Educational Enquiry 3 – Draft 5110
words
Claire Formby
How am I integrating my educational
theorizing firstly with the educational responsibility I express in my
educational relationships with the children in my class, but also with the
educational responsibility I feel towards those in the wider school community?
What
does my question mean?
In this
assignment I will demonstrate how I believe I am creating my living
educational theory (Whitehead,
1999, p. 76) through researching questions of the kind “How can I improve what
I am doing?” I will then reflect on these questions in my own practice, using
entries from my educational diary, photographs and video footage to help me
consider the meanings of my theorizing using my own values as living standards
of judgment. As part of this process I will also examine the living
contradictions (Whitehead)
and tensions that I experience between my educational relationships with the
children and my complex understandings of my educational responsibility towards
them. Finally I will consider the above in the light of what I also consider to
be my educational responsibility towards others in the wider school
community.
What
are the values that shape my teaching?
As a
teenager studying for English ‘A’ level in the mid 1970’s, I was introduced to
the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, a depressive Jesuit teacher and priest, by
my English literature teacher, whose name I only ever knew as “Mr Sherlock”. I
loved the passion and emotion in the writing. The following words, from one of
Hopkin’s six sonnets of desolation, have stayed with me for thirty years:
No
worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More
pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring …….
O
the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful,
sheer, no-man fathomed ……….. (Phillips, 1986, p. 167)
The
power in those words was communicated to me in part through the gentle learning
style cultivated by my teacher who gave us the freedom to be creative in a
safe environment (2007,
Hannah, Tuesday group). Undoubtedly
I have forgotten much of what I was taught about inscape and instress, used by Hopkins in his poetry,
but what I do remember is how Mr Sherlock unlocked the door to poetry for me,
how he instilled in me a love of learning with his enthusiasm and passion for
his subject, but most of all I remember how he was able to bridge the gap
between himself, as teacher and me, his student, in a relationship which gave
me a feeling of excitement, self belief and security. Tillich writes that Joy
is the emotional expression of the courageous Yes (sic) to one’s own true
being. (Tillich,
1952, p. 14). I think that a learner can only say yes to his own true being in
an educational relationship of trust, in which he feels affirmed by the other
and therefore able to offer that learning to share with others. I remember Mr
Sherlock and that experience so well now, because in it there is a resonance
with my own values today.
Why
have I chosen this question as the basis for my enquiry?
As I
reflect on and enquire into my educational practice I know afresh each time
that:
At
the heart of the practice of education lies the relationship between teacher
and pupil. It is in the enactment of this relationship that education succeeds
or fails. (Bonnett,
1996, p. 28)
In his
article in the British Journal of Educational Studies eleven years ago, Bonnett
questioned the then establishment’s underlying conception of education at a
time when a new, more prescriptive curriculum was being introduced. He
expressed concerns about children being seen as consumers, the curriculum being
seen as something to be delivered and then tested against in a standardized way
at prescribed intervals with no thought for children and teacher’s varied
circumstances. That concern is as relevant now as it was then and that picture
of education seems cold and clinical to me.
I
prefer the image given by Hector, the “old-fashioned” teacher in the film of The
History Boys, when
he tells his students that:
….
Learning is like Pass the Parcel boys, that’s all you can do. Take it, feel it
and pass it on, pass it on boys. (Bennett, 19 How do I reference a film?
At the
end of the film, Irwin, the new teacher brought into the school specifically to
tutor the boys for the Oxford University entrance exams says:
I
don’t think there’s time for his kind of teaching any more …….
And
Dorothy replies:
It’s
the only kind of teaching worth having.
It’s
not that I see myself as an “old-fashioned” teacher – I have been
teaching for ten years so joined the profession at the same time as the Primary
Literacy and Numeracy Strategies were introduced. For a teacher who might see
the curriculum as something to be delivered to consumers I can understand that
there is a certain security in a very prescriptive curriculum, but I question
whether that kind of teaching encourages creativity, understanding of oneself
and pleasure in learning. In the film, Hector is seen giving his students time,
going off at a tangent to develop and follow their learning, building relationships
with them (admittedly somewhat inappropriate ones at times!). Under pressure to
meet targets, the headteacher comments however:
Yes,
Hector gets results sometimes, but they are unquantifiable – not
acceptable in the current climate.
I teach
Year 2 and there are times when I definitely feel more like Irwin than Hector
in the sense that by May of each year I have to give every child an assessed
level in reading, writing, speaking & listening, mathematics and science
and I am obliged to use statutory tests as part of this assessment process.
Therefore, there has to be an element of teaching to the test – I have to
play this game by someone else’s rules. Last year I wrote in my Educational
Enquiry 2:
At
times I feel under such pressure to meet targets, deadlines and to cover the
curriculum that I almost forget my relationship with the children. (2007, Formby, p. 1)
As part
of my research into this area of tension, I continually ask myself the question
“How can I improve my practice?” and I have recognized:
…..
that 'I' contained two mutually exclusive opposites, the experience of holding
educational values and the experience of their negation. (Whitehead 1988)
This
can be explained as my experiencing a living contradiction between the values I
seek to live with the children and the whole process of assessment I have to
conform to. Yet in my heart I know that my own anxiety is the root cause of
this tension because to an extent I put this pressure on myself. I feel a great
educational responsibility towards the children, for their social, emotional,
spiritual and academic development and I really do want to make a difference to
them while they are in my class. As Tillich reminds me:
…anxiety
is the state in which a being is aware of its possible nonbeing (Tillich, 1952, p. 35) and for
me, read failure for nonbeing. I don’t want to let the children or myself down.
As Tillich also describes though, courage can enable positive thought and
action. I feel reassured and encouraged as I read:
Courage
does not remove anxiety. Since anxiety is existential, it cannot be removed.
But courage takes the anxiety of nonbeing into itself. Courage is self-affirmation
“in spite of,” namely in spite of nonbeing. (p.66)
I
certainly don’t see myself as particularly courageous, preferring to use the
definition of courage taken from the French translation “of the heart,” because
it connects with the recognition of my need for a loving
receptive spirit to our lives. (Rayner,
2007, p.2) This suggests empathy and enables the development of receptively
responsive relationships with others.
The
Educational Responsibility I feel towards the wider school community
In
addition to the clear educational responsibility I have towards each child in
my class, I also feel that I have an educational responsibility in my role
within the school team – I do not work in isolation but as part of and in
relationship with many colleagues. I feel a responsibility towards them at
different levels; for example, as a Year 2 teacher preparing children for KS2
and also as a subject coordinator providing guidance and practical help.
Biesta
writes about schools being places of both rational community (Biesta, 2006, p. 67) in which
learning is seen as something to be acquired, yet also as being the
community of
those who have nothing in common (p.68) which is an exciting place to be, where learning takes
place as a response to the different, to the unexpected, where neither teacher
nor learner knows the outcome. If I see myself as learner as well as teacher
within the wider school community, and my colleagues also as learners, do I not
then have an educational responsibility within my school team to raise these
fundamental issues about learning, in addition to my own research and
reflection on them in my practice in the classroom? Looking at myself as both
teacher and learner I connect with Biesta’s point when he says:
We as teachers and educators, should be aware that what disrupts the smooth
operation of the rational community is not necessarily a disturbance of the educational
process, but might well be the very point at which students begin to find their
own, responsive and responsible voice. (p. 69) I wonder if it could also be the
point at which teachers may find their own responsive and responsible voice.
How
do I express my values in my educational relationships with the children?
Our
relationships offer us the very context in which we understand our progress and
realize the usefulness of what we’re learning. (Goleman, 2002, p. 209)
Recently I watched a video clip from my Yr
2 class of myself with a little boy, J, who wanted to wear a Samuel Pepys’ wig,
a history resource to bring The Great Fire of London to life. I knew
immediately that the video clip said something significant about me and about
my relationships with the children in my class. At the time, I wrote:
Diary
Entry December 2008 – watching the video clip of J wearing the Samuel
Pepys wig – just having fun!
I
love this video clip – I keep playing it over and over, enjoying the
children’s laughter and delight, J’s enjoyment at being the centre of attention
and my own relaxed enjoyment of the moment too.
So on reflection, why do I feel
that the film clip is so special? Firstly I need to put it in context. The
short clip came after a fairly serious 15 minute hotseating session with a
different child in the hotseat, who was pretending to be Samuel Pepys. The aim
of the session was to help the children get under the skin of Samuel Pepys by
asking him questions, in preparation for writing their own diary extracts as
someone writing in 1666. J is a happy little boy who sometimes finds
concentrating difficult but who had been very excited by his learning about the
Great Fire of London. When we had finished the more serious hotseating session
he asked again and again if he could try on the wig and be Samuel Pepys. I was
so pleased that he wanted to do this that I immediately agreed and we turned on
the video camera. Having watched it a number of times and having shared it with
my colleagues at the Tuesday MA group, I am beginning to understand how it
helps me to connect the values I strive to embody in my teaching, with my
living and developing theories about educational relationships and learning.
There are two distinct parts to the video.
Firstly
at the beginning I enjoy seeing myself encouraging and affirming J’s decision
to try on the wig. Next I share the laughter and delight with all the children
as J looks so different with long curly hair, yet I notice too how I begin to
check with J that he is okay with the laughter, that he is also laughing and
not feeling uncomfortable that others my be laughing at him, rather than with
him. Throughout those first two or three minutes I look so relaxed and happy -
I really wish that I could hold onto that feeling in more of my teaching
– I just look like I’m being the real me!
Then
suddenly there is a change when the class begins to lose control and I have to
draw them back. I raise a hand in the air to ask for quiet but several children
continue to talk and I hear some unkind comments about J in the wig from one or
two children. While I continue to smile at and encourage J, I also speak to
those children calling out, reminding them of what was said in that morning’s
assembly and making it clear that I expect better behaviour from them. In the
meantime I have taken the wig off J’s head but I don’t notice that he has made
a moustache from one of the curls and continued to amuse the class while I am
talking! J seems absolutely unfazed by any comments he may have heard and he
continues to smile throughout.
Although
it is difficult to watch myself in the second part of the video when I start to
look and sound tighter and less spontaneous, there is a moment of exquisite
connectivity
(Scholes-Rhodes, PhD Abstract) between J and
myself as we look at each other
that
speaks of the love I feel for the children. I want to suggest that this video
clip gives a glimpse of the teacher I want to be. Perhaps Lewis’s thoughts
about divine gift love help me to explain the significance of the short video.
He thinks that gift love encompasses joy, energy, patience, readiness to
forgive and desire for the good of the beloved (Lewis, 1960, p. 13). Those values inspire
me in my teaching and learning, and maybe I glimpse them in that moment in the
video.
How
am I gathering evidence to show that I am trying to integrate my educational
theorizing with the educational responsibility I express in my educational
relationships with the children in my class
We
come into the world as unique individuals through the ways in which we respond
responsibly to what and who is the other (Biesta, 2006, p. ix)
I
connect immediately with Biesta’s vision of each person’s uniqueness, their
difference and their responsibility towards one another. In my ideal classroom
each child would learn to appreciate that responsibility. I am also reminded of
my school’s Mission Statement which says:
St John’s Mission Statement
I am unique
In the eyes of God,
All seeing, all knowing, all
Loving,
He embraces our family,
Parish, parent, child.
All one with you.
I am of the world,
With the seeds of excellence
Within me,
Encouraged to grow and flourish
To a spiritual fulfillment.
I am unique,
And with you beside me,
All is possible.
Through
researching questions of the kind “How can I improve what I am doing?” I try to
bring my values closer to my teaching, often feeling that I am:
……..
at the edge of my own knowing (Scholes-Rhodes, 2002, Abstract p. 1). I find that feeling
exciting and motivational because it hints of better things to come, of new
possibilities even. I would not always have responded in that way and several
years ago when I began my research I felt frustrated and constrained by my
circumstances. Yet as my own learning has developed, my frustration and
tensions have energized and moved me to make changes in my teaching, to begin
to close the gap with my values.
One
example of this has been in my teaching of numeracy – not previously an
area I considered a particular strength. Yet through the development of
receptively responsive relationships, as outlined in my previous Educational
Enquiry 2, the focus of my teaching has become much more child led. I wrote
about:
….. an
incident that had occurred during a maths test when, following a question about
dice, a child was bursting to tell me that all pairs of sides on a dice added
up to 7 …….. Although in itself perhaps a minor incident, its impact on me was
huge in terms of the way I now plan and teach numeracy, trying to put the
children at the centre of my thinking, giving them ownership, activity, fun and
enjoyment as much as possible. The incident also reinforced my understanding of
how a receptively responsive relationship between child/teacher led me to this
sort of development. If I had not had that kind of relationship with O, I could
have told him to put his hand down, (we were in the middle of an NFER test) (Formby, 2007, p. 4)
Although
I had reflected on this change in my planning and teaching of numeracy, I had
not really shared this revelation with colleagues so when a numeracy lesson was
observed recently by my headteacher I was delighted by the comment he wrote at
the top of the lesson observation sheet:
Much
more opportunity for child directed learning … than in the past
(Lesson
Observation, 2008, Appendix 1)
My
own values as living standards of judgement
I seek
therefore to be conscious of the implications of my values and beliefs in my work
with children as part of my educational responsibility towards them and to take
opportunities to observe and reflect on this in their learning as part of my
research. In Scholes-Rhodes’ evocative words, I would like to:
…… create
an intricate patterning of personal stories and dialogic inquiry (Scholes-Rhodes, 2002)
There
follows a series of extracts from my reflective diary which give examples of
the different educational responsibilities I feel towards both the children in
my class and towards the wider school community personified by their parents,
which I feel show how I try to use my own values as living standards of
judgement. I will add my own commentary and analysis of their significance in
between.
In
Diary extract 1 I explain how I was surprised at the way a child solved a
particular maths problem – I had not anticipated that he would think that
way. I wrote about it in the diary extract below:
Diary Extract 1
This
afternoon, on a wet Tuesday after PE, the children were practising their developing
skills of multiplication in a range of contexts. I was sitting with a group of
children who were choosing a word problem to solve, gluing it in their book
then selecting a method that worked for them to work out the answer. Previously
and as a whole class we had used drawing, repeated addition and some formal
multiplication methods to answer questions such as these. I was enjoying
watching the children really engaging with their learning, concentrating,
checking out ideas with one another & occasionally with me. I was aware of
a strong feeling of community, their developing confidence, an emotional
connection with them and a sort of satisfaction at seeing them so absorbed in
their learning as a pleasurable and worthwhile activity.
It
was 2.45 pm and some children on other tables were finishing work and tidying
up, beginning to get things ready to go home at 3pm. I moved around the table
to see who had nearly finished and F said:
“Mrs Formby this one’s hard – it’s
counting in fours.”
I
asked him to show me the question which asked
There
are 4 leaves on each plant. How many leaves are there on 10 plants?
As I
paused to think about how best to encourage him without giving away the answer
he suddenly exclaimed
“I
know, 20 2’s (20 x 2)!”
I
watched, delightedly as he counted quickly in 2’s, using his fingers to check
“2
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40”
All
around him was noise and bustle as the busy day came to a close, yet he was
completely unaware of any of it in his desire to solve the problem. I barely
had time to say
“Great thinking! Well done.”
before
I had to leave F to quieten the rest of the class into their seats ready for
hometime.
What
was going on in F’s mind when he worked out that 10 x 4 gives the same answer
as 20 x 2? He didn’t doubt it for a second – he knew it but how?
The
next morning I was interested to find out how F’s mind had been working when he
solved the problem but by then, when I was able to speak to him about it, he
could only say:
“I
don’t know why I thought that way really, I just did it.”
I wrote
the next diary entry in response to a father’s reaction to me and to his son
after a performance of the school Christmas play.
Diary Extract 2
A different kind of educational
responsibility
Something
happened today that touched me, made me feel uplifted and at the same time made
me consider what educational responsibility also means to me. Let me explain…..
Today
is Tuesday 11th December and this afternoon we, the Infant
Department performed our Christmas play, Come to the Manger, to parents, family
and friends. It was a real success – proud parents, happy children and
teachers. As Year 2 teacher, many of my children were narrators as well as
playing other parts and I chose them based on an assessment of their reading
ability plus having the confidence to stand up and read into the microphone. It
was their choice and nobody had to read – there were plenty of other
roles.
I
asked one quiet little boy, J, to be a narrator and although slower in his reading
out loud than some of the others, I knew he was reliable and I had confidence
in him. Sure enough he read slowly but clearly at both performances as I had
expected.
So
it was with some surprise and absolute delight that as I led the children back
to class after the play I saw J’s dad snapping lots of photos and grinning from
ear to ear. When I encouraged him to come into the class to take more photos he
repeated over and over to me:
“I
can’t believe it, I never thought he’d do it, I really never thought he’d do
it.”
Later
when everyone had gone I realized that J’s dad’s comments had made my day. I
couldn’t stop thinking about them. I felt that in some small way I had begun to
fulfill my educational responsibility towards J and his dad. I had assumed an
inner confidence in J that his dad clearly hadn’t. I also realized that I had
never doubted that J would read his words. I based my optimism on what I knew
of J and on the educational relationship that I had begun to develop with him.
What a great day!
The
next diary entry shows the tension I experience when the gap between my values
and my teaching seems to widen.
Much as
I believe in and seek to develop positive and affirming educational
relationships with all the children I teach, I recognize the difficulty of that
task with particular children. I recently felt very frustrated at my perceived
inability to develop an educational relationship with one boy in my class to
the point where he felt ready to respond to the learning opportunities given to
him. I wrote:
Diary Extract 3
I am
feeling low today about my perceived inability to get through to a handful of
children in my class who persist in being as disruptive as possible, demanding
my attention, not appearing to be ready to learn and frequently upsetting other
children’s learning as a result. For example, today in Science the children
were working in pairs, each with a sticky label on their back with the name of
a material, eg. wood, plastic, metal. Each child took turns to ask questions
about properties of their material, eg is it soft, stretchy, waterproof? The
object of the game was to guess the name of their material but I was also
interested in assessing the children’s questioning skills using “properties of
materials” words.
One
of the “disruptive” children (R) had to be sat to one side almost immediately
when he continually read everyone’s labels out loud – much to the
annoyance of those children enjoying the game! Others just couldn’t calm down
enough to play the game properly and although I persevered for long enough to
enable some children to finish, I felt very frustrated at some of the behaviour
that had prevented the children from really using this game to practice their
questioning and use of material property words. (Formby, 2008, diary extract 14/01)
One
boy, R had to miss yet another part of his playtime and as I tried to talk to
him about his behaviour and how it was getting in the way of his learning and
the learning of others, I realized that unconsciously I was modeling the response
I wanted from him. As Biesta
writes … learning as responding is about showing who you are and where you
stand (Biesta, 2006, p. 27). Biesta makes it clear that it is not
acceptable for a learner to respond in any way he wishes because … it is
about entering the social fabric and is therefore thoroughly relational (p.27). As I wrote earlier in this enquiry, I take that to
mean that as each child recognizes himself as a unique being discovering more
about something through a learning experience, he also has a responsibility
towards other children, recognizing the same uniqueness and right to learn in
them as in himself.
After
the Science lesson mentioned above I felt frustrated but also determined to
keep trying to open up opportunities for children such as R to practice their
developing skills as learners and social beings. I remembered what had happened
during the previous week when, once again I had written in my diary of my
frustration when, having been:
Diary Extract 4
…
harangued after school about some of the children’s behaviour by the music
specialist who teaches my class for 30 minutes per week, I decided to speak to
the whole class about this problem behaviour. First thing the next morning when
all was calm I asked if they had enjoyed music the previous day –
sheepish glances all around! I asked if anyone could explain why they hadn’t
– I told them to be honest. They were. They knew why they hadn’t learned,
giving reasons such as “we kept laughing, we weren’t listening, we were noisy.”
I explained that the music teacher had been very upset, that I had been upset
to hear about their bad behaviour and that they had let each other down. They
really were sorry. (Formby,
2008, diary extract 9/01)
Our
SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) theme this term is Going for
Goals (DfES, 2005) and only the previous day the children had worked
well in groups to produce mind maps of their initial ideas about what makes
a good learner? (Photo?) Their ideas were so clear and
focused:
- Listen to one another
- Concentrate
- Think hard
- Have a go
- Work with others
- Be kind
- Don’t distract
On the
one hand their understanding of the bad behaviour for the music teacher made it
all the more frustrating but on the other hand it gave me great hope that we
could all build on this knowledge and early understanding of being a learner
together. Imagine my delight therefore a couple of days later, when R amazed me
by producing his best piece of writing yet in Literacy. English is a second
language for him but the traditional tale of Rumplestiltskin really engaged him
and he responded as a learner (scan in his writing in
Appendix 2). He concentrated on his writing, was able to tell me exactly
what he had written and planned to write next and it was indeed a celebration
when he received a certificate in assembly in recognition of his efforts!
Conclusion
How is it that I can combine such feelings of exceptional
fallibility and prowess? Surely these feelings are mutually contradictory? Or
do they in some strange way derive from the same root? Perhaps their presence
together is telling us all something about what it really means to be gifted,
each in our own exceptional way, as different but not isolated individuals
pooled together in the common space of our natural human and non-human
neighbourhood. (Rayner, 2007)
Rayner’s
words strike a chord deep within me because I see my role as an educator very
much in terms of prowess and yet fallibility. On the one hand I feel the joy in
relationship with the children in the Samuel Pepys video clip when, as I wrote
earlier:
Throughout
those first two or three minutes I look so relaxed and happy - I really wish
that I could hold onto that feeling in more of my teaching – I just look
like I’m being the real me!
I also
recognize the pleasure in educational responsibility shown by F as I explained
earlier when:
All around him was noise and bustle
as the busy day came to a close, yet he was completely unaware of any of it in
his desire to solve the problem. I barely had time to say
“Great thinking! Well done.”
Yet my
feelings of fallibility are all too apparent when, as I explained previously:
I
felt very frustrated at some of the behaviour that had prevented the children
from really using this game to practice their questioning and use of material
property words.
I know
that I will continue to try to integrate my educational theorizing with the
educational responsibility I express in my educational relationships with the
children in my class because I believe in the value of what I am doing. I am …at
the edge of my own knowing (Scholes-Rhodes,
2002) but it is a good place to be, especially if I can be:
…. confident
in the ability of my authoritative voice to define the fluid boundaries of my
enquiry (Scholes-Rhodes,
2002)
Appendix 1
References
Biesta,
G. (2005) Beyond Learning, Paradigm Publishers: Colorado USA
Bonnett,
M. (1996) ‘New’ Era Values and the teacher-pupil relationship as a form of the
poetic. Retrieved on 28/08/06 from http://www.jstor.org/
Day, C.
(2004) a Passion for Teaching
London,
RoutledgeFalmer
Goleman, D. (2002) The New Leaders, London;
Time Warner Paperbacks.
Phillips,
C. (1986) The Oxford Authors, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Oxford; Oxford University
Press.
Lewis,
CS. (1960) The Four Loves, Glasgow; William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.
Rayner, A. (2007) My Achilles Heel, retrieved on 23/09/07) from
http://people.bath.ac.uk/bssadmr/inclusionality/AchillesHeel.html
Scholes-Rhodes, J. (2002) From the Inside Out: Learning to presence my aesthetic and spiritual
being through the emergent form of a creative art of inquiry
Abstract of PhD Submission. Retrieved on 10/02/08 from http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/rhodes.shtml
Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning Guidance (2005)
Primary National Strategy; Dfes
Tillich,
P. (1952) The Courage To Be, Yale University Press: USA
Whitehead,
J. (1988) Creating a Living Educational Theory from Questions of the Kind “How
do I Improve my Practice?” Cambridge
Journal of Education, Vol. 19, No.1,1989, pp. 41-52 Retrieved on 27/01/08 from http://people.bath.ac.uk/edsajw/writings/livtheory.html