PART 3: THE PARADOX OF PEDAGOGY

THE PARADOX OF PEDAGOGY

 

 

 

 

The cornerstone of my teacher training in the mid-seventies was in pegging those events and processes that would lead to a group or class of students learning something. It may seem like I’m stating the obvious but methodology was all-important in those times. Moreover, such methodology would be as applicable to a science lesson as it would be to a physical education session out in the playground.

 

The ‘lesson plan’ soon became the currency unit in both my training and probation years as a teacher. In fact, lesson plans played a significant role in my first decade on the job……. and maybe then some.

 

Typically, the lesson plan would comprise an introduction to the topic or skill, the body of the lesson including the teaching points and subsequent consolidation and, finally, the conclusion. Now what occurred in each of those phases might change depending on the subject and the material or skills being dealt with, but the basic anatomy of the lesson remained intact.

 

Even when I had attained the lofty status of an ‘experienced’ teacher and presented myself for placement on the first promotions’ list in 1984, the schools’ inspector wanted to see three of my lesson plans before she even walked into my classroom to observe and examine my practice. Moreover, I employed lesson plans similar to that described above throughout my career. They certainly weren’t as involved, in terms of written memory joggers, but the ‘course’ of my lessons followed these markers and stages on a regular basis.

 

My point in disclosing this riveting teaching methodology is to highlight the fact that there was a framework for instructing students and that the lesson plan described an ordered and logical progression of knowledge acquisition and skills development. Just as importantly, the lesson plan informed the teacher as to what teaching and learning activities might occur in certain phases of any lesson. Even more simply, this methodology provided a guide to the types of things that would happen in a lesson and what the teacher and his or her students might be doing………. at least to a certain extent.

 

Allied with all of this stuff about planning and teaching were training and development processes. I can vividly remember participating in numerous inservices over the first half of my career which had as their focus both the rapidly changing content within the curriculum and ways in which this content could be presented within a classroom. Teaching styles and methodologies formed integral components of this training.

 

The turn of the century brought two ‘bandits’ into school world, namely, the anticipated and feared Y2K ‘bug’ and ‘pedagogy’. Thankfully, the former didn’t have the time or opportunity to flex its mythical pincers but the latter has remained until the present day. Pedagogy’s resilience can be put down to its unique ability to be able to morph into anything that the user wants it to mean and, trust me, there has been a long queue of users.

 

John Gore, in an article entitled ‘Pedagogy Rediscovered?’ (2001), explored the notion of pedagogy in relation to where a teacher’s practice, or craft of teaching, may sit on a teacher-centred versus student-centred continuum. As the CEO of the Department’s HSIE unit, he recognised and suggested that an emphasis on the ‘student-centred’ was, indeed, the way of the future. Gore also asserted that new components of the curriculum being developed at that time would nurture this changing emphasis.

 

The CEO highlighted some vague mug-sheet characteristics of the preferred pedagogy but, interestingly, conceded that, ‘Although the Board (of Studies) may recommend pedagogy, it is unlikely to prescribe it. Pedagogy…..remains the province of individual teachers.’ Now while it would be unfair to expect Gore to closely examine and focus on what might happen in the ‘brave new world’ classroom, given the length of his article, the paucity of even some simple examples just has to be noted.

 

The emergence of ‘Quality teaching in NSW public schools’ in 2003 was the next step in pedagogy’s ascendency. And pedagogy’s right to exist was now undeniable- ‘……the nature and quality of pedagogy is their (i.e. teachers’) core business.’ (Page 4)

 

Briefly, this 2003 document identified three dimensions of pedagogy which formed the model for New South Wales’ schools, namely, Intellectual Quality, a Quality Learning Environment and Significance. In turn, each of these dimensions possessed six elements which would serve as indicators, or signposts, for those dimensions.

 

Unlike Gore’s smoke signals alerting the believers to pedagogy’s approach, ‘Quality teaching in NSW public schools’ defined itself as a broad manifesto of teaching practice which would rocket schools into the 21^st century. In addition, all those above-mentioned elements of each dimension had ‘What does it look like in classrooms?’ windows which would inform and guide the teaching craft.

 

However, like Gore’s short treatise, this much longer and more official document proved just as elusive in actually pegging effective classroom practices, despite its claims. In particular, the translation of a dimension’s elements into recognisable behaviours and scenes within the salt mines was problematic. When dealing with the element of Deep understanding, the eager teacher was confronted with ‘Students develop a profound and meaningful understanding of central ideas and the relationships between and among those central ideas.’ One doesn’t have to deconstruct this statement to realise that it describes an endpoint for learning rather than a ‘modus operandi’ for the teaching craft.

 

Alarmingly, ‘Quality teaching in NSW public schools’ also contained the caveat ‘Generating a long list of specific elements of teaching is not well supported by pedagogical research.’ It certainly seemed quite odd that a document espousing a proactive teaching and learning methodology didn’t want to be bogged down by the very elements that would make that happen.

 

And that’s both the problem and the paradox of pedagogy. Pedagogy can only take you to the front door of the classroom as the students enter or hang around the exit as those same students leave. The actual teaching and learning processes and activities that should be happening inside the classroom form a sort of no-man’s-land with respect to the models of pedagogy I’ve described. To be even more analytical, the closest that pedagogy comes to real classroom ‘action’ in New South Wales’ Public School Land can be viewed (with the assistance of some strong binoculars) in the statement: ‘Teachers should be flexible and adaptable in their use of programs and strategies’. (Effective pedagogical practices)

 

But why might there be this wasteland regarding the essential elements of an effective pedagogy, especially when that pedagogy is heralded as ‘the thing’ that makes the difference both in, and between, classrooms? There are a couple of reasons that may account for this apparent dilemma.

 

The first is that the town-criers for pedagogy are routinely not teachers. The very stake-holders who you would think have the sole concession for its use are, in fact, divorced from defining or helping formulate it. Pedagogy ‘perps’ include politicians, senior educational administrators, teacher education dons, principals and some in-school executive groups. Of course, the one characteristic that unites these often divergent groups is their absence from actual working classrooms.

 

Secondly, the increasingly political use of ‘pedagogy’ as a brick bat to fend off attacks on how classrooms might be better resourced in order to secure improved student outcomes requires strong illumination. If the ‘users’ can deflect all discussions on important educational matters to a railway track siding of individual teachers and their cool or uncool practices, then the precise detailing of an effective pedagogy would prove to be counter-productive. One simply has to nominate the domain of the teacher as the field of dreams which, in turn, exonerates those other factors that might cost a lot to deal with or even threaten the power positions of the educational elite themselves.

 

None of this is meant to negate the professional responsibilities of teachers to improve, develop or enhance their practices. But that imperative has always formed a crucial part of a teacher’s armoury and should continue to do so. However, the pedagogy ‘mirage’, as it currently stands, isn’t assisting the profession and should be seen for what it truly is.

 

To conclude, pedagogy is a very slippery creature which is far removed from its original role as a tool. Unfortunately, it is fast becoming a stick…………. and a very big one at that.