Improving Student Learning Through Passion in Our Professional
Practice
Jack Whitehead, Department of Education, University of Bath. Keynote Address to the Annual Conference of the Ontario Educational Research Council, Brantford,
28 November, 2003.
One
of the pleasures of being included in the OERC programme is in being with
educators who are committed to researching their influence on their own and
their students' learning and I want to thank the conference organisers for
inviting me to speak with you today. As I look at the Conference Planner (http://www.oerc.net/conference_2.html)
I can feel the passion, energy and disciplined thought that has gone into
these presentations. In your willingness to share your stories in this public
forum I can feel a shared commitment to learn from each other about possibilities
for helping our students to improve
their learning.
In
preparing my talk I found myself looking back at my own learning and delightful
memories from my visits to Ontario which began in 1995 with an invitation
from Tom Russell to visit Queens University to talk with his students about
action research. I also found myself wondering what I might bring to share
with you from my own learning from my research and from the learning of the
teacher-researchers I work with in Bath.
In
previous visits to OERC I have learnt much from Peter Moffatt while he was
Director of the Grand Erie District School Board. The first time I heard Peter
he inspired me by his relationship with his audience. What he said about education
and the way he said it resonated with my most deeply held educational values.
Values I hold with a passion that motivates much of what I do. The second
time I heard Peter he had mastered a multi-media technology and used a very
impressive powerpoint presentation. His enthusiasm for the technology was
infectious yet something of the quality of his direct expression of his humanity
and connection with his audience was masked by the technology. In the third
presentation Peter showed his learning as he communicated his passionately
held values directly to his audience with the help of the technology. He also
made some awards of plaques of Canadian Geese and explained how the leader
in the V formation was supported by the clacking of the Geese following. He
made these presentations to emphasise how much his own influence as an educational
leader had been enhanced by the support he had received from his colleagues.
I am hoping to achieve something similar today as I emphasise the importance
of celebrating and researching our values as educators, for a future of humanity
that is being influenced by global communications through the internet. Alan
Kellas, a colleague in Bath asked me the following question before I left
Bath and I'm curious about the answers the video-tape being made today might
give me!
"Passion
in practice translates to energy in our bodies I think... So my question to
you in Ontario is how can you be there breathing, with your self and your
body, full of passion and enthusiasm.....AND be fully
present for your audience, fully receptive to their energies in a non
colonial way, and allow your energy to meet theirs properly...and can you
spend a second breathing together and recognise that the breath in the room
is the same breath in the same way that the passion (energy) in the room is
the same but individualised and connected." (Kellas, 2003)
In
wanting your life-affirming energy, insights and educational enquiries to
meet with my own, I propose to pause at times in this address to ask if you
wish to respond. Given I am one to your many I am acutely aware of wanting
to share this time with you. It won't be a fair distribution of time, but
I'm going to aim for 30 minutes with me contributing and 15 minutes for you
if you wish to do so!
When
I think of the values embodied in who we are and what we are doing I am thinking
of the passion, the life-affirming energy, the discipline and the love of
learning that is manifest through the publications in 'Passion in Professional
Practice', edited by your President Jackie Delong and Cheryl Black, and the
following doctoral and masters enquiries completed over the last two years
by educators in the Grand Erie District School Board:
Passion
in Professional Practice
http://schools.gedsb.net/ar/passion/index.html
PhD:
Jackie Delong: How Can I Improve My Practice As A Superintendent of Schools
and Create My Own Living Educational Theory? http://schools.gedsb.net/ar/theses/jackie/index.html
Jackie's
five year study emphasised the importance of developing a culture of inquiry
within a School Board to support improvements in student learning and enhance
the professional development of teachers.
MEd:
Teacher Consultant's Role In Developing and Facilitating an Interdisciplinary
Studies Course: Dave Abbey http://schools.gedsb.net/ar/theses/dave/index.html
One
of my most memorable times in Ontario was at a party hosted by Dave and Lynn
Abbey. The passion in Dave's and Lynn's educational conversations is awesome.
Lynn became so absorbed that I can still see the black smoke from a tin of
toasted muffins forgotten under the grill. This happened with the next batch
as well!
MEd:
Managing Transitions: Cheryl Black
http://schools.gedsb.net/ar/theses/cheryl/index.html
As
Cheryl is now managing one of the transitions in her life-long learning from
a masters programme to a doctoral research programme I want to show later
a brief clip of a spontaneous moment in a relationship with a student that
carries for me her inspirational qualities as an educator.
MEd:
A Vision Quest of Support to Improve Student Learning: Validating My Living
Standards of Practice: Heather Knill-Griesser
http://schools.gedsb.net/ar/theses/heather/index.html
Another
memorable time for me, on a previous visit to the Grand Erie District School
Board, was in seeing and hearing Heather give a presentation on her masters
research to a group of colleagues. It was a multi-media presentation integrating
music, poetry, text and the direct communication of Heather's embodied values.
I do commend Heather's dissertation to you.
MEd:
Geoff Suderman-Gladwell: The Ethics of Personal Subjective Narrative Research
http://schools.gedsb.net/ar/theses/geoff/index.html
As
we explore the implications of living as fully as we can our values in our
social contexts and professional practice we sometimes experience a tension
when the context appears to constrain or violate our values. I make this as
a general point because in my experience everyone I work with bears witness
to such experiences and it is wise to develop a social analysis that enables
us to comprehend the nature of our social contexts, particularly if we are
seeking to influence the education of our social formations. For myself I
have found the work of Foucault (1980, 1990), Habermas (1976, 1989, 2002,
p. 264), Bourdieu (1990) and Bernstein (2000) most helpful in this regard. Each of these writers continues to influence my practice as
I seek to influence the education of social formations. Because the phrase
'influencing the education of social formations' may not be one you have heard
before, here is an illustration to show my meaning.
In
1980 the University of Bath, along with most Universities in the UK, had a
regulation that the judgements of examiners of research degrees could not
be questioned under any circumstances. As cases began to emerge where examiners'
judgements were questioned by students and academic peers there was a campaign
to change such regulations. In my own University in 1991 the regulations were
changed to permit questioning on the grounds of bias, prejudice and inadequate
assessment. When I refer to influencing the education of a social formation
I am meaning the influences that bring about such changes, where the rules
regulating a social order embody more fully the values I associate with the
future of humanity.
The
experience of the violation of values in such endeavours can vary in intensity
and can sometimes require great courage to face with integrity. The experiences
can be painful and include feelings of embarrassment and humiliation as other
colleagues of mine can bear witness to (Fletcher, 2003). I don't mean to imply
that Geoff Suderman-Gladwell faced all these emotions in his enquiry. What
I did see in the course of Geoff's masters programme was his commitment, courage
and impressive intellectual capacities in responding to the constraining force
of some of the procedures of an ethics committee of a University that did
not appear to take account of the ethics of self-study research.
The
above contributions to the professional knowledge-base of education seem to
me to be fulfilling the call by Catherine Snow (2001) in her Presidential
Address to AERA for practitioners to systematise their knowledge so that it
could contribute to the public knowledge-base of education. What I am also
claiming is that studies such as those above have now demonstrated that the
embodied values of educators can be clarified in the course of their emergence
in practice. I am claiming that they can not only be clarified but that in
this process of clarification the embodied values of educators are becoming
living, educational standards of judgement that can be used in public tests
of the validity of claims to educational knowledge. It is this process that
Jackie Delong and I (Delong & Whitehead, 1998) drew attention to in a
contribution to the Ontario Action Researcher on 'Continuously regenerating
developmental standards of practice in teacher education: a cautionary note
for the Ontario College of Teachers'
http://www.nipissingu.ca/oar/Vol-1-98-99/v113.htm
in
which we say in relation to the issues of teacher supply and retention:
Everything
we say about standards of practice in teacher education is based on the assumption
that the quality of student learning within schools is influenced by the quality
of teacher professionalism. If there is a shortage of well qualified teachers
in classrooms, we are convinced that the quality of students' learning will
suffer. Hence we recognize the importance of the political and economic decisions
made by the government in relation to rectifying the teacher shortage. (Delong & Whitehead, 1998)
I
hope that this point is clear about transforming our embodied values into
public standards of judgement while recognising the influences of our political
and economic contexts. I don't think that I can overemphasise its importance
for the reconstruction of educational theory and knowledge. I am saying that
through self-studies, of our attempts to improve our practice through living
our values more fully, we are creating new living standards of educational
judgement. These living standards are contributing to knowledge of the new
scholarship of educational enquiry. I think Jackie Delong puts this idea well
in the abstract of her doctoral thesis:
The
originality of the contribution of this thesis to the academic and professional
knowledge-base of education is in the systematic way I transform my embodied
educational values into educational standards of practice and judgement in
the creation of my living educational theory. In the thesis I demonstrate
how these values and standards can be used critically both to test the validity
of my knowledge-claims and to be a powerful motivator in my living educational
inquiry.
http://www.actionresearch.net/delong.shtml
In crafting her narrative of learning over her five year research programme Jackie shows how her embodied values are clarified in the course of their emergence and transformed in this process of clarification into communicable standards of judgement. Her values include valuing the other in her professional practice, building a culture of inquiry, reflection, scholarship and creating knowledge.
We
have much work to do in researching and communicating the educational influence
of who we are and what we do in our classrooms, especially in relation to
our embodied values. Here is a video-clip from Cheryl Black's classroom that
seems to me to hold much hope for the future in the spontaneous delight of
someone who is fully present for her students. The clip comes from a multi-media
presentation:
Whitehead,
J. (2000) The Living Standards of Practice and Judgement of Professional Educators.
A paper produced while a visiting professor at Brock University, Ontario June
2000. http://www.actionresearch.net/stand/brst.html
You
can access the clip from:
http://www.actionresearch.net/stand/cbs.mov
I know it is difficult to share meanings through language in relation to expressions of the human spirit. I tend to talk and write of a life-affirming energy with the vitality both Cheryl and her student are expressing in their relationship through the video-clip. I am suggesting that valid explanations of our educational influence in the learning of our students will need to acknowledge more fully such values.
Having
introduced a digital video-clip into my presentation I now want to say something
about the educational influence of the new technologies. I think the wide
availability of digital cameras, DVDs and the internet is having a generative
and transformative influence on the ways in which we can show and explain
what we are doing as professional educators. The multi-media technologies
can help us to get much closer, than words alone on pages of text, to communicating
the nature of the influence of our embodied values and knowledge in our students'
learning. However, the Academy has been very slow in opening itself to legitimating
these new forms of representation (Eisner, 1993, 1997). My own University
is just beginning to look into these possibilities and it seems likely that
teacher-researchers such as ourselves will be producing valid, multi-media accounts of our own learning
that will initially meet resistance rather than acceptance in the legitimating
procedures of our Universities.
Having
emphasised the importance of our own educational relationships for learning
in our classrooms, schools, boards and province I now want to connect our
lives and self-studies as educators to the lives and self-studies of educators
around the world. By putting this address on the web with all its interconnecting
branching networks of communication I hope to be contributing to the development
of each other as global educators. At this point I also want to emphasise
the point above:
'Hence
we recognize the importance of the political and economic decisions made by
the government'
What
we can do is influenced by politics and economics. Teachers in Iraq as I speak
are being influenced in what they can do by political and economic decisions
taken in Washington by George Bush and in London by Tony Blair. Michael Moore
(2003) has analysed some of these decisions and advocated alternative political
and economic choices that are open to debate and action in democratic societies.
I am hoping that you think as I do that educating our social formations in
learning how to live the values of humanity more fully in what we are doing
is one of the most productive things we can do.
In
seeking to be fully present with you today (Scharmer, 2000) I imagine that
I will be communicating something of my own passion for education and of my
desire to assist my own students to contribute their embodied knowledge as
professional educators to our professional knowledge-base.
This passion is values-based. It is in who I am and what I am doing,
here and now. The reason I want a video-record of my communications today,
as part of my self-study research, is to check to see to what extent I am
expressing the meanings of my embodied values with you as I speak. I hope
that you will appreciate the educational significance in my own learning and
in influence with my students in their own learning of the expression of a
life-affirming energy and love of learning.
Through
my presentation of evidence from the internet I now want to share the global
educational significance of the self-studies of practitioner-researchers,
particularly those associated with OERC and the University of Bath. I am thinking
of this significance in terms of a commitment to research the implications
of experiencing ourselves as living contradictions (Whitehead, 1989)
as we recognise that we are not living our values as fully as we could
in our professional lives as educators and educational researchers.
In
other words I believe that we are motivated by a desire to improve what we
are doing in helping our students to improve their learning and experience
a creative tension when we think we could do this better.
Yesterday, Robyn
Pound, a health visitor, and regular contributor to Monday evening educational
conversations in Bath, received her doctorate at the graduation ceremony of
the University of the West of England for her thesis
How can I improve my health visiting support of parenting? The creation of
an alongside epistemology through action enquiry http://www.actionresearch.net/pound.shtml
It might seem strange to be focusing on health visiting as having fundamental educational significance. Yet I think that all teachers know that the learning that takes place in the home does influence the learning in school. I am placing Robyn Pound's exploration of her learning, in relation to improving her health visiting support of parenting through the quality of relationships she establishes, in the context of the phrase 'in loco parentis'. This might not be familiar with a Canadian audience. Robyn doesn't use this phrase. It is used in English Law to describe the responsibility of a teacher. I imagine that we all like to feel that our students in schools are experiencing the quality of relationship of a good parent within what we do as educators. Robyn Pound's thesis is focused on the nature of the living standards of judgement in parenting relationships and it seems to me to have profound implications for the knowledge-base of education.
It
might also seem a little strange for me to be drawing your attention to the
educational significance of an African term, Ubuntu, and of the importance
of engaging with what we are doing in
our research as a form of post-colonial theorising. I was introduced to these
ideas by Paulus Murray, one of the most passionate educators I have ever met.
His writings on his web-site begin with the introduction:
Welcome
to my multiracial and inclusive Postcolonial Living Education Theory - practice,
research and becoming. By visiting, I hope to share with you some of
my passion and spirit in Ubuntu Ð "Umuntu ngumuntu nagabantu" ~
'A person is a person because of other people'
http://www.royagcol.ac.uk/%7Epaul_murray/Sub_Pages/FurtherInformation.htm
From
this focus on 'a person is a person because of other people' in the commonality
of our living space, I want to raise an issue I am still struggling to understand
in relation to colonial and post-colonial practice. I imagine Canadian audiences,
because of your colonial history, are passionate about resisting colonising
tendencies, for example from your neighbour to the South. My own difficulty
with colonial practices goes back to 1971 when I was studying educational
theory at the Institute of Education at London University. In the dominant
view of educational theory of the time it was held that my embodied values,
the practical principles I used to motivate myself and to explain what I was
doing, were only pragmatic maxims that had a crude and superficial justification
in practice. In this dominant view it was held that these values and principles
from my living educational theory would be replaced in any rationally developed
theory by principles with more theoretical justification (Hirst, 1983, p.
18). I experience this kind of 'replacement' as a colonial act and much of
my subsequent life in educational research can be understand as seeking to
support post-colonial practice in living educational theorising.
I
am still struggling to understand the colonial and post-colonial influences
of the ideas of myself and my academic colleagues. Take for example Joan Whitehead's
recent keynote to the Standing Conference for the Education and Training of
Teachers (SCETT) in which she draws on Michael Fullan's ideas on passion and
moral purpose:
'Earlier
this year I was fortunate to attend Michael Fullan's UK and Ireland Workshop
Tour on Leading in a Culture of Change during which he expressed the view
that it takes 3 years to change a primary school, 6 a secondary school and
8 years for an LEA. How long might we ask for the profession? In his
book 'Change Forces with a Vengeance' Fullan (2003) writes about passion and
'moral purpose' which he sees as 'a critical motivator' in change .
So, do more of us need to maintain, whilst others rekindle, that sense of
passion and purpose that brought us into the profession if we are to be part
of creating its future in a way that will make a difference?Ó http://www.actionresearch.net/evol/joanw_files/joanw.htm
On
reading a text version of this keynote I was struck by the high status apparently
being given to academics through
the referencing. The reference sections of many of my own papers do the same.
Take Michael Fullan's ideas as an example. It was as if Michael Fullan's Theories
could explain educational change in general and that our living educational
theories of educational change were being colonised through being subsumed within his theory.
However, on re-reading the text on the web, with its interconnecting branching
networks of communication to the accounts of teacher-researchers in the link
in the quote below I could see how Whitehead was referring to Fullan's ideas
in a way that enabled them to become part of the generation of the unique
living educational theories of practitioners like ourselves.
The
web provides us with a very quick and very powerful means of making available
to others our own practitioner knowledge (Module section of http://www.actionresearch.net/mastermod.shtml)
as well as providing each of us with the means to expand our own knowledge
by accessing the knowledge and experience of others. In terms of the language
of this conference it enables us as professionals, if we so choose, to be
both informed by our peers and to take on a responsibility for informing others.
Both I see as part of our obligations as professionals as we become in the
future more inquiry minded and more collaborative within and across our sites
of learning and professional activity. http://www.actionresearch.net/evol/joanw_files/joanw.htm
For
example, when Michael Fullan's words about moral purpose and passion are placed
alongside the teacher-researcher accounts such as those of Lloyd (2003), Potts
(2003a & b) and Stillman (2003) I think you will see the educational significance
of stressing the importance of the generation of each others' living educational
theories in going beyond the social analysis of a particular academic and
into influencing the education of social formations.
I
now want to move further into our international context into China, South
Africa and Japan. I want to draw your attention to the educational influence
of the values and passion of Dean Tian Fengjun
and Moira Laidlaw in influencing
the development of action research at Guyuan Teachers College in China
and beyond. Moira Laidlaw is in the third year of a Voluntary Service
Overseas programme at Guyuan Teachers College. She has described her experiences
and the inspirational influence of her colleagues Tian Fengjun and Zhao
Xiaohong at http://www.actionresearch/moira.shtml
. On the 10th December 2003 Moira Laidlaw and Jean McNiff hope to be present
at the opening of China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research
in Foreign Languages Teaching. You
can access Dean Tian Fengjun's Action Plan for Improving Practice at
http://www.actionresearch.net//moira/apTian%20Fengjun.htm
The ideas I have been talking about would not have travelled so far or so fast without the creativity and commitment of Jean McNiff. Three weeks ago Jean was in South Africa giving a series of workshops and lectures at three Universities. You can access her talk on:
How do we
develop a twenty-first Century knowledge base for the teaching profession
in South Africa? How do we communicate our passion for learning?
at Stellanbosch University from:
http://www.actionresearch.net/values/jmstellsa.htm
You
can also access her writings from:
http://www.actionresearch.net/mcniff.html
together
with the free booklet on Action Research in Professional Practice: Concise
Advice for new action researchers. Jean made this booklet available to celebrate
our 21 years of working together at:
http://www.jeanmcniff.com/booklet1.html
In
Japan we have Je Kan Adler Collins introducing ideas on action research to
the Faculty of Nursing at Fukuoka University and studying his own practice
as he develops a curriculum of the healing nurse. You can access Je Kan's
most engaging electronic forum on living-action-research from the bottom of
the menu page of http://www.actionresearch.net. One of
my most cherished video-clips is of a pedagogic failure of mine. It shows
me, with great enthusiasm, failing to communicate the ideas of Basil Bernstein
(2000) in his work on Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity to Je Kan on
a spectacularly beautiful mountain side in Japan. My pedagogic intent was
to communicate to Je Kan Bernstein's ideas on the pedagogisation of knowledge
and especially his ideas on the importance of understanding the power relations
influencing the legitimisation of knowledge in a particular context. My desire
was grounded in my sense of responsibility as an educator to help my students
to extend their cognitive range and concerns.
In
the development of a curriculum of the healing nurse and of an action research
approach to the professional development of nurses within a Japanese University
I could see Je Kan might benefit from Bernstein's insights into the issues
of power and control related to the recontextualisation of knowledge from
his embodied knowledge as a healing nurse in the UK into the curriculum of
a healing nurse in a Japanese University.
However,
the video shows that in my enthusiasm to communicate my own insights about
the value of Bernstein's ideas I had lost sight of a lesson I thought I had
learnt well from the ideas of Martin Buber (1985) concerning the special humility
of the educator.
In
my enthusiasm and passion I was imposing my ideas onto Je Kan in a way that
was serving the colonising interest of replacing his own meanings with my
own. Yet again I experienced myself a living contradiction! This video serves as a reminder for me to hold on to Buber's
insight that the special humility of the educator should prevent the imposition
of the hierarchical view of the
world of the educator onto the student. The educator's gaze should always
be mediated by a sustained connection with the particular being and needs
of the student. In my passion and enthusiasm I had permitted the connection
to be severed. Part of my delight in viewing the video is in the recognition
of how much of value I have learnt from the experience of viewing it. The
embarrassment associated with failure is present but the delight in seeing
ways of improving what I was doing is stronger. It is in the delight that
I feel the hope of learning from error and mistake. While we do make mistakes
in our professional lives as educators there is much hope in our learning
from these mistakes and sharing this learning with others.
I
want to conclude by thanking OERC for the invitation to be with you today.
I want to stress the importance of the inclusionality I am always aware of
in my visits to Ontario. Maggie Farren (2003), of Dublin City University,
refers to this awareness as a form of empathetic connectivity requiring a
watchful attention and aesthetic sensitivity to beauty (O' Donohue, 2003).
Simon Riding (2003) draws attention to a similar awareness in his 'Living
myself through others'. I also felt this quality of inclusionality in my visit
to the Western and Central Quebec School Boards and in a recent visit to Japan.
My colleague Alan Rayner at Bath has explained why he views inclusional ways
of being to be most significant for the future of humanity and I concur with
Alan's ideas at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~bssadmr/inclusionality/
If I have done no more than connect you with Alan's ideas on inclusionality
I feel my trip will have been worth while.
I
also know that I will be taking back to Bath to share directly with my own
students, and through the web with other teacher-researchers around the world,
your passion, your sense of moral purpose and the educational knowledge you
are creating as we work and research to influence the education of our social
formations and to help each other and our students to improve all our learning
. My thanks to you all.
I
want to thank Jean McNiff, Paulus Murray, Alan Kellas, Alan Rayner, Jason
Nickels, Daisy Walsh, Tim Small, Sarah Fletcher, Simon Riding, Mark Pott,
Paul Hocking, Marian Naidoo and Eleanor Lohr and the Monday Evening Conversation
Group in Bath for their responses to earlier drafts of this address.
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