Wordsworth’s ‘We Are Seven’: Reflections on the Secondary English Classroom

English teachers select texts for the edifying qualities they possess: a good poem, novel or film can act both as a window looking out over different lives and as a powerful mirror for reflection. When teachers reflect on their professional practice, however, they generally look to education theory, to research or to action learning strategies. But if great works of literature strengthen a student’s empathetic, critical and reflective capacities, they can do the same for the English teachers who prescribe them. The article does not advocate for a rejection of pedagogical expertise in favour of pure literary criticism, but it does consider that these two aspects of English teaching can be brought together for the purposes of professional reflection and development. Using William Wordsworth’s lyric ‘We Are Seven’ as an example, it aims to illustrate how a close reading of the poem leads naturally and effectively from an analysis of content to more general considerations of why and how we teach.     

‘Learning the basics’: young people’s engagement with sexuality education at secondary schools

School-based sexuality education remains a key response to the HIV epidemic. Drawing on findings from an ethnographic study, this study explores how young people engage with sexuality and HIV- and AIDS-related education as it is delivered through the Life Orientation (LO) learning area in South Africa, in order to understand the dynamics that support or hinder engagement. Focus group discussions were held with Grade 9 and 11 learners (aged 14–18 years) from 16 randomly selected public secondary schools across three provincial districts. Results show that enjoyment of LO education was related to perceived relevance and distinctiveness, informal lesson delivery, subjective assessment standards and seemingly minimal effort. However, the perception of reduced effort tarnished the status of LO and young people’s motivation to participate. Learner engagement is influenced by a variety of cognitive, affective and behavioural pathways including internalised discourse around HIV and AIDS, gender and sexuality; the quality of youth–educator relations and teaching competencies; peer pressures; and broader cultural dynamics. The cultivation of a learning environment in which young people share and debate their views promotes engagement and critical thinking. In-service and pre-service educator training, structured activity plans and monitoring are recommended to advance the content knowledge and pedagogy of educators.     

James Baldwin’s ‘Everybody’s Protest Novel’: Educating our responses to racism

Abstract

The aim of this article is to establish—and explore—James Baldwin’s significance for educational theory. Through a close reading of ‘Everybody’s Protest Novel’, I show that Baldwin’s thinking is an important (if unrecognized) precursor to the work of Stanley Cavell and Cora Diamond, and is relevant to a number of problems that are educationally significant, in particular problems of race and racism.     

Personalisation: the emerging ‘revised’ code of education?

In England, a ‘revised’ educational code appears to be emerging. It centres upon the concept of ‘personalisation’. Its basis is less in educational theory, more in contemporary marketing theory. Personalisation can be regarded in two ways. First, it provides the rationale for a new mode of public‐service delivery, one which seeks to enable ‘users’ to co‐produce with professionals a solution to their needs. In this endeavour, it takes further that process of marketisation which had been set in train under the New Public Management. Second, it portends a new ‘grammar’ for the school, in the guise of ‘personalised learning’. At this stage, what shall count as personalisation—particularly in relation to personalised learning—remains incoherent and inchoate. For its justification as a policy, personalisation appeals to child‐centredness, to democracy and to consumerism. The analysis draws on contemporary social and marketing theory.     

‘Shit shows’ or ‘like-minded schools’: charter schools and the neoliberal logic of Teach For America

Over the past three decades, two neoliberal educational reform efforts have emerged in tandem – the charter school movement and Teach For America (TFA). This paper critically examines the relationship between these entities through the lens of TFA corps members placed in charter schools, and explores two types of schools described by interviewees, namely, ‘shit shows,’ and ‘like-minded schools.’ Grounded in corps members’ teaching experiences, this paper argues that even at its best, the close partnership between TFA and charters can create a mutually reinforcing educational subculture that is isolated from broader educational discourses and practices. At its worst, this partnership can result in the ill-advised ‘propping up’ of under-funded, mismanaged, ill-equipped charters that might otherwise struggle to find adequate staffing and, consequently, close. This paper suggests that these two tendencies – toward corps members’ insularity and poor placement – have the potential to conflict with the charter movement’s and TFA’s stated purposes of improving the quality of schooling for disadvantaged and marginalized students.     

‘Coherence at Last’: Percival Gurrey’s Contribution to English

Reacting to incoherent English teaching in the 1930s, Percival Gurrey probed the psychological processes involved in literary appreciation. He sought ways of teaching poetry that avoided lifeless tasks such as labelling ‘poetic devices’. Later, in the 1950s, he wrote about the processes involved in learning to write. At a time when psychology dominated educational discourse, he was in touch with new developments in both literary criticism and linguistics, and he evolved a bridging theory of language, learning and development that spanned philosophy, psychology and literary theory. I connect Gurrey’s sense of wholeness of response to his reading in Coleridge. By returning to debates surrounding Coleridge I show how a new appreciation of what language accomplishes emerged. Gurrey discovered that writing has a central place in children’s development as a whole. From such hard-won discoveries a unified theory of development in talking, reading and writing duly emerged.     

The case of ‘payment-by-results’: re-examining the effects of an incentive programme in nineteenth-century English schools

Performance-based management is a recurring and controversial strategy for education reform. This paper examines a nineteenth-century English experiment in paying schools by results and uses concepts from personnel and behavioural economics to understand its decline. Like many recent education reforms, payment-by-results sought to bring schools and teachers under the ‘laws of supply and demand’. The unintended outcomes of the policy, which ultimately led to its end, included narrowing of the curriculum, cheating and manipulation by schoolteachers and managers, and increased risk and uncertainty in the teaching profession. The paper begins by exploring the role of economics principles in the drafting of the policy. It continues to explore how the programme unravelled, with special attention to issues of perverse incentives, teacher motivation, risk, and uncertainty. Building on recent studies of analogous modern experiments in performance-based management, this paper finds important parallels to current policy concerns. The lessons learned address the fundamental relationship between incentives and teacher motivation and the role of economic theory in education policy.     

Reframing ‘well-being’ in schools: the potential of recognition

In Australia and internationally, the well-being of children and young people is a core focus of social policy, with a growing imperative to locate well-being within the sphere of education. However, the term ‘well-being’ remains ambiguous and the implementation of educational approaches to promote and improve it appears fragmented and ad hoc. In Australia, little is known about how well-being is understood and supported in schools, particularly from the perspective of students themselves. This article reports on key findings from an ambitious mixed-methods study funded by the Australian Research Council that investigated conceptualisations and practices around well-being in schools. Underpinned by theoretical interests linked to Childhood Studies and recognition theory, the research investigated policy, student and staff perspectives on well-being. The findings point to the key role of relationships, providing considerable scope for analysing the salience of Honneth’s modes of recognition for well-being in schools.     

James Moffett’s Mistake: Ignoring the Rational Capacities of the Other

Using Alasdair MacIntyre’s theory of tradition-bound rationalities, this essay analyses James Moffett’s depiction of the censors who opposed his Interactions textbook series in the Kanawha County, West Virginia, schools. Many reviewers have found Moffett’s analysis of the censors in Storm in the Mountains even-handed and respectful. Such lauding of Moffett’s work obscures the ways in which his understanding of the censors and their motivations inadequately considers the cultural history of the Appalachian region, its relationship to literacy, and the rationality underlying the censors’ stance. A critical look at Moffett’s representation of the censors permits a reconsideration of his theory of literacy, and moves us closer to understanding how to realize pluralistic education in resistant locales.     

‘To Give an Example is a Complex Act’: Agamben’s pedagogy of the paradigm

Abstract

Agamben’s notion of the ‘paradigm’ has far-reaching implications for educational thinking, curriculum design and pedagogical conduct. In his approach, examples—or paradigms—deeply engage our powers of analogy, enabling us to discern previously unseen affinities among singular objects by stepping outside established systems of classification. In this way we come to envision novel groupings, new patterns of connection—that nonetheless do not simply reassemble those singular objects into yet another rigidly fixed set or class. Agamben sees this sort of ‘paradigmatic understanding’ as our richest source of intelligibility. For Agamben the paradigm is ultimately about learning to see again, starting not with already perfectly known and categorized objects (or ideas), but rather with a fresh experience of one individual object and the analogical relations it may have to others, and to novel groupings that may arise. The paradigm is a method, a way in which educators might respond to a wide range of educational challenges. For a paradigmatic relation suspends while exposing, deactivates while revealing, complicates while clarifying. But articulating the enigmatic paradigmatic relation between example and class is far more than a method. It is epistemological (a way of knowing and conception of knowledge), ethical (a fostering of freedom from presupposed categories and reified principles) and ontological (a type of being that exposes the potential of knowing and communicating—their intelligibility and communicability). In these qualities, paradigms exhibit to educators a free, a new use of singularities.     

‘In-between’ Asia and Australia: on the politics of teaching English as the ‘Other’

This article mobilizes story-telling to narrate my lived experience of teaching English as a minority academic in one Australian university. Positioning myself as living ‘in-between’ two cultures and as an ‘Other’, I tell my story of how I have been ‘racialized’ and ‘Othered’ because I do not look White, and my spoken English is distinctly accented; hence, my legitimacy of teaching English is held suspect. My story contributes to the theorizing of the sociology of the in-between with the argument that while living in-between culture can be a space of negativity, it can also be a space of empowerment if one exercises choice and agency by forging new spaces. I end my story-telling with a happy ending by presenting a contrasting story of how my run-away from Australia to (a new space in) Hong Kong to teach English has reaffirmed my cultural capital as I morph into a different ‘Other’.     

‘I am not the teacher!’: some effects of remodelling the roles of teaching assistants in English primary schools

Remodelling the roles, responsibilities and working practices of all school staff has been central to the government's modernisation agenda for English state schools. This is typified by a determination to review and change the distribution of tasks undertaken by teachers and teaching assistants (TAs). Whilst there has been a substantial increase in the numbers of TAs employed in schools there is still a lack of clarity about their roles and about the impact of remodelling on the working lives of both teachers and assistants. Evidence from the Transforming the School Workforce: Pathfinder Project, conducted immediately prior to the launch of the National Agreement in 2003, indicates that initial concerns about the ways in which TAs were being deployed are still very apparent. Here the authors focus on management and professional development issues arising from TAs adopting more pedagogical roles in schools.     

The inclusion of pseudowords within the year one phonics ‘Screening Check’ in English primary schools

The paper highlights problems surrounding the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check that has accompanied the legislative framework for synthetic phonics in English primary schools. It investigates the inclusion of pseudowords and raises questions regarding their generation and categorization, the rationale for their inclusion and the assumption that the early ability to read pseudowords is associated with later success in reading. It draws upon evidence from comparative European orthographic studies employing pseudowords that have implications for the way English pupils learn to read.     

Teachers as ‘reform-doers’: developing a participatory curriculum to teach English as a foreign language

Action research concerns action, and transforming people’s practices (as well as their understandings of their practices and the conditions under which they practise). Sometimes we may feel that action research works best when it contributes to our understandings. In this paper, by contrast, I want to explore the ‘happening‐ness’ of action and practice, as they are lived and changed by action research. I want to explore the place of action research in shaping and making history by changing what is done. The central argument of this paper is that, while action research certainly does contribute to theory, it also, and perhaps more importantly, contributes to history.     

‘He’s from Ghana!’ Exploring the Social and Cultural Complexities of the English Classroom

This essay focuses on my experience studying Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English with Year 9 and the complexities of that particular classroom. It seeks to look beyond the labels that are often imposed on students and to show the importance of examining the particular individuals, both as learners and as people with their own lives outside school. It considers text choice and illustrates how pupils’ cultural and historical backgrounds can play a key role in the social nature of the classroom. It also shows how significant class discussions can be in the development of ideas about literature. The essay then goes on to look at ability judgements and how these can affect learning, considering the value of setting versus mixed-ability grouping.     

Graduating as a ‘native speaker’: international students and English language proficiency in higher education

The current concern about low levels of English proficiency among international students who graduate from degree courses – that students’ English language skills are not being developed during their higher education experience – reflects negatively on the quality of Australian higher education and its graduates. More careful selection of students and increased use of English language testing are among the solutions put forward. These debates over English language proficiency tend to construct English language as a skill that can be applied in any context and ‘native‐speaker’‐levels of language ability as essential for employment. Within such a formulation international students can only ever be defined as in deficit. Drawing on socio‐cultural theories of language learning and academic literacy, alternative understandings of language proficiency in internationalized higher education are explored. Improved communication skills among graduates are likely to be achieved through a better understanding of issues beyond classroom instruction, such as barriers to social integration with native‐speakers, which reveal many international students unable to access adequate levels of language experience. Without wider perspectives on the debate over English language proficiency in higher education, the many benefits of having international students in higher education institutions are obscured by negative attitudes and unrealistic expectations.     

‘Snapped’: researching the sexual cultures of schools using visual methods

Visual methods are often marginalised in educational research and have not been employed to collect information about sexuality at school. This paper examines the viability and effectiveness of conducting research about the ‘sexual cultures’ of schools in New Zealand using photo‐diaries and photo‐elicitation. ‘Effectiveness’ is judged by what the visual methodologies literature purports are the benefits of these methods. These advantages include providing participants with greater autonomy over what and how data is collected. The paper argues it is feasible to employ visual methods to research sexuality in schools. Such methods offer participants alternative means of recounting their stories, can help illuminate an esoteric object of investigation like ‘sexual cultures’ and engage participants less likely to volunteer for sexuality research. The use of visual methods is not without challenges however. Securing ethics approval and school participation along with problems with camera retrieval and protecting participant agency were some difficulties encountered in the current study. For those wishing to pursue less conventional research methodologies in educational settings, this discussion highlights potential benefits and struggles.