Preamble

Concerns & Apology–Vital topic

• Herding Cats• Too many ‘notions’• My prejudices

But hopefully some issues will emerge for you to challenge

Thomas Merton

“ There is in all visible thingsan invisible fecundity,

a dimmed light,a meek namelessness,a hidden wholeness.”

“What we call our future is the shadow which our past throws in front of us.”

Marcel Proust‘A la recherche du temps perdu’

Souvenir involuntaire

All the ‘Ps’

• Purposeful• Prescient• Perspicacious• Persuasive• Profound

Alternative ‘Ps’

• Pleasantries• Presumptions• Platitudes• Prejudices• Polemic

The Quandary?

Possible Titles

Sencoist Steroidicist

The Inclusive Education facilitator of the 21st Century.

SENCO: Benevolent Auntie or Pastoral Magician ?

{Are you serious?}

Senco: Benevolent Auntie or Pastoral Magician discuss

Benjamin talks of

‘... the infantilization that inheres in the special needs discourse (that) serves to interpolate learning support teachers into positions within the discourse as care givers, in which (the) primary roles are perceived to be about taking care of the most needy....’

The Micropolitics of Inclusive Education Shereen Benjamin Open Univ Press 2002

Sencos in the Valley of Weltschmerz

A Cautionary Tale

?

Weltschmerz

Psychological pain caused by sadness at one’s recognition that their predicament is caused by the inappropriateness and cruelty of the world and social circumstances.

Back to business-Structure ? “well sort of”

• Polemic• Musings• Anecdotes• Meandering & Random Thoughts• Time Fillers

The more obvious Polemic

Health Warning for Idealists!

Teachers don’t all wear white

hats!

Diminished Expectations

Robert Fried talks of a destructive covenant

“We pretend to teach them--- and they pretend to Learn.”

Fried: The Passionate Teacher Beacon Press 1995

“Yes I have these two sitting together.” **********************

“I don’t mind getting them this year. I mean nothing’s really expected of them so I don’t have to worry too much.”

“ Don’t worry too much about xxxx concentrate on my exam classes.”

Reflects pressures! Societal etc

The alternative world view

Would we recognise, in those teachers, the attitudes & values Carl Rogers identifies as essential in the successful teacher.

• Realness or genuineness• Caring –prizing-respect-trust• Emphatic understanding-sensitivity• Accurate listening• Carl Rogers: Freedom to Learn: a view of what education might

become Columbus OH, E Merrill 1969

Musings, Anecdotes &

Non Sequiturs 1 What’s this got to do with anything?

The angry idealists.The super heroes of tomorrow!

Coming to a school near you

Idealism 1

“ Holding ideals is not exhibiting warm and fuzzy feelings but needs to be valued as part of the intensive educational debate about fundamental purposes….the absence of which undermines the heart of professionalism.”

» Sockett H.» The Moral Base for Teacher Professionalism>

Idealism 2

“ We Teach Who We Are” Parker J Palmer

The Courage to TeachJossey-Bass 1998

But who are we? What do we cherish?

Idealism 3

If asked could we articulate• Our view of the purposes of education• Our sense of Mission and Purpose• Our core Values as a Professional• Our views on human nature• Our non negotiables

Do we have a PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING & LEARNING

GTCNI as the professional body has not been silent on this issue

• Code of Values and Professional Practice

&• Charter for Education

Values

• Trust Honesty Commitment• Respect Fairness Equality• Integrity Tolerance Service

Code of Values

Charter

• believe that education is a lifelong journey through which all can develop the ability to participate fully in society and lead lives that are both life creating and fulfilling;

• are committed to ensuring that the needs of the vulnerable are appropriately catered for in our system

• recognise the debilitating effects of social cultural and economic deprivation and commit ourselves to addressing such issues;

Why a PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING & LEARNING?

• Reference Framework – Why am I here?– What’s my core purpose?– What things are worth fighting for?

Provides a professional identity&

Foundations of resistance!

Resistance to ????

• Submerged power dynamics (Brookfield)

or more simply resistance to

• Socialisation & Negativity in the face of change & challenge!Vital issue for schools & the professionHang on to this thought it will re-emerge!

Musings, Anecdotes &

Non Sequiturs 2

Govt. POLICY Development & Implementation the REALITY!

• Convoluted• Sporadic• Contested often short termist• Chaotic at timesSo what does history teach us?

(Wirt):The Dynamic of Professional Struggle & Innovation

• Quiescence---status quo--comfort• Issue emergence---concerns raised--unease• Turbulence---growing sense of urgency • Resolution---vigorous debate pressure groups• Closure---reduction in energy expended

IMPLEMENTATION

Innovation ImplementationTruths

• Process not an event• Innovation is adoption + adaptation• Requires professional development and

growth• Is a process of clarification• Interaction and external assistance –vital• Goal of implementation is actually about

empowerment and capacity building

‘Inclusion’ into Practice (Teacher Attitudes )

Boyle C. ‘just what do Teachers Think about Inclusion

in Secondary Schools?” paper delivered at ISEC Conference QUB AUG 2010

Study undertaken in Scotland 2006/09

Food for thought!

Boyle 1

• “Policy makers can forget that there is a street –level bureaucracy (lipsky, 1980) and if people at the ground level, who in effect, have to implement policy are not in agreement with the philosophy underpinning the change then the chances of success are naturally diminished.”Lipsky, M. (1980) Dilemma of the individual in public services. New York: Russel Sage Foundation

Boyle 2• 68% of the respondents had no additional

‘training’ in special education not even a day course. ?????

FINDINGS ******************• Teachers broadly neutral • HoDs more negative• Heads & Deputies significantly more inclusive

than staff in BUT-no cultural filter down!

Boyle 3

• Negative socialisation evident- Newly Qualified were positive but by end of early years positivity ‘dropped off significantly’

• Boyle suggests ‘grind down’ of attitudes was either the result of experiences or staffroom negativity or indeed both.

I told it would re-emerge.

Cautionary Note re Socialisation

“A dominant force may legitimate itself by promoting beliefs and values congenial to it; naturalising and universalising such beliefs to render them self evident and apparently inevitable, denigrating ideas which might challenge it, excluding rival forms of thought.”

(Eagleton 1991)

Usually cited in respect of broader political issues but applies just as much on a micro scale.

RESISTANCE is difficult without a personal PHILOSOPHY

Socialisation to Conformitycharacteristic of social institutions

demands:“adherence to the dictates of social convention and it privileges routinized behaviour over critical action. Its centripetal force pulls towards reproducing the status quo in behaviour as it mediates our subjective capacity to intervene in the world. Education when dominated by the discourse and discursive practices of conformity, scripts a mechanistic

training” { barrier to innovation} Britman,D. (1991) Practice Makes Practice SUNY Press

Cited in: ‘Identities and their Relation to Workplace Landscapes’ Reynolds,C. In ‘changing Research and Practice’ ed. Kompf, M , Bond W.R. et al – London. Falmer . 1996

‘Identities and their Relation to Workplace Landscapes’- Reynolds,C. in ‘Changing Research and Practice: Teachers’ Professionalism, Identities and Knowledge’ ed.

Kompf, M , Bond W.R. et al – London. Falmer . 1996

BUT Discourse of CONFORMITY ameliorated if Teachers:

•Come to expect diversity in their classrooms•Felt they could admit to problems•Were encouraged to see and deal with their knowledge deficits

•Had a say in the social policies they are asked to implement•Worked collaboratively to solve problems•Were encouraged to be reformers, even rebels and supported in their efforts

•Were treated like professionals

?Why is it difficult to change

professional practice?• Experience• Interactions

etc.

Bruner suggests that what shapes a teacher’s beliefs and subsequent practice is their personal learning and professional teaching experiences. He uses the term folk psychology to suggest that teachers hold firm, often fixed beliefs about the nature of teaching and learning which have been gleaned almost exclusively from the realm of day-today experience.

Therefore, if beliefs are formed through interactions and experiences , then perhaps they can be challenged and even changed by providing alternative interactions and experiences that encourage teachers “to think explicitly about their folk psychological assumptions in order to bring them out of the shadows of tacit knowledge (Bruner 1996)

Philosophy of Teaching & Learning – can breed a sense of –

CONFIDENCE to embrace CHANGE

Philosophy implies REFLECTION

“Through reflection, he can surface and criticise the tacit understandings that have grown up around the repetitive experiences of a specialised practice, and can make new sense of the situations of uncertainty or uniqueness which he may allow himself to experience.”

(Schon, 1983)

Reflection should ultimately breed

CONFIDENCE

Confidence 1

BUT• Unless the teachers believe that they

have the skills to respond to the needs of students, the outcome of inclusion will be anxiety rather than success

DR Meng Deng ISEC QUB 2010

GTCNI Survey ?s confidence ?

Concerns expressed re: • Knowledge• Time• Resources –materials-£sd• Support-staff

Confidence 2

Lack of Confidence =

Learned Helplessness —psychological state in which an individual feels overwhelmed results in avoidance of challenge.

Lucas & Claxton suggest that we can fairly readily promote

Learned Optimism

How?

The Secret Ingredients are---

CULTURE(school)

&PASSION

(Staff)

VALUES

PHILOSOPHY IDEOLOGY

Conceptual

Intangible

Conceptual VerbalManifestation

•Aims & Objectives•Curriculum Statements•Language & Metaphor•Organisational Stories•Organisational Heroes•Organisational Structures

BehaviouralManifestation

•Rituals & Ceremonies•Teaching & Learning•Operational Procedures•Rules & Regulations•Rewards & Sanctions•Parental & Community interaction patterns

TangiblesMismatch = Corrosive Cynicism

Culture 1

• Which recognises uncertainty and contradiction (moments of inclusion &exclusion)

• Encourages reflection in & on action• Facilitates staff development• Promotes collegiality and discourse and

tolerates error• Promotes self esteem in staff and pupils• Has synergy between values and action

Culture 2 That recognises the Journey to inclusion

Metaphor as means of exhortation.“ Those working with SEN and inclusion at all levels, must as Fullan (2003) terms it, ‘travel and make the road’ upon which advances in policy and practice are made.” ISEC 2010Road suggests process and a destination but allows for notion of impediments. Who owns the map

Culture 3 That slays the Orthus ‘isms’

Pessism functions largely to protect the pessimists from any inner demand to do something by projecting the idea that nothing can be done, the optimists defend themselves against the same inner demand by persuading themselves that everything is moving in the right direction anyway, so nothing needs to be done. (original emphasis)

Fromm E. 1968: To have and to be.(London Abacus)

Andy Hargreaves speaks of a spectrum of culture

ranging from:

Fragmented Individualism:

where the teacher is isolated and may seek refuge behind the ‘sanctity of the classroom door’.

He sees this culture as

reinforcing uncertainty and insulating the teacher from feedback and support

Collaborative cultures:

which he sees as facilitating development

through mutual support, joint work and a broad agreement on educational values. He sees in schools with this culture a valuing of the individual and the group.

Cautionary Note

It’s not simple and only those ignorant of the actuality

believe it to be so. But it’s impossible without a sense

of community.

Community

“Even the best teacher attitudes and responses have trouble enduring without a professional community to support, endorse, and validate them. Every teacher we encountered who was engaged in a high level of pedagogy belonged to such a community.”

McLaughlin, M.W. & Talbert, J. (1993) Contexts that matter for teaching and learning. Stanford, CA: Centre for Research on the Context of Secondary

School Teaching.

Community as Faciliation

ETI Teacher

CPD Providers

School /

HeadCulture

Community 1 Teachers must

• Confront uncertainties & deficits• Recognise their capacity & abilities• Explore new ways of professional

development• PROBLEM BASED LEARNING pace medicine• LESSON RESEARCH STUDY• BLENDED LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES ??

• Develop Communities of Practice

Community 2 School / Mgt must

• Develop a whole School Philosophy of Teaching & Learning i.e. collectvely.

• Facilitate professional dialogue & community• Ensure that the symbols & Heroes sustain the

philosophy / culture.• Ensure Time / Resources are adequate • Explore innovative approaches to staff

development e.g. Communal PRSD FAILURE MEANS ‘SAME OLD SAME OLD’

Community 3 CPD Providers must

• Recognise new world of CPD DELEGATION• Outreach programmes that are:

– Progressive / Accessible / Affordable – Develop more -on-line blended etc

• Liaise with GTCNI– Bursaries– Fellowships– Research

• Facilitate Networking

Community 4 ETI

• The secret treasure (yes that’s true)

– Recognise the journey & the context i.e. recognise the topography to be traversed

– Realise Inclusion is by nature ‘messy’ and piecemeal– Critical & truthful Friend

AND– Benchmark Expectations {Realistic}– Tell it as it is to Govt.-ESA & Bureaucrats re funding,

CPD, time etc.

‘Remember we’re all in this together.’

However, we really are all in this together as we seek synergy.’

Buchholz and Roth

Synergism is the simultaneous actions of separate entities which together have greater total effect than the sum of their individual effects.

SYNERGISM

‘ACTORS’

ETI

TEACHER

HEIs/CPD

HEAD

Thomas Merton

The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.