Reconciling ourselves to reality: Arendt,education and the challenge of being at home in the world

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I explore the educational significance of the work of Hannah Arendt through reflections on four papers that constitute this special issue. I focus on the challenge of reconciling ourselves to reality, that is, of being at home in the world. Although Arendt's idea of being at home in the world is connected to her explorations of understanding, such understanding should not be approached as a matter of sense making, but in terms of ‘eccentric judgement’. For judgement to be eccentric, we must expose ourselves to otherness, which has to do with friendship if we understand friendship as a public rather than an entirely private matter. While political judgement requires a ‘being in the presence of others’ Arendt's views on thinking and its role in moral judgement indicate the necessity of solitude, of being alone with oneself. Rather than seeing this a process through which one calls oneself into question, I highlight the importance of the experience of being called into question, which I understand as the experience of ‘being taught’. I conclude that the educational significance of Arendt's work particularly lies in this link with teaching, and less so in notions of learning, reflection and sense making.     

Public Sector Agricultural Extension System Reform and the Challenges Ahead

Abstract

This paper is organized into two main sections. The first section examines extension as an engine for innovation and reviews the numerous priorities confronting extension systems. Section two highlights the current knowledge imperative and the critical connection of extension to post-secondary higher education and training, organizational inservice training, and vocationally oriented self-directed learning. Final comments address ‘The Continuing Role of the Public Sector’, and the prospect of its role in balancing societal interests and promoting extension as an aspect of a knowledge economy. The conclusion proposes what may be agricultural extension's challenges ahead.     

Constructivism and classroom teachers: What can early childhood teacher educators do to support the constructivist journey?

Abstract

Constructivism is a theory of learning that has become increasingly accepted by educators. Yet translating a theory of learning into practical instructional strategies has proven to be quite difficult for teachers. A qualitative study was recently completed that examined primary grade teachers’ understanding of constructivism and its influence upon their teaching practices. Analysis indicated that the teachers had several misconceptions of constructivism and were at varying levels of understanding, based upon their experience and professional development in constructivist education. This study has implications for the teacher education field, and early childhood teacher educators can play an important role in helping preservice and inservice teachers gain a deeper understanding of constructivism and implement teaching practices based upon this understanding. Suggestions for colleges of education are given.     

“Asking,Learning, Seeking Out”: An Exploration of Data Literacy for Teaching

Abstract

The current study explored preservice and inservice teachers’ perspectives on data literacy for teaching. Semi-structured interviews were employed with 12 teacher candidates in elementary and special education. The findings revealed participants’ misconceptions regarding formative and summative data; their understanding of the value of formative data; perceptions of challenges related to data literacy for teaching including time, making sense of data, and reliability and validity; and candidates’ preferences for authentic data literacy instruction.     

Golden times of writing: the creative compliance of writing journals

This paper examines the history, rationale, uses and abuses of writing journals in primary classrooms. We argue that writing journals form part of a pedagogy derived from an understanding of how children can be motivated to express themselves, independently of teachers. Moreover, they demonstrate the power of welcoming children's home cultures into the classroom. However, we also wish to argue that the use of writing journals is part of the teaching profession's ‘creative compliance’ that can still contribute to the marginalisation of effective educational practice. We document how, in some schools in England, writing journals have been reduced to token gestures towards creativity and independence and in effect collude with and support what is increasingly becoming a pedagogical hegemony.     

The professional development needs of learning support coordinators in Singapore primary schools May Ling Quah and Kevin Jones

ABSTRACT

‘Support for learning’ can be conceptualized in many different ways. This paper examines the role of the learning support coordinator in relation to the breadth of factors which cause pupils to experience learning difficulties in primary classrooms. It is against this background that the professional development needs of learning support coordinators is considered. The paper focuses, in particular, upon the needs of learning support teachers who work in primary schools in Singapore. The shortcomings of traditional inservice courses which focus upon curriculum development and pedagogy are discussed in relation to the wide ranging roles which learning support coordinators are expected to fulfil. The assumption that pupil achievement can be enhanced when teachers are ‘trained’ to employ certain teaching methods is questioned and the relevance of an ecological or interpretive model of staff development is discussed. Finally, the particular professional development needs of learning support coordinators in Singapore are considered.     

‘Decidedly Different’: lesbian women and education

ABSTRACT

Lesbian women's experiences of education frequently occurs within a contradictory public relationship: their identity ‘woman’ is usually ‘visible’ whilst their identity ‘lesbian’ remains generally ‘invisible’ ‐ both in educational settings and within wider educational discourses. By drawing upon examples of self‐understanding of lesbian identity this paper discusses the meanings and connections between these two identities from the perspectives of lesbian women themselves. The inclusion of self‐understanding of lesbian identity as a central feature in exploring the relationship of lesbian women and education permits a discussion of both lesbian oppression and lesbian agency. I will discuss this with reference to my recent study of lesbian women and education. The inclusion of self‐understanding of lesbian identity illuminates the complex relationships which exist between individual identity meanings and those which are socially constructed and maintained within an educational system based upon the ideology of heterosexism.     

Addressing the Sociopolitical Realities of Teaching through Standards-Based Reform to Post-Licensure Master’s Degree Programs

ABSTRACT

Physical education teacher education programs have a responsibility to prepare preservice teachers in the technical aspects of teaching while also preparing them for the sociopolitical realities of teaching a marginalized subject. There is also a need for inservice teachers to engage in continuing professional development related to socialization and school sociopolitics to build upon lessons learned during initial teacher education. In the United States, one such professional development opportunity is reflected in master’s degree programs. These programs are typically guided by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education advanced standards for physical education teacher education. However, these standards do not currently have any reference to socialization or sociopolitical learning. The purpose of this article is to propose that an additional standard focusing on sociopolitical skills and teacher socialization be added to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education advanced standards for U.S.-based post-licensure master’s degree programs.     

Disintegrate the unit!

Margaret Meek (1988) has described how children borrow ideas from literature through ‘unteachable’ lessons. In this article I explore how children's written work might be enhanced through ‘teachable’ lessons, where the teacher draws attention explicitly to aspects of literature and the literary devices used by authors, and where children explore and evaluate literature through group reading and discussion. The interrelationship between children's knowledge and understanding of literature and their writing development is examined. The way that critical reading and group discussion can develop children's metalanguage and metacognitive understanding is illustrated.     

Understanding and enhancing pupils’ learning progress in schools in deprived communities

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on data from the ‘Raising Pupil Attainment in Key Stage 1 in Stoke-on-Trent’ research project. The particular focus is on how teachers, head teachers and teaching assistants (n?=?59) articulate pupils’ learning success in five highly achieving schools in deprived communities. Six key themes are highlighted which are identified by participants as influencing successful pupil learning and progress. These are analysed in relation to Biesta's theory on the parameters of ‘Good Education’ [Biesta, G. J. J. 2010. Good Education in an Age of Measurement. Boulder, CO: Paradigm] and within Bourdieu's understanding of ‘distinction’ [Bourdieu, P. 1998. Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action. Oxford: Polity Press]. The research reveals that issues related to socialisation and subjectivity are presented as critical and foundational for the more formal measures of success in pupil learning.     

Philosophical debates on curriculum,inequalities and social justice

Abstract

The paper provides an historical but critical context for examining the relation of the pursuit of greater equality in schooling to the development of curriculum. This requires a brief account of what one means by the principle of equality, before showing the different ways in which there have been curriculum responses underpinned by philosophical understandings which need to be examined closely. These different ways are explained in terms of: ? ‘rational curriculum planning’ with its detailed definition of ‘aims, objectives, methods and evaluation’—and thereby a ‘science of teaching’;

? ‘forms of knowledge’ or ‘realms of meaning’ to enable all pupils to have a basic understanding of the physical, social, and moral worlds they inhabit;

? the pursuit of enquiry through which, for all learners, understanding is enlarged;

? provision of common curriculum experience as a basis for citizenship;

? taking diversity seriously; and

? equalisation of opportunities through a common system of national standards and assessments.

However, in the light of greater government involvement in the minutiae of curriculum reform, mainly through changes in qualifications and examinations, there is clearly a need to ask what sort of evidence is relevant to ‘what works’.     

Planned educational change in Japan: the case of elementary science instruction

Available evidence suggests that Japanese elementary science education has shifted, in recent decades, away from lecture‐style, rote ‘teaching as telling’ toward ‘teaching for understanding’. How has this change been accomplished? Drawing on our ongoing study of innovations in Japanese elementary science instruction, we describe three features of the Japanese system that may facilitate planned change. First, we describe Japan's broad national goals for elementary education and the alignment of textbooks with these goals. We point out that Japan's national goals focus on the whole child (social, ethical and intellectual development), a breadth which, we speculate, may reduce the kind of pendulum swings between goals of academic and social development that have plagued some other countries’ educational policies. In addition, we note that the national goals are abstract and are translated into classroom practice through the collaborative work of teachers. Second, we describe three routes through which the national goals are translated into classroom practice: research lessons, teachers’ research groups, and national elementary schools. Finally, we speculate on some elements of the educational context (for example, collaborative habits and norms, beliefs about the pace and nature of change, and the practice of self‐critical reflection) that may support planned educational change in Japan.     

Achieving clarity: principle to practice. The difference reflection makes in implementing a policy for information technology in a primary school

Abstract

This article considers two pivotal issues in school development: first, the epistemological foundations by which a curriculum area is generally held to be constructed, and how this knowledge base can be accepted or reconstructed by individual interpretation. Secondly, the paradigm, and therefore the methodology, by which change agents represent their understanding of curriculum areas to those participants of curriculum change. The article has an unusual structure, as it is written in two separate sections. The first section relates in a simple narrative style the actions the author undertook in her role as a coordinator for information technology, seeking change in classroom practice within a large primary school (ages 5–11 years) in a London suburb. It is told retrospectively, for the author then undertook a period of study and reflection which led her to reconsider both her understanding and the method by which she introduced change. Hence, the second section, written at the end of this period of reflection, enters the realm of ‘paradigm shift’ in that it examines the author's past rationale, her actions and the consequent results within her new epistemological and ontological understanding. Essentially, she deconstructs her actions and reconstructs them as ‘what-should-have-happened!‘ The implicit tenet is that her actions did not lead to the change she sought because she did not have clarity in understanding or direction, hence the article's title: ‘Achieving Clarity … The Difference Reflection Makes …’. The axiom of her revised understanding is that enduring and profound change cannot occur without the change agent having this clarity of understanding, which can achieve consistency between principle and practice with both rigour and credibility. At least, that's the first step, for innovation is never that simple; it's a long process.     

Provoking contingent moments: Knowledge for ‘powerful teaching’ at the horizon

Background: Teacher knowledge continues to be a topic of debate in Australasia and in other parts of the world. There have been many attempts by mathematics educators and researchers to define the knowledge needed by teachers to teach mathematics effectively. A plethora of terms, such as mathematical content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, horizon content knowledge and specialised content knowledge, have been used to describe aspects of such knowledge.

Purpose: This paper proposes a model for teacher knowledge in mathematics that embraces and develops aspects of earlier models. It focuses on the notions of contingent knowledge and the connectedness of ‘big ideas’ of mathematics to enact what is described as ‘powerful teaching’. It involves the teacher’s ability to set up and provoke contingent moments to extend children’s mathematical horizons. The model proposed here considers the various cognitive and affective components and domains that teachers may require to enact ‘powerful teaching’. The intention is to validate the proposed model empirically during a future stage of research.

Sources of evidence: Contingency is described in Rowland’s Knowledge Quartet as the ability to respond to children’s questions, misconceptions and actions and to be able to deviate from a teaching plan as needed. The notion of ‘horizon content knowledge’ (Ball et al.) is a key aspect of the proposed model and has provoked a discussion in this article about students’ mathematical horizons and what these might comprise. Together with a deep mathematical content knowledge and a sensibility for students and their mathematical horizons, these ideas form the foundations of the proposed model.

Main argument: It follows that a deeper level of knowledge might enable a teacher to respond better and to plan and anticipate contingent moments. By taking this further and considering teacher knowledge as ‘dynamic’, this paper suggests that instead of responding to contingent events, ‘powerful teaching’ is about provoking contingent events. This necessarily requires a broad, connected content knowledge based on ‘big mathematical ideas’, a sound knowledge of pedagogies and an understanding of common misconceptions in order to be able to engineer contingent moments.

Conclusions: In order to place genuine problem-solving at the heart of learning, this paper argues for the idea of planning for contingent events, provoking them and ‘setting them up’. The proposed model attempts to represent that process. It is anticipated that the new model will become the framework for an empirical research project, as it undergoes a validation process involving a sample of primary teachers.     

Music in Liberal Studies

Summary

Music appreciation deals with the development and application of that general factor in aesthetic judgments described in the main by Burt and Eysenck. This has little to do with appreciation in terms of the assessments of Wing et al.

For purposes of identification one might describe seven basic approaches in teaching method. Though each method has its place in success, two methods seem to promise the better result. These methods, the ‘Activity’ and the ‘General discriminative’ might be profitably supplemented by the other five.

The effect of a student's appreciation of music is likely to be reflected in his personality and might be termed a measure. It is therefore likely that by studying a student's musical preferences the teacher might better understand his personality which in turn might facilitate sound appreciation of music.     

The School and the Reduction of Inequality∗

ABSTRACT

The need to develop reasoning skills in children through discussion is generally acknowledged by curriculum aims. There is, however, a lack of any definite teaching strategy to fulfil this need. Matthew Lipman's Philosophy for Children programme has had success in this area. As with other ‘collaborative enquiry‐based’ approaches to learning, it depends upon a teaching strategy which enhances children's self‐esteem. This seems a necessary ingredient for the development of rationality, critical awareness and autonomy in children. Inadequate teacher training is suggested as a major reason for the failure of ‘collaborative’ approaches greatly to influence educational practice. With a shift away from the ‘authority/knowledge‐based’ paradigm and the provision of effective teacher training, it is considered that our educational institutions could become more democratically organised, and we would move closer to realising the liberal ideal of developing human potential to the full.     

Teacher evaluation standards in practice: A standards‐based assessment tool for diversity‐responsive teaching

Abstract

Although there is no question about the need for preservice and inservice teachers to have the skills to meet the diverse needs of students in todays classrooms, the issue of how to assess those same skills has proved to be problematic. This article reports on a joint effort by faculty from an urban university and a large public school district to create an observation tool that will assess and mentor preservice and inservice teachers’ abilities to address issues of diversity in their classrooms meaningfully. The authors will first report on missions and background information representing both the university and the school district and then on the development of a standards‐based assessment tool. Lastly, suggestions that compliment a comprehensive body of evidence of teacher evaluation will be discussed.     

Competing Conceptions of the Educated Public

Alasdair MacIntyre's paper ‘The idea of an educated public’ followed on his frontal attack in After Virtue on the ‘failed’ intellectual project of the Enlightenment and on its liberal heritage. His argument, in the paper, was that the only way we can save ourselves from that failure is by restoring the idea of an educated public modelled on the type found in eighteenth century Scotland. This article takes up the issue of the ‘crisis’ of modernity, and argues that MacIntyre's ‘public’ is just one possible one and not necessarily the best. Other, competing conceptions of an educated public have been proposed, among others by Dewey and Habermas, that do not necessitate the conservative solution of going back to the past.     

Foucault’s ethical self-formation and David’s articulation of a creative self

Abstract

Much has been written about creativity in education policy and about how the concept is mediated in institutions like schools and universities. Although constructs like ‘creative teachers’ and ‘teachers that foster creativity’ are highly prevalent in the literature, there are few situated and contextualised accounts of what such constructs mean to the protagonist. The extent to which teachers co-opt or align themselves with discourses of creativity can be recast as a question of identity: What beliefs on creativity and associated practices are constitutive of one’s ‘teacher identity?’ This article draws on previous work that translates Foucault’s writings on ethical self-formation into an ‘identity grid’, and foregrounds the experiences of one teaching deputy-principal, to offer an account of how one teacher pursues particular practices congruent with his visions of a creative teacher. To identify rationales for actions undertaken, and to engage with situational factors of this teacher’s work, performativity and its problematic steering influences also informs this analysis. The article highlights the productive capacity of engagement with ethical self-formation, through identifying the potential it offers to access an individual-centric perspective in understanding how central concepts like creativity are negotiated and incorporated into accounts of the ‘teaching self’.     

Directing the Teaching and Learning Research Programme: or ‘Trying to Fly a Glider Made Of Jelly’

ABSTRACT

TLRP's generic phase (1999–2009) is believed to have been the largest ever UK investment in educational research. This paper describes the critique from which TLRP emerged, its strategic positioning and the roles of successive directors and their teams in its development. The paper offers an early stock take of TLRP's achievements from the perspective of the last Programme Director. The efficacy of the form of the Programme, once likened to ‘a glider made of jelly’, is discussed.