Moving beyond blame really making a difference Terry

Moving beyond blame really making a difference Terry Wrigley Reclaiming Schools seminar York St John University Nov 2017 1

19 th Century “Know your place” Don’t rise above your station in life! Restrict to elementary education 3 Rs + obedience + Empire [until 1906, see Cowburn) 2

1910 -1960 “Intelligence” (IQ, Burt) • Generic • Fixed • Innate The identical twins fraud ! 3

late 1960 s-1980 some crude ‘verbal deprivation’ myths, partly drawing on idea of working class’s “restricted code” Harold Rosen’s critique Restrictive nature of classroom interactions Recent vocabulary research? (eg Bradshaw) 4

Dominant argument now? ‘Low aspirations’ or… lacking opportunity lacking a roadmap (Bok): “like improvising a play without a script” 5

Dominant explanations of the link between poverty and underachievement link : blaming the victim A succession of deficit theories: • “intelligence” (innate IQ, Burt. 1910 -1960) • “language deficit” (Bernstein 1960 s-80 s) • “low aspirations” (now) linked to “culture of poverty” 6

Low aspirations … or disappointments / thwarted ambitions? Aspirations cannot be sustained without opportunities What might look like ‘low aspirations’ may often be high aspirations that have been eroded by negative experience; what looks like ‘parental disengagement’ may actually be the result of a high level of commitment to their child’s education, which is not matched by the capacity to provide effective support or by the ability of schools to work effectively with parents. (Carter-Wall and Whitfield 2012, p 3) 7

Underlying assumptions that poverty is caused by intergenerational cultural transmission, i. e. rather than external economic structures. Now exacerbated by the ‘chavs’ stereotype (Owen Jones) and media and government attacks on welfare claimants Impact of this on young people not yet researched … nor on how it seeps into teachers’ views! 8

Easy for teachers to absorb the deficit discourses: • few have personal experience of poverty • most live somewhere else • strong boundaries between school and neighbourhood Hypothesis: that teachers can easily generalise and stereotype an entire neighbourhood on the basis of dramatic negative encounters with a few angry parents. Successful schools in deprived neighbourhoods avoid this, preferring ‘at promise’ to ‘at risk’. Leadership includes connecting with community. (case studies in Wrigley 2000 The power to learn)

Poverty is economic but has cultural effects Though poverty is caused by economics and has material effects, it is also experienced culturally i. e. relationally, emotionally, socially. Child poverty affects health and nutrition but also self-esteem and friendships (Ridge). Children are affected by the stigma of being poor, especially in a consumer culture. 10

Rotherham’s like a gaol wiy’aht any walls. People can’t see wot it is that’s causin’ ahr thi feel. Ah just sit ‘ere like a sack o’r spuds. Ah dun’t ‘ave owt to se’ cos all A’ve done is waste mi day away, same as yesterd’y! It is within the reference points of this life that their speech circles, often without recognition because recognition involves an act of objectification which their position in the world forecloses upon, because “what else is there? ” What kinds of life could there be outside of what is known? Dispossession and brutalization are their own anaesthetic. . . It is this sense of a bounded world of practicably realizable practical forms that constitutes the sense of limits that protect working people from the destruction of humanity involved in looking upon the qualities of another life that cannot be lived. 11

Ironically ‘blame the victim’ explanations are now being supplemented with ‘blame the teacher’ In high-stakes accountability regimes (US, England) it is teachers who are held responsible for ‘the gap’. Statistical data to compare schools, … as if inter-school differences were more important than economic factors and how schools are positioned in a ‘market’. 12

Reject the blame ! BUT why do poorer pupils fall further behind during school ? The ‘reproduction’ argument? 13

Reject the blame ! BUT why do poorer pupils fall further behind during school ? The ‘reproduction’ argument? Schools are not effective enough in countering the economic / social pressures. 14

Searching for better theory 1) The need to abolish child poverty is fundamental. 2) Rather than (al)locate blame with the victims or their teachers, look at relationships between schools and their students’ lives Symbolic interactionism – how do poor children experience school ? 15

Theorising the school-society interface The psychological impact of poverty: • shame (loss of face, identity, community, trust) • futility (unemployment, ‘poor work’, training schemes that lead nowhere) 16

Theorising the school-society interface • shame current identity (loss of face, identity, community, trust) • futility possible futures (poor work / no work, training that leads nowhere) 17

Theorising the school-society interface • shame current identity (loss of face, identity, community, trust) • futility possible futures (poor work / no work, training that leads nowhere) What if these are reinforced by traditional schooling? • lack of respect, insecurity, etc. (including streaming) • signals of failure and learning as ‘alienated labour 18

The norms of traditional schooling: alienated forms of learning like factory work - you are told what to do and write, you are told how long you have to sit there, you hand over your product not to an interested audience but to teacher-as-examiner, who gives you a token payment (mark, grade) 19

The power to learn (Wrigley 2000) Empowerment in: • Curriculum and pedagogy • Ethos and wider community • Change process 20

Theorising the interaction of school and society Hidden curriculum / ‘interactive trouble’ • acting out a role, saving face, performance (Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life) • acceptance of arbitrary authority, punishments for failure to conform, strategems of pretending to conform • learning how to speak to those in authority • identities established outside have to be replaced and indignities passively accepted • only the staff have the right to make judgments and set rules. (Goffman: Asylums)

Theorising the interaction of school and society ‘School culture’ School improvement requires a more political and situated exploration of culture than we have managed so far. For example: • examining the cultural messages of classrooms dominated by the teacher’s voice, closed questions and rituals of transmission of superior wisdom • developing an understanding of cultural difference, to reduce exclusions • understanding how assumptions of ability and intelligence are worked out in classroom interactions • discovering how assumptions about single parents, ethnic minorities and “dysfunctional” working-class families operate symbolically in staffroom interactions.

“Pedagogies of poverty” • • (Anyon, Haberman, Delpit) routine ‘busywork’ tasks which children find meaningless decontextualised exercises closed low-level questions. . . but what drives some teachers towards them? Haberman 2010: The overly directive, mind-numbing, mundage, antiintellectual acts that constitute teaching. . . have become the gold standard. 23

A socially just curriculum What would a curriculum look like that engaged with marginalised communities? The need to reconcile closeness / relevance with access to high-status academic knowledge • ‘relevance’ doesn’t just mean vocational • space for young people’s concerns • improve key skills … but within challenging activities • creative arts and practical activity to raise self-esteem and engagement / counter ‘shame’

Implications for pedagogy Avoid ‘alienated learning’ • promoting voice and agency • negotiating focus and method • results in a product, performance, presentation Avoid ‘pedagogies of poverty’ (eg routine busywork, tasks which children find meaningless, decontextualised exercises, closed lowlevel questions) Authentic engagement – beyond the exam factory

Practical steps to make a difference ? • Material needs • Poverty proofing • Flexibility (for young carers, etc. ) • Support through exams, interviews, transitions • Homework centre • Really involve parents (eg children’s centres, community schools) • Teachers’ understanding (deficit discourse ? ) • ‘The power to learn’ (ped, curr, ethos, parents, devel) • Curriculum - including play, arts, practical • Authentic learning (real, simulated) • Products, performance, presentation • Key skills in meaningful contexts

Empowering pedagogies beyond the exam factory 27

“Pedagogies of poverty” • • (Anyon, Haberman, Delpit) routine ‘busywork’ tasks which children find meaningless decontextualised exercises closed low-level questions. . . but what drives some teachers towards them? Haberman 2010: The overly directive, mind-numbing, mundage, antiintellectual acts that constitute teaching. . . have become the gold standard. 28

29

30

Supportive, welcoming … but not static, values difference 31

Affirmation (present identity) and possibility (futures) 32

33

Connectedness …. . agency as well as voice 34

The choice Learning as ‘alienated labour’ (the absent subject) OR Authentic participation: • the learner as co-designer of the learning • performance, presentation, products 35

Pedagogy is a social justice issue – Much of Gove’s curriculum reform neither connects with current identity in an affirmative way, nor opens up new futures. It is more likely to entrench failure than raise standards. 36

Creating and designing a hut 37

38

Place-based literacies 39

Place-based literacies 40

41

42

Open Architectures • • • Project method Storyline Challenges Making a video Collective design and technology Real-life problem solving Simulations Citizens’ Theatre (Boal) Mantle of the Expert (Heathcote) many forms of place-based or expedionary learning. Structure + openness (voice, agency, initiative) Combines spaces for autonomy with coherence (learning community) 43

Storyline: ‘There’s black gold in them there hills!’ Setting: Kilgallon is a small coastal town (pop 11, 000) - a close-knit community with fishing and tourism (clean beaches, surfing, hills attract walkers, marshes with rare birds). However, tourism brings only seasonal work; fishing in decline; young people leaving. Possible roles: • fishermen • environmentalists • hoteliers • young unemployed • oil executives • surfers etc. 44

Storyline: ‘There’s black gold in them there hills!’ Possible events: Pupils spot surveyor on school field US oil company applies to do exploratory drilling New jobs created, but menial (better ones to US incomers) Tourist numbers falling – but hotels are full! Windfall! The local council has spare money –for what ? The oil dries up. What does the future hold now for Kilgallon? … 45

A socially just curriculum What would a curriculum look like that engaged with marginalised communities? The need to reconcile closeness / relevance with access to high-status academic knowledge • ‘relevance’ doesn’t just mean vocational • space for young people’s concerns • improve key skills … but within challenging activities • creative arts and practical activity to raise self-esteem and engagement / counter ‘shame’