Teaching Is Goinf Through a Period of Crisis, from Which It Is Likely to Emertge As Different
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Creating Educative Community through Educational Research
British Educational ResearchAssociation Seminar at American Educational Research Association in Montreal, April 1999, Convened by Pamela Lomax, Kingston University
This year the BERA seminar was convened by Pam Lomax, the BERA President. All the papers focused on ways of overcoming destructive differences in the educational research community - by promoting a new professionalism, through a new discipline of educational enquiry that included action research and self study, through school based practitioner action research, and through focusing on oneself as the learner. These ideas were of keen interest to participants at the seminar, who were all aware of Ken Zeichner’s pronouncement in his 1998 vice-presidential address to Division K, that the self-study of teacher education practices was the most significant development in the new scholarship in teacher education.
While contributions to previous BERA symposia at AERA have included well known researchers from the UK, they have attracted small audiences at AERA. By inviting colleagues from two popular AERA SIGs to act as the Chair and the Discussant, we were able to get wider publicity for the seminar because they were able to circulate information about the seminar to other members of their SIGs. We were also confident that the topic of the seminar, while significant in the UK, was also of interest to members of these AERA SIGs. For example, Robert Donmoyer, editor of Educational Researcher, has written a number of editorials on the problems of ‘Balkanization’ in different research communities.
We asked two participants to keep a tally of the numbers at the session and to keep a record of the points raised by the audience. 49 people attended the symposium, 32 women and 17 men. Participants were from Canada, USA, Australia, GB, South Africa and New Zealand. About 25% of the group were from GB.
The first contribution “On the Threshold of the 21st Century: Reflections on Texts and Actions”, was from the chair, Mary Rearick, who is from the University of Hartford, USA. This year she is President of the AERA Action Research SIG. Her paper presented the work of the British group within a global perspective, setting the scene for the four British papers. She began, “As we approach the 21st century, educational action researchers around the globe are reflecting on the historical, societal and cultural processes that influence people’s actions in modern institutions. Action researchers document the struggle of people to maintain a sense of human dignity in the face of a technological machine and theories of mass socialization. We document the sense that people are making of their experience and history. We document how people are directing their actions toward unified purposes. As we systematically seek to improve conditions in institutions and in society, over time we develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and other people, grow professionally, and are more able to direct our energies toward socially and politically desirable goals”.
The next speaker was Pam Lomax, University of Kingston, UK. In her paper, “Working Together for Educative Community through Research: developing a new professionalism”, she moved the argument from the global back to the professional, using examples from the British Educational Scene that resonated with the North American audience, while making a case for a new value based approach to professionalism. She began, “I intend to focus on the significance for creating community of action research and self-study as aspects of an evidence-based professionalism. I will argue that it is the diversity of the education profession that provides the potential for the creation of a 'dialectic' of improvement that could be the basis of an educative community. I believe that one way of achieving this ‘dialectic’ of improvement is through action research and self-study as aspects of an evidence-based professionalism”.
Audience comment following Pam’s paper: It was thought that a conversation about a new evidence-based professionalism needed opening up in the USA which was not so far down the line from Britain in terms of Government prescriptions for Education. Was the term ‘evidence’ being defined too differently from the norm? What was the relationship between normative based criteria and respect for evidence?
The third speaker was Jack Whitehead, from the University of Bath, UK. In his paper, “Creating a new discipline of educational enquiry in the context of the politics and economics of educational knowledge”, he argued, “I see the significance of this new discipline in terms of its ability to include both the living educational theories created by professional educators and the theoretical frameworks created by researchers from other disciplines of education such as philosophy, economics and politics.... I want my self-studies of my life as a professional educator to contribute to the educational knowledge-base of my subject, education.... I am going to consider the possibility that the self-studies of professional educators may be making original contributions to educational knowledge and theory in a way which can acknowledge the value of such differences and draw on insights created by them.”
Audience comment following Jack’s paper: Must the individual engaging with action research privately always be a subversive heretic? What happens where the evidence contradicts the action plan, is it rejected? How does one address the issue of power in collaborative relationships, particularly between teacher and student.
Next, Moyra Evans, from Denbigh School, UK, one of the few school based teacher-researchers at AERA, presented her paper “The use of self-study and story in developing the professional knowledge-base of a school vice-principal”. She says, “I know that many action researchers do their research focusing on the context of their work rather than on themselves, for example, exploring how best to put an anti bullying policy into practice.. For me and those teachers with whom I work, however, I believe that the research question of the kind ‘How can I improve my (particular) teaching or management skills?’ is of fundamental importance to the process of change within schools and the process of the development of teachers and their professional lives. The question takes the researcher into the area of self study because the nature of the question is asking how can I change some part of me; the question turns the action researcher into a learner about himself or herself, as well as about improving the education of children”.
Audience comment following Moyra’s paper: Do teachers who engage in action research work harder or does their priority of time change? How do they find time for reflection? How are issues of power dealt with when someone in a position of authority in school is responsible for setting up an action research group? Is getting someone else to engage in self study, self study? How are students (pupils) involved?
The last British paper was from Zoe Parker, University of Kingston, on “The significance of autobiographies of learning in creating a new discipline of educational enquiry.” Zoe says, “What I mean by `auto/biography of learning' is the story I can tell, from the inside, little and particular, of my life as a learner. I am learning to be a professional educator; to be a researcher and learner; to be a better person. The construction of an educative form of auto/biography embodies my enquiry as I turn my thoughts and feelings into text. My research is into how I can best tell the story of myself as a learner. As I construct the narrative of my enquiry, I discover myself more fully. The most hidden and secret values which drive, inspire and inform me begin to reveal themselves as the text grows and changes. As I construct the text, I shape my identity and sense of self and I call back into consciousness memories of my history of being in the world.”
Audience comment following Zoe’s paper: Does an ‘autobiographical’ position address the broader issues, such as getting politicians engaged in a moral debate? There is a paradox in making a case for educative communities to a government that ignores the profession and all its says. How is the lid kept on academic communities, what is the mechanism through which their voices are silenced?
The last paper was presented by the Discussant, Terri Austin, University of Fairbanks, Alaska, and Head of Chinnook Charter School, who is also the current Chair of the AERA S-STEP SIG. She reviewed the papers in the context of her own research about community, presenting diagramatic models about the relationship of self, community and context gleaned from the papers.
The six papers will be available in a pamphlet ‘BERA at AERA Montreal 1999’, available from the authors and also will be posted on the BERA website and on Education-Line.
On the Threshold of the 21st Century: Reflections on Texts and Actions
Mary Rearick, University of Hartford
As we approach the 21st century, educational action researchers around the globe are reflecting on the historical, societal and cultural processes that influence people's actions in modern institutions. Action researchers document the struggle of people to maintain a sense of human dignity in the face of a technological machine and theories of mass socialization. We document the sense that people are making of their experience and history. We document how people are directing their actions toward unified purposes. As we systematically seek to improve conditions in institutions and in society, over time we develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and other people, grow professionally, and are more able to direct our energies toward socially and politically desirable goals. We use contemplation, hermeneutic analysis, and public engagement processes to bring people together to analyze the impact of institutional policies and practices on relationships, politics, and socio-cultural systems. As we become more adept at documenting the world that is unfolding before us, we also become more conscious of the history that shapes our narrative. When a group of people in an institution engages in systematic, cyclical inquiry and reflection, members of the group become better able to examine their collective history and their situation and to make informed choices about a future course of action. When we do our work well, we put human agency in the service of education, government, and humanity.
At the turn of the century, educational researchers and practitioners are pursing new forms of scholarship (Schon, 1995). Researchers who are generating the new scholarship for teaching make connections across disciplines, deal with consequential problems that affect individuals and institutions, and honor practitioner knowledge. Integration, application, and teaching are taken as forms of scholarship and action research is taken to be the method for developing an epistemology for the new scholarship on teaching. How do we find out what kinds of knowing are embedded in competent practice? "If we want to discover what someone knows-in-action, we must put ourselves in a position to observe her in action. If we want to teach about our ‘doing’ then we need to observe ourselves in the doing, reflect on what we observe, describe it, and reflect on our description" (p. 30). The new scholarship on teaching requires scholars to contribute to knowledge according to the shared norms of the profession. Currently, the scholarship for teaching is primarily based on a conception of professional practice as instrumental, consisting of adjusting technical means to clear ends, and it was constructed by scholars in higher education. The new scholarship of teaching calls for an epistemology of reflective practice, which includes action research, and turns the problem of practice on its head. Practitioners and educational researchers join together to study knowing-in-action and to articulate an epistemology of practice based on practice.
In this essay, I reflect on the work of one group of action researchers in England—Jack Whitehead, a lecturer in Education at the Unversity of Bath; Pam Lomax, a teacher educator and educational researcher at Kingston University; Moyra Evans, an assistant principal at Denbigh School; and Zoe Parker, a graduate student at Kingston University. Whitehead, Lomax, Evans, and Parker are creating an educative community though research. They engage in dialogue across disciplines and perspectives and make their practice as philosophers, teacher educators, educators, and students the focus of their inquiry. They generate theories of practice based on rigorous analysis of data from their scholarship, stories, videotapes, or self-studies. Action research is conceptualized within their community as the dialectical process that leads to change. They view the work of educators as complex process - a philosophical practice, a cultural experience, a political project, and a human endeavor. As they reflect together on their ideals, deliberate about the best course of action in a given situation, advocate for a set of practices, they inquire intimately into their intentions, feelings, thoughts, and contradictions. As I noted earlier, their intelligence is exercised and their educational theory is generated, tested, and situated in their practice.
Each researcher in the Whitehead and Lomax action research community constructs a ‘living’ theory that focuses on the questions: How do I improve my practice? How do I understand myself as a living contradiction? How do I explain my educational theory in terms of past practice and an intention to improve, even in the face of uncertainty? How do I help others to improve their practice? As I read their work, I tried to recover some of their ‘lost intentions.’ It is clear that they are defining their community as one in which action research involves systematic inquiry over time, close personal relationships, dialogue, and scholarly research. After reading their work, I find myself delving into the scholarship they cite and wanting to share some of my own theorizing with them. The four papers illustrate the human ethic that emerges when people are engaged in face-to-face communication and the discourse confirms the significance of their relationships. When I read the various papers I noted that the texts are written at many levels - academic, political, professional, and personal. Each person speaks in his or her own situated way about his or her own experience as an educator, yet the group maintains a public dialogue that requires them to use multiple discourses and to elicit information from audiences.
In his paper, Whitehead discusses the kind of educative relationships that develop in a critical community. Whitehead, in his role as thesis advisor, draws out the passionate commitment of the person within the practice situation who wishes to understand and improve practice. Whitehead describes the nature of his relationships as improvisational, unique, and loving. In the paper he focused on his relationship with Kevin Eames, Head of the English Department at Wootton Bassett School in Wiltshire, England, whose Ph.D. thesis was entitled: ‘How do I, as a teacher and an educational action-researcher explain the nature of my professional knowledge?’ Whitehead reflects on his spiritual aims, values, and way of being, personal qualities that enable him to connect with his students in thoughtful compassion. Whitehead then shows evidence of his influence on his student's learning by citing excerpts from three conversations in which Kevin admitted that Whitehead had changed his ideas on how he regarded professional knowledge. Whitehead's explanation of his relationships makes a lot of sense to me. As I reflected on his explanation I was reminded of the writings of Martin Buber (1947), whom Whitehead cites. During the Nazi regime, Buber, a German-Jewish philosopher, whose work was publicly banned in his own country, migrated to Palestine where he continued to write about the person-to-person dialogue which reached its full expression in Ich and Du (I and Thou). The I-Thou relationship is one that is based on helping others to do maximum good. Within the Whitehead-Lomax action research community the researcher's existence is dialogic and discursive. The dialogue is a happening thing, and the presence of a response gives each speaker a sense of purpose, integrity, and belonging. The living theory of one member of the group respects the contribution of others in the group. The discourse respects the material realities of each participant's existence. Each member of the group acknowledges the humanity of the other and the value of the community.
The fact that members can anticipate a response from other members of the group creates the ground for understanding, and the presence of a response prepares the ground for an active and engaged understanding. Understanding and response are merged and they mutually condition each other. The genuine communication that results from encounter is not lost on the reader. The genuine dialogue of the members of the group extends beyond their particular situation as they engage in discussions of public policies affecting education. The group takes the position that educational reforms that use mechanical and bureaucratic controls to control work and the qualifications of teachers and students actually undermine learning, growth, and commitment to education. Learning involves a dialectical interplay between being and becoming, growth involves becoming aware of the taken-for-granted and the need for improvement, commitment is enhanced when a person achieves deeper understanding of the social, cultural, political, and the history that exists and is being generated in the here and now.