To suggest that the professionalization of adult basic skills teaching is impossible is to engage in futurology.
It assumes that the outcome of and response to a complex process can be predicted. There are no templates upon which to base any predictions.
What is distinct about the process for adult basic skills teachers is that the process is policy driven rather than practitioner driven. And that on other instances where a professionalization process ha been policy driven it is most often associated with a loss of status or autonomy. The autonomy enjoyed by basic skills practitioners was a marginalised autonomy. The abiding image is of the portakabin in college car park, few knew and fewer cared what went on there. It was a useful 'dumping' ground for college no hopers. Practice developed in this space of relative freedom.
But this is not the autonomy enjoyed by those who experience the glare of publicity attendant to becoming a 'government priority' is a loss of status and imposition of control. There are then aspects of the professionalization of basic skills teaching that are welcome. Not least of all years of unprecedented public investment. But there are also costs.
What I can assert with confidence is that the professionalization of basic skills teaching may be possible, but it is also fraught with tensions, constraints and ambiguities.
These ambiguities amount to a rescripting, the abandonment of the hallmarks of basic skills practice, I next consider whether this professionalization process is desirable.
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Monday, 2 August 2010
Conferences
I need to review and elaborate upon my 6 part plan. It needs to include a conference paper presentation – that may or may not be accepted. I need to pursue new ground while fitting in with what I am interested in. I like the idea of trainee teachers’ conceptions of literacy: specialist and non-specialist.
This is about defining the space a want to occupy. It is thrilling and scary. I need to identify the space I want to occupy.
Sunday, 1 August 2010
Literacy as a solipsistic creative act
Part of the need to be explicit about what it is I am doing with my 50 words a day and the insistence that it is a private communication in a public space is the potential solipsism of it all.
Writing for an audience – my academic supervisor and people who will judge and classify my work – is fine. Writing for a publisher – despite its pretentions is also fine. After all – I have worked hard and how else do I ensure I reach the number and kinds of people I want to engage in this ‘ongoing conversation over time’. But writing for the ‘self’ is at odds.
And so I create and imagine an audience. Perhaps my ideal reader here is myself. Or people like me. Academics who seek out a space in between, the ‘hybridised’ third spaces.
I am interested and want to write at some point – once I elaborate upon my 6 part plan – about metaphor. There is danger here. But writing about metaphors for literacy appeals to me:
· paradise, nightmare of red herring
· quantifiable or cognitive skills or process
· solipsistic creative act – a moment of aesthetic or creative commission
· silver bullet the pierces the heart of economic decline
· as craft
· as labour
· as semiotic production and cultural practice with specific ideological and material consequences
‘Each definition is legitimated, enacted and realised in the field text production and exchange.’ (Luke, 2008) p 78
I have really enjoyed this essay and want to read more. In reading I feel I have eaten a luscious 3 course meal. One that has combined taste and texture in beautiful surroundings.
I want to read more. My understanding ranges and does not feel complete – but this is good. I need to struggle with text and if I am not struggling then I feel as if I am not learning. It’s boring to read text that o can skit through and get. This text demands to be revisited and read and savoured a few times. It leaves me feeling both fulfilled and hungry.
I like his positioning of himself in the text. I am reminded of question of can I use I in my text. I am sure that Cameron, Ivanic and others have had this discussion. My emotional reaction is I want to know I am engaged with a person – that this is a social exchange – the refusal to name and locate seems a refusal to be present to engage. Luke positions himself and describes his text as an intergenerational ‘gift’ given and received in an economy of exchange. Heteroglossic. A taking in turns across time and space, a mediated riposte.
It is something to do with trust and with my primordial need to trust the writer. Or at least to know who he is. It is also an attempt to make it clear that we exist within the academy. It is not solipsistic.
He is searching in this text for a literacy pedagogy that does not recreate docile bodies, but one that creates productive, transformative and agentic literate subjects.
A positive pedagogic model.
LUKE, A. 2008. Pedagogy as gift. In: LUKE, A. & ALBRIGHT, J. (eds.) Pierre Bourdieu and Literacy Education. London: Routedge, Taylor & Francis.
Saturday, 31 July 2010
ideas and secrets
I want to start each blog with a quote. I warn that the quote need not relate to the text below but may indicate my desire to be thinking in many directions at one time. I will get better at this blogging. But for now, it's a valuable motivational space that does not need to be good. Some of this - most of this is after all 'vomit'. 'Good' in this context and perhaps in other contexts too - is just a way of censoring.
Many students who fail early literacy are refusing a form of cultural exchange that is increasingly marked out as commodity exchange - an institutional exchange with costs and benefits from extensive 'buy-in' and rewards that often are inaccessible and invisible. This institutional exchange increasingly is dominated by corporate texts and legislated pedagogic scripts.
Luke 2008 Pedagogy as Gift Chapter 8 in Albright and Luke (Eds) Pierre Bourdieu and Literacy Education, Routledge Taylor & Francis: London
Someone will have written something about blogging. For now I have to say these words are in a public space - deliberately and consciously so but to work have to be written as if there is no public.
And this is what I presume. After all, why would it be interesting or relevant to anyone except me?
I think I have somewhere the idea that written is always and already a communicative act. The idea of writing as self communication seems unconvincing. So a public space for what is a private communication. For now this makes the difference to what and how I write.
That is the public nature of this private blog ensures that I discuss ideas rather than secrets.
(Blog is not in my spell check. Not even the one attached to my blog.)
So my paper - in 3 parts - 'Is the Professionalisation of adult basic skills teaching possible, desirable or inevitable?' The desirable aspects of my discussion is sophisticated. I will not merely reproduce it but will neaten and tighten it. The possible is the part I need to work on. The inevitable - I can weave my EdD research into.
But 'The possible' I want to explore 3 lines:
i) the area is fragmented and the place and organisational culture that surrounds the multiple sites within which basic skills teaching may take place makes the emergence of a single cohesive professional culture extremely difficult. It is not just that each space has its own series of contingencies. It is rather the role the teacher may play is radically different and defies a general set of principles, ethics, orientation and therefore identity. The nature of the diversity is other than the nature of the diversity professional use to justify their closed shop autonomy. Even within a single institution this is true (quote the improving learning cultures). It is the divergent nature of the field makes the enterprise fraught.
Hillier 'Nothing will prevent me from doing a good job' might help to define the occupational filed and its fragmented diversity.
ii) the specialised nature of the subject area is in doubt. Unlike many teachers in FE who have what might be called a 'dual' professionalism - one that they maintain when the move into the sector and which they base a high degree of credibility upon, the basic skills teacher has not such duality. The mature of their subject knowledge is public - in as much as it is reading and writing - this has changed to a large extent with the introduction of the core-curriculum documents. But there are distinct strands even within adult basic skills that view reading and writing as a public and shared domain - I here refer to Kohl - reading, how to. What basic skills teachers know - reading and writing - is known to everyone. It is no more then common sense. Similarly to teaching in general - after all we have all been taught and taught someone something. There is no secret garden.
iii) my final line of argument refers to the notion of adult basic skills teaching as distinctly anti-professional. What I mean - somewhere caught up in notions of professionalism are notions of 'client' a relationship between expert and laity. I want to argue for the pervasiveness of Frierean thought. The belief in equity as a fundamental driver. The teacher-student / student-teacher dynamic. The reading the word and reading the world. I want here to make reference to the barefoot professional. Usher and Edwards (check) offer 3 typologies of worker identity - activist, professional and entrepreneur. The basic skills teacher is an entrepreneur. I also suggest that in part the low status of the client group is surely connected to the low status of the occupational group. That as time changes - newer recruits shift away from the principles and politics of basic skills teaching.
Hillier might help here - the argument is that what drives workers is a commitment to social justice and equity.
This seems a fine set of arguments.
My linking idea that shifts from possible to desirable has to be based on more recent pronouncements that actually this shift has happened. I may quote here NRDC literature that assumes the professionalism of adult basic skills teaching. Along with a raft of other measures. It is possible - that this may be a prescribed rather than enacted professionalism - it is possible that this merely institutionalises the barefoot professionalism that I refer to earlier.
But with what consequences? This links me to arguments about the desirability of these changes.
I want to read Pierre Bourdieu and Literacy Education. I have it but feel I have to focus on the story in hand. It feels like a treat I have waiting for me.
Many students who fail early literacy are refusing a form of cultural exchange that is increasingly marked out as commodity exchange - an institutional exchange with costs and benefits from extensive 'buy-in' and rewards that often are inaccessible and invisible. This institutional exchange increasingly is dominated by corporate texts and legislated pedagogic scripts.
Luke 2008 Pedagogy as Gift Chapter 8 in Albright and Luke (Eds) Pierre Bourdieu and Literacy Education, Routledge Taylor & Francis: London
Someone will have written something about blogging. For now I have to say these words are in a public space - deliberately and consciously so but to work have to be written as if there is no public.
And this is what I presume. After all, why would it be interesting or relevant to anyone except me?
I think I have somewhere the idea that written is always and already a communicative act. The idea of writing as self communication seems unconvincing. So a public space for what is a private communication. For now this makes the difference to what and how I write.
That is the public nature of this private blog ensures that I discuss ideas rather than secrets.
(Blog is not in my spell check. Not even the one attached to my blog.)
So my paper - in 3 parts - 'Is the Professionalisation of adult basic skills teaching possible, desirable or inevitable?' The desirable aspects of my discussion is sophisticated. I will not merely reproduce it but will neaten and tighten it. The possible is the part I need to work on. The inevitable - I can weave my EdD research into.
But 'The possible' I want to explore 3 lines:
i) the area is fragmented and the place and organisational culture that surrounds the multiple sites within which basic skills teaching may take place makes the emergence of a single cohesive professional culture extremely difficult. It is not just that each space has its own series of contingencies. It is rather the role the teacher may play is radically different and defies a general set of principles, ethics, orientation and therefore identity. The nature of the diversity is other than the nature of the diversity professional use to justify their closed shop autonomy. Even within a single institution this is true (quote the improving learning cultures). It is the divergent nature of the field makes the enterprise fraught.
Hillier 'Nothing will prevent me from doing a good job' might help to define the occupational filed and its fragmented diversity.
ii) the specialised nature of the subject area is in doubt. Unlike many teachers in FE who have what might be called a 'dual' professionalism - one that they maintain when the move into the sector and which they base a high degree of credibility upon, the basic skills teacher has not such duality. The mature of their subject knowledge is public - in as much as it is reading and writing - this has changed to a large extent with the introduction of the core-curriculum documents. But there are distinct strands even within adult basic skills that view reading and writing as a public and shared domain - I here refer to Kohl - reading, how to. What basic skills teachers know - reading and writing - is known to everyone. It is no more then common sense. Similarly to teaching in general - after all we have all been taught and taught someone something. There is no secret garden.
iii) my final line of argument refers to the notion of adult basic skills teaching as distinctly anti-professional. What I mean - somewhere caught up in notions of professionalism are notions of 'client' a relationship between expert and laity. I want to argue for the pervasiveness of Frierean thought. The belief in equity as a fundamental driver. The teacher-student / student-teacher dynamic. The reading the word and reading the world. I want here to make reference to the barefoot professional. Usher and Edwards (check) offer 3 typologies of worker identity - activist, professional and entrepreneur. The basic skills teacher is an entrepreneur. I also suggest that in part the low status of the client group is surely connected to the low status of the occupational group. That as time changes - newer recruits shift away from the principles and politics of basic skills teaching.
Hillier might help here - the argument is that what drives workers is a commitment to social justice and equity.
This seems a fine set of arguments.
My linking idea that shifts from possible to desirable has to be based on more recent pronouncements that actually this shift has happened. I may quote here NRDC literature that assumes the professionalism of adult basic skills teaching. Along with a raft of other measures. It is possible - that this may be a prescribed rather than enacted professionalism - it is possible that this merely institutionalises the barefoot professionalism that I refer to earlier.
But with what consequences? This links me to arguments about the desirability of these changes.
I want to read Pierre Bourdieu and Literacy Education. I have it but feel I have to focus on the story in hand. It feels like a treat I have waiting for me.
Friday, 30 July 2010
Frustration - 50 obligatory
Findsen B. The Professionalisation of Adult Educators: Issues and Challenges. Journal of Adult Learning Aotearoa New Zealand [serial on the Internet]. (2009, July), [cited July 30, 2010]; 37(1): 27-43. Available from: Education Research Complete.
This is what I want to read. I can find the reference but not the text. Not anywhere - not in any of my libraries, not on amazon not any of the many many searches.
Still - the reassuring point is that it at least seems to explore ideas that I know are relevant and recent and cover the kind of ground I am interesting in. It points perhaps to the depthlesness of my own argument - but for the aspect I want to explore this line is an introduction rather then the main point of the paper. I had rather though things had move on - but this does suggest that somewhere there are writers who want to talk and write about the same thing.
So - a day of frustration - but a day of legitimation and the knowing that there are others out there.
This is useful, Bottery (2003) his hierarchy of Trust - the use of metaphor interests me.
calculative trust - the logician
practice trust - the gardener
role trust - the professional
identificatory trust - the musician
There is no assumption that each encounter requires or aspires to the identificatory trust; this is not the case. It is rather that lack of trust where it is required is experienced as a violation. Once broken it is expensive and time consuming to repaired. The required reweaving never manages to return the fabric to new.
Of course I remember my tutors comment - Halpin - quoting some place, someone or other - trust is written into the grammar of our relationships.
These are 50 obligatory words.
This is what I want to read. I can find the reference but not the text. Not anywhere - not in any of my libraries, not on amazon not any of the many many searches.
Still - the reassuring point is that it at least seems to explore ideas that I know are relevant and recent and cover the kind of ground I am interesting in. It points perhaps to the depthlesness of my own argument - but for the aspect I want to explore this line is an introduction rather then the main point of the paper. I had rather though things had move on - but this does suggest that somewhere there are writers who want to talk and write about the same thing.
So - a day of frustration - but a day of legitimation and the knowing that there are others out there.
This is useful, Bottery (2003) his hierarchy of Trust - the use of metaphor interests me.
calculative trust - the logician
practice trust - the gardener
role trust - the professional
identificatory trust - the musician
There is no assumption that each encounter requires or aspires to the identificatory trust; this is not the case. It is rather that lack of trust where it is required is experienced as a violation. Once broken it is expensive and time consuming to repaired. The required reweaving never manages to return the fabric to new.
Of course I remember my tutors comment - Halpin - quoting some place, someone or other - trust is written into the grammar of our relationships.
These are 50 obligatory words.
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Some words ... they come more easily than others
I'm rather caught by these ideas of 'imagination' the sociological imagination - social scientific imagination - literary imagination - professional imagination. It allows a connection between academic writing and creativity.
I agree with the idea of all writing - including academic writing - as story telling and that a fluent well written text is seductive; that is, it disarms the reader and part of its truth criterion is based not on the value of the argument but the emotional engagement it seems to draw from the reader.
And so the 'professional imagination' Power 2008: 144 enables us as workers to create a space between an over-individualised self and an over-determined self. I don't want to be a dupe and am not always, everyday brave enough to be a hero.
Besides, my experienced is embodied; it happens to and in my body. But sometimes my experience is merely the mechanism through which wider social and political structures are able to articulate themselves. there is determination, obduracy. Yet, I have the capacity to react differently to these system structure's and forces: to accept my fate, to hit my head repeatedly against a brick wall. Or to adopt a more imagination response.
Ok - these blogs need a structures. I suspect the format of a quote and a discussion will do.
Much of everyday life used to be based on a high degree of trust between people, but now trust is less personalised, and more invested in processes and abstract systems.
The result of this is a challenge to the taken-for-grantedness of everyday life; a threat to the 'ontological security' of the self. Giddens, 1991
It threatens the ontological-security of the self in other ways. There is a 'game playing' balance between a warts and all presentation of self - one that creates the impression of accurate analysis and sound judgement while at the same time presenting the best possible image of who you are and what you are doing. The anaesthetised self.
But these are not new ideas for me. Just a new forum for writing. New ways of expressing what I want to say. Or at least a new forum for saying it.
The mere fact of trust being invested in processes and abstract systems suggest a distinct lack of trust n individuals. It is a reminder that the individual can not or should not be trusted. With immense psychological strength a person may refuse to take this personally. But in the same way we can only experience the world 'as a person' in the world. So the mistrust of the professional is happening to me and not to me at the same time. This requires perhaps a sense of self disassociation.
Anyway enough blabbing.
August is coming.
I agree with the idea of all writing - including academic writing - as story telling and that a fluent well written text is seductive; that is, it disarms the reader and part of its truth criterion is based not on the value of the argument but the emotional engagement it seems to draw from the reader.
And so the 'professional imagination' Power 2008: 144 enables us as workers to create a space between an over-individualised self and an over-determined self. I don't want to be a dupe and am not always, everyday brave enough to be a hero.
Besides, my experienced is embodied; it happens to and in my body. But sometimes my experience is merely the mechanism through which wider social and political structures are able to articulate themselves. there is determination, obduracy. Yet, I have the capacity to react differently to these system structure's and forces: to accept my fate, to hit my head repeatedly against a brick wall. Or to adopt a more imagination response.
Ok - these blogs need a structures. I suspect the format of a quote and a discussion will do.
Much of everyday life used to be based on a high degree of trust between people, but now trust is less personalised, and more invested in processes and abstract systems.
The result of this is a challenge to the taken-for-grantedness of everyday life; a threat to the 'ontological security' of the self. Giddens, 1991
It threatens the ontological-security of the self in other ways. There is a 'game playing' balance between a warts and all presentation of self - one that creates the impression of accurate analysis and sound judgement while at the same time presenting the best possible image of who you are and what you are doing. The anaesthetised self.
But these are not new ideas for me. Just a new forum for writing. New ways of expressing what I want to say. Or at least a new forum for saying it.
The mere fact of trust being invested in processes and abstract systems suggest a distinct lack of trust n individuals. It is a reminder that the individual can not or should not be trusted. With immense psychological strength a person may refuse to take this personally. But in the same way we can only experience the world 'as a person' in the world. So the mistrust of the professional is happening to me and not to me at the same time. This requires perhaps a sense of self disassociation.
Anyway enough blabbing.
August is coming.
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