Thoughts upon place and space in Education

It’s been a while since I’ve thought about all this in any deep and meaningful academic way, and strangely enough giving myself space from thinking and writing (and working) has seen me think even more and even deeper about these issues, such that it is all so much clearer. So clear I don’t know where to start.

I’ve left high School Teaching and Head Teaching (a job only those in seem to care about) and am now lecturing in SoSE (HSIE) and ICT. I also had 6 weeks leave to do nothing, and have 2 weeks in lovely Cairns. The new job is brilliant, a real homecoming perhaps? Also had time working for the Professional Learning Unit at the DET and the HSIE Curriculum Branch working on projects.

the long and the short of it – taking time and having space to think makes it so much easier to understand and to be clear… a message there perhaps.

The article ‘Rethinking education in rural areas: teaching in place’ can be downloaded here.

Similarly more preliminary information about the Teaching in place research project can be found at the Wiki, however feel free to drop me your comments.

A big thank you to the HTA NSW for allowing me to promote the project and the involvement of their members.

Originally from my closed site on Nov 2nd 2008..

but this picture inspired me to move to the public domain

For whatever reason I was thinking about the global financial crisis and the intervention of governments.  It got me thinking about the ‘end of history’ thesis of Fukuyama where he argued that the fall of communism meant capitalism was the only way to organise society.  As a result unrestrained capitalism reigned free.  At the same time the rise of Reaganism and Thatcherism influenced his views, and also the nee-liberal social policies which infected educational theory and social justice.  We ended up with the extreme choice model, the deficit and blame model of equity and the measure, measure and measure approach to educational improvement – and standards!

Now that rampant capitalism has been proved to be wrong with this crisis and the ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis looking more and more accurate I wonder what it means.  The rise of capitalism meant ‘new-labour’ and labour governments severing their socialist links (and now we have Blairs education advisor working with Gillard and Klein coming from the USA).  These ideologies gave freedom to the market and the new right.  However recently we have seen the impact of this unrestrained greed and how the house of cards has fallen.  The newly unelected government of financial administrators, fund managers and CEO’s, are more powerful than those we elect, as they shape society through their decisions to protect their undemocratic oligarchy’s.  These groups have been fostered and supported by same right wing governments and have used their power to now have a huge impact on all of society.

We have seen that democracy appears to have a more socialist tendency to work effectively as these same right wing governments have needed to nationalise and socialise the markets their very anti-democratic laws created to save the ‘crisis’.  The people’s money has been used to fix the errors of rampant ideology.  Will this be a fundamental shift in ideology and proof that hyper individualism doesn’t work.  In opposition to the neo-liberal performativity agenda most research, which was previously dismissed by the ideologues, shows that schools need to operate in a communal fashion to get the best results.  Will this financial crisis impact on educational management.  When I consider my chapter one about quity measures the new market approach links to the needed policies of social justice and repudiates the failed individualistic approach.  When I look forward to what i am reading now about curriculum being measured and metro-centric I see hope for a more collaborative curriculum.  When I consider standards I see the failure of the measure and compete approach and maybe a view that we need to work together.

At leat the idea that ‘there is no such thing as a society only an economy’ looks errant. or maybe I’m just letting off steam…

There appears to be a new middle age crisis in the education sector, and it is about technology. Arising from the ashes of discontentment is the new guru of blogs and wiki’s for professional learning and teaching – however it actually appears to be more about self concept and ego. These aficionado’s have convinced themselves of their own self import to fulfil some assumed psychological longing. Does anyone have the courage to tell them that describing incessantly how they read blogs, write their thoughts and how many you have following you on twitter or commenting on your blogs and how many you read and comment upon doesn’t really matter. The search for meaning isn’t simply writing and browsing, but more what you do with it.

Wile the use of ICT in the classroom might be somewhat engaging, there is a concern that we are misdiagnosing developing deep understanding for engagement and the ‘new’ a sort of cargo cult of educational reform. There is a difference between a pretty and engaging presentation and an intellectually challenging idea or learning process. Engagement doesn’t equal challenge, it merely predisposes people to be receptive to challenge. Without challenge they are just flashy books and electronic pencils.

These ‘exciting’ developments such as school wide, across nation global issues and making a difference blogs appear to be rather tokenistic. Because we talked about it on the web with other people we have done something! Ironically it is the schools of social and economic advantage that engage in this sort of activity and promote it, is it a sort of panacea for their actions/ does it change the lives of those subject to abject poverty due to global inequities – or maybe they are not on the blog for all the obvious reasons.

Interestingly these new aficionado’s and the privileged institutions se this medium, as those who control the medium effectively control access to it and how it will be used and developed in the future. Thus the inequity in the ICT world isn’t just who can buy it – but also how it is used.

This can be a transformative technology when its power harnessed, however it cannot be bolted on to existing practices. At the moment their is a big elephant in the room, the cargo cult of quality. In fact while used in the voyeuristic way many are its quality impact is a furphy, digital natives don’t exist, yes they can browse but only a few actually know how to contribute and participate, the dilbertisation continues as systems block the use of iCT to ‘protect’ us from it and ourselves, there is increasing breakdowns as systems don’t invest in appropriate infrastructure, there is a disconnect between the rhetoric and reality and the higher levels of thinking are not pushed. In recent research only 33% of pre-service teachers and 30% of early career teachers rate their teachers (ie lecturers and school teachers) use of ICT as good. Interesting kids see ICT as hands on learning

However it is the potential to work together n the joint construction and use of knowledge that is so powerfully potential. These technologies can democratise the classroom and move the teacher to the side (‘sage on the side’) to direct and facilitate learning. We will find that if we continue to use the knowledge transfer model technology becomes expensive pencil and paper. Students will just look stuff up or download the notes we prepare. It is what they do next that matters. Simply recalling or typing answers to questions is very low order on any taxonomy of learning, however if information is accessible, how we then use it to develop something new, develop new insights, critique – these will turn it into knowledge, via the higher levels of the relevant taxonomy. Putting pictures into PowerPoint and text into word documents is meaningless if the process didn’t involve deep thought and analysis.

The growth in knowledge means we are preparing kids for jobs and interests that don’t yet exist, and by the end of a 4 year degree the stuff they learnt in year 1 will be obsolete. What does it mean for schools – probably quite simply that it is about how to think, find, use and access information.

Thus we come to the Laptop in schools program. How will they be used? Especially when many sites are blocked and the control wielded by some faceless bureaucrat without and educational background. Teachers don’t have a say. would imagine that professional responsibility could be applied, just as when we take kids out of the school, such that if it is a teachers task, then teachers are responsible for it. Similarly teachers should be responsible for its correct use and ensuring anything untoward or inappropriate is deal with under the relevant policies and procedures. This approach seems to say that they cannot be trusted.

Blocking things appears to be a kneejerk reaction to platforms some policy makers or politicians do not understand. It is easier to block than engage in the harder, but more valuable endeavor of teaching and learning about why we should not act against societies morals. This is where the learning occurs.

Many sites, include education specific sites like edublogs, are blocked to most students. It is no use to have them unavailable to staff when we cannot use them with students. The world of pictures, media, wiki’s and blogs is the world our students inhabit. They also provide a great opportunity for us to work with students in constructing knowledge rather than simply having them look at ’stuff’. As we move to the era of laptops in the classroom we will need these applications. Teachers will not need to spend time transmitting information, but instead spend time using information with students to develop their knowledge. All the policy of blocking leaves us is low level work processing. This is on the bottom of all models of learning while the use and construction of knowledge up the top, and where we want our students to be. Otherwise these coming laptops will be nothing more than expensive pens for even more rote learning.

…and why American spell-check an Australian educational institution systems?

What does this have to do with situating knowledge?

Will the content being provided by the DET and professional associations lead to a new type of knowledge and pedagogical standardisation? The contradiction of my view of situated knowledge and ICT and the networked world intersects. Remember that globalisation has led to a reaction to the global and promotion of the local. Perhaps ICT will ironically allow people to express and validate their situated knowledge and then send it out for the world to see – a greater pluralism may develop. However maybe a new knowledge that is simply an amalgam of consensus will become apparent. The local needs to be guarded closely. Look at the story of India – an ancient and special culture hat maintains central cultural and social roles in a highly digitised and global society. However lets also remember the great inequities that exist and the recency of their digital revolution, a cultural pinch of salt but maybe also a lighthouse example.

Lets not get romantic about the beauty of the simple life…. What would the 1500 year old tree of Xilitcla think about all this? Are there examples of practice in the soil of the Havana’s Huerto’s… that what we do locally matters and life goes on…

In his 2002 article ‘Going Local’ from ‘Educational Leadership’ Smith basically says the same as the previous post but in an everyday way.  I find it useful to keep reading about ‘place based’ pedagogy even though it is strictly not what I am researching.  I think however it forms an important background component, while it is clearly linked.  My focus is upon how knowledge is produced in place, and then ignored.  place based is essentially the end pedagogical result but I suspect there is more behind it.

Smith points out that the strength of lace based education is that it links students innate curiosity and desire to be contributing members of their community.  I imagine we all agree, however it’s the end result of ignoring this, the disengagement and disillusionment that results from ignoring place knowledge that I want to understand.

It is a Smith points out the ability for teachers and students (and the community) to work together to produce knowledge that is a strength of the place based approach.  But how is it produced? and then what pedagogies do we use?  For others, Place based education derives the curriculum from the particular characteristics of communities and the interests of those involved.  it is a direct experience of the world rather than one mediated by the ‘accepted’ curriculum.  As such teachers and students are c0-learners and the power relationship between them is changed.  This I really like and find in my own experience, let along the ed psych, that it results in much better outcomes.  It can be challenging for some as it is unpredictable and requires a flexible disposition and skills of collaboration, investigation and locating resources.  It doesn’t ignore the mandated curriculum, but instead build up to it once the local context has been uncovered – this is another skill teachers require, to be able to see the curriculum links.  There is then a lot of the integrated learning approach with many KLA’s lined to a study.

When talking about the standards agenda, which place based fights, Smith talks about how teachers worth and performance are measured.  I like this ink to teachers worth as my underlying argument is that denying place undermines their self efficacy (see the paper on stress and satisfaction at the wiki). Place based also shows kids that they can be valued and important members of the community.  The testing and standards agenda tends to lead us to individualised learning which denies all this.

Placing it all in the context of quality teaching Smith cites Newman’s 1995 study of successful school restructuring.  While place based was not explicitly explored ‘researchers found that student involvement in authentic and meaningful work … enhanced student engagement and erformance.  Newman and Wehlage argue that these findings are the result of how teachers hold students to the same intellectual standards to which society holds adults: the construction rather than consumption of knowledge, in-depth understanding and communication associated with disciplined inquiry, and the creation of reports, products, or performances valued beyond school’ (p. 33)

Isn’t it interesting how this focus on real place based, place produced knowledge, has been migrated to models of pedagogy which are now applied across contexts as frameworks of what should be aspired to.  These ideas of authentic and meaningful have become linking the mandated curriculum to local examples and students interests – they have moved away from the original which was the generation in place.

Smith talks about Place-Based Education in a local sense, such that it is using examples and experiences from the surrounding physical area as the basis of the day to day teaching and learning.  He argues, in a manner that my ideas and research accord, that there is often a disjuncture between school and children’s lives.

Its aim, according to Smith is to ‘ground learning in local phenomena and students’ lived experiences’ (p.586), to counter the tendency for much education to direct ‘attention away from their own circumstances and ways of knowing and toward knowledge from other places that have been developed by strangers’ (p.586) such that ‘learning becomes something gained through reading texts, listening to lectures or viewing videos rather than through experience’ (p.586).  Thus the job of students is not to construct meaning but rather to ‘internalize and master knowledge created by others’ (p.586). This has been exacerbated by a preoccupation with standardized test scores. Quoting Gary Nabhan he says ‘it is a crime of deception  convincing people that their own visceral experience of the world hardly matters’.  Some students refuse to accept this and consequently remain on the margin, refusing to accept pronouncements about what is valuable knowledge as to them their own knowledge and experience is valuable.

Instead Smith argues that knowledge should be directly related to their own social reality.  The curriculum should be grounded in place, thus place based education is specific to locales and sees a generic curriculum as inappropriate.  What does this mean for pedagogy, is there a pedagogical approach to doing this?  Or is it the pedagogical approach?

Smith has 5 thematic patterns;

1. teachers and students turn the phenomenon around them into the foundation for curriculum development
2. earning experiences that allow students to become the creators of knowledge rather than the consumers of knowledge created by others
3. students questions and concerns play a central role in what is studies
4. teachers act as experienced guides, co-learners, brokers of community resources and learning possibilities (and make the links back to the mandated.
5. wall between school and community is seen as permeable (internships and local jobs seen as valuable)

some other thoughts,

- most curricula is concerned with perpetuating national rather than local knowledge
- place based is a chance to connect, using cutting edge technologies, with their own traditions
- local motivates & engages
- teachers then direct up to regional, national and international examples and issues, the big picture etc
- textbooks etc are written for a national market not the local
- not limited to observation and testing (and sorting) but also contribute to restoration
- school is embedded in the world rather than isolated from it
- teacher links the local problem to the larger curriculum and finds resources and problem solves.
- By seeing economic and employment opportunities in the local begin to break the perception that their economic future is dependant on decisions and investments from elsewhere
- Real thinking comes from actual involvement, and real local issues facilitate this.
- Learning activities that are academically significant and locally valuable.
- Alienation is often the consequence of the absence of experiences that confirm our value o people we share lives with, place based education can help to overcome the isolation that is a hallmark of modernity by connecting people and places.
- Teachers become the creators of curricula rather than the dispensers of curricula designed by others
- Need to be able to link unpredictable events with state based performance standards
- Break assumptions that they know what legit learning is
- Need to relax their reliance on academic disciplines as the organising framework for curricula and learning
- Rethinking of what is meant  by education
- Overcomes a consequence of the standards movement of focusing more closely on practices known not to work, instead it transforms the nature of schools.

What about the link to the NSW Quality Teaching Model element of significance?

Is there a connection to place more for rural students / people than non-rural?

From ‘Making Sense of Place’ 2008 . This chapter begins by citing Malpas (1999) who argues that place is generally understood as being space that is given meaning –thus we already have a focus upon the local characteristics and an approach which ignores the meaning space can carry of itself. However, lets carry on…

Place, according to Vanclay, is a meaning we put on a physical location as a result of our personal experiences and memories. It brings back those memories and feelings when we are there or view it, and as such it carries with it and with us a uniqueness of great importance. It is he suggests a coming together of the biophysical, social and spiritual. It becomes part of a person and communities narrative. In this vein he cites Gieryn’s (200) 3 conditions of geographic location; material form (physical); and investment with meaning and value (either positive or negative). All in all place is personal and therefore meaning different – but how does it happen?

Even though it changes for everybody, and may change as the environment changes (seasons, time of day, renovations) it remains an important part of a sense of identity, community and humanity.  In order to confirm the importance of place we tell stories about it, however by telling stories of place we constantly adjust, modify and redefine.  We also assert ownership and authority over place in this process.

The idea of a ’sense of place’ is problematic as it refers to an individual and not he place itself or a group. As such a sense of place is similar to place as it is an individuals interpretation and meaning.  They are both nested concepts as they operate on many levels simultaneously.  For Vanclay both place and sense of place are holistic, integrating concepts not meant to be narrowly defined.  There are many elements;

• Place attachment / Place identity – positive feelings to a place, identity connected to place.
• Place familiarity / Place awareness – knowledge an individual has of a place or local environ.
• Place commitment – willingness to contribute to their local place.

People with a strong sense of place often have a strong sense of belonging and are connected to their community.  Interesting while place and community are different concepts they work together in understanding and giving meaning to belonging. After all a community exists in place.  A sense of place is then part of well-being and satisfaction.

Interestingly a sense of place is both embodies and intellectual, as people who move places who intellectualise the process of becoming and understanding place often have a higher connection to teh new place than those who have lived there for a long time but not really deeply thought about it.  Similarly a place of childhood or origin can hold a strong meaning in the memory either imagned or enacted when a rare visit occurs.

It is then a phenomenological concept – and as such its influence on education dependant upon each individual.  How then do state wide models include this rather than ignoring it?

Gruenewald (2003 a Critical Pedagogy of Place) wants a place pedagogy where people value their location and look to protect its uniqueness from global and environmental forces, believing that when people love it they will be ‘critical’ of the influences and develop action to protect and empower it – just as critical pedagogy looks to overcome class and race hegemony this does so about place. It appears to be about empowering the local in order to overcome environmental damages and globalisation. This though assumes a local environment and knowledge that exists innately, and may suggest a positivist view of knowledge. To achieve this he suggests that we need to decolonize and re-inhabiting places in order to appreciate and understand them more.

In some ways I want to assume this rather than dwell upon it, however there is a similarity as one needs to know before they empower. Taking it further I want to understand and recognise how Knowledge is produced in place otherwise we are just empowering what is there and creating a universal difference between places. While I agree with the critical approach I want to use it to allow knowledge’s produced in place to have room and value rather than being squashed. In this way the local speaks but not of its own truth, but the process of making truth. Place needs to be rescued from the physical and made more psychological.

Gruenewald’s approach leads itself to a pedagogy of place, which is inherently limiting itself to description of place. Alternatively we need to understand how place creates knowledge and then develop a pedagogy to empower and open this knowledge.

Quotes;

‘with standards and testing dominating today’s educational discourse, the suggestion that educators should create curricula designed to foster empathy and allow for the exploitation of local places challenges current policy and practice’ (Gruenewald 2003 p.8)

‘in place of actual experience with the phenomenal world, educators are handed, and largely accept, the mandates of a standardised, ‘placeless’ curriculum and settle for the abstractions and simulations of classroom learning’ (Gruenewald 2003 p.8)

‘classroom-based research on teaching and learning that focuses on teacher skills and student performances and takes for granted the legitimacy of a standards-based paradigm of accountability is inadequate to the larger task of cultural and ecological analysis that reinhabitation and decolonisation demand. Further, the heavy emphasis in educational research on school and classroom practices reinforces institutional practices that keep teachers and students isolated from places outside of schools.’ (Gruenewald 2003 P.10)

One interesting idea coming out of Gruenewald’s ‘The best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place’ is the idea of Dweller and Resident.  This is a useful distinction in understanding how we connect to and learn to read place, and is probably linked to those that become long stayers and those that don’t.

The resident is a short term person who may live but has no emotional investment or attachment.  Their connection is economic and superficial, like a home that they stay inside of.  However a Dweller puts down roots, becomes involved in the community and area and lives outside of the 4 walls.  What processes of thought does one go through when they dwell?

This has been superceded by the post ‘rethinking education in rural areas’