In the light of my Australia Day experiences it was interesting to see a BBC news item on the need to teach Britishness. Now I remember being taught this in primary school and in Chapel. We were taught that the British had civilised the world (civilised here in used in the sense of Linklater's Private Angelo). My daughter recently came back with a history essay in which the English had civilised the Welsh in the 13th Century a practice they took into other countries with rigor. Imposing culture in the name of civilisation and reason has bad precedent. What is democracy is defined by the constitutional position of the dominant power. Maybe it would be better if we taught ethics and history from multiple perspectives rather than using a single vision lens?
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Comments (2)
Dave, it seems to me that you have touched on a fundamental issue in education (and especially in schooling): having multiple perspectives means having alternative perspectives.
And here the core issue emerges: accountability systems require some criteria for establishing valid alternative perspectives that will be deemed acceptable. Establishing these criteria would presumably require a Cynefin-type framework... not something that will come easily to our current education systems.
IMHO the relationships between cause and effect in schooling are almost never given serious consideration. The issue is avoided by focusing on education as if education was a matter between teacher and student (the use of the singular is dominant in the discourse) rather than the messy everyday reality of real schools and the lived experience of those involved.
'Educational' content is largely validated by known 'knowledge'. The practices are often assumed to be based on an idea that 'good' teaching simply causes learning. That is, 'good' teachers cause students to learn what is recognized as knowledge (and skills and attitudes). This is generally an analogue of Newtonian physics and leads to the transfer of 'best practice', eg, phonics (not that I am against phonics... they have a contribution to make).
This thread touches on a great deal about our future in the world. How might we get cause and effect onto the education agenda? Comments?
Posted by Ivan webb | January 29, 2007 2:38 AM
Posted on January 29, 2007 02:38
Dave & Ivan,
This thread has a potential to start a making visible is the impact of such linear, categorical thinking on and young people in our education systems ('teaching' children 'Britishness'), who are in some way perceived or deemed to be different - whether because of ethnicity, Faith, sexuality, behaviour (or other social identity). The current practices of state education services are based on 'facts' about children that have been 'discovered' through 'scientific method' and the application of statistical instruments such as the 'normal distribution' (Bell Curve). In my view what such narow methods and tools establish as boundaries include some (a few, privileged?) individuals and exclude others.
If education practices are to celebrate appropriate diversity for 21st century, global contexts they need to include, rather than exclude. As practitioners we need to move towards approaches based on bottom-up sense-making about the diverse and complex circumstances and situations of children, young people, their families and communities who 'consume' education, rather than top-down, target driven, linear approaches grounded in a belief in certainties and predicatbility.
Posted by Dave Hoyle | January 31, 2007 12:28 PM
Posted on January 31, 2007 12:28