Maintaining engaged pedagogy in a climate of
perfomativity
This essay describes the negative impact on teaching
and learning created by recent Government education policy in England and explores
the possibility of a ‘pedagogy of transgression’.
(hooks.1983,p13-22). I hope to substantiate that agency is possible through the
creation of pockets of resistance that contest the pessimism of an overly
deterministic, structural functionalist perspective.
The erosion of creativity, autonomy and job
satisfaction for teachers in England and Wales due to Government education
policy has been widely documented.
‘The policy technologies of market, management and performativity
leave no space of an autonomous or collective ethical self. These technologies
have potentially profound consequences for the nature of teaching and learning and
for the inner-life of the teacher. They are not simply instruments but a frame
in which questions of who we are or what we would like to become emerge’ (Ball. 2006,p92).
Education has been reshaped to conform to the agenda
of neoliberal policies. As Robertson states:
‘In terms of the “mandate” for education, the economy was prioritised
above all else. Education systems were mandated to develop efficient, creative
and problem-solving learners and workers for a globally-competitive economy,
while teachers were to demonstrate [success] through national and global
systems which demonstrated “added value”’. (Robertson. 2007,p11)
A technology of what Ball calls ‘performativity’ (Ball.
2003, p216) or what one might characterise as ‘assured compliance’ has been adopted. A regime of control functions,
through a managerial panopticism, that constantly monitors, measures, judges
and compares performance. In this system teachers’ sense of identity and
self-worth is molded, through material and symbolic sanctions and rewards, to
conform with the requirements of neoliberalism in producing ‘docile bodies’ (Foucault. 1977,p138) to
feed the economic imperatives of late capitalism rather than to produce
critical thinkers who might challenge the status quo.
While many teachers and schools are in meltdown with
the pressures of trying to respond to the myriad Government directives. Ironically,
in my peripheral position as a supply teacher, I am no longer subject to such
stringent controls, accurately characterised as the ‘terror of performativity’. (Ball. 2006, p216) (Lyotard.1984 p63-4)
My marginalised position in relation to institution control
has opened a new space and the possibility of resistance. My self-esteem, shattered by the experience of working for
one of the ‘chain’ academies, like many others, (see Harris 2014) has been revived
by being able again to use my initiative, think on my feet, be inclusive, respond
to students with care and respect, and to be fully ‘present’ in the classroom. (hooks. 1994,p8)
Working in a SEN school, one of the students’
learning targets was to be able to count to three. The TA said “she’ll do it one day but forget the next”.
She can count to three if sweets are the items counted and offered in reward.
Since this is not allowed she is not currently able to count to three. This
threw into relief for me that what is taught has to be meaningful. A SENCO said
“you can work with a kid a week, a month,
a term, a year . . . there’s no discernible change . . . so much about teaching
is about relationships. . .’ (Sikes 2001. P92). I was happy at this school
because I could focus on relationships and activities that would help the
student and avoid the worst excesses of lesson objectives and monitoring of
progress that would have no impact on student learning.
Two colleagues and myself set up the Lesson(in)Action
and The Unlesson Manifesto blog to share radical classroom practice. (theunlessonmanifesto,
2014)The launch, at the NUT March
26th April 2014, declared a day of (in)Action, on April 1st
2014, when we would teach a lesson that would actively avoid the current ‘technologies of performativity’ (Ball.
2006,p217) that force teachers to conform to a formula of: aims and objectives;
the three/five part lesson structure; mini plenaries; pace; differentiation;
assessment for learning; the whiteboard; learning outcomes; seating plans;
prior learning; that is supposed to lead to the governments definition of outstanding
teaching and learning (Ofsted. 2014, p35) but in fact restricts our ability to
facilitate varied, student responsive, creative and meaningful learning
experiences, delivered with personal commitment and integrity, by requiring
that what is taught, and the only thing that is valued, is what can be identified
and measured as progress made.
My Lesson(in)Action took place in an SEN school with
eight students aged between seven and ten. In support were two teaching assistants (TA’s) and a trainee
TA. My desire was to offer an art activity in which students could make and
take home an artwork of personal value and meaning that might support their sense
of wellbeing.
In ‘choosing’
or ‘reward time’ I had been able to
offer impromptu art activities. The students always asked, ‘Can we take it home’. This demonstrated the
personalised value students placed on these activities and their desire for ownership.
I recalled, when I first started teaching, my shock
that much ‘school art’ is just that, an
artistic project that primarily exists within and for the school system, is the
property of the school and remains so in order to assign grade and level. Often
students could not, nor wanted to ‘take
it home’. Sadly I realised I had learnt to acquiesce to that system.
The lesson. In Guatemalan tradition, parents give children a Worry Doll before
going to sleep. The child tells his/her worries to the doll and in the morning the
worries are gone. The project was appropriate practically (taking account of concentration
span, cost, skill-accessible) and morally; it’s generally considered good to
talk about problems.
Some students experienced great anger at home, and
had difficulty getting to sleep. Therefore this project would have practical
value.
The theme, though probably based on a colonial appropriation
of an ancient custom, filled me with excitement and anticipation. But I felt
apologetic, it could be perceived as just another instance of ‘school art’, and
hardly a worthy topic for a radical art class.
Images of Worry Dolls were printed. A pile of
resources, mainly wool and tin foil, lay on the table. We discussed the idea of
Worry Dolls; what we might create, why talking about a problem might be useful.
I said their ‘Worry Doll’ could be whatever they wanted. It did not have to be
a person. I shared that I used to tell my teddy bear my problems. Two students
had a favourite animal, such as a shark, and made that their Worry Doll. Those
able to direct pencils (six of eight) drew their ideas. Step by step guides were
absent. Outcomes were unknown.
Resistance. One of the TAs announced that a questionnaire was needed and she
would work with the students one at a time, thus removing them from the centre
art table. I wanted a collaborative, dialogic energetic in the class room and this
would be compromised if students were constantly removed and replaced. I took a
breath and said no. The TA did the task but withdrew, with her student, to
another table.
After 10 minutes or so, the trainee TA, usually
positive, sat back confused and said, ‘I
don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing’.
This illustrated how staff, having inwardly digested
the technologies of performativity current at the school, were disorientated
and no longer able to use their initiative or feel safe in a situation that did
not conform to the rules of a structured lesson with pre-determined outcomes.
The students wanted to make their ideas and overcame
difficulties. Their new teacher (I was leaving) validated the activity by
actively participating and the trainee TA found a path into the activity by
observing others.
Students could not, on the whole, tie knots and
needed to articulate what they wanted to achieve with the staff. Laughter at
the unexpected, talk, happiness and eight Worry creatures were made and taken
home.
This forty-five minute activity had raised many
issues about what constitutes knowledge, the impact of the institution, how
learning happens, the role of the teacher and my values.
I considered how we become institutionalised, how we
become performers within the institution’s definition of our role, how this
limits learning and the possibility of growth and change. Play, invention and
creativity in the classroom are, though espoused in policy, (DoE. 2013,p1) in
fact excluded by the technologies of performativity. The fear of making
mistakes or not doing it right inhibits creativity.
The (Un)lesson provided the
students with the opportunity to perform, what Ranciere called, in a recent
interview, ‘an attempt to emphasise,
rephrase and translate an experience, to grasp the very flesh of experience’, (Ranciere. 2014: p 65) something
personal and meaningful in their own lives, into a sensible object, a work of
art.
To have instituted this short activity felt exciting,
courageous and risky in the context of market driven managerialism and
performativity.
Since the 1980’s two apparently contradictory
tendencies in global education policy occurred. Firstly, the positioning of
parents and students as consumers of education, along with an enlarged role for
the private sector in the provision of publicly funded education, and secondly
the increase of direct state regulation of institutions and teachers in the
construction of new system of accountability, inspection and performance
monitoring, in a culture of consumerism that challenged the traditional
proposition that ‘professionals know best’.
(Gewirtz & Cribb 2009, p157)
To insure compliance, teachers and schools have been
subjected to ‘the terrors of
performativity’ (Ball 2003), administered, for example, by teacher
appraisals, inspections and presented as comparative competitive public
information in the form of league tables. This has resulted in an erosion of school and teacher
independence, the ability to respond to individual and local identities and validation
of teacher experience.
This ‘tectonic shift’ in education policy has
resulted in the
‘transformation of education systems so that the
production of workers for the economy is the primary mandate: and breaking down
of education as a public sector monopoly, opening it up to strategic investment
by for profit firms ’ (Robinson. 2008, p2)
Yet education achievement in academies is lower than
in state schools (goveversusreality.com.14/05/2014).
Schools have become fewer and
larger in England, half the number of 1945, employing a younger, cheaper and
more ‘docile’ staff of NQTs and Teach First. (Adams 2013). Britain’s teachers
are the youngest of any developed country (OECD. Nov,2013) and the use of
non-qualified staff is on the increase at 6% (DoE 11. 2013). With burnout
endemic, the average number of years employed is seven, there are over 400,000
qualified teachers who no longer work in education, almost as many as those
that do. Teaching unions have largely pursued narrow economic aims rather than
supporting an alternative vision of education based on ideas of equality and
the nurturing of the democratic intellect. (McPherson
and Raab 1988, p392)
The current situation is a nightmare enactment of Friere’s
notion of education as a ‘banking system’
in which students become ‘receptacles to be filled’ and education ‘becomes the act of depositing’. (Freire,1970,
p53). In this situation
‘The capability of banking education to minimise or
annul the students’ creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the
interests of the oppressors, who care neither to have the world revealed nor to
see it transformed’. (Freire.1970, p54).
Freire views dialogue and praxis (action and
reflection) as key to
‘authentic learning’ where ‘students . . . [can become]
critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher’… ‘Liberation is praxis: the action and reflection of
men and women upon their world in order to transform it’. (Freire.1970 p60)
For
Freire ‘authentic thinking’ can only
take place where there is dialogue between teacher and student. This emphasis
on dialogue is crucial and facilitates ‘critical
thinking’. Through this dialogue we become ‘humanised’ and this
creates the space for freedom and democracy. (Freire. 1970. p58-60).
It is not only education, but childhood itself that has
become commodified in the hands of mass corporations with little interest in
developing critical thinking skills or developing the social skills to enable
active participation in democracy.
‘children’s culture has been corrupted by rampant
commercialization, commodification and consumption which has no interest in
developing the knowledge skills and experiences they need to confront the
myriad problems facing them in the twenty first century.’ In
a society where ‘kids can recognize logos by eighteen months . . .’ and are ‘asking for products by brand
name’ before the age of two. ‘ The
politics of commodification and its underlying logic of waste and disposability
do irreparable harm to children, but the resulting material psychological and
spiritual injury they incur must be understood not merely as a political and
economic issue but also a pedagogical concern.’ (Giroux 2009 p1-2)
The commodification and commercialization of
education puts under threat the traditional values formulated by the pragmatist
philosopher Dewey, where the role of education is to produce moral agents,
responsible members of society, rather than economic agents. Dewey is clear
about the need for education to take a moral stance. He describes the
educational evils that spring from the false ‘separation of knowing and doing. . . Knowledge is a mode of participation, . . . It cannot be
the idle view of an unconcerned spectator’ Dewey 1944 p336-338).
‘ it is also imperative that knowledge is not
separated from morals. Discipline, natural development, culture, social
efficiency are moral traits - marks of a person who is a worthy member of that
society which it is the business of education to further’ Dewey
(p359 1944).
hooks, a black feminist thinker, identifies with
Freire’s vision of the ‘transformatory’
and ‘revolutionary’ potential of
education (Freire.1970, p 60-62) and Dewey’s ‘powerful declaration that ‘’democracy has to be born anew in each
generation, and education is its midwife”’. (hooks. 1974,p14). For hooks
this is developed into ‘engaged pedagogy’ which requires that
teaching becomes ‘not merely to share
information but to share in the intellectual growth of our students’. To be
an ‘engaged teacher’, one needs to ’practice being vulnerable in the classroom,
being wholly present in mind, body and spirit’ and the classroom can thus
become a place where teachers and students learn and grow together. By bringing
ourselves into the classroom we are more able as teachers to ‘create pedagogical practices that engage
students, providing them with ways of knowing that enhance their capacity to
live fully and deeply’. (hooks.1994, p13-22).
However
to succeed in education for many requires a denial of self because one needs to
take on the mannerisms of the white middle class. It is assumed that in quiet
classrooms learning is occurring, so to be loud, boisterous, can for example,marginalise
you from participation.
Implicit in the transformative potential of education
is the concept of ‘mutuality’ within ‘communities
of practice’. The need to feel included is essential in order to participate
fully in learning. Mutuality
raises issues about inclusion, the need to validate student identity and share teacher
experience for knowledge to become accessible and meaningful to students and a
gateway to their own emerging identity. (Wenger 1998,p273).
‘Commitment to engaged pedagogy carries with it the
willingness to be responsible, not to pretend that teachers do not have the
power to change the direction of our students’ lives… ‘(hooks, b. 1994 p206)
I can still feel the enthusiasm and joy experienced
by myself and students in the Worry Doll Lesson(in)Action as profoundly as I
remember the mass of disengaged students at my previous school. Here few
students saw value or meaning in the irrelevant, standardised schemes of work,
and knew their school and education to be a path to low end jobs rather than
the journey to fulfillment and self-actualisation.
Like hooks, I believe that relationships are
fundamental to good teaching, in the value of sharing who you are and how you
got there, whether it be it talker to Teddy bears or pathways in education.
The classroom with all its limitations remains a
location of possibility… to move beyond boundaries to transgress. This is
education as the practice of freedom.’ (hooks, b. 1994 p207)
It is a terrifying statistic that 98% of us are born
with genius potential in divergent thinking which becomes reduced to 10% by the
age of 13-15.(Land and Jarman .1993)
The very nature of knowledge is changing (Lyotard, J.1979,
p3.) which plays into the hands of the mass conglomerates with their
encroaching control in the provision of education globally. (Giroux. 2012, p3)
The increase of standardisation
and regulation in education has been mirrored by a year on year by the widening
gap between rich and poor, social division and the worrying reemergence of
right wing extremist parties in Northern Europe.
We need a ‘moral education’ Dewey (p360, 1944) to be a transformative
experience that empowers our individuality and our ability to act in our local and
global communities of practice. We need courageous, connected teachers, recruited
from all sectors of society, able to share their experiences, values and
beliefs in dialogue with students in the learning experience.
‘students must be enabled to explore who they are,
who they are not, who they could be. They must be able to understand where they
come from and where they can go’ and ’Information for its own sake is
meaningless it must capture our identities and expand them’. (Wenger 1998,p
272-3)
‘Identity, Conflict and Public Space’ is a
free, online, interactive course committed to the belief that we can embrace the
multiplicity of our identities and through dialogue live in our ‘contested
spaces’ with more understanding and less conflict. Futurelearn (2014) A
democratic resistance to the neoliberal ‘banking’ model of education and its
consequences as is our Lesson(in)Action blog (2014).
As a teacher in the margins,[ . . .] I look forward
to developing my next unit of work – on the subject of conflict - in dialogue
with the class. Students can choose to work individually or in small groups on
the topic of their focus. We will develop
the unit together.
