Musings upon the spatial turn (in education)

playing with place, rurality, social justice, identity and a little history.

Britzman’s Practice makes practice introduction

January 29th, 2012 by · No Comments · Pedagogy, Theory

In response to a colleague who found these passages resonated …

… there can be no learning without conflict, but the conflict that animates learning threatens to derail the precarious efforts of trying to learn. (3) …Essentially, individuals must interfere with one another because having to learn and having to teach is felt as interference, as a battle of wills, and a confluence of influence. Paradoxically, significance, or better, education, is  made from this conflict. And this conflict … feels like a crisis of the self … (8)  Felman insists that meaningful learning begins in the scramble to make sense of the force of knowledge. Significant learning, she suggests, is first felt as a threat and a surprise. (9) … If learning to teach wavers on this precipice of meaning – of making sense of both personal and historical crisis – this is very difficult work, far more complex than the measures we have made. Indeed, the very measures for success and failure in learning shut out the existential crisis that allows the newly arrived their chance of becoming. (9) … While there is always more than one discourse in any institution, one discourse on learning to teach predominates and readers will see its problems over the course of this study. It is a discourse that sustains a particularly isolating and competitive view of the individual: a discourse that confines asking for help, or having feelings of helplessness, vulnerability, ambivalence, and dependency to a sign of individual weakness. (11)

The second (related) theme was about pedagogical reasoning, though she doesn’t use the term.

What used to be called “practice teaching” and now goes under various names such as “student teaching,” “teaching apprenticeship,” and “classroom practicum” can become thought of differently, not quite as rehearsal for the real thing, but as the stage where aspects of the teacher’s work, world, paradoxes, and dilemmas become a resource. All this is possible, provided that the language of teacher education open itself to the conflicts and crisis that makes education ordinary. (14)

Like you those passages resonated and are marked in my copy and while I agree with your interpretation and emphasis I’d place mine elsewhere.  For mime the pain is perhaps located in the moments in practice teaching when standing in front of the class than perhaps the theory in lectures – of course this is related to what we’ve come to call ‘pedagogical reasoning’(PR).  I also thought of PR when reading the ideas in the second quote you use.  This I feel is something the emerging research we can do would relate as we are looking at perceptions of teaching, theory and practice, and other influences on pre-service teachers emerging identity.

More so however I think I’m interested in the early years or even how this ‘pain’ evolves and is dealt with over a career and in relation to ‘places’.  While I implicitly agree with Britzmans central thesis about how (pre-service) teachers bring expectations, familiarity, understanding with them into their career, I’m particularly interested in teasing out how ‘place’ influences these.  I’m not sure that Britzman does this but what I am sure about is that she illuminates all the processes and issues related to teaching and identity, leaving only the necessity for someone to join it up with place theory and the spatial turn to have a productive theory.

The idea that Pre-service programs don’t prepare students for the reality of schools (pg11) is a growing avenue in the rural-ed community, however it’s not related to the ideas that Britzman talks about and remains simply instrumental, thus here we may have some of the theory that has been missing in the field. The idea of the pressure of proving oneself worth (pg 18) is another bit of theory that helps me in my rural work and possibly adds to what Britzman writes – in that I’d content there is a place dimension here and proving oneself worthy in the culture as it relates to place.  This mediating the dilemma of voice is for me the central issue for rural teachers in adjusting to place and negotiating the tensions around ‘dominant’ knowledge forms and non-dominant knowledge forms.

The Ped R approach we’ve employed, the assignment research, and the idea of following up teachers over 1-3 years I think will give us a lot of material to explore the theory-practice nexus / praxis and emerging ‘teacher’ identities and their relationships to perspectives on the profession – all of course against the backdrop of public discourse.  The idea of the tension between ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ views of teaching (pg5) related to experience is powerful for example to explain some of the ‘pain’ we receive from students at times.

I’m also excited about the coming discussion on narrative and voice as method that Britzman pre-empts.  The pints in the introduction she makes about this, ethnographic hindsight and nagging thoughts all resonate personally and in the PR we’ve advocated. I’m looking forward to mining the book for theoretical and methodological ideas to use when we write about PR and in my own project where I’m employing a reflexive re-reading.

I’m wondering if the introduction to pmp is something we should have on the reading list for our preservice teachers in the seced course.  It articulately outlines the root causes of a number of the issues we face in preservice teacher education, issues that we will be partially exploring in our seced research agenda and the new assignment 1.  It is astonishing how from the first paragraph I found myself thinking: ‘exactly’ ‘yes’ ‘how interesting’. Britzman is so insightful.  While it is a revised introduction and undoubtedly is influenced by her subsequent work (and vice versa one would assume) it Indeed achieves it stated objective of ‘filing a gap’ in pre-service teacher research and scholarship.

Against this though I can also imagine it may be a little confronting as an early reading for pre-service students and result in greater hostility and trench digging.  Perhaps slightly dishonestly I also wonder if it would give away the research we have drafted and bias students work, or if we are really getting students to do what it discusses anyway through the provocations*.  I imagine it would be useful later in the course and may be better placed there as something for reflection nearing the poster task.  Regardless I guess a number of students will find the work as we have used quotes from it in the first assignment, and perhaps letting it be found is indeed the most authentic approach (but maybe we can subtly put it on e-reserve with the PedR stuff as well).

My only remaining reservation would be that as in the preceding ramble I’ve signaled research present and potential.  This may be too honest for students who may be the subject of the research.  Similary sharing ideas prior to publication, while I’d hope it is the basis of this existence, sometimes appears to be taboo for fear of loosing out in the competition of output rankings.

Tags: ···

How do we disrupt the logic that new teachers often teach as they were taught?

January 26th, 2012 by · No Comments · Pedagogy, Uncategorized

  • ‘…because teachers were once students in compulsory education, their sense of the teachers world is strangely established before they begin learning to teach. We enter teacher education with our school biography. Teaching is one of the few professions where newcomers feel the force of their own history of learning as if it telegraphs relevancy to their work.’ (Britzman 2003 p.1)
  • ‘How a person learns a particular set of knowledge and skills, and the situation in which a person learns, become a fundamental part of what is learned.’ (Putnam & Borko, 2000)
  • ‘There is, though, an invisible element in learning to teach that the received wisdom does not mention. The sociologist Dan Lortie pointed out over twenty years ago that teachers go through a lengthy apprenticeship of observation in that they spend their entire childhoods observing teachers teach. Lortie sug- gested that the endurance of traditional teaching practice derives in part from the fact that teachers are highly likely to teach in the way they themselves were taught.’ Their experiences in primary and secondary schools give them ideas about what school subject matter is like, how students are supposed to act in school, and how teachers are supposed to act in school. Thus, when they begin to teach, they adopt the practices of their former teachers.’ (Kennedy 1999 p.55)
  • ‘If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob our children of tomorrow.’ (John Dewey 1859-1952)

It is well established in educational research that teachers often teach the way they were taught, regardless of the way they trained to teach. In many respects it is understandable as the early years of the profession are often busy as teachers adjust to their new career. Amongst this general busyness it is easy to retreat to the familiar, to what one spent 13 years absorbing. However, this trend often means that we inadvertently reproduce the inequities and ineffective approaches of the past. Many Pre-service teachers find this idea confronting, after all schooling was generally successful for them so why imply anything is wrong. To answer this question we need to consider the statistics on educational achievement (both here and overseas) which tell us that not everyone achieves in education, and that this achievement is strongly correlated with social background. Furthermore, as a university qualification prospective teachers have generally been amongst those that achieve in schools. The end result is that the views of important knowledge, relationships to knowledge, ways of interacting, and approaches to learning are often a product of this experience. If we are to disrupt the perennial patters of underachievement we need to re-think our approaches to education and teaching.

This is not to say everything is ‘bad’: It is however a call to think critically through the experiences that have formed our impressions of schooling and attempt to separate the good from the not so good. This is where pre-service teacher education as an academic discipline comes in. As an academic study with a developed research base it aims to encourage teachers to break with the reproductive logic that prevails, however as noted above this has not always been successful. In ‘SecED@UC’ we are exploring what we believe is an approach that achieves this – a strong focus on research informed practice, the use of the course provocations and pedagogical reasoning. This (new) unit I teach Semester 1, Curriculum Pedagogy and Practice 1, focuses upon planning. However this necessitates developing an understanding of what we are planning to teach and why, the influences on how we teach and an understanding of the research on effective teaching. This is then related to the subject specific context in the there KLA workshops that have a focus on the practicalities of preparing for your first professional experience placement.

Finally there are a couple of warnings. Firstly like any area of research some educational research is influenced by ideology. Thus, like most disciplines, for one reseach report claiming a solid conclusion there will be another claiming an opposite outcome. To overcome this I advocate a critical reading of the research, it’s methods, constructions and the ideology informing it. Secondly, there is often a disjuncture between the public discourse on schooling, ‘quality’ / effective teaching, and curriculum, and the conclusions of academic research. To deal with this I again ask that you consider these discourses, and academic research, critically and come to your own informed conclusions.

Teaching is a great profession. No two days are the same, there is always a challenge. The rewards are great – nothing matches the feeling of seeing a student ‘get it’ or having a student stop you in the street 10 years later and tell you how you changed their life. However with this comes responsibility, the future is literally in your hands.

Tags: ·

Teaching in Place: Rural Education in a National Curriculum

January 26th, 2012 by · No Comments · Uncategorized

On most indicators of social and educational achievement, rural schools tend to lag behind their metropolitan counterparts.  Overcoming these disadvantages through a common curriculum throughout Australia has been one of the aims of the development of the National Curriculum.  However, will the National Curriculum achieve this goal? The answer to this depends first on answering the question posed by Mark Doecke in 1987, specifically in relation to rural disadvantage: ‘Is it for real?’

Any conclusion of disadvantage implies a comparison to some ‘norm’ or advantaged location. In educational achievement terms, this is usually against a form of standardized measure within a common state based, or soon to be national, curriculum.  The tacit implication therein that the same knowledge is necessary and desirable for all students fails to recognize that place renders some knowledge more valuable and useful than other knowledge.  Consequently rural student dis-engagement and under-achievement can often be a function of a perceived lack of relevance or due recognition of the nature and value of place-based knowledge.  To counter this, it is important for teachers to understand that all curriculum needs to be situated.

This paper explores, with particular reference to the History curriculum, how a national approach to curriculum may in fact entrench rural educational disadvantage by positioning rural knowledges in an eternal binary with dominant metropolitan knowledges.

References

Mark Doecke (1987)  “Rural Disadvantage: Is it For Real?”, Curriculum Perspectives Vol. 7 No. 2 October.

Abstract of a paper I’m writing and ‘presented’ at the ACSA conference 2011. PDF of slides are here

Britzman’s Practice Makes Practice: Introduction to the Introduction

January 26th, 2012 by · No Comments · Pedagogy, Theory

I’ve begun reading Deborah Britzman’s Practice makes Practice, something I’m doing slowly with a colleague over the coming month or so.

Citation: Britzman, Deborah P (2003). Practice makes practice: a critical study of learning to teach (Rev. ed). State University of New York Press, Albany.

I first read Britzman about 5 years ago now.  To be honest ‘read’ is a bit misleading, I really read sections and skimmed others from the first edition and ‘lost subjects’.  At the time I was working on my MEd and my interest was triggered by my then mentor and an article by them where they use Britzman.  It’s a bit difficult to say exactly what happened and in what order, like any productive relationship there needs to be interest, value and interest from both parties.  As such I feel it was a relationship of guiding and putting words and theories to intuitive feelings I had.  We both worked in the field of rural education and came into contact as a result of some earlier work I had published as commissioned research.  

Prior to the meeting I had developed the opinion that what I was interested in revolved round the rural, identity, culture and the recognition of knowledges.  The roughly expressed feeling I had, developed from my career to then, was that there was a mismatch between the expectations and knowledges of many new teachers who went to work in rural schools and the students and communities they found themselves in, and consequently they felt ‘out of place’ experienced dissatisfaction and left, all of which magnified the disadvantages experienced by these students and communities. Broadly speaking this view remains the centre of what I think i’ll be exploring for this incarnation, however it’s more layered and complex now.

Since then Britzman has been haunting me.  While I had lost a consciousness of her meaning something of it’s impact lurked.  As i’ve been exploring notions of identity and place Freud and Jung have emerged as productive writers to explore, and as such much of Britzmans’ subsequent work has been hinted at by various authors.  However I hadn’t gone back to it.  I think this is due to fear and an unwillingness to grieve, and an unreconciled identity.  Fear of going back to the ideas and intellectual climate promoted by my former mentor and fear of being associated with them through the use of similar theories.  However writing this last sentence, and the preceding paragraphs, has been an act of reconciling with this problem.  Similarly there is a subtle grieving that anger didn’t allow at the passing of a mentor, as well as the grieving of killing off the identity I almost became.  Herein lies the unreconciled identity, the academic impostor, that remains unresolved at least I hope only until the completion of the certificate of practice.

This is where I return to the (revised) introduction to the second edition of pmp. Reading it lying on a sand dune in the early mornings of a summer holiday transported me back to five years ago.  I notice however in a subtle and subterranean manner.  It released thoughts and ideas productive to my work that I had closed off and upon reflection proved to me that I am indeed at peace with a past that has made the present; but does not determine it.  I wonder about all the things I have read and ideas I’ve noted down and played with and suddenly feel liberated to let them flow as they should.

This I feel relates in a number of ways to a key theme that comes through from the introduction of pmp, that we (pre-service teachers) come with expectations (of schooling) to the our work.  I couldn’t begin to think about writing about the immense research and teaching potential pmp has without work liberally writing ‘I’ and recognising what I bring to the reading and thinking of it.  In doing so pmp has proved its worth.

Tags: ···

Rethinking education in rural areas: Teaching in place

January 26th, 2012 by · No Comments · Place

Virtually since federation successive Federal and State government inquiries have made conclusions in relation to rural educational disadvantage.  The prevalence of this deficit approach has resulted in a situation where many cannot consider ‘rural’ without the competing notions of disadvantage, distance or their opposite of an idyllic lifestyle competing for attention.  When considering this dilemma we are simultaneously struck with its cause and solution at the same time; namely that any notion of disadvantage only exists because it is measured against something else.  In the case of rural schools it is the standards set by the centre and the expectations of those living in the large metropolis at its core.  This does not mean that we lower the standard of education in some settings, rather it is about re-thinking disadvantage and recognising that rural places are qualitatively different from other places.

Generally educational policy pursues outcomes of the highest quality, however to measure this an idea of ‘high quality’ has needed to be described.  Part of this description has inevitably been a centralised and examined curriculum, models of pedagogy (QT in NSW) and Professional Teaching Standards.  However the interplay between these creates a uniformality or sameness which limits diversity and fails to recognise the qualitative differences of places. Teachers professional identity is also entwined within this changing relationship as they measure themselves against what they imagine to be quality teaching as defined in these standards, models of pedagogy and their curriculum.  In many  rural places the imagined pedagogy and the lived experiences of newly appointed teachers often do not accord as the standards tend to privilege metropolitan knowledge’s and pedagogy. The resultant miss-match heightens teacher stress, undermines their professional identity and reduces their overall satisfaction. Ironically the promotion of standards has been justified as a way of providing equity for all areas; however in reality they diminish and ignores place while controlling space.

The dilemma of a cow

Theory can be dense and cyclical, therefore as an example it is instructive to consider that ‘there’s a cow outside my window’. What do we do when you can see a cow from your classroom window.  For some this may result in a fear, either of the cow itself , but generally a realisation that they are a long distance from what they know.  After all cows are in the country and the country is a long way away, there are no Café’ or takeaway restaurants and my friends and family are not there.  The country is so far away that ‘I’ can’t just pop back to the city whenever one feels like it.  More importantly country kids are different, and there are all these stories of violence.  Still others however will be enchanted by the romance of the idea of cows outside the window as they envisage a bygone era when things were less complicated and their lives not so hectic.  Indeed many aspire to teach in just a place as it is easier and the lifestyle more convivial with the idea of agriculture, even your own little plot, rather quaint.  What becomes apparent is that everyone can artificially manipulate the idea of a cow outside the classroom window to suit their particular preference.  The fact however that many schools outside large regional centres are hard to attract staff to and that those that are attracted have a high turnover rate suggests that for teachers there is often something still missing.

The general reactions to this idea of a cow outside the classroom window can be boiled down to the ideas of space (distance) and place (difference).  The presence of the cow has been reduced to the catalyst for an emotional reaction by the teacher.  However the cow’s presence can also be constitutive of a different knowledge of place.  For the local children who have grown up, often for generations, in the place the cow does not remind them of distance or difference. Rather it is a comforting symbol of the familiar, the certain and the known.  Their big question is why do these visitors find it so exciting or scary?  There are potentially two short answers; firstly that the reverse is also true with many teachers coming from urban backgrounds and thus finding that setting comfortable; the second however is more complex and is related to the curriculum and how it is taught, the pedagogy that is valued and that the standards teachers professionalism is measured against values an urban / metro reality.

Existing approaches

These relationships can be evidenced by examining the historical approaches to measuring and intervening in supposedly disadvantaged rural areas.  Against many measures these areas have been seen to be behind other parts of the state, with an average lower SES being assumed as the reason.  Consequently interventions have been aimed at giving these schools more of what they have been assumed not to have – resources.  The resultant equity funding has been used to supplement the resource base of the schools and provide additional teachers, while CAP funding has been used to give access to opportunities denied by distance, such as excursions to large metropolitan centres  (The Country Areas Program schools are roughly the most isolated in the state). These however really only remind people of what they haven’t got and that they are in fact different, and assume that what these students need to succeed is just more of what they apparently don’t have – namely the knowledge of the metro and its culture.

An analysis of the data however quickly shows us that this approach has not achieved its objective.  Instead figures 1 and 2 below show that in relation to literacy and numeracy CAP schools still performing below the state average, while outperforming schools which receive equity funding (PSFP).  It should be noted however that many schools receive both.

 

Figure 1 Mean ELLA Scores by Equity Group – Year 7 Literacy (NSW DET Annual Report, 2006;

2005; 2004; 2003)

 

 

Figure 2 Mean SNAP Scores by Equity Group – Year 7 Numeracy (NSW DET Annual Report, 2006;

 2005; 2004; 2003)

Similarly the argument that many schools rural schools perform poorly because they have a community of generally lower SES students is dismissed by figure 3 (below) where the most isolated schools in the state (CAP) have a similar distribution to non-CAP when literacy outcomes and SES are compared.  As such the idea of giving more resources to overcome a pre-existing deficit or access to cultural opportunities will increase achievement becomes at very least tenuous.

 

Figure 3: Mean Year 3 literacy achievement: CAP and non-CAP (non-metropolitan)

schools compared (Lamb et al. , 2005, p.119)

Place and disadvantage

In order to counter the tacit acceptance of rural educational disadvantage a new construction of the dynamics between rural places and disadvantage is needed.  One avenue to pursue this is through the recognition of difference, particularly understanding of rural place and how ‘the rural’ is created as the ‘other’ and then devalued, particularly in the dominant symbols of education and teachers professionalism – standards, pedagogy and the curriculum. This is partly influenced by the way places can be ‘real and imagined’ as seen in the Australian context where there is a mythology of the centrality of rural areas in the national image while they practically play little part.  Similarly there is often constructed in the popular imagination an idea of distance as being isolating or as many rural towns as being dangerous places.  This mythology creates fear and influences teachers decisions to accept positions it is suggested that it can also influence the retention of teachers as they battle to reconcile their learned perceptions with their lived reality.

In this way a teachers identity is influenced by their ability to perform their role as they see it, how they handle the tensions between their own expectations and that of external agencies, and their understanding of place as embodied in the complicated relations between identity, place and pedagogy.  The result of this internal conflict will be seen in how they enact their teaching, as either a pedagogy based on fear and a need to control and overcome that fear or as an immersion and acceptance of place.  This view is however mediated by views of what good teaching and professional behaviour is as embodied in metro-centric teaching standards and models of pedagogy which continue to remind teachers of the mismatch between the two.

Place or Space

There is a growing body of conceptual theory in relation to place and space in education.  Within the rural education literature the dominant view of place is that of a vehicle to recognise the inherent value of each place and overcome the perceptions of isolation and disadvantage by recognising and celebrating the positives of each location.  As such this place often appears to refer to the physical location or characteristics of the physical environment, with place being synonymous with a form of relevance or connectedness or an awareness of the local historical, social and economic conditions. These place based approaches are more often than not environmental in nature or opposed to the universalising tendencies of globalisation. This view refocuses the curriculum and pedagogy upon a relevance to the environment or context in which the education occurs.  While this is seen as an important component of student engagement in many models of pedagogy and should certainly be a factor in any new conceptions of social justice in education it remains essentially a limiting definition which exists in relation to a geographically defined location. Any conception of place needs to consider the way in which that place is conceived by those living at it and those to who it is new, as their perceptions are influenced by what they have heard and been told.  This conception of place verges on ideas of space but differs as it is focussed upon the interpretation of the location.  Critically however, it is how place generates new knowledge and how teachers come to recognise and understand that knowledge that needs to be theorised and understood.

Teaching in place

Employing a literal reading of the syllabus for teaching the 1967 referendum or reconciliation would see a teacher talking about the constitution, the improvement of rights and even the gaining of some freedoms for Aboriginal Australians.  However this would be rather pointless in a context where the students and parents still live on what were the local missions in mixed cultural groups away from their land, and in conditions akin to 1967.  Similarly the students of local farmers may be more interested in the cycles of the land than federation, which would only remind them of the increasing marginalisation of their employ in the modern nation.

A common method of connecting with the local context is to have community members come in to talk with students about their experiences.  However in many contexts this ‘local connection’ is really the family members of the students who themselves have a troubled relationship with the experiences they are being viewed as sources for a dot point in the centrally mandated syllabus.  Instead focussing upon place sees these ‘guests’ as representations of the local and allow them and their presence to speak for itself.  In this vein we recognise that there is a community knowledge stored in the land that teaches and when empowered is more instructive than anything from outside.  This is the knowledge people are born into or acquire by walking the land with open eyes and ears.  To access this knowledge teachers need to position the subject (person & place) centre rather than a literal curriculum.  Teachers do a version of this each day when they modify content or approaches to make the curriculum more engaging or to help students achieve, except here it is about the local rather than the curriculum.  It is not what the detractors would call ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’, rather it is about recognising that there are different knowledge’s, much as we accept with culture and IQ tests.  However it is not an either or as balance is required to empower the local while mastering the mandated – at least at the moment. Difference is instead about high expectations for all within an inclusive framework, not one where some are marginalised.

Tags: ·

History for Education: Revitalizing an Education Foundation

January 25th, 2012 by · No Comments · Uncategorized

Another idea I’m working on with a colleague, first drafted for a conference.

Objectives or purposes

The Conference theme ‘Non Statis Scire: To Know is Not Enough’ inevitably raises the central concerns of historiography and potentially signals a return to the history wars of the last two decades where views of what we know and how it should be used have been the terrain of ideological battles.  This partisan history is often overlooked as the foundation of what we know about the educational use of history, as while the nature of its use may be contested, that it is of use is not.  In this paper we explore the notion of history for education as a framework for the development of historical thinking in pre-service teacher education students.  We argue that this framework is useful in teacher education, history teaching and museum education.

As one of the early foundations of education all pre-service teachers were taught about the history of the profession they had elected to enter.  This suggests at some level a view that knowledge of the history of education was important in framing the professional preparation of the next generation.  However with the rise of performative governmentality agendas in education and standards based systems of teacher preparation and competency, history as a foundational study has declined, and is lucky to remain a small topic within broader foundational studies (Christou 2009).  This trend conflates the history of education with the nature of history itself as both are reduced to a level of functionality aligned to clearly observable, measurable and accountable standards.  Facts, or knowledge, are not contestable within this context. More troublesome however is the corollary that standards agenda’s are also not contested. As Connell points out this creates a new logic of the good teacher as one who follows and applies the ‘system’ (2009).

As Christou (2009) argues this leads to a reduction in the ability of the pre-service teacher to think critically, thus limiting their professional preparation. Consequently they do not question the social situation we find ourselves in today and become complicit in their own positioning. What is needed are meta-competencies that enable teachers to connect the standards and examine them (Connell 2009).  We argue that one of these meta-competencies to challenge the pervasive performativity agenda is historical thinking, in the form we have called ‘history for education’.

This is a deliberate play on words as we want to signal a reference to the history of education but emphasize a renewal and revitalisation.  It is our argument that to know history as conceived today is not enough for it is to in-fact not know history at all.  Furthermore that too much of what passes as history of education lacks a clear theoretical frame or purpose other than self perpetuation. In many ways the discipline of the history of education has fallen into antiquarianism brought about by a rigid adherence to principles of history for its own sake rather than extrapolating the lessons of history.  In the face of persistent and compounding distinctions in educational achievement and disadvantage we can no longer continue to simply describe the past and allow theory in other disciplines to mobilize change.  Instead it is time to move the paradigm and mobilize history as a theoretical tool; to recognize that indeed ‘Non Statis Scire: To Know is Not Enough’.

Perspectives(s) or theoretical framework

This paper is itself the proposition of a perspective and the development of a new theoretical framework, namely ‘history for education’. In making this bold move we build upon the field of historical thinking in education and communities, specifically the notions of historical literacy (Taylor & Young 2003), historical consciousness (Sexias 2006, 2008)  historical thinking (Lévesque 2008) and standpoint theory (Nakata 2007).  We also recognise the influence of a critical perspective by arguing the influence of regulation and standards on education as a profession (Connell 2009).

However we also claim that this position builds upon Shulman’s (1986) notion of pedagogical content knowledge and Christou’s (2009) call for the reinstatement of the history of education as an education foundation.  In this claim we agree with both Shulman (1986) and Christou (2009) that the separation of theory and practice is a false distinction, and propose that history for education is a philosophical stance that allows teachers to connect these two dichotomies in a rich and meaningful way.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry

This paper is primarily theoretical in orientation.  It develops an alternative theoretical perspective to analyze existing theories in relation to historiography, historical thinking and understanding, and the question of theory and practice in teacher education.  As such it is largely a textual analysis, however it also draws upon a few qualitative studies of teachers beliefs and practices, and some work with teacher education students by the authors to illustrate the main argument.

Data sources, evidence, objects or materials

The data sources used in this study are primarily other theoretical works in relation to historical thinking and consciousness, the discipline of history, standpoint theory and the general sate of teacher education.  Specifically it uses the notions of historical literacy (Taylor & Young 2003), historical consciousness (Sexias 2006, 2008)  historical thinking (Lévesque 2008) and standpoint theory (Nakata 2007).  The discipline of history and its disciplinary character is examined (Pace & Middendorf 2004, Chick, Hayne & Gurung 2009) along with Shulman’s (1986) notion of important knowledge for teachers.  In doing this the paper draws upon critical theory in relation to teacher education (Connell 2009) the decline of foundational studies in teacher education (Christou 2009) and the role of the history of education in teacher preparation (Kliebard 1995).

In addition to the theoretical analysis the paper also draws upon the discussions at a major national symposium, in the Australian context, that facilitated discussion about historical thinking in teacher education and museum education (Reference withheld as it was convened by one of the authors).  This symposium explored how historical thinking is developed in these contexts and explored new and emerging directions.  Furthermore some examples from the teacher education courses in which the authors work are used to illustrate the approach being advocated in this paper.

Results and / or substantial conclusions or warrants for arguments / points of view

Through using the approach of history for education in small scale classroom activities in their teacher education courses the authors have found that students are better able to mobilize theory to understand the debates they confront in their studies.  This has suggested to the authors that the theoretical approach has merit and needs to be further developed as a tool in teacher education.

While we agree with Christou (2009) and Shulman (1990) about the importance of the foundations in teacher education as the basis upon which other learning is built, and with Kliebard (1995) about the role of history in this, we feel it needs to be deliberately and systematically taught and developed.  We feel that given the time any historical foundation is likely to have, as well as the general disposition that historical inquiry skills need to be used to be developed, we argue that an approach needs to evolve over a series of units rather than within one or two.

We argue that the work in relation to develop historical thinking (Taylor & Young 2003, Sexias 2006, 2008 & Lévesque 2008) and the work in relation to disciplinary knowledges in relation to history (Pace & Middendorf 2004, Chick, Hayne & Gurung 2009) all position these skills as unique to history and in need of explicit fostering and development: they cannot be left to develop by association only.  To allow the skills and dispositions of history to develop by chance runs the risk of inadvertantly developing the traits of history teachers without disciplinary knowledge who merely present historical facts as part of a grand national narrative, thus reinforcing an array of social stereotypes.  Instead we argue that to reflect effectively (Schön 1987), and to connect theory and practice (Shulman 1986) in a way that critically examines the disaggregation of theory and practice implicit in professional standards models of the profession, pre-service teachers need to develop a new set of meta-competencies (Connell 2009) .  Foundational to these meta-competencies is the disposition of history for education, from which the skills of historical inquiry, critical analysis, synthesis and the habits of mind of reflective practice, can be deployed throughout the disciplines to understand education and the educative process and not be constrained within one.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work

This paper is significant in that it brings a new theoretical perspective to two substantial bodies of academic work – the field of historical thinking & consciousness, and pre-service teacher preparation. It outlines an approach that the authors argue mobilizes theory to enable pre-service teachers to critique what passes for theory and practice in recent years, and to bridge the perennial gap between theory and practice.  This approach furthers the arguments for the reinstatement of history as a foundation study by positioning its disciplinary knowledge as an important theoretical tool across disciplines.  Finally we conclude that through the use of a history for education approach pre-service teachers are better able to understand the historical and social development of an array of social issues that education struggles to address, and in so doing works to address these issues in their practice. This approach moves history from a position of ‘knowing’ to a utility value of mobilizing that knowledge, disciplinary skills and thinking.

References

Chick, N., L., Hayne, A., & Gurung, R. A. R. (2009). From Generic to Signature Pedagogies: Teaching Disciplinary Understandings. In R. A. R. Gurung, N. Chick, L. & A. Hayne (Eds.), Exploring Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind (pp. 1-16). Sterling: Stylus.

Christou, T. (2009) “Gone But Not Forgotten: The Decline of History as an Educational Foundation,” Journal of Curriculum Studies 41, no. 5 (2009): 569-583.

Connell, R.. (2009) Good teachers on dangerous ground: towards a new view of teacher quality and professionalism. Critical Studies in Education, vol. 50 no. 3, 213-229.

Ishler, R. E., K. M. Edens, et al. (1996). Elementary education. Handbook of research on teacher education. J. Sikula, T. J. Buttery and E. Guyton. New York, NY, Macmillan: 348-377.

Kliebard, H. M. (1995) Why history of education? Journal of Educational Research, 88(4), 194–199.

Lévesque, S. (2008). Thinking Historically. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Nakata, M. (2007b). The cultural interface. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 36, Supplement, 7-14.

Schön, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Seixas, P. (2006). Benchmarks of Historical Thinking: A Framework for Assessment in Canada: Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness, UBC.

Seixas, P. (2008). “Scaling Up” the benchmarks of historical thinking. A Report on the Vancouver Meetings, february 14-15, 2008: University of British Colombia.

Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4-14.

Shulman, L. S. (1990). “Reconnecting foundations to the substance of teacher education.” Teachers College Record 91(3).

Pace, D., & Middendorf, J. (2004). Decoding the disciplines: Helping students learn disciplinaryways of thinking. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Taylor, T., & Young, C. (2003). Making History: a guide for the teaching and learning of history in Australian school. Carlton South: Curriculum Corporation.

 

a couple of relevant links since:

 

 

Knowing Rural Place: A Question of Method and Intent.

January 25th, 2012 by · No Comments · Uncategorized

An outline from a developing paper, first developed for a conference.

Objective / purpose:

The Conference theme ‘Non Statis Scire: To Know is Not Enough’ raises a number of important problems for rural education research.  Foremost amongst these is how can we know the rural? And what methods are best used to do so?  In this paper I answer these, and related questions, while also engaging with the corollary of this theme.  In so doing I argue that it may in fact not be possible to either know rural places through traditional research methods, or use these methods to advocate on their behalf, for to do so inevitably takes away the essence of what makes them crucial sites of struggles for equity and justice.   Instead I argue that rural educational research needs to learn from Bourdieu (1992) and focus on specific rural issues rather than the method of study.  To develop this theme the paper has three parts; firstly it raises a number of issues of  method related to doing rural education research, secondly it looks at these problems from the perspective of two projects I have undertaken, and finally it brings the method issues and the example projects together to make conclusions about rural education research.  While I argue that we cannot know the rural through traditional methods I contend that in relation to the conference theme this is exactly what we do ‘know’ and why we need to look for alternative methods to better understand rural education. While focussing on the rural this paper engages with the debate on the nature of educational research.

The primary problem in studying the rural is the difficulty in defining what the site of study is due to it being a socially constructed space with competing and layered conceptions of its meaning and value. However this is also it’s greatest opportunity as the value of studying rural places is in fact within the problem of method and the difficulty in defining the rural: That the multiplicity of rural places and perceptions of the rural remind us of the forces that have become otherwise invisible and that inevitably place matters. Much rural research uses the theoretical tools of place and situated practice (e.g. Gruenewald, Green, Sobel, Smith).  In so doing they recognize that it is through a connection with the physical and social environment, and increasingly the local economy, that we come to ‘know’ the rural. With such an approach we can better understand (‘to know’) the larger social, political and economic forces that treat all places, including all rural places, as the same.  Through the lessons learnt in focusing upon the rural researchers are better able to understand the experiences of other groups in society, and which methods may be appropriate for this important work.  Furthermore the rural is a productive site of study in that it enables us to observe, and come to understand, many present challenges including neoliberal agendas in education (Gruenewald 2003) and the challenges of social and ecological sustainability (Reid et al 2010).

Perspectives / theoretical framework:

This paper uses a critical pedagogy of place (Gruenewald 2003) perspective to critically examine the influence of established, and powerful, methods on the construction of the rural. It agrees with Howley, Theobald and Howley (2005) that rural meanings are an essential component of rural education research and that these meanings are often lost in the focus on positivist research to influence policy and practice. Following Nespor (2006) this approach believes that the relationship between the centers and their peripheries need to be reconsidered with a form of particularism of method. In so doing the paper inevitably engages with the debate of what counts as evidence in educational research and the utility of this research as implied in the theme ‘to know is not enough’.  However it does so by arguing against methods that erase the particularity of places in favor of a situated approach.   This critical pedagogy of place perspective highlights the hegemony of scientific based research and neoliberal influences that deny the social and cultural particularities of places.  Here, the paper argues, is the opportunity of rural research to challenge both the pre-constructions of the rural but also illuminate how place is erased, to show the complicity of method and the opportunity of method to speak back to global placeless forces.

The perspective used in the body of the paper is influenced by Bourdieu’s ideas (1992) as I argue that too much of the focus of rural education research is upon the theoretical instruments rather than using the available tools to illuminate the particular field being studied.  In addition it assumes a reflexive approach from the author both in relation to the study of the rural in general, and a re-examination of a previous research study used as evidence in this paper.  In understanding the utility of research Bourdieu’s notion of field is employed to consider the conditions of cross-field influences of educational research as part of answering the corollary of the theme ‘to know is not enough’. Here I suggest that part of the purpose of rural educational research is to value rural place and to have this value recognized in educational policy and practice, however to achieve a cross field effect limits the methods used, undermines the purpose of the study due to the problem of method and effectively erases the rural as a site of study.

Methods / techniques:

The body of this paper is a theoretical discussion of the approach to rural education research and its utility.  This discussion is informed by Bourdieu’s ideas of reflexive sociology and his approach to research (2002).  In so doing the paper argues that the controversies of method are not settled (Nespor 2006) and advances a case against the traditional quantitative, qualitative or mixed-method debate (Denzin 2010).

Using the reflexive approach this paper examines two research projects conducted by the author in an Australian context, one a mixed method study conducted for an industrial body, and the other a recent study as part of doctoral candidature using unstructured interviews. The reflexive analysis of these projects illustrates the argument that research that produces clear numbers and compelling examples is valued in relation to rural education, and rural education policy, and that perceptions of the rural influence and shape such research (Duffy 2010).   Looking at the two studies used as evidence, the first used the mixed method of an online survey, unstructured interviews and policy analysis.  It drew draw conclusions and made recommendations on attracting and retaining teachers in rural and remote areas by using quantitative and qualitative ‘evidence’ of teachers in those schools, qualitative evidence from senior bureaucrats responsible for staffing those schools and union officials with a similar concern as well as an analysis of existing policy.  The second study uses unstructured interviews with rural school teachers to examine the influence of three central policies on rural schools, namely standardised curriculum and assessment, professional teaching standards and state sponsored pedagogy models.  By using unstructured interviews I was able to explore with teachers the central research questions of how teachers situate their practice and the influence on situating practice of neoliberal policies.  Unstructured interviews were used as pre-determined questions would take the rural and the issues of situating practice as pre-constructed, and as such create a methodological confound in the study.

Data sources:

The data sources used in this study are the two studies conducted by the author, and the author through a reflexive analysis of their position in relation to both research studies.  The first study was a national report into staffing rural and remote schools in Australia.  The data in this report was comprised of data obtained in an online survey, interviews with bureaucrats and union officials and a policy analysis, however in this paper the report is treated as one object to be re-read against the researcher and the question of rural education research. The second study is based on the analysis of a series of interviews with teachers in rural and remote schools in relation to how they situate their practice.  As such the data source is the transcripts of these interviews and their analysis.  Finally the reflexive lens is turned on the researcher and their position in relation to both studies and the method chosen to study these rural education issues.

Results:

In relation to the substantive theoretical argument of this paper I argue that an approach more akin to that suggested by Bourdieu (1992) is necessary for rural education research.  I outline a rural issue specific approach that enables researchers to examine specific rural educational issues, and how the alternative, a focus on method, hides the issues under examination and is in fact the antithesis of rural educational research.  The paper highlights a number of the problems a researcher will face in using this approach and the difficulty in avoiding a pre-construction of the rural in educational research.

A reflexive analysis of an earlier study by the author illustrates the pressures that seeking to effect a cross field influence places on both the collection and interpretation of data.  It is suggested that while this report obtained a position of national significance, party through its adoption of mixed method approach, it in fact obscured the very issues it sought to illuminate in relation to rural education.  Furthermore, I show how the methods were limited and perhaps inappropriate in academic terms, however this limitation may in fact be its strength in achieving a cross field effect and influencing policy and academic debate. Thus the utility of research and its relationship to research method is examined. The issue of the utility of research and appropriate method is further challenged by the interviews for the second study which, using appropriate method and theory, are constructed to recognize and value place knowledges – however in so doing may very well limit its usefulness in achieving a cross field effect based on the previous example.

Significance:

Rural education research is a site of growing importance as we face many of the challenges of the future (Reid et al 2010) in a globalised world.  It is through research that unashamedly values rural place (Howley et al 2005) that we are able to illuminate the influence of global forces that deny place.   To obtain its rightful value and to be a productive site of enquiry rural education research needs to move beyond the constraints of method which are complicit in its sidelining.  This paper helps researchers understand that it is not so much that rural research needs to be about valuing rural lifestyles (Howley et al 2005) but rather about valuing particularity (Bourdieu 1992, Nespor 2006) and rejecting universalism (Denzin 2010).  To achieve this researchers need to remember the particularity of the rural lifeworld, and not universalize or pre-position the rural, by using methods that erase the distinctness of rural places.  This is the productive tension in which rural research methods can emerge to better enable us to understand the social world and the influence of globalization and neoliberal agendas on it, and rural communities in particular. In this way we can move from knowing the rural to using that knowledge effectively.

References:

Bourdieu, P. & Wacquant, L (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. University of Chicago: Chicago Press

Denzin, N. (2010) Moments, Mixed Methods, and Paradigm Dialogs. Qualitative Inquiry Vol 16. No 6 pp 419-427

Duffy, R. (2010) Reflecting on Power Relationships in the ‘Doing’ of Rural Cultural Research. Cultural Studies Review vol 16, No.1 pp131-142.

Gruenewald, David (2003) “The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place”, Educational Researcher, Vol 34, No 2, pp 3-12.

Howley, C. B., Theobald, P., & Howley, A. A. (2005, December 31). What rural education research is of most worth? A reply to Arnold, Newman, Gaddy, and Dean. Journal of Research in Rural Education, 20(18). Retrieved [5.7.11] from http://www.jrre.psu.edu/articles/20-18.pdf

Nespor, J. (2006) Methodological inquiry: The uses and spaces of paradigm proliferation. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19, 115-128.

Reid, J., Green, B.,  Cooper, M., Hasting, W., Lock, G. & White, S. (2010) Regenerating rural social space? Teacher education for rural-regional sustainability. Australian Journal of Education, Vol. 54, No. 3, pp. 262-27

Paulo Freire’s book, ‘A Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ banned in Tucson, Arizona.

January 25th, 2012 by · No Comments · Uncategorized

One of the more important books in education (and social democracy in general) Banned in a US state!

The educator who they interview in the video  (below) when questioned about Freire’s book being banned in Arizona says:“They should not teach the kids that they’re oppressed as America is a land of opportunity and we should not teach the kids that America is a downer and that they are oppressed, that they can’t get anywhere and that they should be angry against their government and country and that is what the teachers are saying is happening when these studies are taught” hence why they do not want Freire taught.  A student apparently said that before she took the course she didn’t realise she was oppressed and now that she has taken the course she realises she is oppressed.

Here is one link to a blog about Freire being banned:  http://dailycensored.com/2012/01/18/paulo-freires-book-a-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-banned-in-tucson-a-note-from-bill-bigelow-and-rethinking-schools/

This second link is a news item about the situation from CNN with ppl being interview (very worth the watch). To sum the video says the following about Freire:

Part one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44uGGo7fvwA

Part two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ2tmS6gKtA&feature=related

Reflections while hurtling through rural space

January 25th, 2012 by · No Comments · Uncategorized

Reflections while hurtling through rural space
(an unedited diary of a journey – November 2011)
Phil Roberts

Day 1 UC-Albury 341KM

Day 1: What am I missing as I hurtle through the landscape on an ambivalent highway?

A rushed drive today to get here in daylight. Not that that means illegal extra speed, just no time to stop and enjoy the drive. Quite apt though, as I was hurtling down the dual carriageway connecting the two economic centres of the south-east in the bubble of my European made car listening to radio national podcasts. How odd these carved expanses, designed to bypass all the little towns on the old highway and minimize the transit time between Sydney & Melbourne.
It makes me think about my old themes of space and place, in that we are connecting two places by bypassing others, and as technology has improved the space has shrunk between them and the small towns squeezed out. Time is the issue then, time defines space. What took a day now takes an hour or so. There is also the issue of scale then as well, as time changes the scale as well.

Thoughts then turned to the land around. It was a lovely clear afternoon with a soft light, the land was in water colour; the sun in acrylic. It was lovely to see the Murrumbidgee in full flow and water in the overflow channels. Green hills: blue sky.

Why does the land and sky bring so much peace? Even hurtling along denying the places I pass it’s as though I’m in a trance receiving the energy of the sky and the land. What does this highway mean for the little farm houses and towns along the way. Yes there is the decline that comes with being bypassed and the decline that comes with the shrinking space, but beyond that, Is it a symbol that ‘they don’t matter’ and what matters is at either end of the highway? Then again this town could be a typical suburb of either (except maybe the ethnic mix). But then this is the south west, there is no highway out the far north-west where the teacher I talked to a couple of days ago is. Sure there is a road so the usual issues of space, time and scale, but not the same symbolism of the highway. I could however talk to him from my study via skype – the ultimate in space, time and scale compression.

Read more…

Renewing Rural & Regional Teacher Education Curriculum

January 25th, 2012 by · No Comments · Uncategorized

This is a great resource for thinking about teaching in rural and remote Australia. I was fortunate enough to attend the Launch and to have my research featured, and positioned as an important work!  It is an impressive project and a great starting point for future work.

Tags: