Critical Events in Teaching & Learning

Peter Woods

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136452420
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This volume describes and analyses exceptional educational events – periods of particularly effective teaching representing ultimates in teacher and pupil educational experience. The events themselves are reconstructed in the book through teacher and pupil voices and through documentation. A model of 'critical event' is derived from the study, which might serve as a possible framework for understanding other such occurrences in schools.

Chapter 1

The Nature and Significance of Critical Educational Events

During recent work on creative teaching in primary schools, my attention was drawn to certain outstanding events. They had won wide acclaim from teachers, other professionals, pupils, parents, academics, advisers, and other members of the public. Some of them had won an award. Initially I was interested in them as individual, exciting educational events. Eventually, however, it became clear that they had common properties, and that they were all examples of the same kind of activity. I term this activity ‘critical event’. In the rest of this chapter, I outline a model of how such events are constructed, how they work, and the conditions attending them, The model was derived from the study of the events examined in Chapters 2–5. It is grounded in the empirical data there presented (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). The coding procedures were similar to those recommended by Strauss and Corbin (1990), involving the derivation of a core category (critical event), and its specification in terms of the conditions which give rise to it, the context in which it is embedded, the strategies by which it is handled, and the consequences of those strategies. As far as the sequence of the research went, therefore, it came last. However, it seems necessary to present it first as the central integrating feature of the book. It helps, I hope, to illuminate what follows, and to highlight the features which the events have in common. I concentrate, therefore, on the main pattern of events here. Its substantiation and further particular details will follow with the examples.

The Significance of Critical Events

The significance of critical incidents in people’s lives has been noted (Strauss, 1959; Becker, 1966; Walker, 1976; Measor, 1985; Sparkes, 1988). We have observed critical incidents and periods in teacher careers (Sikes, Measor and Woods, 1985). These are ‘highly charged moments and episodes that have enormous consequences for personal change and development’ (p. 230). They are unplanned, unanticipated and uncontrolled. They are flash-points that illuminate in an electrifying instant some key problematic aspect or aspects of the teacher’s role, and which contain, in the same instant, the solution. There might be a higher proportion of such incidents during critical periods, such as one’s initiation into teaching. They are key factors in the socialization of teachers and in ‘the process of establishment’ (Ball, 1980) in the classroom. Critical events are a related phenomenon. They lie between the flash-point incidents and the career-phase periods. They are integrated and focused programmes of educational activities which may last from a number of weeks to over a year. Some might be known internally as themes, projects or topics, though by no means all of these are critical in their effects (Avann, 1982; Tann, 1988; DES, 1989; Gammage, 1990; Alexander, 1992). They cover a multitude of different kinds of activity (Stewart, 1986, p. 122). There are both positive and negative events. The latter are the equivalent of the ‘counter incidents’ described in Sikes, Measor and Woods (1985), and lead to personal or educationally retrogressive consequences. I have described some of these in Woods (1990a). Here I concentrate on positive events that all involved regard as critical in the manner defined. What, then, makes them critical?

First, they promote children’s education and development in uncommonly accelerated ways. They are times of outstanding advance, in a number of ways—attitudes towards learning, understanding of the self, relationships with others, acquisition of knowledge, development of skills. McLaren (1986, p. 236) talks of ‘the great moment of teachability’. Some children make great leaps forward, discover new things about the self, are changed radically. As Pring (1985, p. 130) remarks, education is about ‘the development of persons’. We can train them in certain skills without affecting them as persons. ‘In educating people, we have in mind a transformation of how they see and understand the world and themselves within that world’ (ibid.). It is this kind of holistic change in a comparatively giant leap that is involved here. Such events, then, help pupils (and teachers) become persons, aiding conceptual and moral development, promoting both self-determined action and relations with others, enabling them to ‘transcend their own self-interest’ and acquire ‘a sense of justice that enables young persons to look critically at conventional morality and to establish a set of more universal principles which they are able to make their own’ (Pring, 1987, p. 16; see also Carr, 1989).

Secondly, these events can be critical for teacher change. As Eisner (1979, p. 166) points out, teachers also have needs that must be met through teaching, ranging from pride in their craftsmanship and in securing results, to realization of the self. Others have argued that the role of teacher necessarily implies the role of learner (Schaefer, 1967; Schön, 1987; Nias, Southworth and Campbell, 1992). Unlike critical incidents, critical events are in large measure intended, planned and controlled. But the plans contain within them seeds for growth and scope for opportunities. There are elements, therefore, that are largely unforeseen, and unpredictable new pastures that all, teachers and pupils alike, are venturing into, with what consequences no one exactly knows. As G.H. Mead says, ‘The possibilities in our nature … are possibilities of the self that lie beyond our own immediate presentation. We do not know just what they are. They are in a certain sense the most fascinating contents that we can contemplate, so far as we can get hold of them’ (1934, p. 204). Nias (1989) quotes from Connell (1985, p. 127) on the metaphors reached for to describe the heights of the feeling of teaching well—‘chemical reactions, currents, setting alight, taking fire’. She mentioned William James’ moments when he feels ‘most deeply and intensely active and alive [when] there is a voice inside which speaks and says, “This is the real me.”Nias (p. 200) goes on, ‘Perhaps it is in the precious moments when primary teachers become creative artists that they transcend the contradictions of the job and achieve the “peak experience” of which Maslow (1973, p. 177) writes and in which they, like James, become aware of their full identity.’ So the teacher also learns and develops in fulfilling ways, either as pedagogue in understanding of children’s learning and refinement of teaching methods and techniques; or as self, in relation to one’s own knowledge, powers, aptitudes and abilities.

Thirdly, critical events can also have an important preservation and confirmatory function for teachers. They maintain a particular definition of reality and identity against the pressure of contrary forces (Berger and Kellner, 1964). Consider, for example, a teacher with high ideals working in a severely constrained situation—a not untypical scenario. Common strategies in such a situation are to adjust one’s ideals, transpose them to some other form of activity outside teaching, or renounce them altogether (Woods, 1990a). Critical events permit teachers to retain their ideals in spite of the assaults that might more customarily be made on them. Just as they are peaks that launch new fields of learning for teachers and pupils, so they are peaks that sustain the teachers’ vision, restore their faith, confirm their own personal practical philosophy (Connelly and Clandinin, 1985), show them that, when the conjuncture of circumstances is right, their principles work. Like oases in the desert, these experiences can sustain them through less productive periods, and keep the prospect of the highest standards, as they define them, within view. After a period of doubt, they can be signally restorative. They allow them to ‘strategically comply’ while holding in mind the real prospect of ‘strategic redefinition’ (Lacey, 1977). In this sense they act as a coping strategy (A. Hargreaves, 1978; Pollard, 1982; Woods, 1979), where coping is to do with ‘personal dignity, integrity, values and aims. Thus coping is linked to preserving and developing the attributes which individuals identify as being part of themselves’ (Pollard, 1990a, p. 75). Critical events have this rather paradoxical feature, therefore, that though peripheral in the sense that they may occur but rarely, they are absolutely central in terms of the teacher’s sense of self and professionalism, as indeed they are to pupil learning.

Fourthly, these events can be critical for the profession as a whole. Currently, teachers appear to be at a crucial juncture. Since the failed ‘Teacher Action’ of the 1980s and the gamut of reforms imposed by the Government during the 1980s, teachers have lost status and a large measure of control. There is fear of ‘intensification’ (Larson, 1980; Apple, 1986; A. Hargreaves, 1991a) and deskilling; of being reduced to technicians whose task is simply to deliver the National Curriculum. Teachers in primary schools have recently been under attack for alleged blind adherence to outmoded ‘dogmas’ (Alexander, Rose, and Woodhead, 1992) and ‘sacred cows and shibboleths’, among which ‘thematic work, topics, enquiry methods, and group work’ figure prominently (Alexander, 1992, p. 194). If critical events can still be shown to be possible, even perhaps, when all has settled down, to have even better chances, it would be a considerable morale-booster for teachers in general. Even if not the instigator of such events, therefore, one can derive succour and inspiration from them.

Features of Critical Events

The events studied are informed by a particular learning theory, and generate a distinctive form of relationships.

Real Learning

The learning that takes place is real learning, which builds on pupils’ own needs and relevancies, and their existing cognitive and affective structures. There is a strong emphasis on reality, on a real problem or issue of importance or value, on constructing situations that are the same as those they purport to represent, on using real professionals, on collecting first-hand evidence and materials, on doing things oneself, on having as realistic aim. As in research, this heightens the validity of the output. Learning is integrated in the self, which helps further to ensure coherence within, and across, subject areas (D. Hargreaves, 1991). An expression of this in primary schools is described by Best (1991) as ‘Personal Enquiry’:

It is primarily concerned to develop qualities such as curiosity, originality, initiative, cooperation, perseverance, open-mindedness, self-criticism, responsibility, self-confidence and independence. This is achieved by the child’s involvement, in a personally meaningful way, in an enquiry, or more aptly a congeries of related enquiries, which grow out of an issue which attracts his (sic) interest. There is both co-operative and individual work, and success is assessed in terms of the development of individual potential. The overriding aim is to help and encourage children to learn how to learn; to develop their own ability to think; to develop a lively, enquiring attitude. (Best, 1991, p. 275)

As Best points out, this is not to be equated with some versions of the ‘discovery’ method with flexibility amounting to laxity, but involves ‘carefully and ingeniously structured work, and the development of self-discipline’. Its main strength is that it not only leads to an acquisition of knowledge, but also, and more importantly, develops ‘a grasp or understanding of that which gives sense to knowledge’ (ibid., p. 261). This understanding includes ‘developing a feel, a sensitivity, a grasp, and a love for a subject, entering creatively into the spirit of an area of enquiry’ (p. 269). It is less important, Best feels, that we should aim to teach students about a subject, than that we should encourage them to be creative writers, scientists, historians etc. The former will follow from the latter, with sounder conceptual grasp.

This is in line with reformulated notions of ‘progressivism’. As summarized by Galton (1989, pp. 140–42), ‘choice is no longer about what task to do but more importantly about how to do it:’ The pupil needs to feel a ‘degree of control’ over the process. The teacher will ‘build upon the child’s partial understandings so that the pupil can reconstruct their knowledge and ideas in ways that make them more generally applicable’. There may be some instruction, but usually in relation to ‘lower-order cognitive tasks’, and blended skilfully and seamlessly into children’s own activities. The outcomes are assessed by ‘critical dialogue, in which the teacher’s and other pupils’ views are offered as part of an ongoing debate about the quality of the final product’. This kind of supportive, constructive criticism calls for great skill on the part of the teacher, and presupposes a ‘negotiated’ teacher-pupil relationship to reflect what Galton calls ‘the negotiated learning model’ (see also Armstrong, 1980, 1981; Rowland, 1984, 1987; Nias, 1988). This contrasts with a traditional mode of control which confused attempts to implement the progressive ideology associated with the Plowden Report (1967).

The philosophy, with the emphasis on experience and discovery, is that of Dewey (1934), the learning theory constructivist (Vygotsky, 1962; Donaldson, 1978; Bruner, 1986; Bruner and Haste, 1987; Edwards and Mercer, 1987; Wood, 1988; Pollard, 1990b). While there might be talk of child-centredness, it denotes a pedagogy largely validated in action and containing a number of fitness-for-purpose techniques, rather than simply being the language of ideology (Alexander, 1984). It is not a free-floating child-centredness, but one that involves negotiation with the teachers over aims and activities (Pollard, 1991b). Nor does it eschew learning through instruction. Vygotsky (1978) sees the teacher as being more active, as being a kind of mediator. He points to the importance to learning of cooperation with teachers and other pupils.

Learning awakens a variety of developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in co-operation with peers. Once these processes are internalised they become part of the child’s development achievement. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 90)

Edwards and Mercer (1987), similarly, point to the cultural and communicative aspects of context. Teachers develop ‘a framework for shared understanding with children based on joint knowledge and action which provided its own rationale for present activity and a strong foundation for future developments. This contextual edifice is the “scaffolding” for children’s mental explorations, a cognitive climbing-frame’ (p. 167; see also Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976; Bruner, 1983; and Wood, 1986). Joint, negotiative discussion helps build this construction. Authoritarian teaching can leave pupils ‘scaffolded’ and ‘unable to function independently’ (ibid. See also Bruner, 1983). The method is to develop a support structure for children’s own learning based on their own needs, interests and relevancies; not, therefore, to ‘direct’ but to ‘lead by following’ (Wood, 1986, p. 202), and to aim for children’s learning to stand on its own when the structure is removed. A key process, therefore, becomes ‘handover’ of control of learning from teacher to pupil. If it works, therefore, it follows that the children have a large amount of control over their own learning, and they own the products of it. They are not learning, therefore, for the teacher or for any other external source, but for themselves. Moreover, the learning and development that occurs is not peripheral and cosmetic, but central and radical. It counts for something; it changes and empowers the person. Not surprisingly, therefore, there is strong commitment and motivation to securing the aims of the enterprise. The teaching and learning reflects the holistic nature of the teacher’s view of the child (Pollard, 1990b). It covers not only rationalist, algorithmic modes of thinking which are so dominant in the official curriculum at present but also aesthetic experience (D. Hargreaves, 1982; 1983) and ‘poetic’ thinking. Bonnett (1991) argues that the latter

… seeks harmony rather than power, receptiveness rather than imposition, is affected rather than effective, is openly curious and wondering rather than goal-orientated, accepts mystery as against seeking transparency, intuits the wholeness of things as against analysing them into specific problems to be solved, and stays with things in their inherent strangeness rather than turn them into defined objects — manageable and familiar. In essence, poetic thinking attempts to re-establish a direct living in, and with, things which is largely destroyed by the distanced analytic approach of rational-calculative thought. (Bonnet, 1991, pp. 282–3)

While this might seem the preferred mode of thinking for artistic pursuits, Bonnett suggests that ‘it may represent the only truly respectful way of relating to people and things around us’ (ibid.). It can also be applied with profit to other areas of the curriculum: science, mathematics, technology, for example. In this respect, science and art can both enrich each other (Waller, 1934; Nisbet, 1962).

This teaching philosophy applies equally to the teachers’ learning. These changes would not occur if teachers did not feel that they ‘owned’ the conception and management of curriculum and pedagogy. Bertrand Russell (1950) remarked that

The teacher, like the artist, the philosopher and the man of letters, can only perform his work adequately if he feels himself to be an individual directed by an inner creative impulse, not dominated and fettered by an outside authority. (Russell, 1950, p. 159)

Thus the needs of the teachers in the schools of Nias, Southworth and Campbell (1992, p. 45) were met since they felt that they ‘owned’ the curriculum, in the sense of 1) controlling those aspects for which they were responsible; and 2) of having internalized it. The curriculum ‘came from within them or was part of them’. Fullan (1982) points out that teachers need room to experiment, modify, select and absorb proposed changes that are being instituted from without. The same applies to changes from within (see also Nias, 1989) Teachers also sometimes learn constructively alongside the children (ibid.).

‘Communitas’

Aiding the escalation is the fact that it is invariably a group effort. The teachers involved are of common accord. They have similar values, aims, aspirations, and they are deeply held. Nias’ (1989) teachers stressed the importance of this if they were to ‘pull together’ (p. 160). ‘They could cooperate with people whom they did not perceive as part of their own self-confirming reference group, but they could not collaborate with them, either in the formation of common curricular or disciplinary policies or in translating these into action’ (ibid.). Elsewhere, Nias, Southworth and Yeomans (1989) have illustrated the nature of’ collaborative cultures’ in some primary schools, showing how they valued individuals as well as groups, pervaded the whole of school activity, were based in the bedrock of mutual support and esteem, and promoted both teacher and pupil development. Nias, Southworth and Campbell (1992, p. 135) describe how ‘a sense of unity’ developed during the production of a school concert: ‘The whole staff and subgroups worked together, people learnt more about one another’s strengths and talents, everyone was valued for his/her particular contribution … [and] their-sense of collective purpose was strengthened …’ (see also Hartley, 1985; Little, 1990; Biott and Nias, 1992; Fullan and Hargreaves, 1992). Collaborative teaching or ‘TTT (teachers teaching together) if well-conceived, has been commended for its potential by Alexander (1992). Similarly, it has been argued that collaborative work among pupils has many benefits, though managerially it might be difficult to bring off at times. Summarizing the work on this, Galton and Williamson (1992, p. 16) state that it is claimed that pupils learn from each other, work at their own pace, lose the fear and stigma of failure, improve their self-image, learn respect from others, gain confidence. In critical events, these two groups — of teachers and pupils — working at their best come together to form a highly productive, integrated group of teachers and learners where the roles are less clearly demarcated and all are involved in the pursuit of learning and all are contributing according to their means. Close collaboration was a prominent feature of the events that I researched such that these requirements were writ large. It was not simply a matter of like-mindedness, however. The teachers and other adults involved complemented each other on the skills, experiences and knowledge they brought to the enterprise. Individually, they would be considered by many to be excellent teachers. Collectively, they were formidable units.

The cre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• 1. The Nature and Significance of Critical Educational Events
• 2. An Educational Bluebird: the Making of Rushavenn Time
• 3. Filming a Village Life: Community Education in Action
• 4. The Chippindale Venture: Real Learning in the Making
• 5. The Magic of Godspell: the Educational Significance of a Dramatic Event
• 6. Conclusion: Outcomes and Prospects
• Appendix. Researching Critical Events
• References
• Name Index
• Subject Index