In Shakespeare’s King Lear, when Edmund realises his villainous acts have returned to haunt him, he says, ‘The wheel is come full circle, I am here.’ (5, iii, 171)
As an extremely motivated mature aged graduate, I had quite a bit of Edmund in me. I clearly recall how I eagerly shared new ideas and strategies with colleagues, and became more than a little frustrated when none of my elders seemed to be listening. I came to realise that the ideas weren’t really new – they were just packaged differently.
Needless to say, it took me no time at all to learn that reinventing the wheel was definitely on the school curriculum and still is.
Thought leaders, researchers, governments, and other stakeholders – the influencers who determine how schools operate, succeed or fail, and how they are viewed – collectively keep the wheels of perceived innovation in motion. Teachers and school communities are motivated by these innovations, but they are equally frustrated by the constant changes – the rephrasing, rebranding, or regurgitation of what should or could be done to improve student outcomes.
It’s no surprise that the constant negativity surrounding student performance has produced a new breed of stakeholders. Civil society now dabbles in innovative products, programs, and calls to action, all the while raising funds to ensure a secure place in the education landscape. With so many commercial, and other interests, it’s little wonder that, as we dance in its tracks, the wheel makes a full revolution, and what we thought was past comes back to haunt us.
Of all the stakeholders in the field, it is only the teachers who meet students eye-to-eye, day-to-day, in the classroom. Teachers must rely on their instinctive capabilities to address ‘deficits’ in student performance across a wide and varied cohort, all the while meeting a further demand: to demonstrate a capacity to adopt, and apply, the latest innovations. And each great innovation is recycled and replicated sevenfold to seventyfold, until, before long, evidence suggests it hasn’t produced the intended result and is therefore deemed a failure.
Since the late 1940s, UNESCO has played a major role in maintaining a global focus on ‘basic education and literacy’, the result of which has led to ongoing debate about approaches to literacy methodology, assessment, and intervention in the early years. Phonics, as a particular example, has been in and out of favour as a method of teaching letters and sounds. In fact, it is an essential component, alongside word study, and vocabulary enrichment, in developing competency in English orthography.
To continue debate over the value, or otherwise, of phonics and what it means, negates its necessary contribution to the process of becoming literate – that is, to understand and be understood.
So once again the wheel turns. We invest even more, as we research, rephrase, rebrand, rework, or replace ways to achieve our primary purpose: seek solutions, and keep the ‘whole child’ at the centre of all our intentions and justifications.
What if we were to turn this thinking on its head and saw initiatives as an opportunity to refine and personalise our teaching practice?
What if our collective political energies were spent on nurturing evolution – from teacher into powerful educationist? Old ways of doing would become new ways of thinking and being, for all teachers, along their continuum of professional capacity. Would it then be possible for every researcher, every innovation, and every brilliant idea to be heard and actioned – not because policy demands it, but because teachers actively choose to adopt an individualised approach to teaching – owning their own pedagogy?
What would be the impact – a greater professional respect, greater responsibility for an evolving course of action and an accountability to self with respect to vocational responsibility? Could these better serve teachers and in turn our students, our colleagues and the wider community?
What if we mirrored the concept of ‘the whole child’, and supported every teacher as ‘the whole educationist’?
What if we regarded deep learning, and personal and spiritual development as more important than the collection and mediation of data that do not capture the whole child anyway?
What if student outcomes could be viewed through the evidence of their teachers’ own pedagogical values and actions, contributions, and network of support, rather than the focus be only on children’s achievement or deficit?
What if a teacher discovered that being an educationist, and being responsible for students, was not his or her calling and, as a result, could celebrate new ways of learning, and transition to a more suitable career?
What if unique and powerful educationists were genuinely honoured? They would be highly paid professionals, and teachers would lift their game, to become educationists, or choose to contribute in a less lucrative supporting role.
Is this performance leadership in action? Or is it simply the pipe-dream of an extremely enthusiastic mature aged graduate, who some, thirty years later, still excitedly shares ideas, but this time with a little more wisdom?
Having the benefit of more wisdom I am determined to be heard. Reinventing one wheel at a time, one child at a time, one teacher at a time, is far too slow, and will continue to leave schools to a fate that Shakespeare understood: ‘We know what we are, but know not what we may be.’ (Hamlet: 4, v, 43)
© Cheryl Lacey 2016, All rights reserved
