So what is happening from the view on the high plains ? It looks to me: a gypsy and part-time bandit, that some of the sheep have retreated to their pens, while others have been rounded up into a frenzy with the possibility of freedom. The farmers and the shepherds have persuaded the sheep (it didn't take much) that they actually have some power over their situation, and those able to exercise that power will head for long awaited pastures. Delusional. And what will become of the others? As my would-be drifter friend would say "there will be blood."
So, looking down from the highplains, is there any hope of engaging anyone ? The sheep will be nervous, the farmers and shepherds wary and hostile , and the gypsies, thieves, vagabonds, rustlers, drifters and bandits will move on...
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Sunday, 10 January 2010
The focussed use of questions
Having eventually got round to reading Juanita Brown's dissertation on the world cafe, I'm beginning to think we haven't spent enough time on -{ discovering, shaping, and exploring "questions that matter"as a catalyst for collaborative learning, insight, and innovation.}
The more I read , the more convinced I become that we aren't spending enough time thinking and discussing what the right questions are.
Asking the proper question is the central act of transformation. Clarrisa Pinkola Estes
A vital question, a creative question, rivets our attention. All the creative power of our mind is focused on the question. Knowledge emerges in response to these compelling questions. They open us to new worlds...The quality of those worlds depends on the quality of our questions. Verna Allee
Somehow I think we have rushed towards solutions, but solutions to what ? What was/is our inquiry system. This is maybe something we should be considering in our European project. Could we set up a discussion forum on the website for questions rather than answers ? Could we have some cafe style discussions on the questions we should be asking ?
In Toke Moller's story, p129, they asked the question "what could a good school also be?" The process of answering this question seem to combine full participation as well as representation . Is this something we could do ? Can we ask a critical question to all staff - what would it be ? If questions are a lever, what is stuck ? Why are we really here ? How can we create a community at work that enables each person to contribute...?
What questions would the sheep ask ?
The more I read , the more convinced I become that we aren't spending enough time thinking and discussing what the right questions are.
Asking the proper question is the central act of transformation. Clarrisa Pinkola Estes
A vital question, a creative question, rivets our attention. All the creative power of our mind is focused on the question. Knowledge emerges in response to these compelling questions. They open us to new worlds...The quality of those worlds depends on the quality of our questions. Verna Allee
Somehow I think we have rushed towards solutions, but solutions to what ? What was/is our inquiry system. This is maybe something we should be considering in our European project. Could we set up a discussion forum on the website for questions rather than answers ? Could we have some cafe style discussions on the questions we should be asking ?
In Toke Moller's story, p129, they asked the question "what could a good school also be?" The process of answering this question seem to combine full participation as well as representation . Is this something we could do ? Can we ask a critical question to all staff - what would it be ? If questions are a lever, what is stuck ? Why are we really here ? How can we create a community at work that enables each person to contribute...?
What questions would the sheep ask ?
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
dimensions of power
‘As we know, there are known knowns – things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns – that there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the things we don’t know we don’t know’.
1) The sheep, shepherds, and farmers compete for power over choices and decisions, and you know who has power by seeing whose choices / preferences prevail - 'success in decision-making'. Maybe this is like the known knowns - things we can see. The rustlers, bandits, drifters, and gypsies have little success in this decision-making.
2) The above ignores 'non-decisions' - matters that never appear on the agenda, cos not perceived as relevant, or deemed inappropriate, etc, or simply because the agenda consists of responding to someone else's agenda imposed from elsewhere e.g. by people like HMI's etc......some agenda's are privileged. Abandoning the annual slaughter of sheep and cattle is never an agenda item ..........the debate tends to be narrow - how many cattle to send to market and for what price.
NJR
When my kids were little I gave them a choice at weekends of 3 things we could do - they got to choose.....democracy in action. There were actually 7 things we could have done, but I never told them about the other four - the rustlers, bandits, drifters, and gypsies.
Maybe this is sometimes like the known unknowns - we sense the agenda is incomplete, but we comply with it because we cannot articulate or see the alternatives properly, or don't want to rock the boat, or we want to please the farmer or shepherds, etc. We sense the rustlers, bandits, drifters, and gypsies are there, may even be a bit enticed by them, but their presence can't be expressed.
3) Manipulation / shaping people's preferences / wants. Some things are just not perceived, they are 'non-issues' - unknown unknowns....... long-term agenda-setting has shaped the sheep's preferences and mind-set.....they think like the farmer and shepherds on all the key issues - the farmer's paradigm sets the boundaries and limits. The farmer, shepherds, and sheep bicker a lot about details and minor things, but none of them can grasp the concept of vegetarianism. The rustlers, bandits, drifters, and gypsies are still there, but there are fewer of them, and they are outlaws.
The bandits, et al, are all those alienated by the mainstream agenda, paradigm, and personality types, because they are not catered for by them. Some are runaway sheep, and others are rogue farmers and shepherds. But each of the four also represents ideas - alternatives. To know what these alternatives are you have to talk to them - but they are wary, sceptical, disbelieving. You also have to talk to the sheep, because vegetarianism is the real interest of the sheep, and they could be coaxed out of the meat eating paradigm.
But it's hard and slow................and the bandits, et al, are doing their own thing in the highplains.
Not much help really am I. I'm away with the gypsies, et al, and we're engaged in what we're each doing - and FE has lost us.
There's a recent book you may want to read.....'The Art of Not Being Governed', by James Scott .....and other books of his. College managers, HMI, etc, have rarely read them.
1) The sheep, shepherds, and farmers compete for power over choices and decisions, and you know who has power by seeing whose choices / preferences prevail - 'success in decision-making'. Maybe this is like the known knowns - things we can see. The rustlers, bandits, drifters, and gypsies have little success in this decision-making.
2) The above ignores 'non-decisions' - matters that never appear on the agenda, cos not perceived as relevant, or deemed inappropriate, etc, or simply because the agenda consists of responding to someone else's agenda imposed from elsewhere e.g. by people like HMI's etc......some agenda's are privileged. Abandoning the annual slaughter of sheep and cattle is never an agenda item ..........the debate tends to be narrow - how many cattle to send to market and for what price.
NJR
When my kids were little I gave them a choice at weekends of 3 things we could do - they got to choose.....democracy in action. There were actually 7 things we could have done, but I never told them about the other four - the rustlers, bandits, drifters, and gypsies.
Maybe this is sometimes like the known unknowns - we sense the agenda is incomplete, but we comply with it because we cannot articulate or see the alternatives properly, or don't want to rock the boat, or we want to please the farmer or shepherds, etc. We sense the rustlers, bandits, drifters, and gypsies are there, may even be a bit enticed by them, but their presence can't be expressed.
3) Manipulation / shaping people's preferences / wants. Some things are just not perceived, they are 'non-issues' - unknown unknowns....... long-term agenda-setting has shaped the sheep's preferences and mind-set.....they think like the farmer and shepherds on all the key issues - the farmer's paradigm sets the boundaries and limits. The farmer, shepherds, and sheep bicker a lot about details and minor things, but none of them can grasp the concept of vegetarianism. The rustlers, bandits, drifters, and gypsies are still there, but there are fewer of them, and they are outlaws.
The bandits, et al, are all those alienated by the mainstream agenda, paradigm, and personality types, because they are not catered for by them. Some are runaway sheep, and others are rogue farmers and shepherds. But each of the four also represents ideas - alternatives. To know what these alternatives are you have to talk to them - but they are wary, sceptical, disbelieving. You also have to talk to the sheep, because vegetarianism is the real interest of the sheep, and they could be coaxed out of the meat eating paradigm.
But it's hard and slow................and the bandits, et al, are doing their own thing in the highplains.
Not much help really am I. I'm away with the gypsies, et al, and we're engaged in what we're each doing - and FE has lost us.
There's a recent book you may want to read.....'The Art of Not Being Governed', by James Scott .....and other books of his. College managers, HMI, etc, have rarely read them.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Learner Engagement : an imagined community ?
Who would of thought that the Scotland's Colleges Conference would lead to a reflection on whether we are trying to create a sense of an active learner community based on modern notions of what it means to be a learner , within an institution dedicated to linear progress? What does engagement actually mean ? Who defines it ? Who sets the parameters?
Do our own narratives as learners , the language used , the shared symbols and rituals of learning, create a sense of 'a community of learning'. But is this an imagined community, best loved by the staff who identify with a representation of learning , democratic ideals and community involvement? I reflect on this as someone who loves the world cafe ideology, the sense of empowerment, the discursive nature of learner engagement. However, the students are not actively involved in my sense of community; my narrative. They have, as individuals and small groups found different ways to bring action, by-passing my sense of order, or more significantly my role as an agent for change.
Perhaps we need to let go of the strategy, stand back from order and control (God help me) and watch a pastiche of learner engagement evolve. Is it the outcomes that matter or our own narrative of learner engagement in the imagined community ?
Do our own narratives as learners , the language used , the shared symbols and rituals of learning, create a sense of 'a community of learning'. But is this an imagined community, best loved by the staff who identify with a representation of learning , democratic ideals and community involvement? I reflect on this as someone who loves the world cafe ideology, the sense of empowerment, the discursive nature of learner engagement. However, the students are not actively involved in my sense of community; my narrative. They have, as individuals and small groups found different ways to bring action, by-passing my sense of order, or more significantly my role as an agent for change.
Perhaps we need to let go of the strategy, stand back from order and control (God help me) and watch a pastiche of learner engagement evolve. Is it the outcomes that matter or our own narrative of learner engagement in the imagined community ?
Saturday, 7 November 2009
The discourse of accountancy within education
Power (1994) emphasises the discourse of accountancy within education. He argues that teachers' professional judgement, autonomy and academic knowledge are being diminished in favour of accountability, cost efficiency and measuring effectiveness. Current fixation with 'productivity' reinforces this discourse, normalising the practice of lecturers having to acount for how they are spending their non-teaching hours. In this climate how is it possible to engage staff?
Learner Engagement
Learner Engagement, Power and the Institution or
The Janus Face of Learner Engagement
Traditional discourses of learner engagement in college policy and practices have been shaped by the knowledge and understanding of liberal representative democracy, with its underpinning values of individualism and rights. Notions of representation have been influential in establishing a pattern of roles for engagement within the college as an institution. Ideas around empowerment through representation have come to dominate discursive practices, arguably creating a circuit of power that controls what can and cannot be voiced.
A review of literature and language concerning learner engagement demonstrates the dominance of a liberal democratic discourse : empowering learners, personalised education, rights and citizenship . Together they create a compelling image of learners being fully engaged with education settings, and attaining more power and control over their education.
Within a college, this usually involves student representative systems e.g. student guild, course and college committees where 'agenda-setting’ subsequently shapes what students think and, talk about. This could be viewed as empowerment of students, but it could also be considered a control device. However, an offshoot would be that it creates in the students a sense of their 'rights', and a greater willingness therefore to complain.
Scott (1990) drawing from the work of Foucault , asks about what is hidden within the power relations , but also recognises that both the powerful and the powerless are constrained in their behaviour.
In developing an alternative discourse of learner engagement we had to acknowledge that power operates within the established everyday relations that have become ingrained in the life of the college. We needed to establish a forum that would free all actors from their roles, and create opportunities for alternative discussions.
Direct particiation
Ya…..sounds OK, but been teaching for past 6 hours so I’m a bit dozy.
If you use a word like dialectical in this sort of paper, for this audience, then you might be better to use a different word, or briefly say what you mean by it.
Similarly, when you say ‘liberal democracy’ you’d be better saying ‘liberal representative democracy’.
The problem with representation is that it is an elitist approach, springs from an elitist mindset, and almost always quickly turns the rep’s in to an ‘elite’. The rep’s tend not to represent anyone except themselves. The idea of a rep’ is someone who is a ‘trustee’, they get to use their own judgement about what is in the best interests of those they ‘represent’……and in doing this they act ‘responsibly’. The rep’ becomes empowered, but those they are supposed to represent become dis-empowered. Over time it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – the rep’s become the informed shepherds, and the represented become the uninformed and apathetic sheep – and that then confirms the need for rep’s.
The shepherds then collude with the farmer – they squabble, responsibly, about details rather than fundamental principles, so they converge in a common mindset. Representation is a way of educating and training the rep’s in to a shared mindset. You can see this often with Union officials and management, or student rep’s and staff. The agenda is mostly set by the farmers / managers, but they want a positive outcome, want to be benevolent, will make concessions, and the shepherds get co-opted in to that. Student engagement via ‘trustee rep’s’ is mostly a waste of time, but it might make the managers / teachers more informed, and make the reps feel important and respected.
It would work better via direct democracy, and by abandoning manager / teacher / student roles. Which is maybe where your final paragraph is heading. But students need some time initially to establish their own agenda and mindset, on their own, without us nudging them in the direction we want them to go. We’re often reluctant to do this because we have our own occupational interests to protect.
But, the same problem also exists in the relation between senior management and staff – do senior management really engage with staff ? Think of the ways in which Brian Lister attempted to do this. He wants us to engage with his agenda, and his agenda is at least in part shaped by his own self-delusion, his own career goals, and his own needs. A College strategic objectives summary that begins with the statement that ‘SCE will inspire…….’ is not really about engagement, it’s about impression management and corporate self-delusion.
It’s like Locke’s problem of ‘express consent’ versus ‘tacit consent’. A genuine process of ‘engagement’ would want to be founded on express consent, but it’s usually tacit consent – compliance rather than consent.
Similarly with the HMI. Who did they engage with to work out what their current inspection agenda should be ? And how can they engage with teachers and learners on a 3 day visit.
In all this you can make use of Foucault’s conception of power. In working in the college you tacitly buy in to a management agenda, and they govern and engage via compliance rather than consent. Ditto for students. In doing this they reflect the wider discourse and procedures of liberal representative democracy.
But things move on, ideas are released in to the world, unintended effects occur. But the risk is always that elitism prevails, and mostly we remain or return to being compliant ‘sheep’…….or become rustlers, bandits, gypsies, drifters, living in the highplains but coming down to the valleys to earn a living as a compliant sheep and pretending to be engaged.
The Janus Face of Learner Engagement
Traditional discourses of learner engagement in college policy and practices have been shaped by the knowledge and understanding of liberal representative democracy, with its underpinning values of individualism and rights. Notions of representation have been influential in establishing a pattern of roles for engagement within the college as an institution. Ideas around empowerment through representation have come to dominate discursive practices, arguably creating a circuit of power that controls what can and cannot be voiced.
A review of literature and language concerning learner engagement demonstrates the dominance of a liberal democratic discourse : empowering learners, personalised education, rights and citizenship . Together they create a compelling image of learners being fully engaged with education settings, and attaining more power and control over their education.
Within a college, this usually involves student representative systems e.g. student guild, course and college committees where 'agenda-setting’ subsequently shapes what students think and, talk about. This could be viewed as empowerment of students, but it could also be considered a control device. However, an offshoot would be that it creates in the students a sense of their 'rights', and a greater willingness therefore to complain.
Scott (1990) drawing from the work of Foucault , asks about what is hidden within the power relations , but also recognises that both the powerful and the powerless are constrained in their behaviour.
In developing an alternative discourse of learner engagement we had to acknowledge that power operates within the established everyday relations that have become ingrained in the life of the college. We needed to establish a forum that would free all actors from their roles, and create opportunities for alternative discussions.
Direct particiation
Ya…..sounds OK, but been teaching for past 6 hours so I’m a bit dozy.
If you use a word like dialectical in this sort of paper, for this audience, then you might be better to use a different word, or briefly say what you mean by it.
Similarly, when you say ‘liberal democracy’ you’d be better saying ‘liberal representative democracy’.
The problem with representation is that it is an elitist approach, springs from an elitist mindset, and almost always quickly turns the rep’s in to an ‘elite’. The rep’s tend not to represent anyone except themselves. The idea of a rep’ is someone who is a ‘trustee’, they get to use their own judgement about what is in the best interests of those they ‘represent’……and in doing this they act ‘responsibly’. The rep’ becomes empowered, but those they are supposed to represent become dis-empowered. Over time it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – the rep’s become the informed shepherds, and the represented become the uninformed and apathetic sheep – and that then confirms the need for rep’s.
The shepherds then collude with the farmer – they squabble, responsibly, about details rather than fundamental principles, so they converge in a common mindset. Representation is a way of educating and training the rep’s in to a shared mindset. You can see this often with Union officials and management, or student rep’s and staff. The agenda is mostly set by the farmers / managers, but they want a positive outcome, want to be benevolent, will make concessions, and the shepherds get co-opted in to that. Student engagement via ‘trustee rep’s’ is mostly a waste of time, but it might make the managers / teachers more informed, and make the reps feel important and respected.
It would work better via direct democracy, and by abandoning manager / teacher / student roles. Which is maybe where your final paragraph is heading. But students need some time initially to establish their own agenda and mindset, on their own, without us nudging them in the direction we want them to go. We’re often reluctant to do this because we have our own occupational interests to protect.
But, the same problem also exists in the relation between senior management and staff – do senior management really engage with staff ? Think of the ways in which Brian Lister attempted to do this. He wants us to engage with his agenda, and his agenda is at least in part shaped by his own self-delusion, his own career goals, and his own needs. A College strategic objectives summary that begins with the statement that ‘SCE will inspire…….’ is not really about engagement, it’s about impression management and corporate self-delusion.
It’s like Locke’s problem of ‘express consent’ versus ‘tacit consent’. A genuine process of ‘engagement’ would want to be founded on express consent, but it’s usually tacit consent – compliance rather than consent.
Similarly with the HMI. Who did they engage with to work out what their current inspection agenda should be ? And how can they engage with teachers and learners on a 3 day visit.
In all this you can make use of Foucault’s conception of power. In working in the college you tacitly buy in to a management agenda, and they govern and engage via compliance rather than consent. Ditto for students. In doing this they reflect the wider discourse and procedures of liberal representative democracy.
But things move on, ideas are released in to the world, unintended effects occur. But the risk is always that elitism prevails, and mostly we remain or return to being compliant ‘sheep’…….or become rustlers, bandits, gypsies, drifters, living in the highplains but coming down to the valleys to earn a living as a compliant sheep and pretending to be engaged.
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