We need to slow down.
In a world of ever growing speed, the dominant "commonsense" wins.
Listen to the podcast segment of Ideology in Education (at 10:04) based on this blog post for the Teacher’s Education Review below 👇.
I want you to think about those moments in the year that you’re pressed for time as a teacher. This could be reporting time, parent teacher interviews, exam preparation, etc. What happens to your teaching practice during these times?
Ideology as commonsense.
It is my thinking that ideology functions as a commonsense in education, such that when our focus is diverted from the work of teaching (whether that be designing units, assessments or face-to-face time with our students) to administrative or pastoral demands, we fall back to these commonsense beliefs to ground ourselves and keep the whole thing rolling. Often, it is these commonsense beliefs that we rarely interrogate because they’re based upon assumptions about what education is and what it is for.
Teachers are busy.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. As teachers, we already work our butts off to meet the demands of the job. Preservation of mental health is a good thing. However, do you ever find as a teacher you are so busy with the administrative work (i.e. getting unit plans organised, completing another online module for accountability of teachers, marking assessments, etc.) that you don’t have the time to think through whether what you’re doing is actually meeting the needs of your students and communities in the ways that you hope and desire?
Teachers are busy, don’t get me wrong. But maybe we need to be intentional about saying no to slow down, in order to say yes to what we believe is important for our practice and school community.
Busyness can distract from purpose and aims.
The reason I suggest this, is that I believe that it is easy for teachers to easily slip into the dominant ideologies and narratives surrounding education that are not actually in alignment with their beliefs about it’s purpose. We may have particular desires for education that if we really spent time reflecting on it, we aren’t meeting. Why is this so? Often, the dominant ideologies influencing education will be the ones we slide towards as these are all around us demanding our attention and allegiance. After all, it is much easier to do what you’re told (not very subtle), then to take responsibility for one’s actions to ensure they’re in fact desirable.
Coming back to the point of it all.
Why are you a teacher?
What is it you want to do as a teacher?
Lastly, how are you realising this within your practice?
I understand that the above questions are individually centric and that teaching is more than just an individual outlet for one’s inner desires. However, questions like these can serve as an important starting point for individual teachers to begin reflecting on their practice in a way that might transform their individual desires into collective ones.
I like to think that I spend time reflecting on my practice and though this is often true, it is certainly difficult to keep as a regular routine. The school I currently work at has a theme this year of rhythm. Recently, I set out specific activities that I would do each day on a weekly basis, to help enter into a kind of rhythm. Granted, it took me a semester before I finally got to it (“Set up rhythm” was in my To Do application for some time!) but I have intentionally set myself aside some time during the week to actually pause, read and think through whether my beliefs are aligning with my practice and to begin to make changes that are needed (in other words, engaging in praxis). Though my practice will continue to embody characteristics of the dominant ideologies influencing education, I am hoping this time will allow me to consider how I might engage other ways of seeing education and enact this in my practice.
I hope you can do so to.