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Issue
11 (Fall 1998)
Table of Contents: "Authoring" a Professional Identity:
Barbara Graham "Authoring" a Professional Identity
Describing professional development as a journey or quest to "author" a professional identity is my attempt to situate professional development in a socio-cultural, historical perspective. This perspective probes the interactions and tensions between individuals and groups. It reminds us that teaching is a social practice that is embedded in a rich, contextual history. To get to this point in my journey, I have woven ideas
introduced by Bakhtin, Mead, Schon, and Vygotsky into an approach to professional
development that highlights the particular lived experiences of teachers. Teachers work
within communities of knowledgeable peers, who are trying to help young people become
responsible and contributing members of a democratic society. Professional development is
the responsibility of individuals but also the responsibility of the profession. Teachers enter the professional community having appropriated and assimilated the world views of their many communities. George Mead (1934) draws a useful distinction between the self as subject, the "I" and the self as object, the "me." The acting self, the "I," responds to the attitudes of others and acts as a conscious, intentional agent, whereas the objective self, the "me," is the internalization of the organized set of attitudes of the generalized others. The "I" then, challenges the traditions embodied in the "me." Maxine Greene (1978) acknowledges that "it is always tempting to identify oneself as what one has been or done in the past (how one was named, credentialed, defined), to become--as it were--a 'me'" (p. 36). The "me" remains empty, whereas the "I" becomes filled with meaning when people learn to speak, not as "what" but as "who" they are. The "I" and the "me" exist in a state of tension, a dialogical relationship, always seeking, but not achieving a balance. Roles, such as teacher, principal, or superintendent are categories assigned by others. Identity, on the other hand, is something continuously being negotiated from particular positions in the time/space dimension. The "I" challenges the categories provided by others and constructs itself against these cultural traditions. All of us belong to many traditions and author ourselves from the multiple categories we receive from others. Since the self is cast in different roles in each community, we compose ourselves in order to function in these various communities. The author of a life fashions a meaningful life story by integrating various perspectives and stories into what MacIntyre (1984) calls a "narrative unity." Just as words printed on the pages of a novel, notes printed on a page of a musical score, paint placed on a canvas, or forms sculpted from raw materials remain open to new interpretation every time they are consciously read, the self as a construct remains open and unfinalizable. The notion of "dialogism" (Bakhtin, 1984) assumes that the "text," in this case, the self, is always in a state of becoming. The self is being constituted while others respond to it through discursive networks, through social and cultural practices, and through institutional structures, power relations, and ideologies. Our personal and professional lives, constantly in interaction with the lives of others, have both the potential to respond to these others and to influence these others. Bakhtin believed that humans strive to create an integral self to take responsibility for that self, to be answerable for that self. I am arguing that teachers author a professional self in order to become responsible for that self, to accept answerability for their practice. In achieving a coherent sense of self, individuals accept or devise descriptions of themselves which include both moral and ethical self-characterizations that situate them in relation to standards, goods and obligations to others. The self is viewed as a social being engaged in the daily practices of the life world, as one who acts in and on the world in concert with others. (Taylor, 1986, p. 312) The role of others, the relationship to "goods, standards and obligations to others" is part of all stories. "What gets internalized in the mature subject is not the reaction of others but the whole conversation with the interanimation of its voices" (Taylor, p. 314). For teachers, listening to colleagues' stories lets them hear multiple interpretations and perspectives of similar situations with a variety of evaluative accents. Staff discussions provide a chance to record things we do that are pertinent to teaching, discuss them, and refine them. Conversations with colleagues provide opportunities to affirm practice and to envision alternatives to current practice. All of these situations provide occasions for teachers to work in the world in "concert with others." Professional Communities This notion of shaping professional identities bridges the gap from isolated individuals acting alone to the idea of communities of knowledgeable peers working to achieve a common purpose. Such communities engage in discussions about educational values and practice. Professional selves, as are private selves, are developed in webs of interpersonal relations and are mediated through language, through a process of conversation, either with specific others or through encounters with texts. We craft our professional lives in relation to what our notions of practice are and we orient our professional lives according to our notions of what ought to be (Bakhtin, 1986; Greene, 1995; MacIntyre, 1981; and Taylor, 1986). However, our lives are complicated by a multiplicity of understanding about human communities and conflicting values about what good teaching entails. The practice of teaching is located in a social and political context against a background of tradition (Kemmis, 1987, p. 75). It is not only individual action but it is also a distillation of patterns of action expressing values that have been socially constituted and justified. I am suggesting that practice is more than the manifestation of a teacher's knowledge, more than the teacher's translation of knowledge into ways of interacting with students, more than a stance toward subject matter, and more than a display of instructional strategies. It is a social and political act which includes an expression of values, with notions of the "goods" and "ends" of practice emerging from tradition and is thus embedded in the past and present. It can be witnessed and heard through performance manifesting itself in the ways teachers work with students. I am casting teaching practice here as performance similar to the performances of musicians during which the musician cannot be separated from the instrument, from tradition, or from the music. Traditionally, notions of improvement of practice and reflection on practice have been considered individual activities. This view of practice places the responsibility for improvement of practice on the individual and glosses over social and cultural influences. However, the very notion of practice draws upon established traditions and procedures which have evolved in a social context. My notions about practice have been shaped by the following definition:
This definition of practice as a "socially established cooperative human activity" links individual practitioners to collective traditions, an element of which is to extend the conception of excellence and the purposes of the activity. This element of pushing the possibilities of practice forward has attracted teachers to the notion of action research. It is this element of practice that has been ignored by the Manitoba government and by those who support a technical and instrumental approach to professional development. In communities of shared practice, language is used to negotiate agreements that will support norms of co-operation and collaboration. It is used to sustain a process of communicative exchange, initially by allowing others to identify with the topic, and later, by maintaining the knowledge that binds the community together. Members of communities of shared practice react to changing circumstances by telling stories from the past. This historical context provides the social context of shared knowledge, linking the present to both the past and to the future. One of the functions of communities of knowledgeable peers would be to make visible and audible how decision-making processes occur. In this way curricular decisions become subject to public scrutiny and evaluation. Several years ago the superintendents' team introduced reform initiatives which challenged teachers and principals to develop new professional communities in schools. Two mediational tools, reflection and collegial dialogue, were to become the links between the situation-specific details of practice and the more general and often decontextualized arena of theoretical discourse, long-term planning, and policy documents of the province and district. Teachers and principals were to examine critical issues and dilemmas using their own knowledge, in the form of narratives and anecdotes culled from their practices and experiences as well as knowledge generated by others, in the form of articles and reports. Indeed, the combined strength of reflection and dialogue, lies in the opportunities for professional learning provided for practitioners to move between the particularities of their individual situations and the general domain of current issues in educational thought through engagement with the discourse of the wider professional community. Each school has funds of communal knowledge which will continue to evolve as circumstances change and as new members enter the group. Members of school communities will need to learn how to exploit the potential of these funds of knowledge. One approach would be to expand the role of collegial discussion to make values, assumptions, beliefs, and opinions more explicit and then to respect and understand the diversity within the group. I am not suggesting set procedures to facilitate collegial discussions, since that would be authoritarian and monologic. What I am suggesting is the notion of an active intentional orientation to the perspective of the other while trying to maintain a stance of "outsidedness", an activity that is dialogic in nature. Responsible professionalism demands that we be conscious of how we came to our knowledge and that we try to be as conscious as we can be about how we came to adopt our values and perspectives. It asks us to be answerable for the self that we have authored. Composed Self/Composite Other We have authored a self by and through our interactions both with others and with texts. I would like to extend the notion of the authored and composed self to suggest a "composite other" as the projected audience for professional discussions. In our attempt to understand where "others" are coming from, we project the experiences of those who have been significant to us. We need to learn to listen to the actual voice of our conversational partners as "concrete" others, offering mutual respect and acknowledging our interdependence. If we are unable to hear the voices of these composite others, to listen to colleagues as equal moral agents, discussions disintegrate into the playing out of our prejudices and preconceptions. The life text, authored by an individual with intentions, purposes, hopes, and aspirations can only be understood by responsive, composite others who recognize the work of the self, which is to fill the "I" with meaning. The work of the self is the exercise of personal agency by acting and speaking through the cultural traditions of the communities to which the "I" belongs. For teachers, composite others are not only their dialogic partners in team discussions and teacher/principal dyads about practice but include the accumulated responses of students, media reports and government statements about teachers and public education, the weight of cultural traditions, memberships in multiple social groups, membership in subject area departments, responses from parents, previous acceptance and/or evaluation from colleagues and administrators, observations culled from experiences, knowledge of relevant theories, and, most importantly, the self as reflective practitioner engaging in internal dialogue with composite others. Let me attempt to summarize these ideas. The notion of authoring a professional identity complicates the discourse on school reform efforts and professional development by highlighting the interdependence among personal agency, personal history, school and district cultures, and the wider ideological, political, and economic contexts. It is based on the assumption that individuals attempt to make meaning from the swirl of events they encounter in their worlds. Story telling is one of the most powerful tools we use to shape these events and make meaning. Teachers put form on the events of their practice in order to shape it towards their understanding of what teaching entails. When teachers tell stories about their classrooms, they frame their tales from within their inherited traditions according to their ideas about what ought to be as well as their understanding of who will hear their stories. This process occurs with or without the support of administrators and policy-makers and becomes a central component in the ongoing process of composing a professional identity. A view of teacher development couched in the complicated matter of identity formation challenges the assumptions of all those writing about planned change by acknowledging the importance of teachers, their perspectives, and working contexts. It values the pedagogical understanding and knowledge of specific contexts that teachers bring to discussions about planned change. Another dimension of the idea of composing a professional identity is that individual teachers are embedded in networks of social relations. As members of professional communities, they are engaged in the political act of teaching. The practice of teaching becomes interpreted as the distillation of patterns of action expressing socially and historically constituted values. The notion of authoring a professional identity recognizes that inherited traditions and conventions channel understanding and perspectives in particular ways but it also recognizes that individuals, by choosing their response to events in their lives, are able to modify their perspectives. How individuals respond is dependent on their understanding of teaching, and of their human and professional responsibilities. This understanding does not remain static throughout a career but is shaped and stretched by interactions with students, parents, colleagues, texts, policy documents, and media reports. The responsibility for informing and articulating goals, assumptions, and understanding about practice is returned to individuals as part of their professional project of authoring an identity. Authoring a professional identity weds the individual with the social, is rooted in past traditions in order to create the future, and encourages active and focused engagement with educational theory to focus on teacher learning about practice. In composing a professional identity, individuals will always experience dissonance between the desire to remain within the inherited cultural time/place and the desire to transform the world. By acting in the world, individuals influence it, and are themselves changed. The notion of authoring an identity foregrounds the conscious, intentional actions of knowledgeable people striving towards a future. However, the notion of authoring a
professional identity raises difficult issues about how to create conditions and patterns
of professional interaction that both challenge and support educators in their struggle to
improve practice. The author of any work manifests individuality through personal style,
world view, and voice which permeate all aspects of the work. I am suggesting that
teachers manifest their professional identities through their teaching styles, their world
views, and their relationships to others and to their work. Their professional style and
voice have been formed by and through interactions between their selves and the numerous
social groups of which they are members over the course of a professional lifetime in
communities of other professionals. Teachers who are involved with authoring an integral
self, a self that is answerable for its particular actions in particular situations and a
self that is responsible to composite others in interconnecting webs of interpersonal
relations, are teachers engaged in continuous improvement of practice. Bakhtin, Michael, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, Michael, M. (1986). Speech genres and other
late essays. Trans. V. W. McGee. Greene, Maxine. (1978). Landscapes of learning.
New York: Teachers' College Press MacIntyre, Alasdair. (1984). After virtue: A study in
moral theory. Mead, George. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Taylor, Charles. (1991). The Dialogic Self. In David Hiley, James Bowman, Richard Kunsterman (Eds.), The interpretive turn (304-314). Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Ong, Walter. (1982). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen. Vygotsky, Lev. (1970). Thought and Language. Cambridge: MIT Press Tensions of Teaching Tensions of Teaching, a collection of narratives of practice written by Canadian teachers, was recently published. Matt Meiers asked Judith Newman, editor of this book, some questions.
Judith wrote: "Let me attempt to answer them for you." What I was Trying to Show For nearly fifteen years now, I’ve been working with teachers in an action research context. When we began in 1984 we didn’t know that the activity we were engaged in was called “action research” but that was, in fact, what we were doing. I wanted to help the teachers to take a critical look at what was happening in their classrooms: first, to help them uncover the assumptions that were shaping their instructional decisions; second, to allow them to have a glimpse of what their students were really experiencing. I wanted to shift the teachers’ gaze from “teaching” to “learning”--both their students’ and their own. We invented a vehicle for ourselves--critical incidents--to help us explore what was happening in our classrooms. I started out by asking the teachers to make note of whatever was going on that made them uncomfortable, moments when they weren’t sure what decision to make, or where they were unhappy with the consequences of some judgement they’d made. We recorded very brief accounts of these moments on small index cards and then discussed these incidents in class. These stories became the basis of our inquiry into curriculum. Writing was an important aspect of our work. I’d come to appreciate how writing helped me discover what was going on in my own teaching--I believed it would be beneficial for teachers also to write as a way of creating a new understanding of their professional lives. I encouraged people to keep a journal. I asked them to write to me on a regular basis to share connections they saw from the professional reading they were doing and what was happening in their classrooms. The next step was to take some aspect of their professional lives and craft a narrative account of it for readers other than ourselves. This particular anthology of teachers’ writing grew out of the 1994-95 “Action Research” graduate class at UM. The teachers had no idea at the outset that they would become published authors. Although that is always a potential goal of mine, I, too, wasn’t certain at the beginning that we’d succeed. My purpose was to have the teachers explore their teaching to discover what they could learn from their students and if at the end we had publishable stories to share all the better. But first, and foremost, my intention was to help these teachers become what Donald Schon called “reflective practitioners.” Tensions of Teaching, then, is a collection of our thoughts and reflections on our teaching and learning experiences. Through this writing, we have attempted to show what we’ve learned about the political nature of teaching. We’ve tried to show, as well, the complexity of the everyday decisions we face in a classroom context. We share the suprising insight that every action and every decision in a classroom carries with it the potential both to support and to interfere with students’ learning. We reveal our feelings of vulnerability. We explore our new-found understanding that teaching is fraught with tensions. We wrote hoping that our readers would better understand the constraints under which we, and they, work. The Critical Issues in Professional Practice Teacher / action research is about discovering ourselves, about uncovering our assumptions -- assumptions about learning, about teaching, about values and beliefs. Teacher research is driven by a desire to understand the theoretical rationale which influences the instructional judgements and decisions that we make. An important first step in becoming a teacher / action researcher is to enter into an exploration of how we compose our practice. What beliefs underlie what we choose to do in the classroom? What internal and external constraints and pressures affect the decisions we make? What counts as “data”? What might we do differently? At the heart of teacher / action research is the struggle to learn from our students. What sense are they making of what’s going on? Are they engaged or turned off by the experiences we offer them? How are they preceiving the classroom world. Most teachers find becoming a “kid-watcher” a difficult undertaking. Learning to observe students and to see the world from their perspective is not easy because it means allowing ourselves to become vulnerable. Given the realities of classrooms it’s a certainty that whatever activity we try, whatever invitation we extend, it will be wrong for some students. Consequently, becoming a better observer means discovering what’s not going right. It requires an act of bravery to engage in this kind of inquiry. Sometimes inquiry begins because a teacher has already identified tensions and is now wondering where to go next. Sometimes mandated curriculum change serve as the jump-off. Other times simply the desire to understand what’s going on in the classroom situation sets the process in motion. The major impetus, however, for examining our assumptions generally comes from our students--particularly students who reject school. At some time or other we all face students who resist what’s going on in the classroom. That’s a fact of classroom life. The traditional way of dealing with this resistance is to identify resisting behaviour as “bad” and to punish students. More effective, however, is to attempt to understand students’ resistance, and then to try to find ways of inviting students into learning. In either case, the teacher / action researcher is driven by a need to understand what’s involved in taking a new path. An inevitable outcome of inquiry into practice seems to be the realization that the classroom calls for something new. The evidence from our observations of what’s happening in our classrooms makes it clear that if we really want to engage students, we’re going to have to do things differently. The point of teacher / action research isn’t to prove anything--the reason for engaging in teacher / action research is to confront such questions as “How is my teaching affecting my students?” “How might I improve what I’m doing?” We want to gain insight into learning and teaching as well as into the political pressures which affect our decision-making. Teaching is full of contradictions. There is always a gap between our intentions and our actions. In some sense, we’re always “becoming” as teachers; that is, there’s always something new to learn--new students present new challenges and changing times requires changing our ways of teaching. Because our judgements are based largely on our tacit theories, on values and beliefs that are culturally determined and not explicitly articulated, the act of creating a narrative permist us to distance ourselves from our judgements a bit and affords an opportunity to make the basis of our work open to inspection. The critical issues uncovered through action research are all political. Recently I compiled a partial list of tensions facing teachers. The list included such things as engagement vs coercion; collaboration vs learning in isolation; issues of power and control; students “not-learning”; choice and ownership; negotiating the curriculum; the pressures associated with standardization--of curriclum, of assessment, or reporting; dealing with opposing ideologies, etc. Our inquiries all lead us to ask questions about power and whose interests are being served. This reflective activity takes us outside the status quo of schools--it permits us to ask questions about what is worthwhile in teaching and why. It allows us to challenge the taken-for-granted. The Role of Narrative Let me excerpt a bit from “On Becoming a Better Teacher”--one of my pieces in the book.
Narrative, I’ve discovered, is perhaps the most valuable tool for exploring what’s happening in my teaching . It’s through my journal jottings and my subsequent attempts to see beyond the moment to the issues affecting my decision-making that allows me to be more responsive to my students. I believe it’s important to understand that we will always have not-learning going on in our classrooms and that if we want to help reverse it we have to recognize our contribution to students’ decision to be not-learners. Other Important Stuff Ultimately, teacher / action research is about researching and changing myself. The vast literature on restructuring schools, on school reform, is “pie-in-the-sky” stuff because it doesn’t take into account the fact that teacher change has to be individual. Any educational reform must involve helping individual teachers and administrators to see their work in new ways. I don’t see much of that happening--instead, I see coersion--standardized tests, standardized curriculum being foisted upon teachers making it harder and harder for them to take the time to build relationships with their students. Yet, it’s that relationship building that is at the heart of any sustained engaged learning. The teacher / action research movement is becoming more and more widespread. In publishing Tensions of Teaching, I was hoping to furnish further resources for teachers unhappy with the status quo, to help them develop tools to explore what’s going on in their classrooms, and to help them better understand the political pressures and the tensions which affect their every decision, their every judgement, in the classroom. References: Kohl, Herb 1994 I Won't Learn From You. In: I Won't Learn From You. New York: The New Press: 1-32. Newman, Judith M. 1997 Interwoven Conversations:
Learning and Teaching Through Critical Reflection. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press.
Educational Action Research and the Construction of
Living Educational Theories Background In the March 1997 issue of Educational Researcher, Robert Donmoyer (1997) asks, What is a Journal Editor to do when educational research is in an era of paradigm proliferation? He attempts "to figure out how to play the gatekeeper role at a time when there is little consensus in the field about what research is and what scholarly discourse should look like.” This was followed in the May issue by Part 1 of Competing Visions of What Educational Researchers Should Do, with contributions from former Presidents of AERA, William Cooley, Nate Gage and Michael Scriven (1997) and in the June/July issue by Part 2 of Competing Visions for Enhancing the Impact of Educational Research with contributions from David Berliner, Lauren Resnick, Larry Cuban, Nancy Cole, James Popham and John Goodlad (1997). In concluding his contribution to the June/July issue Donmoyer asks, "How can we enhance the impact of educational research?” I am interested in contributing to debates on the nature of new paradigms in educational research and educational theorizing. In particular I want to direct the attention of educational researchers to the living educational theories produced by educational action researchers to explain their own professional learning as they answer and research questions of the kind, "How do I improve my practice?" (Whitehead, 1993; Evans, 1995; Eames, 1995, Hughes, 1996; Laidlaw, 1996; Lomax, 1994; Evans, Lomax & Morgan, 1998; Holley, 1997, Shobbrook, 1997; D’Arcy, 1998; Geelan, 1998) In this era of paradigm proliferation I want to raise the possibility that such educational theories offer the most valid forms of explanation in the world today, for explaining the educational actions and influences of these action-researchers with their colleagues, pupils and students. Purpose To present a new paradigm of educational research grounded in the living educational theories which educational action researchers produce for their own professional learning. Theoretical framework In presenting the evidence to support a "living theory" paradigm of educational research I know that I am asking you to understand this evidence in relation to a reconstituted meaning of "theory.” In understanding my meaning it is important to see that there is no one "theoretical framework" in the new paradigm. Each individual action researcher is creating her or his own living theory in the explanations for their professional learning in their educational inquiry. It may be helpful if I begin with familiar definitions of "theory" before moving into a process of showing the meanings of living theories and showing how to distinguish living theories from other forms of theory. I think you will understand "theory" in similar terms to Argyris and Schon when they write about a set of interconnected propositions. Theories are theories regardless of their origin: there are practical, common-sense theories as well as academic or scientific theories. A theory is not necessarily accepted, good, or true; it is only a set of interconnected propositions that have the same referent - the subject of the theory. Their interconnectedness is reflected in the logic of relationships among propositions: change in propositions at one point in the theory entails changes in propositions elsewhere in it. Theories are vehicles for explanation and prediction. Explanatory theory explains events by setting forth propositions from which these events may be inferred, a predictive theory sets forth propositions from which inferences about future events may be made, and a theory of control describes the conditions under which events of a certain kind may be made to occur. In each case, the theory has an 'if...then....' form.” (Argyris, C. and Schon, D. 1975) In my view, living theories are not characterized solely by a set of interconnected propositions. The data sources below include such propositions within their dialogical forms of representation of a living theory. Their meanings however, cannot be validly reduced to such propositions. The reason for this is that living theories contain “I” as a living contradiction. Living theories cannot be reduced to a set of interconnected propositions because contradictions are necessarily embodied in living theories and excluded in propositional theories. They are excluded by a logic of propositions which claims that two mutually exclusive statements cannot be true simultaneously (Popper 1963). The question of how “I”, as a living contradiction, constitute a significant part of an explanation of their professional learning is answered in different ways by each action-researcher in the theses and dissertations listed below. These living theory theses and dissertations are also characterized by the explanatory power of the values and understandings which these action-researchers embody in their explanation for their own learning and which they use as the standards of judgement to test the validity of their claims to knowledge. The importance of understanding the use of values as standards of judgement in testing the validity of such claims to knowledge is that they offer new standards to academic communities for legitimating the new living theory paradigm. When I write about values I mean those qualities which give meaning and purpose to our personal and professional lives. The creation of living theories begins in practice. The creation begins in the kind of inquiries which I think you will have engaged in of the kind, “How do I do this better?” or “How can I help you to improve your learning?” or “How can I live my values more fully in what I am doing?” I draw support from Ryle’s point about practice
preceding propositional theories: ...... practice precedes the theory of it; methodologies presuppose the application of the methods, of the critical investigations of which they are the products.... The crucial objection to the intellectualist legend is this. The consideration of propositions is itself an operation the execution of which can be more or less intelligent, less or more stupid. But if, for any operation to be intelligently executed, a prior theoretical operation had first to be performed and performed intelligently, it would be a logical impossibility for anyone ever to break into the circle. (Ryle, p. 31 1949) I was inspired in my commitment to the importance of values as explanatory principles in educational inquiries by Richard Peters’ (1966) insistence that education should be understood as a value-laden practical activity. When studying educational theory with a team of philosophers at London University led by Peters between 1968-70, I initially accepted his disciplines approach to educational theory. In this approach, educational theory was held to be constituted by the disciplines of education where, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and history were distinguished by their conceptual frameworks and methods of validation. However, I rejected this approach in 1971 on the grounds that this view of educational theory did not have the capacity to explain my own professional learning as an educator as I worked with my students on improving their learning. I did not reject the part, which these disciplines could play in creating and testing educational theories. What I rejected was the idea that any of these disciplines contained the possibility of producing a valid educational explanation for my professional learning as an educator as I asked, answered and researched educational questions of the kind, “how can I improve this process of education here?” In the process of rejecting the disciplines approach to educational theory I made a decision to create and test my own educational theories to explain my professional learning as a teacher-educator and educational researcher. I was fortunate in reading Polanyi’s (1958) work. Polanyi explained the basis of personal knowledge in terms of a decision to understand the world from one’s own point of view as an individual claiming originality and exercising judgement, responsibly. Perhaps because of my first degree in physical science I
have retained a concern with validity and with clarifying the standards of judgement I use
to test the validity of my claims to educational knowledge. I found support in developing
an approach to validity in Habermas’ work (1976): The goal of coming to an understanding is to bring about an agreement that terminates in the intersubjective mutuality of reciprocal understanding, shared knowledge, mutual trust, and accord with one another. Agreement is based on recognition of the corresponding validity claims to comprehensibility, truth, truthfulness, and rightness. (p.3) I seek to establish the validity of living educational theories by subjecting the explanations offered by action researchers to the questioning of a “validation group.” This usually consisting of between 6-10 people, some of whom are working with the researcher and some who work from different paradigmatic perspectives. The kinds of question we focus on are: is the report comprehensible? (comprehensibility); Is there sufficient evidence to support the claims to knowledge? (truth); Are the meanings of the values shown and justified in the course of their emergence through practice? (rightness); Does the account offer an explanation for the individual’s learning which shows a sustained commitment to living values in practice? (truthfulness). In drawing on theoretical frameworks from Polanyi and Habermas, I do not want to give the impression that these form the basic theoretical frameworks for this paper. I want you to be clear that the basis of this paper is the living educational theories created by action researchers’ studies of “singularities.” These living theories show how researching one’s own professional practice as a “singularity” within a particular social and professional context, can contribute to a new paradigm of educational research. Michael Bassey (1995), another former President of the
British Educational Research Association, says that the term “singularity”
originates in an educational context in Helen Simon’s (1980) Towards a Science of the
Singular. Helen attributes the term to the inspiration of David Hamilton. A singularity is a set of anecdotes about particular events occurring within a stated boundary, which are subjected to systematic and critical search for some truth. This truth, while pertaining to the inside of the boundary, may stimulate thinking about similar situations elsewhere....... (Bassey, 1995, p. 111) Bassey says that a boundary can be defined in space and
time, for example as a particular classroom, or school, or local education authority, or
as sets of these, in a particular period; or it may be defined as a particular person, or
group of people, at a particular time and in a particular space. He points out that to
some people the distinction between a study of a singularity and a search for
generalization is pedantic and unnecessary. He disagrees in terms of the research ethic of
the pursuit of truth: The conclusions of research should only be generalized, meaning that they are firmly extrapolated beyond the population under study, if it is clearly established that the general population has the same characteristics as the population, which has been researched. To assume that the findings from one study of a small group of primary school teachers, or fifteen-year-old children, or left-handed astrologers with blonde hair, can be extrapolated to others who fit the same description is nonsense! It is nonsense because there are so many other contextual variables, which may determine what happens - variables of personal history, of understanding and of intention of all the actors involved, as well as variables of setting. (p.111) The unit of appraisal in the living theory paradigm is an explanation, produced by the “singular” educational action researcher, of her or his own professional learning in answering and researching questions of the kind, “How do I improve my practice?” Of fundamental importance in the creation and testing of living theories is the use of values as standards of judgement in testing the validity of the explanations. The living theory theses and dissertations in the data section below draw upon the following range of values. This is not intended as a comprehensive “list” of values. Each living theory contains a unique constellation of values and understanding. I would add Robyn Ladkin’s (1998) value of ‘compassionate understanding” to the following values. Aesthetic and moral values are identified by Laidlaw (1996) in her explanation of her educative relationships with her pupils. She shows how these values are developmental in nature as she explores the implications of asking, “How can I account for my own educational development by teaching ‘The Ancient Mariner’ to Rebecca, Zoe and other members of their Year Seven Class?” Spiritual values are addressed by Cunningham (1997) in an explanation of his educative relationships as he supports teachers in their action inquiries of the form, “How can I help my pupils to improve their learning.” Dialogical and dialectical values have been explicated and used by Eames (1996) in his analysis of his professional knowledge-base as a teacher-researcher. Methodological values have been demonstrated by Lomax (1997) and Hughes (1996), in their stories of their professional learning and educational development. Lomax has defined the values of the inter- and intra-subjective dialectics in constructing an action research account. Hughes has examined the value of understanding the theoretical antecedents of the particular approach to action planning used in an action inquiry. Political and economic values have been identified by Whitehead (1993) in his explanation of his professional learning as a university teacher-researcher. Educational leadership values have been revealed by Evans (1995), in the creation of her living theory as she researched her influence in the development of an action research approach to the professional learning of her colleagues. Relational values have been used by Holley (1997) in constructing an explanation of her professional learning with her pupils and colleagues in a community school in the U.K. context between 1990-1996. Curricular and assessment values have been highlighted by D’Arcy (1998), Hayward (1991) and Walton (1992) in their narratives of their professional learning as they show what it means to them to make educative responses to pupils. In making a distinction between the “living educational theories” created by the above educational researchers and “theoretical frameworks” I want to emphasize that living theories can include theoretical frameworks. For example, I use some of the ideas of Bakhtin (Holquist 1990) and Ilyenkov (1977) in justifying my inclusion of “I” as a living contradiction within dialogical educational inquiries of the kind, “How can I help you to improve your learning?”. To show you how I do this I will justify my use of “living” in “living theories” and my inclusion of “I” as a “living contradiction” within my claims to educational knowledge. My use of “living” in “living theories” In my educational enquiry, “How do I improve what I am doing?”, I exist as a value-laden centre of consciousness where my ‘I’ has no experiential beginning and no end for me. In this I believe with Bakhtin in existence as dialogue: The only way I know of my birth is through accounts I have of it from others; and I shall never know my death, because my ‘self’ will be alive only so long as I have consciousness - what is called ‘my’ death, will not be known by me, but once again only by others... Stories are the means by which values are made coherent in particular situations. And this narrativity, this possibility of conceiving my beginning and end as a whole life, is always enacted in the time/space of the other: I may see my death, but not in the category of my ‘I’, For my ‘I’, death occurs only for others, even when the death in question is my own. (Holquist, 1990, p.37. ) I have described above my move to create an alternative possibility to the dominant “disciplines” approach to educational theory. The original thought I had in 1971 was that instead of being constituted by the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, sociology and history, educational theory could be viewed as being constituted by the descriptions and explanations which professional educators created for their own learning as they answered practical questions of the kind, “How do I improve this process of education here?” This “living theory” approach does not preclude the integration of insights from other theories. The problem I had with a view of educational theory derived from a “rationalist” philosophy is the same problem identified by Bakhtin in the creation of his literary theories: As Bakhtin explains “I” do not fit into theory - neither in the psychology of consciousness, not the history of some science, nor in the chronological ordering of my day, not in my scholarly duties...... these problems derive from the fundamental error of “rationalist” philosophy... The fatal flaw is the denial of responsibility - which is to say, the crisis is at base an ethical one. It can be overcome only by an understanding of the act as a category into which cognition enters but which is radically singular and responsible. ( Morson, G.S. & Emerson, C. 1989, p. 13.) I feel an affinity with Bakhtin in stressing the importance of singularity and responsibility. Given these agreements I looked for points of disagreement where someone influenced by Bakhtin’s literary theories might not believe in my conception of my living educational theories. The main point of disagreement might be in his Notes of 1970-71 where he says: Take a dialogue and remove the voices (the partitioning of voices), remove the intonations (emotional and individualizing ones), carve out abstract concepts and judgements from living words and responses, cram everything into one abstract consciousness - and that’s how you get dialectics. The living theories I have placed on the internet would appear, in my judgement, to have found a way of embracing dialectics without removing the voices (some intonation has been lost) or carving abstract concepts from living words or cramming everything into one abstract consciousness. Let me now turn to “I” as a living contradiction. My use of “I” as a living contradiction I am using contradiction in the sense of two mutually
exclusive opposites being experienced simultaneously and I want to distinguish between
contradictions in experience and contradictions between statements. The law of
contradiction, which states that two mutually exclusive statements cannot both be true
simultaneously, has been used to eliminate contradictions from “correct
thought.” Popper’s view was that theories which contain contradiction are
useless as theories. Using the laws of inference he demonstrated that if a theory
contained a contradiction “we can infer from a couple of contradictory premises any
conclusion we like” (Popper, 1963, p.319). For dialecticians such as myself
contradiction as the concrete unity of mutually exclusive opposites is the central
category of dialectics. But, as Ilyenkov (1977, p. 320) pointed out: ...no small difficulty immediately arises as soon as matters touch on “subjective dialectics”, on dialectics as the logic of thinking. If any object is a living contradiction, what must the thought (statement about the object) be that expresses it? Can and should an objective contradiction find reflection in thought? And if so, in what form? Ilyenkov died before he could answer his questions. Where I believe the creation and testing of living theories shows a way of answering them is through the integrating capacities of the individual ‘I’ who exists as a living contradiction and who creates explanations for her or his own learning in asking, answering and researching questions of the kind, “How do I improve my practice?” I imagine that you will understand what I mean by living contradiction in that you will have had experiences of holding together your values and their negation. In your teaching you may believe in Inquiry learning whilst at the same time recognize that you have acted in a way which has stifled this expression in your pupils. You may believe in a curriculum which supports autonomy but find yourself “teaching to the test” in a way which denies this value. It is the experience of recognition that you hold certain values whilst at the same time experiencing their denial which characterizes my meaning of “living contradiction.” Van Manen’s (1990) framework for researching
lived-experience can be used to support a “grounded” analysis of the accounts of
teacher-researchers as they create explanations for their own professional learning which
involve their values as explanatory principles. Without fully embracing Van Manen’s
approach, I want to state that it has value in the creation of living theories in helping
to explicate, reflectively, the meanings of the values which emerge through time and
action: Hermeneutic phenomenological human science in education is, therefore, not simply an approach (alongside other approaches) to the study of pedagogy. That is, phenomenology does not simply yield alternative explanations or descriptions of educational phenomena. Rather, human science bids to recover reflectively the grounds which, in a deep sense, provide for the possibility of our pedagogic concerns with children (p. 173). A central purpose of phenomenology is to understand the grounds for the possibility of our “knowing” and “understanding.” Without embracing this central purpose, the focus on experience and on understanding the grounds of our understanding in relation to the meanings of the values which emerge through practice (rather than the possibility of our knowing), are part of the creation of living theories which can be related directly to the processes of improving the quality of teachers and students’ learning. In other words the central purpose of a living theory approach to educational knowledge is to create and test theories which can be used directly in the processes of improving the quality of learning. As part of this process it is important to understand the grounds (values and understandings) which are being used to test the claims to knowledge. This is where hermeneutic phenomenology has a part to play in the creation of living theories without such theories and modes of inquiry below being reduced to a mode of phenomenological inquiry. Modes of enquiry The modes of inquiry used in creating living theories are focused on asking, answering and researching questions of the kind, “How do I improve what I am doing?” In the process of answering such questions, the action researchers find it helpful to use professional learning or action/reflection cycles of:
Traditional forms of social science methods are used in some of their enquiries. These include interview, questionnaire and triangulation of both methods and interpretation. In relation to inquiries concerning generalisability I
point to the form of professional learning cycles which gave the action researcher’s
above an initial confidence that there was a discernable form of inquiry which they could
use to take their own inquiry forward. In answering questions about the generalisability
of the dialogical and dialectical forms of living theories and the values base of their
standards of judgement I turn to Bassey’s (1998) notion of “fuzzy
generalisation”. “Fuzzy generalisation” is the term I am suggesting for statements like, “Do x in the classroom and y may happen.” It is the researcher’s equivalent of the politician’s soundbite. On its own it has little credence, but supported by a research report which gives the context in which x has led to y, it could be a valuable contribution to the professional discourse which in turn develops classroom practice or educational policy. This idea.... could provide the missing link between researchers and users. (p.7). In representing their living theories each individual has constructed a unique synthesis of values, understanding, context and practice into a comprehensible explanation of their own professional learning. The assertions in their explanations are supported by evidence. The explanations include the explication and justification of the meanings of the values, which emerge through time and practice. They explain their own learning in their educational inquiry. The modes of inquiry used to legitimate the claims to knowledge and answer questions of the kind, “what modes are legitimate?” and, “how shall we know?”, are focused on the ways of testing the validity of the claim to have explained the learning in the educational inquiry. These tests are related to the nature of the values and forms of understanding which constitute the explanatory principles for the learning. In my own study of “singularity” I have emphasized the importance of developing an understanding of the politics of educational knowledge when engaging with the processes of legitimating living theory theses (Whitehead, 1993; Hughes, Denley and Whitehead, 1998). In addition to questions of validity, the modes of inquiry used to legitimate living theories in the Academy often involve responding to inquiries concerning objectivity, subjectivity, and rigour. The modes of inquiry are grounded in the researchers’ subjective interpretations of their experience. The view of objectivity often used in the accounts is similar to Popper’s (1972) view of objectivity being grounded in intersubjective criticism and in subjecting accounts to the mutual rational control of critical discussion. The validation groups provide this critical discussion and link to the process of legitimation. So, for example, the mode of inquiry related to “rigour” for use in legitimating action research accounts is drawn from the six principles defined by Winter (1989). That is, the accounts are judged in Winter’s terms on the quality of their reflexive and dialectical critiques, the use of a plural structure and multiple resources, and the contribution to theory and practice transformation. Focusing on validity, the easiest tests of validity to apply are those in which propositional assertions can be supported by evidence. So, for example, when Forrest (1983), a teacher educator, initially claimed to have influenced the professional development of a teacher, a validation group was not convinced by the evidence produced and asked for stronger evidence in relation to his claim as his inquiry continued. A subsequent meeting of the group was impressed by the strength of the evidence which showed how Forrest had enabled a teacher to help her pupils to learn a geographical concept which previously she had believed was out of the reach of her pupils. The most difficult tests of validity to engage with and appreciate are those involving ethical, aesthetic and spiritual values. Difficulties arise because the meanings of such values are embodied in one’s form of life and cannot be understood using propositional forms alone. Understanding the meanings of these values requires some form of expressive art. What I mean is that “showing and telling” requires a mixture of lexical and ostensive definitions. For example, consider the meanings of such values as freedom, respect, truth, democracy, and compassionate understanding. These meanings differ in relation to the context of their use. What I am claiming is that the meanings of such values, as they are embodied in practice, can be clarified in the course of their emergence through time and action. For instance, in 1991, a working party on a matter of academic freedom in my University concluded that my academic freedom had not been breached, but that this was due to my persistence in the face of pressure. They concluded that a less determined individual might well have been discouraged and hence constrained. The meaning of the value of academic freedom in the narrative of my professional learning (Whitehead 1993) can be understood through time in my actions as I persisted in the face of pressure. The validity of my claim to have partially explained my own professional learning in relation to my commitment to the value of academic freedom is open for you to test through the mixture of ostensive and lexical definitions used in my text. Now consider the meanings of our aesthetic values and the part they play in explanations for our learning in our educational inquiries and in testing the validity of such explanations. Let me try to share my understanding of aesthetic value in terms of the art of a dialectician. As I understand this art it is expressed in holding together both a capacity for analysis with a capacity for synthesis, holding the One and the Many together (Plato). I associate this art with my sense of identity or wholeness. I experience my aesthetic values in the commitment to hold on to my sense of identity in the face of pressures, which undermine my sense of wholeness. It is this sense of giving form to my life which I associate with my aesthetic values and which I use in this sense in my explanation of my professional learning in my educational inquiry. I do hold education to be a form of art in that it is essentially concerned with helping individuals to give a form to their own life as they engage with the possibilities which life itself permits. Yet, I know that the above words do not convey my meanings of my aesthetic values. In his critique of the rationalist philosophy of Hirst, Reid (1979) makes his point about the aesthetic experience and knowledge: Real musical intuitive knowledge is direct as the arrow. Many insightful things, in forms of knowledge-that and -how, can be said by musicians; but musical knowledge, qua musical, does not reach its musically cognitive consummation finally from -that or -how. Rather, knowledge-that or -about music in itself derives from direct musical gnosis, musical intuition. Even technical knowing-how of performance is barren musically without underlying musical intuition. In the sphere of art, at any rate (and perhaps in other spheres too) Professor Hirst puts the cart before the horse - or maybe he has just unharnessed the horse. I am asking you to consider the importance of including aesthetic values in claims to educational knowledge. My own insistence on including these values, in my own explanation for my educational development, is due to my belief that education is essentially concerned with the processes through which we give (like an artist or a musician) form and content to our lives as we learn about ourselves and our world. For me, the art of an educator is expressed in educative relationships as the educator reponds to the educational needs of the pupil. In understanding such relationships, within which individuals are giving a form to their own lives, I am suggesting that you and I may need to explore alternative forms of data representations. I am echoing Eisner (1993, 1997) in supporting the use of multi-media presentations, in conjunction with the expressive arts, to communicate the nature of the aesthetic values which can help to explain the educative influence of teachers with their pupils. Finally, let me consider the most difficult issue of
meaning which is concerned with the spiritual values in our explanations for our learning
and in our tests of validity. I wonder if those of you, who, like me, attended
Elliot Eisner’s Presidential Address to AERA in 1993, were powerfully affected by the
spiritual quality of the combination of the visual imagery of the smoke from the
concentration camp chimney and the quality of Eisner’s (1993) reading of Elie
Wiesel’s experience in a Nazi death camp: Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to life. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God himself. Never, (p.7). Perhaps because I was born in 1944 in England this evokes a spiritual response in imagining the awesome violations and crimes against their humanity, which some human beings suffered at the hands of others. And this knowing, includes the knowledge that these crimes against humanity were carried out as a matter of state policy. If asked about the spiritual ground of my being I usually draw on insights from Martin Buber (1937). In my response I say that I identify my fundamental spiritual response to life as a state of being grasped by the power of being itself. I also say that I express my life affirming stance in I-You relations in which I hope my research students feel valued in the ground of their being and feel affirmed in their productive work as they explore the implications of asking questions of the kind, “How do I improve what I am doing?” Again, I know that my words alone will not carry my meanings. These meanings are beyond words. These meanings, as they are felt by students, can sometimes be seen in the way a student’s face lights up with the feeling of being valued or of intuiting a significant relationship within their inquiry. However, I do think language is important in directing our attention to the meanings of these spiritual qualities. My colleague Ben Cunningham has expressed such values in his tutoring of his student Marion as follows: I believe that I enabled Marion to move forward more confidently regarding her initial fears about her capacity to tutor. I believe I, too, learned greatly from the experience. I learned that I can rely on my intuitive care for others, a care that is true and altruistic. My care is a form of commitment that embraces the human quality of relationships. I embrace others because they are human and I am human. My care is a legitimate anxiety I hold about ensuring that the person I am with in the educative relationship is as free from fears as is humanly possible. I go about the work of trying to remove fears by finding out the gifts and qualities the other has and then commenting on them positively. I do it not just because I believe it's the right thing to do. I do it because I very strongly feel that others are in constant need of appreciation, as I am myself. I also believe that I can never exaggerate the gifts and talents others have. Without doubt, of course, some have greater gifts and talents than others. I take that for granted. But I'm not interested in comparison. When I am with a person, I believe I mostly see only that person. The question of comparing their gifts and talents with somebody else's doesn't arise. If it did, it would mean that my attention had wavered, had wandered from the person I am with. I believe my lack of interest in making comparisons enables me to concentrate on the uniqueness and individuality of others. It is also why I am wary of the concept of 'community' unless it finds a way of enabling others to become who they are meant to become. In claiming that spiritual values can have a place in
explanations for one’s professional learning I recognize the importance of showing
the meanings of these values in ways which are open to public validation. Hence my
emphasis on multi-media presentations. In my own work I have drawn attention to such
values, acknowledged the limitations of my language, and emphazised the importance of
presenting evidence which include such values in claims to knowledge which are open for
you to test (Whitehead 1993). Data sources and evidence The data sources and evidence which I think will convince you of the validity of a living theory paradigm include the Ph.D., M.Phil. and M.A. Theses and Dissertations of the educational action researchers below. They graduated from the Universities of Bath and Kingston between June 1996 and December 1997 and claim to have created their own living educational theories. They include a senior school administrator, a career’s advisor, a teacher of English, a vice-principal of a secondary school and a senior police-woman. I will take key statements from the abstracts of each thesis and dissertation which define their claims to knowledge and which I believe are supported by the data and evidence. The examiners who recommended the legitimation of these Theses and Dissertations within the Academy are also provided. Kevin Eames. (1995) How do I, as a teacher and an educational action-researcher, describe and explain the nature of my professional knowledge? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Examiners; Professors David Sims and Chris Day. This thesis is an attempt to make an original contribution to educational knowledge through a study of my own professional and educational development in action-research enquiries of the kind, How do I improve what I am doing?..... The analyses I make of the resulting challenges to my thinking and practice, show how educators in schools can work together, embodying a form of professional knowledge which draws on Thomism and other manifestations of dialectical rationality. Moyra Evans. (1995) An action research inquiry into reflection in action as part of my role as a deputy headteacher. See chapter 8 on Creating my own living educational theory. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Kingston. Professors Jean Rudduck and Michael Bassey. This thesis describes and explains how I established learning communities of teachers in order to improve the educational experiences of our students. I have used Schon’s (1983) work on reflecting-in-action to theorise about the nature of the reframing teachers need to undertake in order to understand and put into effect practical interventions which result in them living their educational values more consistently in their practice. The inquiry is contextualised as a study of my leadership role as a woman deputy head action researcher in a comprehensive schools, acknowledging that I see my work through a “female lens” as I present an authentic description and account of my educational practice. Erica Holley. (1997) How do I as a teacher researcher contribute to the development of living educational theory through an exploration of my values in my professional practice? M.Phil. Thesis, University of Bath. Examiners; Dr. Paul Denley, Reader Tony Ghaye.
Jackie Hughes. (1996) Action Planning and Assessment in Guidance Contexts: How can I understand and support these processes? Ph.D Thesis, University of Bath. Examiners, Professors Michael Bassey, Ian Jamieson
Moira Laidlaw. (1996) How can I create my own living educational theory through accounting to you for my own educational development? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Examiners; Professors Mowenna Griffiths, Richard Winter
Hilary Shobbrook. (1997) My Living Educational Theory Grounded In My Life: How can I enable my communication through correspondence to be seen as educational and worthy of presentation in its original form? M.A. dissertation, University of Bath. The external examiners for this degree programme were Professors Howard Bradley, Ray Bolam and David Hopkins
Additional data sources and evidence include the living theory accounts of university academics in research into their own teaching and learning. (Lomax, 1997; Geelan, 1998; Whitehead 1993) Conclusions I have claimed that educational action researchers have a fundamental role to play in the development of a new paradigm of educational research. In this paradigm living educational theories are being created which can be related directly to the processes of improving pupils’ and students’ learning. Such theories are being created from practical, educational enquiries of the kind:
I have drawn evidence to support these claims from the data of the “living theory” theses and dissertations on the Web at the address below. I have explained the use of values as new standards of judgement for testing the validity of the living theories produced in this new paradigm. Each action-researcher has represented their explanation for their own professional learning within their social context as a unique constellation of values, understandings and actions. They have communicated the meanings of their values and understandings as they emerge through time and action. They have shown how their values and understandings constitute the standards of judgement they use to test the validity of their claims to educational knowledge. These values and understandings have been legitimated as appropriate standards of judgement by a range of different examiners. To assist other researchers to test the validity of the claims in this paper the relevant theses, dissertations, and other material is available on the World Wide Web at address: http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw Educational importance of the study The importance of the study is that it claims that evidence exists in the public domain which shows how educational action researchers have created a new paradigm of educational research. It claims that this evidence shows how educational theories can be created from the studies of singularities which have the capacity to produce valid explanations for the professional learning of university and school teachers as they work in the process of improving the quality of learning with their students. This evidence, in the above Theses and Dissertations, includes analyses which show how explanations for the educational development of individuals, can be created from the studies of singularities. The evidence shows how the explanations can be subjected to tests of validity which can satisfy particular meanings of objectivity, subjectivity, rigour and generalisability without distorting the practitioner knowledge through the imposition of inappropriate standards of judgement by the Academy. It may bear repeating that living theories are not
characterized solely by a set of interconnected propositions. They can include such
propositions within their dialogical form of representation. Living theories are
characterized by the inclusion of “I” as a living contradiction. They are
characterized by the explanatory power of the values and understandings which a
practitioner-researcher embodies in their explanation for their own learning as they work
at living more fully their values and at extending their understandings. They are
characterized by the use of these values and understandings as the standards of judgement
they use to test the validity of their claims to educational knowledge. They are
characterized by the dialectic between the explanations, the action researcher’s
present practice and the intention to create a better future. My thanks to
James Finnegan for the care and sensitivity with which he responded to my ideas in the
process of writing this paper. I am also grateful for the weekly discussions with the
practitioner researchers in the Department of Education at Bath University for the
sustaining pleasure of their company and their commitment to education and educational
action research. I am thinking of Terry Hewitt, Ben Cunningham, Moira Laidlaw, Jane
Verburg, Pat D’Arcy, Helen Hallissey, Rhona McEune, Robyn Pound and Pam Cruse. Sarah
Fletcher and Jen Russ are two colleagues in the Department of Education whose commitment
to education sustains my own enthusiasm. Tom Russell, Professor of Education at Queens
University, continues to provide encouragement and insight into my own learning from
experience, through our e-mail correspondences and conference presentations. The quality
of Tom’s “educative correspondences” and the work of his education students
can be seen on the internet at these addresses: http://educ.queensu.ca/~ar/ http://educ.queensu.ca/projects/action_research/queensar.htm
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in design and technology. Holley, E. (1997) How do I as a teacher researcher contribute to the development of living educational theory through an exploration of my values in my professional practice? M.Phil. Theses, University of Bath. Accessible from the World Wide Web at address http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw Holquist, M. (1990) Dialogism: Bakhtin and his World. London & New York; Routledge. Hughes, J. (1996) Action Planning and Assessment in Guidance Contexts: How can I understand and support these processes? Ph.D Thesis, University of Bath. Hughes, J., Denley, P. & Whitehead, J. (1998) How do we make sense of the process of legitimising an educational action research thesis for the award of a Ph.D. degree? - a contribution to educational theory. A paper submitted to Educational Action Research February 1998. Ilyenkov, E. (1977) Dialectical Logic. Moscow; Progress Publishers. Ladkin, R. (1998) M.Phil to Ph.D. transfer paper presented in the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice (CARPP) March 1998. Laidlaw, M. (1996) How can I create my own living educational theory through accounting to you for my own educational development? Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bath. Accessible from the World Wide Web at address http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw Lomax, P. (1994) The narrative of an educational journey. Inaugural Address, University of Kingston, February 1994. Lomax, P. (Ed. ) (1997) Dimensions of the educative relationship: case studies from teaching and teacher education. Kingston; Kingston University. McNiff, J. (1992) Action Research: Principles and Practice. London; Routledge. Morson, G.S. & Emerson,C. (Ed.) (1989) Rethinking Bakhtin : extensions and challenges. Evanston; Northwestern University Press. Peters, R. (1966) Ethics and Education, London, Allen and Unwin. Plato Phaedrus. London,Toronto; J.M.Dent & sons, 1910. Polanyi, M. (1958) Personal Knowledge. London; Routledge & Kegan Paul. Popper, K. (1963) Conjectures and Refutations. Oxford; Oxford University Press. Popper, K. (1972) Objective Knowledge. Oxford; Oxford University Press. Reid, L.A. (1979) Knowledge That and Knowing-This. Unpublished paper. Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind. London; Penguin. Shobbrook, H. (1997) My living educational theory grounded in my life: How can I enable my communication through correspondence to be seen as educational and worthy of presentation in its original form. M.A. dissertation, University of Bath. Accessible from the World Wide Web at address http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw Simon, H. (1980) Towards a Science of the Singular. Norwich; University of East Anglia. Van Manen. M. (1990) Researching Lived Experience. New York; State University of New York. Walton, C. (1992) An action-research enquiry into attempts to improve the quality of narrative writing in my own classroom. M.Phil. Thesis, University of Bath. Whitehead, J. (1989) Creating a living educational theory from questions of the kind, How do I improve my practice? Cambridge Journal of Education Vol. 19, No.1 pp. 41-52. Whitehead, J. (1993) The Growth of Educational Knowledge: Creating your own living educational theories. Bournemouth; Hyde. Whitehead, J. (1996) Living Educational Theories and Living Contradictions: a response to Mike Newby. Journal of Philosophy of Education. Vol. 30, No.3, pp. 457-461. Winter, R. (1989) Learning from Experience. London; Falmer. The Elwick Village Centre The Elwick Village Centre, the "Village", is a non-profit family resource centre established to assist parents of early years children in the community in learning to support the language and literacy development of their children; to understand and in other ways to participate in the education of their children; to build a community network; to ease access to social and medical services; and to increase employability skills. The "Village" is located at 30 Maberley Road in Elwick Community School in the heart of the Maples. It is open daily, Monday to Friday afternoons, twelve months of the year, as well as several evenings a month for parents with their pre-school and school aged children. Although most families walk to the "Village" from the Elwick Community School catchment area, families from at least five other schools have attended. All families are welcome at the "Village" regardless of where they live. Philosophy The "Village" is a family resource centre that provides activities, education, material, support and other resources to preschool children and their families. This is provided in a context where the importance of children and their learning is paramount; the collective responsibility of the community for these children is recognized; the concepts of caring, respect and empowerment are firmly entrenched. The term "Village" itself reflects our understanding that, "It takes a whole community to raise a child." Parents cannot do this alone, neither can teachers or community leaders; together we can make a difference. Objectives
Program Offerings Drop-In Centre The Drop-In Centre provides an informal opportunity for parents to: learn about and use educational materials with their children; meet with "Village" staff to discuss issues in child development; learn more about the education process and the curriculum as it relates to their child; meet informally to develop a community network . Learning Groups For Children Supervised group activities for children focus on developmentally appropriate activities which parents observe or participate in with their child. Emphasis is placed on fun/learning activities that parents can continue in the home. A toy lending library, a children's library and a lending library for parents have been established to support home learning. Learning Opportunities A combination of weekly clinics, single topic sessions and ongoing learning and support groups are established to address the interests and the needs of the parent community. Programs focussing on parenting skills and support have included an on-going "Sharing Circle", " How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk", "Resolving Conflict" and "Toilet Training", and "The Terrible Two's". A wide range of other sessions included: "The Great Science Magic Show", "The Art, Food and Music of the Philippines", Travel India", "How to Prepare a Resume", knitting classes, family fun fitness, and craft classes. Single topic sessions on making a will, installing security devices, and money management are being considered as future offerings. Community Resources Both local and wider community resource groups have committed support for the "Village". This enables the "Village to provide more accessible, coordinated and customized services for the community. The contributing agencies are prepared to provide the following:
Employability A communication centre is being developed so that parents can use the equipment in the "Village" at cost. Phones, faxes, photo copiers and computers are available for community use. Personnel Program Coordinator This full time position is responsible for the development of the "Village" community outreach, community resource coordination and daily programming in the areas of parenting and health, pre-employment skills and pre-school skill development. Job Responsibilities:
This position has been funded by Child and Family Services. Community Liaison Workers Two parents from the community have been hired on a part time basis to provide supports to the programs offered to parents and children in the "Village" and to extend daytime and evening hours. In addition, two other local parents with special knowledge of the East Indian and Filipino cultures have been hired on a contractual basis. The Community Liaison Workers funded by the United Way, made possible a wide range of supports including: to develop an awareness of the "Village" in all of our cultural communities; to invite and welcome parents from all cultures to the "Village"; to offer culturally appropriate programs and supports; to assist children and their parents with learning in the "Village"; to facilitate information sharing, networking and support between parents. In addition to the community liaison workers funded by the United Way, the Seven Oaks School Division hired an Aboriginal Liaison Worker who assisted in the "Village". Accessibility to the "Village" has been dramatically expanded because of the success of the Community Liaison workers. Steering Committee The "Village" is governed by a steering committee which is composed of local parents and community leaders representing a wide range of organizations. The planning and development of the "Village" has required monthly meetings of the Steering Committee plus numerous sub-committee meetings. The groups represented are as follows:
Physical Setting The centre is equipped with materials for use with children from birth to school age:
Evaluation A formal report will be written at the end of each year and recommendations will be included. Proactive Services has been employed to gather the necessary information and the outcome orientated data. Start Up Funds These were provided by:
The "Village Centre" has been in operation for one year. It is our hope that it continues to grow and flourish. If you would like to know more about the Village Centre
please feel free to contact Elwick Community School or better yet . . . come for a visit. Politics is Not an Option Pat Isaak, President of S. O. T. A.
Teachers are often heard saying that they would like to get politics out of education, or that politics has nothing to do with the classroom. Fortunately or unfortunatelydepending on your perspectivethis is not possible. Politics is evident in every aspect of public education, from the funding that determines classroom resources and teacher salaries, to the ideological agenda that is driving privatization, standardized testing, and the obsessive pursuit of technology in schools. The decision for teachers is not whether or not we are political, but rather how we choose to become involved in order to influence the course of the debate about public education. What does this have to do with professional development? After all, professional development is about enhancing classroom skills, sharing resources and expertise about curriculum, and--albeit less and less--cultivating our pedagogical understanding of the experience of teaching. Issues of education politics are relegated to "the concerns of teacher unions". While both time and money for professional development are shrinking, the job of teaching is not only changing, but also expanding rapidly. Given these realities, how--and more importantly why--should teachers pay attention to the politics that are shaping the future of public schools? As public school teachers, we have for several years been subjected to "education reforms". Careful study of our own provincial government's plans for renewal reveals a fiscally-driven market model of public education; one which insists on seeing public schools as a costly drain on taxpayer dollars, and purports to retrench the system by introducing a model based on corporate efficiencies and a "value added product". In fact, one senior member of the Cabinet of the Manitoba Government stated in a speech to the Legislature that "our educators do not produce wealth, they are consumers of wealth". Privatization in the context of education has been couched in the language that we are doing nothing more than developing school-business "partnerships". This is one of the most deceitful ironies perpetrated on public schools and, indeed, on the public. The impression is one of schools and businesses working towards a common goal. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is well known that the North American "education industry" is worth some $700 billion annually, and that corporations see schools as vast untapped marketplaces that offer tremendous profit potential. APEC's paper on education recommends "maximum business intervention" in the curriculum, and suggests that the defect of "learning for the sake of learning" can be easily remedied by school-business partnerships. Probably the most prevalent and immediate issue of education reform is the concept of standardized testing or, in business terms, measurable outcomes. Teachers are not opposed to testingin fact, we have always considered testing to be part of our teaching responsibilities. Therein lies the difference between our concept of testingthat is, testing used a method of teachingand the corporate view of measuring standardized outcomes for the purpose of excluding, or "weeding out", those students who do not measure up. This is not merely an issue of semantics. This is an insidious agenda being used to sort students into two distinct groups: those who are worthy of an education and those who are simply not worth the money it costs to keep them in school. Of course, corporations take a sterile view of a child's ability to measure up to the standards. Issues of contextthe socio-economics of the child's family, whether or not the child had been fed prior to the test, whether or not the child had a place to sleep the night before the testare deemed irrelevant. The globalization agenda for education insists on the increasing use of technology in schools. It is no accident that this almost obsessive pursuit of technology coincides with the devastating cuts in government funding to public education. What luck for us that Microsoft, IBM, Northern Telecom, and the big five banks, are rolling in profits. How benevolent of them to "donate" technology to starving schools. How dare anyone question the use of computers as the end all and be all of learning. Heather Menzies, in her book Whose Brave New World? The information highway and the new economy, suggests an alternative:
Herein lies the opportunity for teachers to become involved in the political debate about public education. It would be easy for us to disregard issues such as globalization and the restructuring of public education--concepts so overwhelming as to be irrelevant to our daily lives. If we are committed to developing a profession and a public school system that is grounded on the principles of equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, then our professional responsibility lies in ensuring that there is a debate on public education. Once that public debate exists, ignoring it is not an option. How we become involved to influence the debate is the choice we have to make. Robertson, Heather-jane. (1997) "McTest Meets
McWorld." From Teacher to Professional - A Personal Reflection Upon the announcement of my intent to retire, I was approached by the Editorial Board of this journal who suggested that I contribute an article prior to retiring. After some consideration I concluded that I might have something of value to contribute given that I have spent 37 years in the profession and the purpose of this journal is to promote professional interaction. Having considered myself a professional since I began my teaching career, I decided I would reflect upon my career and attempt to share how my perception of professionalism has developed over the years. As a frame of reference I have selected the following quotation from Linda Darling-Hammond's article on Policy and Professionalism.
The quotation contrasts two perceptions of professionalism. On the one hand there is the commonly held idea that good teaching can be taught to teachers by identifying and prescribing proven methods of delivering content to accomplish clearly established ends of education. In this image the teacher's educational decisions are relatively simple -- teach the prescribed program in the manner in which it was meant to be taught, or, do things the right way. Simplified it is a "one size fits all" approach. On the other hand one can look at teaching as an interaction between teachers, students and curriculum with the teacher actively strategizing and modifying techniques to meet diverse needs. This demands that teachers do the right things, and to do so they must be independent, responsible, autonomous decision making professionals. In our system of education both notions coexist. This contributes to the complexity of teaching as a profession. My experience has led me to the conclusion that teachers do not enter the profession as autonomous professionals, but rather develop that capacity in a variety of ways. It is with that in mind that I share these personal reflections. In January 1961 I was parachuted into a Grade 2/4 split class in a Chicago School replacing a teacher on maternity leave. (Yes, I too began as a term teacher). The unique grade grouping exacerbated the malaise common to all beginning teachers. Accompanying that assignment were: self-doubts about competency; stress; apprehensiveness; and many sleepless nights. The all consuming preparation left me with little life other than school. The omnipresent concern about whether I was doing things that would in some way damage the long term prospects of my students haunted me. I was never really sure that I was doing things the right way. Would my teaching enable my students to learn and adequately prepare them for the next grade? I tossed and turned many nights pondering unanswerable questions. I do not remember reaching out to any of my colleagues for support, nor do I recall support being offered. That first position was a time of great insecurity and uncertainty. The fact that I never did know why the split class was configured as grade 2 and grade 4 exemplifies my perceptions as a beginning teacher. I never asked why the grade 3 students existed as a separate group. The answer to that question was not necessary for survival. I knew only that I had some grade 2 and some grade 4 students and I was responsible for them -- my focus was on my assignment. Had I know then what I know now about the value of collegial interaction, professional dialogue, and emotional support I would have been a more effective teacher as well as a happier one. Five years of teaching experience brought self-assurance and a certain comfort level. Positive evaluations and positive feedback from parents led me to the conclusion that I knew how, what and when to teach. Moreover, I was good at it. There were few problems -- (being in a private parochial system no doubt was a big part of the reason) -- but I was unaware of that at the time. I was cruising! Graduate school came to mind on occasion; however I never really felt the need. Further study would be redundant and of limited value for practical purposes. Similarly Professional Development activities were limited. I was a model of complacency. The dangers of complacency would soon be demonstrated. Extremely confident, I returned to Winnipeg in the late 60's and quickly found a high school position in Seven Oaks. (High demand -- low supply). Insomnia revisited! Education culture shock! Teaching in Canada was much more demanding with a more rigid curriculum, departmental exams, longer school day and school year. High school students were bigger and more effective at challenging authority. There were more kids to see on a daily basis making it more difficult to connect with them as individuals. The cruising was definitely over; this was turbulence. I worked very hard at doing things the right way which at that time consisted of following a tightly prescribed curriculum, utilizing a textbook source, and maintaining strict discipline. It seemed to me that the entire staff was of the same mind, students had to know who was in charge. Running a tight ship worked -- until the October revolution. In October, 1971, West Kildonan Collegiate Institute students walked out in protest of conditions at their school. The media of course provided maximum coverage of this unique event. And the administration and staff struggled through it. One particular incident stands out in my mind. An intelligent, articulate, activist 16 year old challenged my ruling on a previously scheduled test which was held on one of the walkout days. Only 2 or 3 students were present to write. After much heated discussion I stood firm in my decision that since she and others had intentionally missed the test for a non-sanctioned event there would be no rescheduling and furthermore the grade attained (0!) would be averaged into the final grade. No 16 year old student was going tell a 32 year old adult with 10 years of experience what was right. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! Let me explain my dumbness. What I was attempting to do in that situation was to satisfy the perceived need to be fair to the few students who did show up to write the test -- the ones who followed the established rules. After all, they hadn't walked out and they deserved to be rewarded. To allow a rewrite of the test would be unfair to them. Being fair to them might mean being unreasonable to the others -- but that's the way it had to be. The question was; who is in control? A secondary factor was the perceived need to have a united front as a staff. My recollection of staff meetings suggests that this was difficult to achieve. What it meant was that some had to modify their response to satisfy the needs of the group. The prevalent idea was that in a time of crisis we had to be uniform in our response even though we weren't uniform in our thinking. The fact that we were operating under time pressure (the public was watching) further exacerbated the situation. I can see quite clearly now the box we were in and how we got into it. We had lost sight of our students as people who had needs beyond academics and whose needs should be considered respectfully. Unfortunately the extreme nature of their actions in attempting to be heard caused our emotions to interfere with our rationality. I scheduled a rewrite of the test primarily as a result of continued pressure exerted by the students. Even though in my heart I knew it was the right thing to do, I had to be pressured into that decision because I lacked the courage to break ranks. After a few weeks we returned to a redefined normality. The strike taught me not to sacrifice student voice in a desire to meet curriculum and staff expectations. Since that time I have seen the tensions of student/staff/curriculum needs played out at various times over numerous issues. Discussions about recess behavior, evaluation, reporting, violence, special needs students and so forth are loaded with dilemmas that magnify the complexity of determining the right course of action. Further complicating the matter is the notion of rightness varying with the constituents who are examining it. The strike at West Kildonan Collegiate Institute was a career flash point. There had to be a better way of teaching. A way that would motivate kids to learn -- and I didn't know what it was. In an effort to learn how to teach effectively, I enrolled in a Masters Program. What I discovered was that the more I searched, the more complex teaching became. Finding the right way was going to be a challenge. But it was an interesting pursuit. I completed a Masters Program. Imbued with academic success, and blessed with an encouraging, supportive spouse I began to give some thought to full time graduate study. A Doctoral Program had a certain mystique that I wanted to explore. A personal challenge combined with the possibility of some definitive answers resulted in the beginning of a program in 1977. Two years later I completed the program and I still didn't have the answers. But I had been on a rejuvenating journey. A mid career break is definitely worthwhile -- expensive but worthwhile. Having survived the re-entry shock, I found myself teaching high school again. It quickly became apparent that the academic world and the world of daily teaching were quite different. My two year reprieve seemed all too short. Either the kids didn't know what I had accomplished or worse yet they knew and didn't care. They continually reinforced the concept that what you have is less important than how you use what you have. In retrospect I think that was when I began to move closer to doing the right things. By the mid 80's I was back in an elementary school. Another learning experience. Seventeen years as a secondary teacher had clouded my memory. From a distance elementary teaching seemed comparatively simple: less demanding curriculum and content; less rigorous academic preparation; no lengthy assignments and papers to mark; fewer kids to connect with each day; more compliant kids; and recess breaks as well. The demands and challenges of teaching, regardless of level, were manifested in short order. My role as vice-principal also taught me that school administration was more complex than it appeared to be from the classroom. Decision making was affected by many factors, some of which had the potential to obscure the educational purpose. Administration did have some educationally opaque aspects. In the last ten years, as a member of the Superintendents' Team I have gained a more complete understanding of the factors to be considered when attempting to make educationally sound decisions. Sound decisions must take into consideration students and staff with students always given priority. I have become aware of the many forces that can individually and collectively steer decisions in the "doing things right" direction. They include:
Doing the right thing in a given situation requires attention to each of these forces; and an assessment of the relative merit of factoring them into the decision. The challenge is to ensure educational decision making is not unduly compromised. There are also personal characteristics that can aid or inhibit attempts to do the right thing when making decisions. They include:
If you possess these characteristics you enhance your chances of doing the right things. (Having the wisdom of King Solomon would also be an asset). The questions now arises, what enabling conditions foster the development of competent, capable professional teachers who can function with some degree of autonomy? There are a number of initiatives in Seven Oaks School Division which can be cited in response, including:
I believe that these enabling conditions contribute greatly to the development of a truly professional teaching staff. Professionalism cannot be imposed, nor is it inherent. I view it rather as a quality that can be learned given the right environment and supports. The learning process may be difficult and lengthy and should be open to continuous scrutiny. Actions must always be examined against one's notion of what it means to be a professional. In simplistic terms for me it means considering the question, "Am I doing the right thing, here?" Most often the answer to this question has not come without a struggle. And, in retrospect, I must admit that decisions that seemed appropriate at the time might have been better. One can only hope that given the conditions at the time of decision making the decision made was the best possible under the circumstances. Having said that I also believe that regular reflection (e.g. as in A.S.P.G.) is a valuable exercise. If such reflection results in the conclusion that decisions could be improved, I see a number of possible actions as appropriate, including:
My understanding of professionalism is as a continuous
assessment of actions measured against a well thought out and defined purpose guided by
courage, conviction and integrity. I cannot claim to have accomplished this. The best I
can do is to say I have attempted to move in this direction and to assist others in same. An Interview with Louise Evaschesen Louise, I was interested in knowing a little bit about what you perceive the Seven Oaks approach towards special needs to be. That's a very complex question, Jeff. There are several ways to approach that. One of the things that we really try to do at Seven Oaks is look at the whole child and the needs of that child and that's best illustrated by a story. Some people may have heard this story. This is a story of a little boy who was in the school where I was principal. He had been in several foster homes and was a very needy little fellow. We were on an outing with him and he was carrying a bag of popcorn and a drink and he had a jacket. He was carrying all of these things and a friend of mine who was with us said to him, "Billy, what can I hold for you?" Billy fumbled around until finally he had his jacket over his arm, his drink held in his one hand and his popcorn held between his arm and his body, really close. What he did was hold out his other hand! That's what he wanted held for him. I think in many ways that is what we try to do with our students with special needs. We try to do whatever we need to do to hold their hand and to help them through the whole process of schooling as we know it. We try to build relationships with these students because that's the first thing we have to do in order to see gains and growth with them. We are accepting of all children whether they are medically fragile, physically handicapped, whether they have emotional concerns, or whether they are low achievers academically. Whatever their needs are, we try to be inclusive with all children. How has that approach influenced your practice? The biggest challenge in this role is that no two situations are the same. Every child's needs are different and their needs are very complex. There are no simplistic answers to meeting the needs of students. They are students with unique personalities and unique learning styles. So, therefore, we try to take every situation and deal with it in an individual fashion and try to come up with solutions that may work for these children. Nothing will necessarily work forever but some strategies work for some of the time while we are working with the child's emotional well-being. Also, I strongly believe in including as much of our community as possible in solving some of the problems for our children. Other stake holders have to be involved, such as Child and Family Services, Justice Department, Child Guidance Clinic and certainly parents. In my practice, I try to personally meet with the parents and the child for whom we are trying to program and plan. So involving as many people as necessary to come up with solutions to the concerns that we have is important. Perhaps John's story illustrates our approach to working with complex situations. John attended elementary school and although he was severely autistic, he was able to function in this environment. As he reached middle years age the problems that he encountered in his social interactions became more evident. John found that whenever a situation occurred that made him uncomfortable he was completely unable to cope. His school frustrations were manifested in his home life. He would become very destructive and was known to smash fixtures, damage furniture and destroy anything he could get his hands on. Needless to say, this had a devastating effect on his mom, dad and older sister. Try as we may, we were unable to convince him to return to school following a school episode. The only alternative in this situation was to move him to another middle years school and try again. This placement would usually last for 3 to 4 months and then another situation at school would occur and the cycle would repeat itself. After many hours of conversation with his mom, listening to how difficult her situation was, we would try again. As you are aware, we only have 4 middle years schools in Seven Oaks and John attended all four. We even managed to have John attend the MATC program for a period of time. We placed John in a high school following his stay at MATC but found he was still unable to cope. An activity that John really was motivated to do was act as a team manager for a school athletic team. The school staff worked very hard to meet his needs. This worked for a while. There came a time, however, when we could no longer meet his needs in the "regular" school system. With support from outside agencies as well we were finally able, following intervals of home tutoring, to involve John in a highly individualized program outside the division. He was still connected to Seven Oaks through computer courses and physical education classes. Through all of this we have been able to maintain a very strong relationship with the family and mom has shared that we really have been there for her. She is so incredibly appreciative. She will still call just to touch base with us. I really believe in keeping kids connected to the school system for as long as possible and however possible. I think we are talking about children who have problems fitting into the regular school system for whatever reason -- usually it's behavioural. They cannot fit into the structures of the school. So we try to come up with the alternatives, first within the school, and if that doesn't work we try something outside the school. This process is very time consuming and emotionally draining for everyone involved -- school personnel, parents and the child. The perception of a student with special needs sounds very different than when I went to school. First of all, we have more students with complex needs in our system. Even when I came into this position, there were far, far fewer of what we have labeled as emotionally disturbed children in the system than there are now. A few years ago, we didn't have medically fragile students at all like we have now. We had a couple of Special Education programs in our division and those programs had 7 to 12 students in them, they were housed in a particular school, and that was the extent of what we recognized as special needs students. Many of the facilities that housed students with severe handicaps in the past no longer exist so these children are integrated back into the community, which means they are in our schools. Advances in medicine contributed to the fact that there are more medically fragile children in our system. The situation gives us the opportunity to be as creative as we can possibly be when programming for each of these unique individuals. Tutoring is an example of creative programming. The way I use tutoring is that, through our policy, we have indicated that if a child is away from school for more than 2 weeks, he/she is entitled to be tutored. We also have tutoring available for kids when it's the only way we can keep them connected to the system. It's better than not having them connected at all. Certainly we do the tutoring for the medically ill students in the same way, but I am talking about the one hour a day for kids who are unable to function in the school. There were situations in the past where a child would have been sent home for some time out for whatever reason. Now, because of the incredible pressures on families to have both parents working, it is difficult because we have parents who are worried about losing their jobs if they take a day off to stay with the child who needs a time out. So we have to have the time out with an adult in a place outside the school but still in our system. We try to meet the needs not only of the child but also of the staff and parents. Just last May we had a student who was no longer able to function in his school. His dad had just lost his job and mom was hanging on to hers by a thread. We were able to place the child with his para in a location outside the school on a full time basis until we felt he was able to work for short periods of time in another school. The para then slowly integrated him into school so that by September he would be able to feel as comfortable as possible in his new environment. This time in an individualized setting proved extremely valuable not only to the student but to his family as well. I believe we are still feeling the benefits of this experience. Do you have concerns about the push toward standards? We have Joey who is 9 years old and has lived in fourteen foster homes to date; I truly am worried about requiring him to write the grade 3 Math and English standards tests. Standards tests worry me. First of all, I don't think that the standards tests are really set up to meet the needs of students whether they are students with special needs or any student in our system. I'm not sure that standards tests are for kids. I think that they are for adults. When I think of our public education system, what we need to be focusing on is the needs of students, not the needs of adults someplace else. It does worry me. First of all, we all know there are opportunities to have an "I" or "M" designation for students who fit the government criteria. We also know that many, many students will do very well on these standards tests. But we know too that there is a group of students that don't fit the designations and they are not the academically proficient students. Those kids worry me because they are not going to fit in the school system and they certainly are not going to fit outside the school system where they may be forced to go because of their inability to meet the prescribed outcomes. I think in Seven Oaks we still look after all kids in whatever way we need to in order to meet their needs. But standards tests make the process difficult. Teachers feel pressure, not just from the standards tests, but also from what happens to the results of these tests; this causes unnecessary pressure. It provides a dilemma, knowing that they need to prepare their kids to meet these standards but at the same time knowing very well that they need to look at a whole lot of different kinds of opportunities for these kids in order to provide them with the best possible education. Teachers work very, very hard trying to do what they believe to be best for kids and we don't need to place any more pressures on them. The pressures are transferred to students as well. We hear stories about the little ones with stomach aches who worry about when these exams are going to be, how hard they are going to be and what's going to happen if he or she can't pass them and that kind of thing. Most of us as parents and educators have lived through some of those types of exams with our own children and know the pressure it puts on kids. We know it is not necessarily conducive to the best learning environment where students do their best and show what they can do. There are many opportunities and methods of evaluating students. The portfolio is one way we do it. I think another example is our Leadership Conferences for elementary kids at the grade 4, 5 and 6 levels where they can show phenomenal insight into what a leader might be or what qualities a contributing citizen needs to have. These kids have tremendous abilities to do that kind of thing but we need to provide lots of opportunities for these kids to do that and I'm not sure that we should waste time focusing on standards tests when we could be expanding a student's thinking in so many other ways. It seems to me that in order to keep kids out of the standards tests, you have to do a lot more justification as to why they shouldn't have to participate. Can you talk about that? Certainly in order to have a child designated with the M designation, which means they can be exempt from these exams, there is paper work to do. The first criterion is that there is an IEP (Individual Education Plan) in place. The amount of paper work that we have to do in order to procure exemptions or funding for any of our students is phenomenal. The amount of time that, for example, our Special Education Coordinator needs to spend on paper work is just unbelievable. Classroom teachers, resource teachers, guidance counsellors, Child Guidance Clinic personnel and administrators meet together to write up the applications for funding. They are sometimes 10 to 15 page documents that need to be put together and the amount of time that goes into writing up these documents is phenomenal. What is being written in these documents is what the teacher and resource teacher already know. This known information does not become more valuable just because it's now on paper. What is valuable is the contact the teacher has with the child and the programming that occurs on an on-going basis with that child. We spend so much time doing paper work that it takes away from the contact time that we need to have with kids. It's costly as well since we put in all kinds of human cost into doing that. Now, more and more, if we are looking for grants for projects, instead of just talking to somebody about the project and getting an approval, we are doing these extensive proposals. In order to write up these proposals, they have to be complex and sophisticated documents. What really is important is the discussion that teachers and administrators have in deciding what kinds of support for special projects and activities they need in their schools. Later they might want to write a proposal to solidify thoughts. There is probably a lot of hair splitting that goes on when talking about the different levels of funding. When we talked about the different levels of funding and the IEP's, as many people know, we get block funding for level I and that covers resources teachers, some paraprofessionals, etc. We also have the level II criteria and level III criteria by which we obtain funding. In order to obtain that funding we have to write up the applications to prove that the child is severely multiply handicapped, psychotic or autistic, hard of hearing or very severely emotionally disturbed. In order to get level III, they need to be profoundly multiply handicapped and when you take the difference between the severely and profoundly multiply handicapped, it's pretty hard to justify. It's very, very subjective when using words like "very severely" as opposed to "profoundly". What are some of your concerns about the future as you are leaving? I do have concerns about kids but I also have faith in the
people who will be working with them. I am concerned about kids who are living in poverty,
kids who are being abused physically and/or emotionally, kids who feel they don't fit in
our school system, and kids who feel the only safe place for them is in our school system.
Kids like Mary and Susan, sisters who hid in the basement for two days because their
parents were drunk and fighting. They were scared, too scared to come out of the dark
basement. School was the only safe place for them. I know the people in Seven Oaks will
continue to build relationships with their students, will continue to make them feel safe
and will continue to give them hope for tomorrow. Staff will stay focused on what's really
important: the whole child. Thirty-Five Years of Professional
Development As my career in Seven Oaks comes to a close, and as I reflect upon the practices related to the development of our profession, I cannot help but think about the changes in the ways we have supported professional growth. Thomas Sergiovanni in "Leadership for the Schoolhouse" argues that through teacher development we can change school cultures so that they become learning and inquiring communities. This, I believe, is what we have attempted to move toward in Seven Oaks. In a conversation with him a few years ago we talked about professional growth, and many elements of that conversation are imbedded into this account. I may have been fortunate to start my career in an integrated multi-age classroom, a kindergarten to grade 8 one-room rural school. My one year of pre-service training was inadequate, but despite the pedagogical mistakes that were likely made, those first two years of teaching were deemed successful. Professional growth at that time originated from two sources. The first, horribly unscientific and informal, was changing things that didn't work. Little introspection, analysis or reflection drove the process, and change was based on the fact that something new or different had to work more suitably. If we had to think about topics for annual statements of professional growth in 1961, much grist would have been available for the writing mill. The second source of professional development was probably more formal, but also most inadequate. Teachers' conventions were held twice a year, one on the Thursday evening and Friday prior to Thanksgiving, and one in April. The entire school division gathered to hear one person, usually the school inspector from the Department of Education, present topics which may have been helpful to a precious few. The rest of the convention content was what we might now consider a glorified staff meeting except that the discussion was often only one way and limited. Throughout the late 60's and 70's a new concept, in-service training, was born. Teachers became consumers of professional development, ostensibly tweaking their technical competence and building their skills through training and practice. Special Area Groups were formed to address the need for improving technical competence, most often within specialized subject areas. Having been involved in many S.A.G. evaluations, I had always wondered why it was that one of the most positive components from the evaluations was the fact that teachers from across the province could meet together to share big ideas and troublesome situations while dialogue related to the improvement of their technical competence was seldom rated highly. Professional development for administrators followed the same pattern. In March of 1975, Kris Breckman from the Manitoba Teachers Society led Seven Oaks principals through a two-day exercise in which an instrument entitled the "Principal's Performance Indicator" measured "thirty six items that deal with the competencies of the principal as selected from seven major categories." It might be interesting to note that our uppermost 1975 competencies were identifying and responding to educational program needs of students, communicating, and demonstrating consideration through behaviour that indicates friendship, trust and respect. We might be dismayed in today's world of the principalship to cite the least of the thirty-six desired competencies from 1975. That list included facilitating curriculum development, promoting research and development, and establishing priorities. Ahh, the seventies! During the 80's and early 90's the notion of developing expertise in the profession became increasingly important. Knowledge began to inform teachers' decisions, but clinical competence was still prized. Problem solving, inquiry and research became the skeletal framework upon which many professional development programs were constructed. Masters of Education programs followed similar "blueprints." Even Manitoba Education borrowed the word. Today's world of schooling demands professional development, which emphasizes connections and renewal by fostering conversation, discourse and reflection. The teacher becomes the internalizer of knowledge about the art and the craft of teaching which, though personal, is most often constructed only after meaningful collegial enterprises. A literature circle, marking provincial examinations, a cohort group and an educational leave team are all examples of ventures which cultivate a spirit of inquiry. However, the collective efforts and collegial discourse must first be personalized and internalized before the individual can develop professionally. Reflection, journalizing, and reconstructing in the classroom have become today's ways of creating and building professional knowledge. Though they are still useful in some cases, and almost always meet certain professional development needs, we should revisit the notion of large scale "sage on the stage" delivery of professional development programs. The custom of gathering a few hundred people into a school gym is a bit of a stretch when one considers the need for personalizing and internalizing using reflection and discussion. The value of large scale programs lies in their purpose. "Rallying the troops" around a particular cause or change process, delivering a division-wide message, entertaining people, or affirming a division's direction may be viable purposes for the large scale professional development days. Similarly, endorsement of commercially developed professional development shows that travel from city to city may need to be reviewed. Many of these do have some practical value, and because these endeavours have more recently borrowed credible proven practitioners, several teachers do get value for their $215.00 U.S. registration plus the cost of the substitute. I wonder though, if you were to put three teachers together using the same amount of money for the day, and really focussed upon more personalized topics, whether more value would be attained. Certainly the assumptions about collegial dialogue, mentoring, and continuing personal support would have more of an opportunity to be developed. In my conversation with Sergiovanni, he stressed that
youngsters seeing teachers model personalized professional development was an integral
step in fostering the notion in students that inquiry needs to be related to life-long
learning. He also said one other thing. It is an aspect of professional development which
is done "for someone" and also "to someone." Sergiovanni said,
"as teachers, let's learn to care about each other's work in the same way we care for
each other." After thirty-five years in Seven Oaks, and without realizing it until
just recently, it is my personal belief that the positive professional relationships that
I've made result from "caring about our work." |
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