Spaces of Resistance

“Look at what happens in regimes where the freedom of creative expression is repressed. Does it stop? Of course not. It just goes underground for a while, because the energy is too great to be destroyed” 

(On Progressivism in Formal Schooling by Richard Keys taken from The Art and Craft of Pedagogy)

The Unlesson Manifesto intends to present an argument for critical and reflective pedagogy through tangible evidence and a strong collection of sources. It writes as a response to increasing external pressures being placed on professionals to follow a particular set of learning frameworks. 

Upon reflecting on my own learning experiences and exploring the paths that led me to working in the classroom I intend to set out a case for an alternative education model to the current neoliberal system that ensures current and future educators can argue for a mainstream education equipped with the skills necessary to:

1. not only function in society but to also adapt to societal changes
2. challenge the increasing dominance of education through the eyes of the market
3. defend the need for social justice in education
4. reflect upon their learning as an experience that prepared them for lifelong learning
5. install the ability to independently problem solve and self-motivate

As a teacher of Art & Design I am experiencing a marginalisation of my subject through the coalition government education reforms as they focus on a system driven by future economic demands, of which the arts do not seem to be a factor. It is the impact of my own educational experiences that have led me to the classroom and as I increasingly question my future on the teaching front line I am realising that it is important for students to experience teachers who challenge the educational status quo and present an irreverent side to the pressures of exams, grades and future plans that they are expected to swallow in assemblies, form-time and subject lessons.

On top of this current reforms imply that increasing global economic competition should drive educational performance and thus if ‘our students are perceived as being ill equipped to compete in the global economy, our teachers… must be doing something wrong’ (Aronson & Anderson 2013). As a result, teachers fears due to external pressures and reform ensure that delivery becomes about job security and where can there be educational freedom in that? In discussion with Freire, Myles Horton speaks of a system:

‘where teachers were killing off any possibility of students ever enjoying this literature [apply to any subject and material]. To them it was something that you had to learn, memorise, and you hated it because you had to do it’ (Horton & Friere 1990)

I find this interesting because my experience of education (in the classroom at least) was exactly this. Yet I am not one to slash and burn my educational experience due to a banking concept that was not yet aligned to global market pressures. Instead I find it interesting because of the counter point in my own schooling. There was a holistic approach that ensured any boredom or negativity, that may or may not have been directed by the teacher of a given subject, was countered by a significant programme of other activities and events. As such I feel that I was offered enough experiences to ensure a sense of value towards creativity and, as FitzSimmons & Uusiautti 2013 explain,‘human development where [I] can critically view [my] own life-world.’  In the current culture for measuring progress this is an immeasurable thing I am sharing yet it remains a driving factor for my qualifying as a teacher and my continuation in the classroom. Now however it may be different, as FitzSimmons & Uusiautti (2013) cite Diener & Seligman (2004)‘[d]omestic policy currently focuses heavily on economic outcomes, although economic indicators omit, and even mislead about, much of what society values’ or as Arne Duncan testifies in his UNESCO speech from 2010, ‘[I]n a knowledge economy, education is the new currency by which nations maintain economic competitiveness and global prosperity’

The main reason that I am a teacher of Art & Design is due to my own education. I stated earlier that I found a lot of classroom content dry yet I was clear in my mind from a young age that I wanted to teach. Art & Design was the applicable subject due to its different approach to learning. I was able to reflect on work I made, share in conversation about contexts that influenced my decisions and learn about processes and periods that supported my ideas. The ideas and the content were my own, not someone else’s and I was not regularly expected to provide an answer to a question that reflected someone else’s intention. This sense of self within a wider contextual framework was imperative for me and it is something I feel necessary to bring into my classroom. When I co-established The Unlesson Manifesto and took part in the Lesson(in)Action on the 1^st April 2014 this approach was at the forefront of my mind. It is important for me to let the students lead sometimes and when one teaches well, where one knows each of their classes and each of their students, a space of trust opens where teacher ability to relinquish control empowers students to accept the responsibility that is turned over to them. As I wrote in a previous blog:

‘I am always keen to let the flow of a lesson take over and not be rigid in my control/role as 'the teacher'. My lessons are always described as good or outstanding when being observed, so letting my lessons flow is certainly not to be mistaken for out of control but could be considered as organic. I want my students to enjoy their experiences in my classroom, to remember the social engagement and energy of the lessons. I am not naive enough to think my one or two hours a week are so important that they will come running and then leave with wisdom that sees every other subject pale into insignificance but I do intend to allow each student space to be themselves and feel comfortable when working with me on any given project.’

Freire acknowledges this teacher/student relationship as essential for what Atkinson calls ‘real learning’ where the ‘intention is to rework or rescue the idea of learning related to notions of ‘not-knowing’, ‘becoming’ and ‘immanence’.’ (Atkinson 2012). Freire discusses the relationship where:

‘[T]he teacher has to teach, to experience, to demonstrate authority and the student  has to experience freedom in relation to the teacher’s authority. I began to see that the authority of the teacher is absolutely necessary for the development of the freedom of the students…’ (Freire 1990)

Where I, the teacher, am ‘not concerned with education grounded in an economist pretext… which presume particular learner and teacher identities… [that present] clearly planned routes or aims for learning’. (Atkinson 2012) Indeed as I stated on another blog post:

‘When working off the classroom map unseen plans materialise and we are more inclined to respond to them. Education is bigger than us and we must learn to allow it the space to create new narratives that we can follow. We must not try to control it or put it in a manageable box. If we do it becomes static and dry.’

One of the key factors for my entering the profession was to share in students’ idiosyncrasies and in their learning. Exploring connotations of power by challenging institutional authority from an inside position and providing opportunities for that power to be reclaimed by the student is essential to my pedagogical approach. As I reflect on my experiences in the 6 schools I attended as a student I recently realised that an environment of learning and political teaching was in existence throughout my formal primary and secondary education. In my opinion teaching in the arts is particularly suited to a mode of delivery that counters the neoliberal knowledge economies currently in demand and as such it is marginalised ‘out of fear of sacrificing academic achievement’  (Nobori 2014). Studies by Catterall in the United States and through education reforms such as the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education Programme, Kansas City Council and SAILSS (Supporting Arts Integrated Learning for Student Success) all point towards the importance of an Arts centered education and evidence the fact that ‘students involved in the arts are demonstrably doing better in school that those who are not’ (Catterall 2009). It could be argued that where the neoliberal education policies are further embedded in American schools ‘[t]here’s been a public consensus that [their] schools [have been] in crisis for over three decades’ (Rabkin as cited in Catterall 2009). Rabkin goes on to say that:

‘During that period arts education has been consistently eroded in our schools, the victim of budget cuts and policy makers who are consumed with raising scores on standardized tests’ (cited in Catterall 2009)

So an answer to an improved education picture is through access to the arts. Yet perhaps a concern from the current economic model is that this viable alternative, which views an approach to ‘education through social, cultural and political constructs’ (FitzSimmons & Uusiautti 2013) will also open the door to ‘higher levels of empathy in others’, ‘[promotion of] community’ and ‘collaboration among both students and teachers’, (Catterall 2009) that are opposed to the fundamentals of socio-economic processes that has seen education:

‘diminished to dogma and the promotion of a view of teaching and learning that is reductionist and directly linked to the shaping of the economy… [where the]… marketing of education as a commodity has led to increased diversification of schooling based on semi-privatisation and the spectre of running schools for profit’ (Kelly 2013)

The complications from carrying out what can only be called an attack on the education system is resulting in teachers becoming alienated from their work and the separation of good teaching and learning from the increasing importance of arbitrary data targets is concerning. Erich Fromm (1961), as cited by FitzSimmons & Uusiautti (2013), explains that if a worker 'is alienated because the work has ceased to be a part of [his/her] nature' he or she fails to be fulfilled and indeed develops 'a feeling of misery rather than well-being, [and] does not develop freely [his/her] mental and physical energies but is physically and mentally debased' 

As Ben Levin states in the film Academies & Lies (link to the right - please watch):

'The job is how do we help those people understand their work more fully and improve their daily performance?... I don't think organisational features are going to do that. Indeed, I think we have a lot of evidence, from a lot of places, that changing the organisational structure does not particularly yield improvements in performance'

The current DfE regime states in it's Schools White Paper from 2010:

‘Too little teacher training takes place on the job, and too much professional development involves compliance with bureaucratic initiatives rather than working with other teachers to develop effective practice.’ 

But in reality the neoliberal rhetoric that surrounds teacher training and CPD is actually preventing the production of critically conscious teachers as the increasingly dominant DfE and centralised business model of education continue to make demands in the name of driving up standards. 'Do we want our students to think critically, question the status quo, challenge dominant ideologies?' (Aronson & Anderson 2013) Not, it seems, if it results in answers that have not been prescribed.