In this short paper I wish to share some partially formed ideas, in a way that might be described as fragmentary, and I make the weakest of claims for coherence. The paper is presented in 'unpolished' form as it was at ISEC 2000. It is intended that the ideas referred to, will be presented in a forthcoming paper. Further details of this paper may be obtained from the author, who would also welcome further discussion on the points raised in it.
*** ***
I suggest that we live in a time of fragmentary compliance, and that this state of affairs has significant consequences for the education of all learners, including those who are most disadvantaged.
Initial Comment
In keeping with a concern about fragmentation, often described, more positively, as flexibility, the following ideas are presented as fragments. A positive interpretation of flexibility is frequently associated with the work of Anthony Giddens (for example, in his 1999 Reith Lectures broadcast by the BBC) and the call to wake up to the imperative of globalisation in all aspects of life, including education. I take a less positive view about the benefits of globalisation for education, and especially for the education of those people who are vulnerable in the taxonomy of global economics. The world of education, I would suggest, becoming increasingly illegible (Paul Celan, 1980). This illegibility is often described as flexibility. The rest of this paper asks questions about the benefits of flexibility, and argues for a more accurate metaphor of our education - that of fragmentation.
Fragment 1
It is striking that so far the teaching and learning process has stayed remarkably stable in spite of huge structural changes of the last decade or so. We believe that, as the pressure of international competition increases and we face up to the 21st century, we must expect change in the nature of schooling. ( Excellence in Schools. A White Paper presented to parliament in July 1997 by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment. Emphasis added)
I wish to make two observations on this quotation. Firstly, change needed can focus on majorities and ignore minorities, for reasons usually associated with competitiveness. It can also operate a nostalgic gaze, reflecting on 'what used to work', 'what works in grammar and independent schools'. Change then, even when needs must, does not always improve things as Wedell (1993) notes with regard to special education, and Nisbet (1980) emphasises eloquently points out with regard to social and political developments more generally.
Wedell (1995) and others have espoused flexible organisation in education - particularly in relation to teaching and learning - to address diversity. Yet much government educational policy put in train during the past three years in the United Kingdom would appear to be committed ignoring diversity and the kinds of pedagogic innovation and richness needed to address this. Crude but monolithic approaches to raising standards for the majority of children and young people are given full rein instead. At the same time, a range of managerial approaches are advocated, of the kind that 'talk up' collaborative practice to achieve greater efficiency and productivity. Richard Sennett (1998) cuts through rational innocence of these approaches, noting that:
The modern work ethic focuses on teamwork. It celebrates sensitivity to other; it requires such "soft skills" as being a good listener and being co-operative; most of all, teamwork emphasises adaptability to circumstances. Teamwork is the work ethic which suits a flexible political economy. For all the psychological heavy breathing which modern management does about office and factory teamwork, it is an ethos of work which remains on the surface of experience. Teamwork is the group practice of demeaning superficiality.
(The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism, p. 99. New York: Norton. Emphasis added)
We might see education as part of this economy, both in the way it prepares a labour force, and in the way it operates as a service economy sector. Within this flexible sector there is little room for those not malleable or useful to the economy.
Fragment 2
Remembering fragment1 we ought to be concerned about, and wary of addressing diversity better through 'new roles' of collaborative pedagogy, with every teacher a operating as a manager of learning. Potential here is immense - with newly forged relationships between curriculum, technology, and a range of educators. There is though, every chance that the 80,000 Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) who will be working in English schools by the end of 2001 will be yoked to standardised work practices that reinforce individualised support. Teachers, at the same time may be pushed away from pedagogic engagement with pupils who most need their guidance.
Something has to give, to optimise the potential flexibility of educators (especially if we link this to the power and creativity of information and communication technology (Blamires, 1999). Time and space needs creating within teacher education (Robertson, 1999) at both initial teacher education and continuing professional development levels, to allow for practise, experimentation associated with role flexibility and pedagogy. Current approaches, with an emphasis on standards and competence do not foster important creative and responsive practice. Instead, 'roles and responsibilities' are characterised in terms of task and managerial functions (Teacher Training Agency, 1999).
More negatively still, fear of failure has become such a significant feature of educational practice it pervades both management practice and teaching and learning activity. It also constrains creativity and risk taking (Hargreaves and Fullan, 1992) and constrains genuinely collaborative activity. Furthermore, acquaintance with failure (almost inevitable when working with the 'underperforming'), becomes profound:
…failure can be of a deeper kind - failure to make one's life
cohere, failure to realize something precious in oneself. Failure to live
rather than to merely exist.
(Sennett, 1998, p. 119)
Such journeys of failure are aimless and endless and yet educational policy in the United Kingdom seems relatively unconcerned by this.
Fragment 3
A standardised technology is used to better the performance of learners, and it is an old one. SMART* targeted practice is focused on individuals and organisations (see for example the Department for Education and Employment's The Target Setting Process, 1998). There is nothing wrong with some such usage, but not as the modus-operandi for education. Limitations of the 'method' have been exposed, by among others, Joe Dunne (1993) and Nel Noddings (1992) and yet it persists, perhaps because it is so crude and simple.
Some learners, because they do not thrive as others do under such regimes, become liabilities as Slee (1998) has noted. They might find their school based activities more and more closely scrutinised, or targeted, but not gain educationally from this practice. Some 'tools' designed to develop inclusive practice can all too readily be used within this 'technology' (Booth, T., Ainscow, M., Black-Hawkins, K., Vaughan, M. and Shaw, L. (2000) as such need to be handled with care. SMART inclusion, I suggest, is a frightening vision of the future.
Fragment 4
An alternative way of thinking about teaching and learning, is to frame it within what Noddings (1992) calls "one main goal":
…a goal that guides the establishment and priority of all others, it should be to promote the growth of students as healthy, competent, moral people. (p. 10)
I have discussed her view of what we must do to create caring schools (for all) elsewhere (Robertson, 1998); an approach which gives primacy to the relational in education. Rather than rehearsing the theoretical rationale of Noddings' approach to teaching and learning, I will highlight instead its connective points to the work of others and to issues discussed in earlier 'fragments':
These 'connective points' provide a so much more caring way of constructing teaching and learning than the current English National Curriculum model does. They are not 'anti-intellectual', and they potentially embrace exciting relationships with technology in teaching and learning. Furthermore, they offer the flexibility required to address the heterogeneous needs of learners well, a flexibility that has moral and pedagogic foundations.
Fragment 5
I return to Richard Sennett again (1998, p. 148):
… if change occurs it happens on the ground, between persons
speaking out of inner need, rather than through mass uprisings. What political
programs follow from those needs, I simply do not know. But I do know a
regime which provides human beings no deep reasons to care about one another
cannot long preserve its legitimacy.
(Emphasis added)
If we are to move towards more appropriate teaching and learning in schools, we need to recognise the damage being done by political programmes, which masquerade as inclusive, flexible and participatory. Such programmes simply do not care enough about groups of children, or individuals, and may as 'solutions' often do, cause much greater harm than good (Conquest, 1999). Caring, in the end is about such close relationships as Tzetvan Todorov (1999) has powerfully noted this with reference to some of the great tragedies of this century. For me, the future of inclusive education necessitates rethinking about issues of community, and relationships, and the seeking of alternatives to the rational and 'technical' pathways of social justice that others map out for us within the framework of a flexible economy. Without such rethinking, there will continue to be too many losers in education.
NOTES
* SMART (Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time-related)
Blamires, M. (1999) Enabling Technology. London: Paul Chapman.
Booth, T., Ainscow, M., Black-Hawkins, K., Vaughan, M. and Shaw, L. (2000) Index for Inclusion: Developing Learning and Participation in Schools. Bristol: Centre for Studies in Inclusive Education.
Buber, M. (1965) Between Man and Man. New York: Macmillan.
Celan, P. (1980) Poems. Selected and translated by Michael Hamburger. London: Carcanet Press.
Conquest, R. (1999) Reflections on a Ravaged Century. New York. Hushion House.
Department for Education and Employment (1998) Supporting the Target Setting Process: Guidance for Effective Target Setting for Pupils with Special Educational Needs. Nottingham: DfEE Publications.
Dunne, J. (1993) Back to the Rough Ground: 'Phronesis' and 'Techne' in Modern Philosophy and Aristotle. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Edwards, G. and Kelly, A. (1998) Experience and Education: Towards and Alternative National Curriculum. London: Paul Chapman.
Freire, P. (1973) Education: The Practice of Freedom. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Co-operative.
Fullan, M. and Hargreaves, A. (1992) What's Worth Fighting For in Your School? Buckingham: Open University Press.
Hansmann, H. (1992) Education for Special Needs: Principles and Practice in Camphill Schools. Edinburgh: Floris Books.
Levinas, M. (1974) Otherwise than Being. pp.180ff. Hague: M. Nijhoff.
MacIntyre, A. (1999) Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need Virtues. London: Duckworth.
Nisbet, R. (1980) The History of the Idea of Progress. New York: Basic Books.
Noddings, N. (1992) The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Robertson, C. (1998) 'Quality of life as a consideration in the development of inclusive education for pupils and students with learning difficulties', in Tilstone, C., Florian, L. and Rose, R. (eds) Promoting Inclusive Practice. London: Routledge.
Robertson, C. (1999) 'Initial teacher education and inclusive schooling', Support for Learning, 14 (4), 169-173.
Shakespeare, T. (2000) Help. Birmingham: Venture Press.
Slee, R. (1998) 'High reliability organizations and liability students: The politics of recognition', in Slee, R. and Weiner, G. with Tomlinson, S. (eds), School Effectiveness for Whom? London: Falmer Press.
Teacher Training Agency (1999) National Special Educational Needs Specialist Standards. London: Teacher Training Agency.
Todorov, T. (1999) Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in Concentration Camps. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.
Watson, J. (1996) Reflection Through Interaction: Classroom Experiences of Pupils with Learning Difficulties).
Watson, J. (2000) 'Constructive instruction and learning difficulties', Support for Learning, 15 (3), 134-140.
Wedell, K. (1993) 'Special needs in education: The next 25 years' (Briefing No. 14) London: National Commission on Education.
Wedell, K. (1995) 'Making inclusive education ordinary', British Journal of Special Education. 3, 100-104.
 |
 |