feedback, feedforward, Feedup, feeddown lester.flockton@otago.ac.nz
Systemness – Collaboration – Communities of Schools – Teaching as Inquiry – Raising Achievement Has it ever struck you, dear reader, that education and those who work in education are victims of relentlessly robotic rounds of new jargon, new panaceas, new fix-its, new initiatives, new spinoramas, new “love words”? And have you ever noticed how readily, how acceptingly, how indiscriminately, so many vulnerable education workers allow themselves to be willingly seduced into having these freely admitted and drilled into their personal mindsets, vocabularies and behaviours? Or equally disturbing, if they are resistant, being at risk of derision as “unionists” rather than being regarded as well informed critical analytic thinkers and evaluators. If you are a truly inquiring educator you might well ask who manufactures all of this, who buys into it, why does it happen, and why should I buy into it? Very simply, the main manufacturers are the theory fairies, and the main sponsors and promulgators are policy purveyors and puppets. Let’s take “systemness”, collaboration, and communities of schools. Who are the leading impresarios drumming up and conducting this lot, with considerable success in shaping the minds of impressionable policy puppets? Theorist Michael “panaceatic” Fullan, a man with a gift for clever crafting of words and a wealth of hyperbolic theoretical remedies for fixing schools and teachers takes centre stage! In his (not recommended) book, The Principal – Three Keys to Maximizing Impact, he claims that connecting learning within and across schools and systems is the only way for whole systems to improve and keep improving (p. 42). In short, here is his latest panacea: In short, if you place primary emphasis on capacity building, collaborative effort, pedagogy, and systemness, and integrate
accountability, human resource policies, technology, and specific policies as part of the overall strategy, you will achieve greater success overall. (Fullan, pp. 37–38) The evidence in support of the theory relative to New Zealand’s situation is at best underwhelming, but he pushes on. “The opportunity to recast the role of the principal should not be missed. It is a matter of “urgency”. And why? Because he repeatedly and misleadingly tells readers that principals, next to teachers, have the greatest influence on student learning – a view quite clearly at odds with heaps of credible research. As Berliner et al (2014) make crystal clear, it is a well-orchestrated myth that principals, let alone teachers, are the most important influence on a child’s education. As obvious as it is to note the importance of good teaching, research makes it equally clear that teachers are not the most important influence on a child’s education. In fact, most research indicates that less than 30 per cent of a student’s academic success in school is attributable to schools, and teachers are only part of that overall school effect . . . (Berliner, et al, p. 51) I expect that many in our primary and intermediate schools would also want to emphatically dispute the relevance to New Zealand of Fullan’s many Canadian-American centric viewpoints. For example: The learning fates of principals, teachers, and students are intimately interrelated – and in the past decade, the conditions for mutual learning in schools have been seriously eroding. Students are bored, to put it mildly. (Fullan, p. 5)
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There is a lot more in Fullan’s generalised worldview of education, schools, principals, teachers and children that should be challenged rather than swooned over. In common with some notable academics here and abroad, his well spun remedies and panaceas are largely theoretical but based on very limited practical knowledge of curriculum (the substance of teaching and learning), or sufficient understanding and acknowledgement of the irregular, often untidy and unpredictable day-to-day realities for schools and classrooms. But don’t get me wrong. Theories and theorists have their place. They can sometimes be useful in stimulating ideas, but without being properly “earthed” in reality and experience in areas over which they presume expertise, they invariably spark off harmful policy combustions when favoured by policy puppets – as we are witnessing in New Zealand over and over again. Then there are the large scatterings of theory dust from production lines of canisters labelled “Raising Achievement – Teaching as Inquiry”. Good teachers have always engaged in critical evaluative processes as a natural and ongoing feature of their pedagogical processes. They plan and think about what and how they will teach in consideration of what they come to know about children’s needs, abilities and dispositions from a range of valid information, including repeated in situ observations of their day-by-day responses and work. Good teachers have always modified and adjusted their strategies and approaches in light of children’s responses, and always with the goal of continually advancing learning. This is not science. It is not research. It is not a “project”. It is a sensibly and intuitively crafted mix of the objective and the subjective that reflects the reality of teaching
children. Yet current packaging of “Teaching as Inquiry” assumes formalities of measurement and objectivity from data analyses as the evidential pivots necessary for raising achievement. The section in The New Zealand Curriculum on effective pedagogy (pp. 34–35) gives an eminently sensible description of good teaching and an uncomplicated schema for teaching as inquiry. It’s nothing new. It’s not rocket science. It doesn’t require a consultant or an adviser. It doesn’t need a course. It doesn’t warrant case studies or portfolio pontification. It is plain English. It doesn’t require elaboration. It doesn’t need fancification. It most certainly doesn’t require embellishment by academics, senior management, or staff word-knitting clubs. If a teacher cannot understand and follow the approach as it is described, then retraining or some other career pathway is clearly needed! But a word of caution: where the schema says “Teaching Inquiry – what strategies (evidence-based) are most likely to help my student learn?”, please, please understand that “evidence-based” means a whole lot of highly valid information that the teacher obtains formally and informally (mainly through listening and observation) throughout the course of interactions with children during teaching and learning, within and across day-to-day contexts of the classroom. Data from tests is only a small fraction of the information that constitutes “evidence-based”. To suggest otherwise is pure theory fairy dust, so keep it pure! Reference (Recommended) Berliner, D.C., Glass, G.V., and Associates. (2014). 50 Myths & Lies That Threaten America’s Public Schools. New York: Teachers College Press.
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