustrated at the lack of support from their own organisations or communities, leaves the school – or if they are lucky, are identified and recruited by a forward thinking community (yes, they exist). And so, the school is kind of half-born, and the principal is replaced by (usually) a more conservative principal, who generally (and often while still talking the talk, but not walking the walk) reshapes the school into a more traditional model. It’s easier to do that than actually try to carry though the vision. And so, once again, progressivism is thwarted by traditionalism, and schools retreat to become little more than institutions for maintaining the status quo.

Depressing, isn’t it?

I was teaching my Year 8 English class recently, and I had one of those perspective moments; you know, when you look around yourself and suddenly it’s like you are seeing everything through fresh eyes. Anyway, that’s what happened; we were in a computer room, and I had kids working on laptops, other kids sitting in front of the floor watching the projector screen and even a few standing outside the classroom furiously arguing with each other.

Ten years ago, I would have been horrified if I had stumbled onto a room that was as ‘messy’ as that. I would have been looking for students sitting in silence, studiously copying from textbooks while the teacher lectured. Okay, maybe I was never as blinkered at that, but I think I would have been concerned by what I saw.

Anyway, I had this perspective moment, and it kind of filtered out all the garbage about classroom behaviour and learning outcomes and other stuff, and allowed me to focus on the actual learning taking place. And that’s the point: despite the ‘messy’ classroom, there was no doubt that there was learning taking place – for every student in the classroom. Let’s think about what I mean by learning: firstly, there is a requirement for every student to be engaged. Secondly, there is a need for students to be challenged – at whatever level they are currently not working at. Finally, there is also the call for reflection. I honestly believe that reflection is a crucial part of the learning process, and it is something that I actively encourage students to take part in.

Those students working on a computer were actually putting the finishing touches on a task requiring them to analyse what Australian and Japanese school aged children might be proud of; it was a challenging task for these high achievers, requiring a level of logical thought that is right at the top end of Bloom’s taxonomy. Meanwhile middle achievers in my class were engaged (and I use that word deliberately) in watching ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ which fits really nicely with our area of study.

But more than passively watching the video, the students were actively involved in critiquing Gore’s point of view; in fact they were analysing how they structured his argument – defining each new piece of information as an example, or a thesis, or evidence. It was great. Sure, they might have been sitting on the floor, or not writing in their books, but they were learning – and enjoying it too.

And the two outside? Well, they were in the heat of a discussion about the reality of climate change, and the causes of it.

Messy classrooms: the way of the future?

I was reading somewhere – not sure where – about the actual etymology of the word education. Rather than meaning ‘to teach’ or ‘to learn’ it actually means ‘to lead’ or ‘to lead out.’ I think it’s from the Latin, originally. It’s an interesting thought, though, isn’t it? Rather than meaning to absorb or dispense knowledge, or to sit there passively storing it up until you are ready to regurgitate it on some examination.

Instead, it’s much more active – more like a ‘guide’ or even a mentor, isn’t it? Even more importantly, there is no suggestion of being the repository of all knowledge; rather, there is the idea that we are all in this together. Just a few thoughts. What do you think?

I recently had the opportunity to have another informal conversation regarding my research project. In this, I interviewed a member of staff at a school who is responsible for facilitating the Student Representative Council (SRC) at a middle-sized systemic Catholic high school.

I wanted to speak to her (lets call her Miss P) to get an idea of what the SRC’s aims and purposes are – and how effective they are in meeting these aims and purposes. The results were interesting – and also quite heartening. Firstly, I explored the ideas behind how people become members of the representative council. The process is quite convoluted:

1. A student must be nominated by 2 other students, and also a member of staff must countersign this nomination.

2. Then students take a vote on the nominated studenst.

3. The students with the most votes are then interviewed by the teachers responsible for facilitating the SRC. During this interview, they are presented with the SRC role description (more on this below) and asked whether they could uphold the qualities and expectations outlined in the document.

I was lucky enough to get hold of a copy of the SRC role description, and I thought that the fact that one exists suggests an interesting perspective already. The role description generally sets out the expected code of behaviour of a member of the Student Representative Council: for example, one of the statements suggests that students on the SRC need to ‘model behaviours that demonstrate integrity, jusctice and peace’ or ‘be committed to the school community through attendance at reflection days, athletics and swimming carnivals, fundraising events, extra curricular activities and information evenings.’

There is little that is explicitly managed about fostering democratic ideals, but I didn’t expect that. When I asked Miss P about what she thought the purpose of the SRC was, she said that she didn’t really have a role deciding that; rather, the purpose of the SRC was determined by the students – all Miss P did was facilitate what they wanted to do. So, if, for example, there was a really heavy emphasis on sporting and house involvement from the SRC in a particular year, that’s what the focus or purpose of the SRC would be. On the other hand, if the SRC was not a vibrant community, or not particularly motivated, then the SRC would have limited impact upon the school.

I did question what kind of power that the actual SRC had within the schooling environment (linking both to my ideas about empowerment of students and Cogan’s description of Australia’s SRCs as without real power or meaningfulness) and Miss P suggested that, really, the SRC were on their own. Miss P could advise and assist them to run presentations, for example, to deal with issues that they had identified, but they actually had little access to the existing power structures within the school.

This raises a number of important issues:

1. Firstly, I think that the idea of a student-negotiated issues is essential.

2. Secondly, I was concerned that, if this is a typical features of SRCs, they are really more of a regulatory body – responsible for monitoring and addressing behaviour amongst the student body – more than a democratic body aiding in the empowering of students.

Once again, the government has got it very wrong. Following a report by the Grattan Institute, and inspired by the successes of New York, it appears that we are moving towards a situation where we will shortly be adopting performance based pay for teachers. You can read the report here and the related news coverage here. I haven’t read the full report, so I will limit my comments to this: the person who wrote the report is Dr Ben Jensen, who has worked for the OECD Education Directorate measuring school performance. Interestingly, though, Jensen has a PhD in Economics, not education.

What we are seeing here is the commercialisation of teaching. In keeping with the neoliberal priorities of the Rudd Government, we are moving towards an education sector where teachers are simply technicians – they use the tools provided by the government upon the children in their classrooms because – and only because – this is the best way of improving the country’s GNP. As we move into an era of accountability and performativity, it becomes vital that governments have ways of measuring the performance of teachers and therefore assigning capitalist worth to a person’s education. So we have nation wide testing to define an individuals worth and we take the concept of value-added to explain the worth of a teacher.

Quite frankly, if you’re nodding along to this as if it all makes perfect sense, it’s probably far too late for you. I know people like that. Even worse, there are teachers who think this is a good idea. Mostly young teachers, who’ve been convinced that they really are no better than technicians – in fact, worse than this, they are competitive technicians. Sure enough, schools will soon become a marketplace, with teachers, rather than working together in a spirit of collegiality. Teachers will spend hours coaching their classes to perform better in the exams – we will be literally teaching to the test – and all those other, vital things that schools provide will be disregarded and ignored. Even in the Victorian model, the principal will most likely assign bonuses to those teachers who work longer hours – or do more visible things – rather than those teachers that necessarily do the most good.

My real issue lies with the fact that teaching is not like being a technician, or a salesperson or really any other kind of job. It’s a job that navigates the nexus between motivation, intelligence and cultural and social upbringing. It’s a deeply personal job, linked to both the teachers starting point and beliefs and cultural values, and those of the student. It requires compassion, understanding and tolerance, not to mention a higher than average level of emotional intelligence. It is an impossible job.

It is not a simple equation where you get out certain values depending on what you put it. To say so is to insult the whole teaching profession.

While we’re at it, you and I both know that there are ordinary teachers out there. I’ve worked with some that I wouldn’t want teaching my children. I’m all for measuring teaching excellence – but we have not found a good way of doing it – yet. Until we do, everything else is simply garbage. Economic rationalism will not help us to create better citizens, although it might help us to create wealthier ones.

I think that this Labor government needs to return to its social democrat roots.

I was at the Penrith rugby league game last night (Penrith beat the Doggies, go the panthers) and, while I had a great time, a few beers with the brother-in-law, steak sandwich, hurled abuse at the touch judge etc etc, there was one part of the evening that struck me as a little strange.

Basically, one of the main sponsors of the Penrith Panthers (Go the Panthers!) is the Department of Education for NSW. As concerning as it is that the Department needs to sponsor a football team instead of spending the money on training staff, that’s not what concerns me.

What does concern me is the tagline that goes with the recruitment drive; the announcer at the game said it about 5 times – before the game, at half-time and at the end of the game. The tagline went like this: ‘Are you looking for a career that is innovative and creative and means you still have time for sports, friends and family?’ I mean, seriously, you still have time for sports, friends and family!

I was horrified when I heard it, to be honest. Immediately, I started thinking: is this the best way to encourage people to become teachers? And are people who are interested by this ‘time for sports, friends and family’ likely to be our best teachers? Would you entrust your children to someone who’s just teaching to fill in time before he or she can go play football?

Don’t get me wrong; I understand the importance of work-life balance and I think that teachers come in two sorts: those who have it and those who don’t. But I don’t think anyone should become a teacher solely because it offers opportunities for a good work-life balance. To me, teaching is a vocation, not a job you do because you need to earn money somehow. The responsibility that you, as a teacher have, for the nurturing and development of young minds is far too important to be done by someone who doesn’t really care about it.