Vision and Vulnerability: Thoughts on Leadership and Conservation

ABSTRACT

Testimony from colleagues in the cultural sector suggests that there is a common perception of leaders as authoritarian, infallible and invulnerable. However, developing leaders soon come to understand that good leaders often have an authenticity of their own. Being able to embrace authentic leadership in this way requires confidence. It involves accepting vulnerabilities, learning to be comfortable making decisions without all the information, and daring to risk potential failure as the best way to encourage creativity, innovation and learning. Given this dichotomy, is there a potential for the development of leadership in conservation? This paper explores the unique challenges we face as conservators in a changing sector. In it, I reconnect with professional experiences of my own and those I gained as the first conservation fellow on the Clore Leadership Programme as well as examining testimony from others in the profession and the wider cultural sector. The ideas generated are supported by literature from a variety of sources inside and outside the conservation field. Starting from what draws people to conservation in the very beginning and working through to the leadership of the profession, the paper identifies four main areas of challenge for conservation in a twenty-first-century creative economy. These are around a lack of diversity, a lack of confidence, the strength of voice and perception and issues around support, for our decision-making and for the profession as a whole. The paper concludes that a new vision for the future of conservation could not only help rebalance the diverging preventive and remedial specialisms but also be instrumental in the perception, interpretation and preservation of cultural heritage. If we expand our horizons, the bigger picture of heritage and what it can achieve for the society could be crucial to us not only changing but thriving in the modern world.     

Improving cognitive motivation through strategies of intervention

Editor's Note: In Grutter v. Bollinger, __ U.S. ___ ; 123 S. Ct. 2325; 156 L. Ed. 2d 304 (2003), the Supreme Court rendered a landmark decision approving the use of race as one factor in admissions decisions at the University of Michigan Law School. The opinion of the Court discussed an expert opinion of Kent D. Syverud, Dean of the Vanderbilt Law School, concerning the educational benefits of diversity, noting that "when a critical mass of underrepresented minority students is present, racial stereotypes lose their force because non-minority students learn there is no 'minority viewpoint' but rather a variety of viewpoints among minority students." The expert report to which the Court referred was prepared at the Vanderbilt Law School in 1999 and attached as an Exhibit (in Volume 3 of the Appendix) to the Defendant University of Michigan Law School's Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment, May 3, 1999, Grutter v. Bollinger, C.A. No. 97-75928, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The report was also referenced in the appendix to the Writ of Certiorari in the Supreme Court of the United States at 215a. What follows is the original expert report as submitted to the Court.     

Children put the national tests to the test

Much is known about what teachers, parents and educationalists think about the National Tests. But what do the children think? This article describes part of a research project, ‘Children's Perceptions of the National Tests’ (partially supported by the QCA), in which a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate explored the user-friendliness of the national assessment materials. The article focuses on the KS2 Reading Comprehension tests and discusses salient features, identified by the children, of the stimuli and answer booklets.     

Reframing peer mentoring as a route for developing an educational community of practice

ABSTRACT

The benefits of peer mentoring in school settings are well-documented, however, the focus has been on the perceptions of teachers, as opposed to teaching assistants, who report distinct beliefs about their professional development. A mixed methodology was used in which 304 primary school teaching assistants completed questionnaires regarding their views of their professional development while undertaking training on a mathematics intervention for underachieving pupils. Open-ended questions elicited the perceived benefits of the peer mentoring aspect of the training. We utilized Lave and Wenger’s (1991) community of practice framework to inform the qualitative analysis and the principles of grounded theory to arrive at three themes representing the perceived benefits: an opportunity to discuss and share experiences; increased confidence; and a safe space to test teaching plans and resources. Findings were used to reframe the benefits of peer mentoring for teaching assistants undertaking intervention training, which can inform further research and future training programs.     

Fat in School: Applied Interdisciplinarity as a Basis for Consultation in Oppressive Social Context

Children and youth in schools are subject to the effects of the larger culture's attitudes and values related to body size. When negatively biased, these attitudes and values can have detrimental effects and thus emerge as relevant to educational and psychological consultants. Drawing on the nascent field of Fat Studies with its focus on the cultural meanings attached to large bodies, we identify direct implications of fat phobia for school-age children and youth. Via a brief case example, an initial review of literature, and several examples of health-positive programming, we describe the social justice implications of fat phobia for consultants in school and community settings. In this consideration of the role of consultants for addressing fat bias and supporting health, we also suggest the merit of applied interdisciplinarity as a strong ground for consultation research and practice. The academic area of Fat Studies provides illustration of the integration of disciplinary perspectives (e.g., sociology, anthropology, biology, psychology). Educational and psychological consultation is ideally situated for systematically engaging such interdisciplinarity in support of practical outcomes that are healthy, sustainable, and socially just.     

Contract Staff in Preservice Teacher Education

Staff with a limited-term appointment, whether part-time or full-time, are being used increasingly in teacher education today. This raises the question of how it is possible to offer a balanced preservice program when only a small proportion of the staff are permanent academics with a career commitment to formal theory development. In this paper we first describe a program that has attempted to resolve aspects of this problem by means of a cohort and faculty-team approach. We then report on a study we conducted with contract staff from this program on their experiences in the program and their perceived effectiveness in their role.     

Learning to teach: how a formal teaching qualification improved our practice

In this article, guest writers Sonya Lipczynska and Clare Crowley from King's College London discuss the learning that occurred when they undertook a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice in Higher Education (PGCAPHE). In particular, they identify how their exploration of relevant learning and teaching theory on the course helped them to evaluate their library instruction teaching practice with medical and dental students. They highlight how they made changes and improvements to the delivery of these sessions based on greater consideration of inclusivity and the characteristics of both individuals and broader student groups. They also discuss the successes of new teaching practices that they experimented with, and reflect on how they have developed as educators as a result of this. H.S.     

‘I'm going to feel stressed,but now I know how to handle it’: reducing test anxiety and improving student well-being at GCSE

Test anxiety has become a widespread issue in many contemporary societies, having a significant detrimental effect on the attainment, health and well-being of many young people. This paper evaluates a school-based, multimodal test anxiety intervention framework, ‘Every Little Helps’ (ELH), developed by educational psychologists and delivered to small groups of GCSE students (aged 15–16) in two secondary schools in the North West of England. A quasi-experimental, mixed methods approach was adopted. Findings suggest that ELH is helpful in reducing test anxiety amongst GCSE students. Participants report a range of helpful outcomes including an increased sense of control and competence through increased academic attainment, enhanced control of emotions and more helpful ways of thinking. Participants also report beneficial wider impacts as a result of being able to generalise learnt skills and techniques to other aspects of their lives. Implications for educational policy and practice and future research are considered.     

Non-organic failure to thrive: Implications of placement through analysis of videotaped interactions

This paper presents 6-month follow-up on a group of 16 infants hospitalized during the first months of life for non-organic failure to thrive (N-O FTT) and their mothers. Eight of these infants were placed in foster care and eight were returned home with their parents following hospitalization. The effects of placement on infant outcomes were examined through comparison of developmental scores and weight percentile changes, and the implications of foster care placements for mother-infant interactions were examined through analysis of patterns of interaction in videotaped sessions of feeding and play six months after hospital discharge. This analysis snowed that (1) mothers in both groups failed to make significant progress in resolving their own emotional or psychological conficts through treatment available; (2) weight and developmental status of the infants did not improve as expected in either group, and finally that (3) the patterns of interaction between mother and infant showed little change over time, and, regardless of placement at home or in foster care, remained concerning.