Teaching wars.

It's not helping.

“And so,” said the Lorax -please pardon my cough- they cannot live here. So I’m sending them off. Where will they go?…I don’t hopefully know. They may have to fly for a month…or a year…To escape from the smog you’ve smogged-up around here. - Dr Suess

Photo by Al Soot on Unsplash

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Listen to the podcast segment of Ideology in Education (at 7:49) based on this blog post for the Teacher’s Education Review below 👇.

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If you couldn’t tell from the introductory quote, I’ve been reading a bit of Dr Seuss lately (one of the many benefits of having a small child).

I couldn’t help but notice how the story of The Lorax, although its fundamental theme surrounds environmental care and the limitations of capitalism, is in some ways analogous to what we’re seeing in Australian education and teaching at the moment.

Though it would be naive to paint the Australia’s education system as originally a utopia, things are certainly looking a bit smoggy.

Starting to cough.

Australian education finds itself in a time where teachers are increasingly leaving the profession. Australian Education Minister Jason Clare has been working to address this issue, but it seems as though it’s going to be a fairly hard road ahead for schools.

Despite the ever-growing shortages of teacher across Australia, conservative media continues to berate the teaching workforce, which often doesn’t earn a wage strong enough to live within a short distance of their school community.

Sadly, it’s no longer just the media simply creating the smog.

Teachers are now turning against teachers, including those who helped get them into their classrooms. There is now a powerful and growing network of teachers, researchers and think-tanks, armed with what is often claimed as the “science of learning” (this network of actors can be plainly seen in the “More good responses to the TEEP report recommendations” section of this post from Ollie Lovell), determined to dominate the discussion of what education and teaching ought to look like. There is a genuine desire amongst this network to enact change in education for the better, but it is not without its problems. In my experience, there seems to be an unwillingness amongst many who follow this network to acknowledge or engage with valid, alternative perspectives and evidence. Instead, this network applies political pressure as a means of enforcing a specific agenda, leaving its basic assumptions left unexamined.

What’s more, we have an education minister who has deliberately raised the arbitrary standards of Australia’s National Assessment for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), seemingly as a means to manufacture an educational crisis to justify further reforms. Apparently, ‘the new needs additional support level is a better representation of students who need additional support’ (NAP, 2023, para. 12). However, there seems to be little justification for this claim. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop the media from perpetuating a discourse of crisis (for a critical perspective of the recently released NAPLAN data, read this post by Dr Sally Larsen).

Let’s not forget the think tanks that like to get on the bandwagon (i.e. The Centre for Independent Studies and The Grattan Institute), whose core work now seems very much tied to the legitimisation of pre-determined educational policy directives rather than truly independent research.

Are you coughing yet?

Moving to greener pastures.

The number one priority area of the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan is to improve teacher supply.

Have we forgotten about this?

I’m beginning to wonder how we expect to entice more to enter the teaching profession with all this smog. It seems more likely to me that current discourse surrounding Australian teachers and education will further entrench the difficulties schools are already experiencing as a result of teacher shortages. As teacher judgment becomes increasingly replaced by “what works”, as teachers continue to have their value spoken over them by those on the outside and as long as hegemonic discourse is equated with truth, I believe that Australian education will continue to experience challenges with teacher supply. This is not simply a responsibility of initial teacher education providers, teachers and researchers, but that of the public, politicians, journalists and the media. If we really believe in the value of education, then we all have a stake in its success.

I am quite convinced that if we can’t hear, listen to, or dialogue with one another, passionate teachers will continue to seek greener pastures.

They may have to fly for a month…or a year…

But given all the conflict surrounding what education ought to look like in Australia and what is seen as necessary to achieve these aims, how might teachers, leaders and communities respond to the current climate of education and schooling? What kind of attempt could be made to clear the educational smog that besets the Australian landscape?

Hear them out.

It is within this current educational climate that I believe the work of David Bohm, a renowned theoretical physicist and philosopher, and his case for dialogue, to be a possible way forward in addressing the current challenges for Australian education.

Bohm laments that communication between people seems to be 'breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale' (Bohm, 2004, p. 1). We cannot agree, nor reconcile our differences. The human race seems to have lost its ability to listen to one another, unable to quell the impulsivity to defend opinions and beliefs with white knuckles and violence.

It is from this place that Bohm argues that something must be done. Civilisation cannot continue at the level of dysfunctional communication that currently plagues the contemporary world. This is as true to civilisation as it is for education. It also seems true now as it was when it was written that 'love will go away if we can't communicate and share meaning' (Bohm, 2004, p. 54).

Dialogue is seen to contribute to a possible solution to this predicament. It is important to note that dialogue is not seen as the solution but an important means of arriving at a solution. It is an essential tool in moving the human race forward, but does not comprise of the way forward. Bohm's dialogue has neither goals nor expected outcomes. It is not a conversation, nor a discussion or negotiation. A dialogue, as described by Bohm (2004, p. 53) 'is the collective way of opening up judgments and assumptions.' In other words, it’s about letting people speak collectively so that they themselves (as well as those listening) may articulate and hear their thoughts, observing and holding captive assumptions laden within them. It is about thought, being aware of thought and considering the assumptions that guide it.

The general idea here as I understand it is to create an open space of collective, articulated thought, in order to provide opportunities for reflection, consideration and transformation. Bohm (2004, p. 53) considers the most important thing within a dialogue between individuals 'the softening up, the opening of the mind, and looking at all the opinions' within a group. This may not lead to transformation, nor does it ensure civil relationships between individuals and groups, but it may just do so.

Bohm's dialogue may be a way of reviving aims talk in education, to sort through the ideological mess and assumptions, in order to come to some form of shared meaning of education. To counteract the polarising and conflicting effects of educational ideologies, maybe a space needs to be created that does not seek goals or outputs, but allows for those with a stake in education to simply dialogue with one another. This could happen online, in staff meetings, in focus groups with students or parents, for example.

In my experience however, the best way to begin this process is to ask questions.

So what do you think about it?

(see what I did there?)

Till next time,

References

Bohm, D., & Weinberg, R. A. (2004). On Dialogue. St. Louis, United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis Group.