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REFLECTIONS ON ETHOS AND CULTURE
JOHN MACBEATH
University of Cambridge
ETHOS
CULTURE
ETHOS
CULTURE AND
STRUCTURE
PISA The learning Environment and the
organisation of Schooling (2003)
% of variance in performance explained by ethos and socio-economic factors
Ireland
US
UK
Finland
0 10050
Concealed works
Smoke alarms
AntI-truancy illuminated panels
Hand driers
Television camera
Full length walls and doors
AN ETHOS
OF ACHIEVEMENT
A CULTURE OF LEARNING
pupil learning
Professional learning
System learning
THE LEARNING WEDDING CAKE
HOW GOOD IS OUR ETHOS?
Learning A Culture of learning
What do we know?
What do we not know?
What would we like to know?
How might we find out?
Imagine yourself on a ship sailing across an unknown sea,
to an unknown destination. An adult would be desperate
to know where he is going. But a child only knows he is
going to school...The chart is neither available nor
understandable to him... Very quickly, the daily life on
board ship becomes all important ... The daily chores, the
demands, the inspections, become the reality, not the
voyage, nor the destination.
(Mary Alice White, 1971)
DOING SCHOOL
Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
Copyright 1993 Watterson/ Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate
‘Children come to school with a hundred languages and leave with one.”
The Carpe Vitam Project, 2002
TAMING THE WILD…..
…AND WILDING THE TAME
THE HOLE IN THE WALL
Research papers by Sugata Mitra on MIE
Pavan at a Madangir kiosk with his goat
Girl in village Kalse, Sindhudurg district, and her painting after 3
hours of seeing a computer for the first time.
Intelligence is knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do
Jean Piaget
CONFIDENT UNCERTAINTY
Learning starts from the joint acknowledgement of
inadequacy and ignorance…There is no other place
for learning to start. An effective learner, or
learning culture, is one that is not afraid to admit
this perception, and also possesses some confidence
in its ability to grow in understanding and
expertise, so that perplexity is transformed into
mastery… (Claxton, 2000)
How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
OK, so what's the speed of dark?
CONFIDENT UNCERTAINTY
“Neurons connect parts of our brains with one another but no cables made of neurons drape from person to person. We talk about ideas. We share insights. We pool recollections.” (Perkins, 2004 p.22)
DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE
Delivering the curriculum
Discussing purposes and objectives of
learning
Pupils devising indicators of achievement
Pupils as assessors their own and others’
work
Pupils as determiners of learning
Pupils as learning partners
DEVELOPING A LEARNING CULTURE
• Social bonding
• Social bridging
• Social linking
Social Capital
Warum muss Ich in die Schule gehen?
“In school you meet people from different from yourself from different backgrounds, children you can observe, talk to, ask questions, for example someone from Turkey or Vietnam, a devout Catholic or an out and out atheist, boys and girls, a mathematical whiz kid, a child in a wheelchair... I believe whole heartedly that the open school is there first and foremost to bring young people together and to help them to learn to live in a way that our political society so badly needs.”
(Von Hentig, p.47)
Human capital
Making learning an
object of attention
Making learning an
object of
conversation
Making learning an
object of reflection
Making learning an
object of learning
A CULTURE OF LEARNING
The force field
A culture
of learning
TOXINS
• ideas rejected or stolen
• constant carping criticisms
• being ignored
• being judged
• being overdirected
• not being listened to
• being misunderstood
Southworth, 2000
NUTRIENTS
• being valued
• being encouraged
• being noticed
• being trusted
• being listened to
• being respected
Southworth, 2000
“Somehow educators have forgotten the important connection between teachers and students. We listen to outside experts to inform us, and, consequently overlook the treasure in our very own backyards – the students.”
(Soo Hoo, 1993, p. 389)
THE TREASURE WITHIN
Pupil representatives at staff meetings
Pupils graffiti board in staffroom
Pupils produce learning, assessment, careers booklets
Pupil representatives in staff meetings
Pupils on staff selection and appointment panels
Pupils on inspection teams
Headteacher parliamentary questions
The Bubble Box
Tuning in to the secret harmonies
manipulation
decoration
participation
consultation
Adults decide. Inform pupils.
Pupils decide. Adults support.
Adults and pupils decide together
Adults consult pupils then decide.
Adults use pupils as decoration
Adults consult and take pupil views into account.
The ladder of participation
(from Shultz in Democratic Learning, MacBeath and Moos.)
A GLOBAL MOVEMENT
Government intervention
Local school management
A GLOBAL MOVEMENT
Government intervention
School autonomy, school choice
Intermediate support and moderation?
A GLOBAL MOVEMENT
Government: provider and quality assurer
School: compliance and subversion
The accountability improvement interface
• The Manufactured crisis
• The improvement illusion
• The magnificent myth
• The post truth political environment
LIFE IN A PSEUDO ENVIRONMENT
The improvement illusion
“Nine and a half our days, class on Saturday, school during the summer and two hours of homework each night are non-negotiable...”If you’re off the bus you’re working” says Feinberg...... Each morning students receive a worksheet of maths, logic and word problems for them to solve in the free minutes that appear during the day.”
Teachers carry cell phones with toll free numbers and are on call 24 hours a day to answer any concerns their students might have. “Ten calls a night may sound like a drag”, says Feinberg,” but everyone goes to bed ready for the next school day.” (No Excuses, Lessons from High Performing Schools)
‘In the 70s and 80s nobody was interested in achievement in schools’. (ht secondary school)
‘Not long ago there was a time when teachers took no responsibility for children’s learning at all. They had no expectation of them at all.’ (primary ht)
‘Look at any school mission statement and you will find an inverse correlation between achievement and caring’
HOW MYTHS GAIN INERTIA
PISA The learning Environment and the
organisation of Schooling (2003)
% of variance in performance explained by ethos and socio-economic factors
Ireland
US
UK
Finland
0 10050
GREEDY WORK
The task of leading a school in the twenty first century can no longer be carried out by the heroic individual leader single handedly turning schools around. It is greedy work, all consuming, demanding unrelenting peak performance from superleaders and no longer a sustainable notion.
Peter Gronn, The New Work of Educational Leaders: Changing Leadership Practice in an Era of School Reform, 2003
THE POST TRUTH POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT
Public opinion is shaped in response to people's maps or images of the world, and not to the world itself.
Mass political consciousness does not pertain to the actual environment but to an intermediary pseudo-environment.
When deals must be struck and compromises made on behalf of large purposes, Presidents tend to prefer deception over education.
Eric Alterman, The Nation 2004
LET PUPILS HIRE THEIR TEACHERS says Labour adviserPupils should be given power to apoint their own teachers, according to one of the government’s most senior education advisers.
THE SUNDAY TIMES July 13, 2003
LIVING WITH PARADOX
self evaluate
take risks/innovate
think long term
be flexible
collaborate
share leadership
encourage teamwork
apply given criteria
avoid mistakes
deliver results now
follow the rules
compete
retain control
assess individuals
SEVEN KEY PRINCIPLES
1. Justice .. as a first unalienable principle
2. Reciprocity.. Observing the me-too-you-too principle
3. Steadfastness….in holding on to what matters
4. Solidarity… in the strength of the collective
5. Diversity .. The enrichment of difference
6. Stewardship.. .Active concern for the shared resource
7. Accountability …for the moral imperative
“Not everything that counts can be counted. And not everything that can be counted, counts.”
Albert Einstein