How can I research the
difference my values make to the children I teach?
Introduction
In
this assignment I will show how I am using an action research method to investigate
how I try to balance on the one hand my desire to encourage the children in my
class to enquire into their own learning and to develop their social and
emotional skills and on the other hand the necessity and obligation for me to
teach, in a very prescriptive way, the curriculum for their year group. I will
firstly look at the background to my research and consider different types of
research methodologies. As part of this I will discuss some of the ideas of others
that have encouraged me in my chosen methodology to engage with the writing
process as part of my own reflective learning. Lastly I will analyse how my
research can be validated and made public. My writing will be interspersed with
stories about the children, my learning journey and situations from my class.
Background
When
I began attending an MA in Education group on Tuesday evenings led by Jack
Whitehead just over twelve months ago I did not feel like a practitioner
researcher. I actually felt very out of my depth because everyone else seemed
to know much more about education than I did, I definitely did not talk the
talk (Marie
Huxtable 2005) and probably the only reason I continued to go was that I needed
to be able to talk about and address the problems I was experiencing in my
class at that time. This group not only enabled me to do that but actively
supported me. Thus started an action/reflection cycle for me in my class which
I now see was the beginning of the action research process. It has given me the
confidence to recognize that my personal values, which are so important to me,
can help me to influence the learning of the children in my class by teaching
them emotional literacy and by helping them to enquire into how they learn
best.
The
Action Research Process
I
recognize that it will be difficult to investigate and show the benefits of my
values to the children in their learning because We worry about claims that
cannot be tested, and we believe that unless assertions are made in
propositional terms, we have no good way to test their truth. (p.16 The
Primacy of Experience and the Politics of Method, Elliot Eisner). I relate
strongly to the picture Eisner paints for me in his paper when he writes about
science versus art, things that can be "proved" compared with things that
cannot. As a teacher I equate those with teaching the curriculum and assessing
learning against specific criteria to measure progress, versus teaching which
develops spirituality, a sense of the aesthetic, self esteem and emotional
literacy. I feel reassured by Eisner's words when he writes redness,
sweetness and even kindness are words whose semantic content is located in
experience we call qualitative (p.15). Yet I also recognize that there can be ambiguity in
understanding if we use words in unique ways (p.16) so propositional
language is the vehicle, par excellence, for precise communication (p.16).
I
recognize the validity of the work of researchers who adopt an objectivist
(or positivist) approach to the social world and who treat it like
the world of natural phenomena as being hard, real and external to the
individual (p.7 Cohen & Manion) although for me as a
teacher I am researching human behaviour, both my own and that of children in
my class so is this the best way to find out more about ourselves?
Cohen
& Manion explain the advantages of a positivist approach to research in the
field of science, where events can be investigated using set methods, and
observed until causal links are uncovered. They make the point that there is a
regularity about the process from which the results can then be used to formulate
laws to account for what is happening ÉÉ. Thus giving them a firm basis for
prediction and control (p.13)
Historically
this approach has enabled scientists and philosophers to make sense of the
world using methods of observation and reason, quantifiable data gathered using
surveys, questionnaires and other traditional methods and this approach also has
the advantage of being easily validated.
Whitehead
& McNiff make the point that the social sciences
maintain an overall position that takes human behaviour as an object that can
be studied from a spectator point of view
p14 ( my emphasis)
Whitehead,J & McNiff, J. (2006) Action Research living Theory. London. Sage Publications.
This observer
approach to action research is a problem for me in my research in that it
requires an objective, controlled stance. As Hiebert says
Isolating
features of teaching, as has been common in the research community, is not an
option. Teachers usually do not have the resources to conduct controlled
studies across classrooms. More than that, the knowledge produced by these
studies often is not immediately useful for teachers because it is the
interaction among the features of teaching, not their effects in isolation,
that give teaching its meaning and character.(P8)
Hiebert, J., Gallimore, R, & Stiegler, W.
(2002) A Knowledge Base for the
Teaching Profession: What Would It Look Like and How Can We Get One? Educational Researcher, Vol31, No.5,
pp3-15 (retrieved
9/8/06)
On the other hand the more subjective action
reflection process relating directly to my practice in the classroom makes
sense to me with regard to my relationships with the children and the
difference my values make to these relationships because it allows me to carry
out educational research in an immediate and authentic way. I am not
researching theories and concepts from the outside, but am on the inside of my
own research, developing my own living educational theories. What I am
researching, I believe, will help me to improve my own practice and as such it
is justifiable educational research as opposed to education research. Whitty
says we should reserve the term educational research for work that is
consciously geared towards improving policy and practice.
P13
Indeed
Peter Reason says too that one characteristic of educational action research is
that it is
rooted
in each participants in-depth, critical and practical experience of the
situation to be understood and acted in. (p.3 Reason, P. (2001).
Learning and Change through action research. In J.Henry (Ed), Creative
Management London: Sage.)
I am
not distant from what I am researching and what makes it even more exciting for
me is that as Reason says there is scope to research into what is "knowing",
based
in intuition as well as the senses, knowledge expressed in aesthetic form such
as story, poetry and visual arts ÉÉÉÉ as well as practical knowledge expressed
in skill and competence. (p.3 as above)
I
anticipate that some people may criticize this approach to research as being
too introspective. I will engage with the ideas of those in the Academy as I strive
to interpret what I think I am learning and I have tried to validate my
interpretations by subjecting them to the scrutiny of those in the Tuesday
evening MA course group.
As my aim through
educational research is to improve my own practice it makes sense to me to take
a first person action research approach because I cannot truly speak for anyone
else or for the children in their class. A narrative approach feels natural to
me, perhaps because
experience
is what we study, and we study it narratively
because
narrative thinking is a key form of experience and
a key way of
writing and thinking about it" (p. 18).
Bullough, R.& Pinnegar, S. (2001) Guidelines for Quality in
Autobiographical Forms of Self- Study Research. Educational Researcher, Vol 30, No.3, pp.13-21
(retrieved 9/8/06)
I know
that I am at the beginning of my journey into educational research, which
excites me and I feel some obligation to reflect on and articulate what
shapes my sense-making and behaviour (p.1, Judi Marshall Living
Systemic Thinking).
The
Narrative
I
concluded in "How can I improve learning in my class through the explicit
teaching of emotional literacy? An educational enquiry, Claire Formby, 2006" that
Academic
learning and emotional literacy are connected in a vital way that I had not
anticipated and that my educational and spiritual values are also an important
factor in developing the children's attitude to their learning.
It
is in many ways difficult to identify the values which underpin my teaching
because they are inseparable from what I do and how I do it. Yet I am
encouraged to maintain my belief that even in the face of ever more stifling
lesson observations, planning and assessment monitoring, increased paperwork
and more frequent OFSTED inspections, what really matters to me and every child
in my class is the quality of my relationship with each one of them.
In
order to research this I offer data gathered from
á
Interpretations of digital photographs
á
Interpretations of video clips
á
Lesson observations carried out by my headteacher
á
My reflections on dreadful or special moments recorded in my
reflective diary
In
using video and digital camera in the classroom and including it in this
assignment I have followed BERA guidelines and written to parents about my
research. I have their full permission and cooperation.
By
sharing my values with the children, by modelling my values in terms of how I
speak and behave, and by encouraging them to behave, with children and adults
alike, I believe that I am able to begin to influence their behaviour towards
one another. For example, the photograph below shows my class, in pairs, preparing
for writing, discussing suggested adjectives to use to describe the character
of Puss in Boots. There are several remarkable points about this photograph for
me. Firstly, most of the children are actively engaged in the task with their
partner – remarkable for me because of the extreme behaviour problems
many of these children were experiencing at the beginning of the year.
Secondly, the little girl in the middle with glasses has a range of social and
emotional issues which mean that working with another child is a real
achievement for her, not least because of the trust she has grown to have in
me. Lastly, when I look at this photograph I can see how much the children have
learnt about listening to one another, looking at the person who is speaking
and taking turns to speak; this allows me to assess the progress the children
have made in the SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning Guidance (2005)
Primary National Strategy; Dfes) lessons, in which they have been learning "how
to be a better learner" and it encourages me to continue to teach emotional
literacy explicitly in my desire to help each child enquire into how they learn
best.
As
I wrote earlier, I believe that the educational research in which I am engaged
helps me to improve my own practice in the classroom. In my educational enquiry
"How can I improve learning in my class through the explicit teaching of
emotional literacy? An educational enquiry, Claire Formby, 2006" I introduced
the children to the idea of enquiring into their own learning and followed this
with my use of relevant SEAL resources. I wrote,
Subsequently,
I taught specific sessions about each strand of the "better learner" poster and
began to see children taking responsibility for their own learning in a new
way. (p.16)
A
few weeks after I had introduced the "better learner" ideas to the children
(Appendix 1), I was formally observed by my headteacher, Bob. It was a literacy lesson in which the
children were working on writing character profiles using traditional tales. I
had been using the ideas from the "better learner" poster in all my lessons
– these were
á
listening
á
looking
á
concentrating
á
not distracting others or allowing yourself to be distracted
-
and I felt intuitively that the children were using and responding to them, but
this was the first time that someone had come in to observe me since their
introduction. Bob wrote in his observation (Appendix 2)
Claire,
you have developed greatly in your teaching which is allowing the children to
learn more freely in a safe environment. Behaviour is now far more
productive. Congratulations – you deserve credit for such development.
This is an example to us all. We need to share some of these techniques to
extend this good practice.
I
am not including this comment to blow my own trumpet. Far from it. In the
previous lesson observation in September, Bob had been careful not to be too
critical of my teaching only because he knew that I was barely coping with a
challenging class, including a boy with Tourettes syndrome and several other
very disruptive children who were nearly pushing me over the edge. I had nearly
failed that lesson according to the OFSTED criteria. At about that time I wrote
in my reflective diary
I
don't want to go to school. The children are so noisy all the time. How can I
make them listen? (p.1 Oct. 05)
As
I began to research the effects of teaching emotional literacy in an explicit
way and as I began to put some of the linked suggestions from the Behaviour
Support Service into practice, I realized that the children's behaviour illustrates
how one action can have so many interpretations held in the hand of the teacher
(p.
21 Dadds M. & Hart S.). I then began to view the children's behaviour in a
different way and together we began to try to make changes. I had to accept
however that by offering my professional practice for critical scrutiny the
practitioner researcher renders himself or herself vulnerable to critique, from
both self and others (p.9 Dadds M & Hart S)
"Special
Moments"
When
researching if my values make a difference to the children I teach, it is
difficult to know whether certain behaviour that I witness stems from a
nurturing of my values and the subsequent resonance with children in my class
or from something else within each child, but special moments of caring and
kindness from one child to another are very important to me and point to their
own developing values. They have a spiritual value for me too because that
extra dimension is at the heart of my values. As Eleanor Lohr says:
there
are É. places where we can slip out of our everyday world (p.266, Eleanor Lohr, chapter 10, Divine
Love in Organisation)
For
Eleanor Lohr, that place is silence and meditation. For me it is sometimes
a special moment of empathy and sensitivity such as
I
experienced on an occasion when F, a boy with Tourettes Syndrome, was in my
class. At times his loud and hyper-active behaviour could be very difficult for
the other children to ignore and one strategy I used was "Time-Out", during
which he learnt that looking at a catalogue helped him to calm down. One boy,
E, took it upon himself to bring into school from home a Nintendo catalogue
because he thought that F would like to look at it. It was a touching moment to
watch two heads poring over the Nintendo catalogue during a "Time-Out"
session. It reminds me of Eisner's
É..experience we call
qualitative (p.15).
which is so difficult to research yet
which clearly shows the influence of values that mean much to me on E's
behaviour in that situation.
In
the following narrative I am reminded that as Judi Marshall says, in the
process of first person action research, the experiencing and reflecting on the
effects that our values have on those around us do not necessarily give us the
results we anticipate but throw up new ideas that require further thinking. (Judi
Marshall 2004 Living Systemic Thinking). I wrote down my thoughts when I had an
unexpected emotional reaction to the prospect of F moving onto Yr 3.
Reflections
about Fabian moving on to KS2 – June 2006
I
had a special moment today, when at lunchtime I drove to our KS2 site to
collect F and my LSA, who had spent the morning with F's new Yr 3 teacher and
her present class. This was the first of several mornings to be spent there as
part of a "settling in" process for F and this transition has been much on his
and my mind in recent weeks. F was looking forward to the morning and I was
anxious that it should be a positive experience for him.
When
I walked into the classroom at 12 o'clock, F was at his new workstation and my
LSA told him it was time to go. As he looked up at me I glimpsed a very young,
vulnerable face and my reaction was unexpectedly protective and proud of him.
As my LSA explained what a fantastic morning they had had and how good F's
behaviour had been throughout, I felt strangely moved, on the one hand happy
and relieved, yet on the other hand sad that this was the end of his time with
me, a job well done.
I
have since reflected on my reaction to this situation and have considered the
reasons for it.
Firstly,
I think that I have changed as a teacher in the course of this academic year and
I think that F was the catalyst for this change. When he joined my class in
September 05 I had no experience of handling a child with Tourettes Syndrome
and some of F's behaviour was very challenging. I had to ask for help because I
felt that I was not coping and the children were unhappy. Looking back, I think
I had become a little stale in my teaching, I was not a reflective practitioner
and much of my teaching was about me and how I liked to teach. The first change
I had to make was to put the children and their needs at the centre of my
teaching. Their needs were many and part of the first change I made was to
explore the explicit teaching of emotional literacy with them using a range of
resources, including SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning). I have
referred to my research in this area earlier in this assignment and to the
benefits to the children in my class, which have been witnessed by many,
including my headteacher.
Secondly,
I think that in spite of the many challenges that F brought to my class, this
made me re-evaluate my own values and think about what my developing living
theories were becoming. I spent more time trying to build relationships with
all the children, helping them to understand their own behaviour and that of
those around them, including F and consequently to increase the self esteem of
all in my class. As I did this I discovered that the children's attitude to
their own learning became more positive too, as did mine. I decided that
therefore I felt a natural regret at the ending of that phase.
In
the last few weeks of his time in my class I was determined to help F develop
as many skills as possible before he made the jump to KS2, two miles away from
our Infant Department.
A
Final Story
The
video clip (see attached video clip 1) shows a conversation between me and F
after he had spent two sessions in his new Yr 3 class to help smooth the
transition between KS1 and KS2 in two months time. I was concerned that F. had
in the past found the recognition of emotions on other people's faces difficult
and that sometimes this caused problems for him, particularly in social
situations. At times F. had been seen as unfeeling or unkind when in fact he
had simply misunderstood his peer's facial expressions. I knew from being with
him that he was a sensitive boy with well developed skills of empathy – I
had observed him on more than one occasion helping someone up who had fallen
over on the playground and also saying sorry when he had bumped into another
child, so I wanted to help him to develop this ability to interpret facial
expressions and the thinking behind them as he prepared to move on from my
class into his next class with new friendships to establish. In this video clip
I chose two photographs (copied below) to discuss with him, which show two
young girls with definite expressions on their faces resulting from what one of
them has done. I wanted to discuss these with F. and find out how he might
interpret them.
Picture
2 Picture
1
See
Video Clip 1 in Appendix 3 "Feelings and Faces" which relates to these photographs.
How
do I interpret F's response to the photographs as part of the first person
action research process?
F
was relaxed during our conversation and had no physical tics throughout. He was
immediately interested in the photographs and thought hard when I asked him
what was happening in them. He asked for clarification of the "task", by asking
me "do you want to know what is different?" That made me
reflect upon the need to be very clear in my use of language with F and more
generally in the class.
F.
remained engaged as he exclaimed
"I
think I know it!" as if this were a maths test. That made me reflect
upon the pressure he clearly felt to give some sort of correct answer to me. I
reflected that I must encourage more lateral thinking in my class. In spite of
that F did not seem to feel pressured as he explained what was happening in the
two photographs. I felt excited and relieved that he interpreted the situation
well and clearly recognised the "bit of an angry face."
I
felt particularly pleased also that F explicitly referred to sharing when he
said, "now she's shared and now they've got two each." when looking at Picture 2.
To be completely clear about F's thinking about the resolution to this
situation I asked him "Do you think the little girl took it back or ÉÉÉ..?" and he
interrupted before I could finish speaking, to say "she gave it back." Once again I
was able to assess his learning from our SEAL lessons during which the class
had discussed and carried out role play in a range of problem solving
situations, including a playground scenario in which the class suggested
talking about sharing to resolve this particular problem situation.
Through this videoed
conversation with F I was able to assess just how far he had come in his
learning about people's feelings and thoughts shown by their facial
expressions. It also opened up many possibilities for me to research the use of
the video in the classroom, not just to look at children, their behaviour and
learning but also as a research tool to improve my practice. The video
recording enabled me to learn two important lessons about my own practice, as detailed
above. As Feldman says
if we want
others to value our work, we need to demonstrate that
it is well
founded, just, and can be trusted. By making our inquiry
methods
transparent and subjecting our representations to
our own
critique, as well as that of others, we can do so.
Feldman,A. (2003) Validity and Quality in Self-Study.
Educational Researcher, Vol 32, NO3, pp. 26-28 (retrieved 9/8/06)
My
final narrative touches on the difficulty of researching the impact of my
values during an RE lesson. The lesson was once again observed by my
headteacher and it is interesting to compare his formal, scientific
observations of the lesson and my practice, with my personal reflections on
children's reactions to it. The lesson's learning intentions were:
á
to learn about the story of Levi
á
begin to understand that people who met Jesus changed the way
they lived their lives
Eisner makes the point that sometimes
our
consciousness is diminished (p.17) if too much information is
given and we are not given the opportunity to explore and feel the learning
ourselves.
In
this RE lesson I wanted to include best practice - story, hot-seating, freeze
framing and individual writing but also a spiritual experience for each child
as I hoped they would contemplate and make the connection between Jesus meeting
Levi and helping him to change with that possibility in their own lives. It is
interesting to look at the "Lesson Observation" (Appendix 3) with its list of
strengths and developments and then to think about my own reflections on the
lesson. Yes I was very pleased with the structure and management of it, all
activities went well and it was a productive lesson. Yet what thrilled me most
was the comment from one girl, who offered this comment during the plenary,
Jesus
helped Levi to be a new person and to show he was a new person, He gave him a
new name.
That
comment showed a deeper more spiritual understanding of the story and its
significance, reinforcing John Dewey's view about the difference
between
seeing and recognizing (Art as Experience, 1934), quoted by Eisner
Conclusion
My
living educational theory has come directly from my experience, from challenges
I have faced as described in parts of this assignment. It has developed from
the tensions that I feel between on the one hand a requirement to meet external
standards prescribed by an authority under which I have no say, and also from a
desire to improve my own practice in the field of emotional literacy and
children's learning. I believe strongly in the truth of what I am doing. In his
chapter "An Analysis of an Individual's Educational Development" Jack Whitehead
explains the personal and social standards that he uses to justify his own
claims in knowing his educational development. To support his criteria he draws
upon the work of Michael Polanyi who writes
It
is the act of commitment in its full structure that saves personal knowledge
from being merely subjective. Intellectual commitment is a responsible
submission to the compelling claims of what in good conscience I conceive to be
true (p.55
Whitehead) (Polanyi, 1958)
An
innovative approach to research is justified if we believe that.
Dadds
and Hart reflect that there are three major areas of influence on innovative
research: the personal, the academic and the professional (p.155) All three
contribute to the tension I described above and also explain why I have not
chosen a traditional scientific approach to my practitioner research with its
measurable data and traditional methods. I am not a scientist, I am a teacher
and as such my embodied knowledge gives me control over what and how I carry
out my research, whilst gratefully accepting suggestions for creative research
methodologies.
Appendices
Appendix
1
How To Be A Better Learner á Settle
quickly to learning á Keep
concentrating – don't be distracted á Be
independent. If you get stuck o
Talk it through with a friend o
Use classroom displays o
Remember what you did last time you were stuck o
Remember! It's ok to get stuck sometimes!
Our Goals
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
