How can I influece my Students in developing their Creativity and Critical Thinking by Giorgio Bertini

UNIVERSITY OF BATH

Department of Education

AN ACTION RESEARCH EXPEDITION: HOW CAN I INFLUENCE MY STUDENTS IN DEVELOPING THEIR CREATIVITY AND CRITICAL THINKING? A SELF STUDY

This dissertation is submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Education by completion of six taught units and dissertation.

BEATRIZ EGÜES DE GRANDI September 2004

COPYRIGHT Attention is drawn to the fact that the copyright of this dissertation rests with this author. This copy of the dissertation has been supplied on condition that any one who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the dissertation and no information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author.

Signed

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DISCLAIMER The opinions expressed in this work are entirely those of the author.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is with pleasure that I acknowledge the help and support that I received from the following people during the period of study for this dissertation. The Humanities students of Year 10 in 2003 for their support and willingness, as well as their participation in this study. G.P. for his ready patience and enjoyment in the task of video recording our lessons. To D.F. and C.R. my critical friends, proof reader and Computers Technical adviser who selflessly gave me their time and patience to complete this task. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Jack Whitehead for his knowledge, punctual reports, encouragement and loving care in guiding me, along this journey, with immeasurable respect for my own learning process.

Beatriz E.Grandi September, 2004.

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AUTHOR DECLARATION

1. The author has not been registered for any other academic award during the period of registration for this study. 2. The material included in this dissertation has not been submitted wholly or in part for any other academic award. 3. The programme of advanced study of which this dissertation is part consisted of completion of the following modules:

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Methods of Educational Enquiry

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Curriculum Studies

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Educational Technology and Development 1

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Educational Technology and Development 2

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Assessment of Pupil Achievement

•

Evaluation

4. Where any material has been previously submitted as part of an assignment within these modules, it is clearly identified.

Beatriz E.Grandi September 2004

Department of Education

MA in Education DISSERTATION TITLE: AN ACTION RESEARCH EXPEDITION: FROM LEARNERS TO THINKERS: HOW CAN I INFLUENCE MY STUDENTS TO THINK CREATIVELY AND CRITICALLY? A SELF STUDY. YEAR OF SUBMISSION: 2004. CATEGORY: for the degree of Master of Education.

ABSTRACT This dissertation is a self-study in the growth of awareness in the practice of my personal values that provide me with standards of judgment against which I test the influence I try to exercise on the development of motivation and empathy, to generate creativity and critically thinking in my students. In this process, the development of my own creativity and critical thinking kept pace with that of my students and co researchers in an equal participation in the task of an action research project that carries throughout the aim of, ‘ How can I improve my practice?’ I describe the birth of my pedagogical concern in child centred education that transformed me from source of knowledge to facilitator of resources to construct skills that allow the practice of discernment in learning. A central theme in my dissertation is the deconstruction of my pedagogy to highlight my manner in teaching, which is the vehicle of choice to transmit my values of honesty, integrity, freedom and justice. The voices of my students guided this journey through my practice presenting evidence of conflicts when I failed to live up to my values. These living contradictions impelled me to engage in the soundless dialogue of myself with myself to generate a living educational theory. This theory emerges from my manner in teaching that fostered in my students’ dispositions to reflect and open their minds and hearts to

honesty through trust and compassion through acceptance of differences. These mature dispositions reflect the values that give purpose to my life and my practice and allow me to claim them as standards of judgment to test the validity of my living educational theory.

TABLE OF CONTENTS. Title page

Acknowledgements

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Authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s declaration

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. FROM LEARNERS TO THINKERS: HOW CAN I INFLUENCE MY STUDENTS

TO THINK CREATIVELY AND CRITICALLY?

JANUARY 2003. (i) What do I want to improve?

(ii) What are the reasons for my concern?

(iii) What might I do to make a difference in this context?

(iv) Reading and Reflection.

(v) Who will help me to improve my practice?

(vi) How will I know if my practice has improved?

(vii) Outline of Chapters.

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CHAPTER 1. DESCRIPTION OF MY ENVIRONMENT: The school, the students and their Background.

1.i What have I done so far to foster creative and critical thinking? 9 1.ii What is important to me as a person and as a teacher?

1.iii What did I learn and how reflectively did I use it in my practice?

1.iv What do I aim to do in the next two terms?

1.v There is a living contradiction in my manner in teaching.

1.vi How can I improve my practice? (J. Whitehead, 1989)

CHAPTER 2. DECONSTRUCTING PEDAGOGY: Contrast between Educational Technology and Manner in Teaching. 2. i The Path to Deconstruction.

2. ii My use of Educational Technology.

2. iii Uses and limitations of SMART objectives.

2. iv The uses of expressive objectives.

2. v My Manner in Teaching.

2. vi How can I live my values more fully to support my students in their learning how to think creatively and critically ? 23 2. vii What am I trying to create in my students through these activities?

2.viii How can I improve my practice in 2003?

Figure 1.

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CHAPTER 3. CHANGES.

3. i How can I explain this ?

3. ii Description of a Synectic Model : Direct Analogy and Personal Analogy. The A Group: Raising Motivation to Creativity and Critical Thinking.

The H Group: Raising Empathy to Creativity and Critical Thinking.

3. iii Reflection – on – Action.

3. iv Creative and Critical Thinking.

Figure 2.

CHAPTER 4. REFLECTION-ON-ACTION. 4.i Reflections on and by the A Group: Rise in Motivation and Self Esteem.

4.ii How do these reflections from my students contribute to building my living educational theory ? 4.iii How can I learn from this, what resources do I need to generate?

44 44

4 iv In the shared activities as practiced in the analogies, were changes acknowledged and accepted ?

4. v The Story of Marina .

4. vi What was my healing action ?

4. vii Is this my living educational theory ?

CHAPTER 5. CLOSURE. 5.i.

Conclusion related to my aims.

5.ii. What do I learn here?

5.iii. Conclusion related to my Methodology.

5.iv. Does my Action Research account ring true and does it enable readers to establish connections ?

5.v. Strengths and Limitations.

5.vi. Data as Evidence.

5.vii. Choice of Subject and Methodology.

5.viii. How far are we aware of our ‘self’ in different times and places?

5.ix. Shaping my standards of judgment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

APPENDICES. CLASS (CD) 1 a. (C D Rom: a video of The Re Writing of The Treaty of Versailles) 1b. (C D Rom: a video of a 1928 Collectivization Soviet) WORKSHEETS 2.

Worksheet: Improving The Peace: Re Writing The Treaty of Versailles) A Simulation Game. x

3a.

Objectives and Instructions for Stalin’s Collectivization ( 1928 Soviet)

3b.

The Solution.

3c.

The Outcome.

3d.

Did it Work?

3e.

Worksheet on the Modeling Video: Land and Freedom directed by Ken Loach.

STUDENTS’ FEEDBACK 4.

EXPERIENCING LEARNING (A.L)

“

(M.N)

“

(V.)

“

(M.L)

“

(M.A)

“

(C.)

10.

(Au)

11.

(J.)

12.

(A.V)

13.

“

(Mt.)

14.

“

(Mel)

15.

EXPERIENCING LEARNING. 2. (M.L)

16.

EXPERIENCING LEARNING. 3. (C.)

17.

EXPERIENCING LEARNING. 3. (L.G)

18.

EXPERIENCING LEARNING. 3. (M.A)

MASTER COPIES 19.

EXPERIENCING LEARNING.

20.

EXPERIENCING LEARNING. 2. ( 2003 2ND.TERM)

21.

EXPERIENCING THE OUTCOME OF LEARNING.

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INTRODUCTION. FROM LEARNERS TO THINKERS: HOW CAN I INFLUENCE MY STUDENTS´ DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING?

Paradoxically this introduction is written at the end of my action research expedition. I am doing this to close the circle started with my initial impulse, which comes to its end at the beginning of a new cycle with my final conclusions. JANUARY 2003.

i) WHAT DO I WANT TO IMPROVE? For a long time I have been groping to reach and to teach critical thinking. I have been trying to develop it in myself and at the same time in my students so that the title “From Learner to Thinker…” applies to myself as much as to them. I am aware of the shift in my role from source of knowledge to that of facilitator but I do not renounce the former since mastery of one’s subject matter is valued by students and ´skilled performance at thinking tasks cannot be separated from knowledge´(Bailing et al. 1999: 271). Still I find that teaching the prescribed skills of ´comparing, interpreting, observing, summarizing, classifying…criticizing and evaluating…as well as applying principles to new situation’ (Rath et al. 1966 in R.T. Pithers & R. Sodden, 2000: 240) is not enough. ii) WHAT ARE THE REASONS FOR MY CONCERN? Social, Political and cultural conditions in my country are at very low ebb. Dictatorial practices of the last fifty years have deep roots, which twenty years of elected governments have done little to eradicate. Notice that I write ´elected governments’ not ‘democratic system’ since my respect for the word ‘democracy’ prevents me from using it in this context. Honesty, honour, truthfulness, integrity are recognized by some as being teachers’ desirable and evident qualities. Perhaps it is good that our students view them as exemplary but how

to transmit them to our children in a valid and practical way so that we may influence them hopefully in a lasting manner? iii) WHAT MIGHT I DO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THIS CONTEXT? I have found inspiration to move forward in many sources. To speak about values is not enough. ‘Method ….is the means used to impart knowledge and understanding of the various subject matters of the school curriculum, whereas manner is the means used to convey virtuous conduct.’ (G. Fenstermacher, 2001: 641) I have found in the articles published by the members of the MTP (Manner in Teaching) project team a path to help me to gain awareness and consciously move on from my earlier efforts to teach the skills prescribed for the development of critical thinking. In this dissertation I will describe my classroom manner and in doing so will gain awareness of what I do, how I do it and most importantly, why I do it. I know that I practice what D. Schon calls ´reflection-in-action’ but now I want to become aware and record it to transform it into ´reflection-on-action’. I hope to be able to describe the road that my teaching has followed in the course of the years when I have been working on my University of Bath modules and through the papers written in answer to my assignments to look forward to new paths. Thus in the development of my own critical thinking I may lead my students into developing their own. To observe with naked eyes and to reflect with an open mind will be my personal objectives. iv) READING AND REFLECTION. What has given me the final push to start writing has been the reading of an article recommended by my tutor, J.Whitehead, and the viewing of a film by Costa Gavras which became intrinsically linked in my mind. D. Coulter and J. R.Wiens’2002 article in the Educational Enquirer called “Educational Judgment: Linking the Actor and the Spectator” had a great intellectual impact on my thoughts. Reading their clear, step-by-step description of how to reach praxis, eudaimonia and phronesis marked a turning point in my resolution

to start on this dissertation. Furthermore their analysis of the philosophy of H. Arendt became a lesson to be able to link Costa Gavras’ film “ Amen” with her thoughts on the banality of evil. ´Absence of thought is not stupidity: it can be found in highly intelligent people and a wicked heart is not its cause;( think of Pius XII in 1930 / 1940) it is probably the other way round, that wickedness may be caused by absence of thought’ (Arendt 1978 in D. Coulter & J. R. Wiens 2002: 19) or uncritical thinking, putting the Church’s efforts on issues of secondary priority, such as appeasing Hitler and fomenting his fight against Communism rather than facing the horror of the Sho’ ah and doing something about it. Kurt Gerstein, the chemist and S.S. officer in Costa Gavras film and in real life, matches Sergeant Schmidt in the witness’ story at Eichmann´s trial as actors of judgment in which action and thinking are linked (D. Coulter & J. R. Wiens 2002: 22) . I have a fantasy or, I hope, a long-term aim. That is that my students, in the course of their lives might use critical thinking in exercising freedom of choice and that that freedom may lead them to choose responsibility for themselves and their actions in the environment in which they will live, hopefully in our country, Argentina. v) WHO WILL HELP ME TO IMPROVE MY PRACTICE? My students, who in a shifting of roles will be teaching me as much as I hope to teach them. My colleagues, -some consciously and some not so much- by talking and allowing me to observe and reflect on their examples and stages of personal development. My tutor and his support group in Bath and the rest of the world, allowing me to read their writings and judging mine, opening new vistas and jogging me along this difficult road. vi ) HOW WILL I KNOW IF MY PRACTICE HAS IMPROVED? This may happen in two ways: subjectively and objectively. Subjectively by means of growing awareness in my classroom practice and insights into my activities, by reading and reflecting in my everyday life, by introducing changes in my methods and manner and looking with naked eyes at the effect or impact on my students’ performances both in skills’ based work and their moral development. In this process of mirroring my performance from the outside to the inside in an Arendtian

“ silent dialogue of me with myself” (H. Arendt, 1971: 122,) I will identify living contradictions in the attempt to put my values into practice in the daily work in the classroom. Objectively, signs of conflicts inspiring means of improvement may come from my students´ attitudes, dialogues and actions. THE BEGINNING AT THE END. JULY 2004.

These reflections started my action research journey. Now at the end I look back at this labour of love and acknowledge my students helpful criticisms quoted in Chapter 4 that build up my own reflection-on–action; my living contradictions that created conflicts with my values to form new spirals of observation, planning and actions to reach the laborious end of my conclusions which in true action research fashion cannot be an end but a new beginning in ´how can I improve my practice?’ OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS.

In chapter 1 I try to offer a picture of my educational environment, its particular flavor and the actors therein: my colleagues, our students and their families with their natural differences in aims. As a history teacher I narrate my own professional tale through twenty seven years of teaching and my arrival at this, my awareness that my values of integrity, honesty, freedom and justice need to be explicitly and practically shown without fear of exposing my living contradictions but with the objective of improvement through reflection. Students’ thoughts written at my request at the end of 2002 highlighted what I identify as my two main educational approaches: the executive approach of a professional teacher committed to transmitting the knowledge and skills of her subject, and my liberating purpose to free students’ minds to help them to become critical, skeptical inquirers. ( Fenstermacher & Soltis, 1998: 40 ) Chapter 2 lays bare my deconstructed pedagogy. This is divided in educational technology, necessary to an executive teacher who is professionally committed to get her students to learn the contents of a syllabus and my manner in teaching that transmits my 4

values of honesty, equality of opportunity and freedom of opinion. Throughout my writing the description of my manner in teaching permeates all my observations and actions as the ground on which my students burgeoning enquiring attitudes, receptivity to others’ opinions and compassionate dispositions blossom. Chapter 3 is the action research where two analogies are fully described, offering all the resources that were used as referenced in appendices, to raise creativity and critical thinking in two very different groups of students along two different paths. Group A developed their disposition for critical thinking through the rise in their motivation for the task in hand: Re-writing the Treaty of Versailles in a direct analogy. Group H developed their empathy and creativity to open up a variety of different opinions and inclusive compassion in a personal analogy: a 1928 Collectivization Soviet. In an in depth reflection–on–action I explore the strengths and limitations of this group that offered a greater variety of idiosyncrasies including strong traditional and cultural blocks. I delve deeply in an analysis of critical thinking matching my strategies to the thoughts of other researchers in the field. Chapter 4 tries to answer questions I set myself with the answers that my students gave in 3 questionnaires found in appendices and their images in video clips that illuminate with visual representation the life in the classroom and our interactions. There are remarkable examples of responsible awareness and the strength of their influence on each other. Where have I gone? Where have I been? Where am I going? These questions take me back to the realization that my manner in teaching is the ground where my living educational theory has flowered. My students feedback quoted in this chapter builds a body of evidence to my claim that learning of content, the development of motivation, empathy creativity and critical thinking springs not only from planning objectives and practicing strategies but by a manner in teaching from which humor, integrity and honesty flow to create a caring environment in the classroom. The story of a particular student’s emotional crisis gave rise to my awareness of my living contradiction in practicing my caring attitude. Reflection–in–action proceeded from this rise in awareness to help her to follow a path to liberate her compassion without

abandoning her family lore. Chapter 5 brings closure in analyzing my action research expedition trying to validate with my standards of judgment based on values of clarity, truthfulness, ethical and professional attitude the description of my educative influence on my students. I put forth the strengths of my study through the collaboration of my co-researchers, the 2003 Year 10 students and the limitations, which were external as well as internal. I try to make explicit my growing awareness of my â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;selfâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; which is the leit motif of this study but that only arises out of my students actions and reflections as shown in a CD Rom with the recordings of their analogies and their helpful answers to my questionnaires. This data turned into evidence and opened a new cycle of action research in practicing selfawareness in my living contradictions.

CHAPTER 1 . DESCRIPTION

ENVIRONMENT:

THE

SCHOOL,

STUDENTS

AND

THEIR

BACKGROUNDS.

As my dear friend and former Head of Department mentioned in her farewell speech on her retirement in December 2002, we history teachers had much to thank our school for allowing us to exercise freedom of thought and speech in our teaching in the times of dictatorship. I teach European History in Middle School chronologically and topically from the Middle Ages in Year 7 to Modern Times, the preliminaries of the First World War in Year 9 and I.G.C.S.E 20th.Century History in Year 10.The school is a large, bilingual, private school that receives no state subsidies and as such, History is taught in English; that is my job, independent of the official curriculum. This has allowed me to follow external syllbi with the advantages of freedom of thought and demanding standards but a stringent timetable as far as covering the syllabus. These points will be further analysed in the next chapter under the discussion of the dichotomy in pedagogy. In-service training for teachers is from a variety of sources, mainly foreign, most with a strong British flavour, sustained up to the present by contract staff from the U.K and the University of Bath programme of Advanced Courses, as well as other Latin American and local seminars in Pastoral care. The staff and senior management team is composed of a variety of personalities. There is a good mixture of local and foreign, young and older, experienced and new teachers. Teaching styles show a mixture of traditional methods and new ideas. These do not follow local or external syllabi, but are mainly due to personal preference. There is freedom of choice from the head teachers as long as general guidelines in different areas are followed and school principles 7

as stated in the Mission statement, which was written with our participation, are supported. Relations among staff members and S.M.T are on the whole harmonious; which is an asset from the welfare of the students´ point of view. A ´happy families´ atmosphere sets limits and allows freedoms, which help most of out students to learn and to grow according to their personal conditions. Our students´ social and economic status is high. Their families belong to the political establishment, the landed gentry, the world of entertainment, the entrepreneurial and industrial sector as well as the professions. They pay high fees and their objectives for their children are varied – most look forward to establishing social and economic connections in their futures, carrying the prestigious seal of becoming former pupils of our institution and lastly but not least what is considered an excellent education. The majority has entered school at the age of 3 in Kindergarden and has siblings, both older and younger in different sectors. Most of them make long lasting friendships although the size of the school and the large number of pupils in each class, divided in 6 divisions, precludes a homogenous mixing and foments small groups according to common interests, certain sports, drama and choice of subjects in Year 10 for IGCSE and later for I.B. or just personal affinities. All in all, under the guidance of staff and SMT, harmony reigns with few and far between disruptive incidents that never manage to cause major problems in the school body. Language mastery is becoming a problem both in Spanish and in English. Language, as the most important means of communication in a school, must reach high levels of expression if we aim to keep high standards of learning. Even with students spending 8 hours a day in curricular activities and at times, many of them staying on for 2 or 3 hours more in extracurricular activities; other influences such as television, of notorious low quality in Argentina, lack of time and inclination for reading and conversation and the vocabulary codes of adolescence are undermining one of the principal tools of learning and teaching that we have. This takes me to the second part of this introduction:

1. i. WHAT HAVE I DONE SO FAR TO FOSTER CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING?

The end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. T.S.Elliot.Four Quartets. I started teaching when teachers were valued for simply transmitting knowledge; i.e., they had the knowledge and they put it forth for their pupils to pick up as best they could. Achievement was judged according to how much pupils had stored of the teacher´s information, opinions and value judgements; i.e., how far they accepted the teacher´s control over their learning. Scheffler´s impression model developed from the ´tabula rasa´theory of Locke found further support in Plato who considered that teachers should rigidly control the experiential input in education. Under the pressure of external examinations and paradoxically, the political climate in my country, Argentina, I taught in this manner. The paradox resided in the fact that following an external syllabus, O´Level History from Britain, I was teaching the development of democracy in other cultures, the stuggle of liberal principles in autocratic regimes and the birth of Socialism and Communism while living in a dictatorship to which even this vocabulary was anathema. But as far as respecting the learners´intellectual freedom, I was not doing so by the method of teaching I employed. So engrossed were we all, including the students who knew as well as their families, that there was an element of risk in following a different syllabus that even used a vocabulary proscribed by the de facto authorities outside the school walls, that no thought was spared for the method of transmitting knowledge that was actually simple information. It might have had claims to knowledge due to the liberating effect it had on young minds considering the political climate in Argentina in the late 1970s.

So due to external conditions, I could be assured that my rather primitive teaching method was valid in creating doubt about the legitimate and moral values proclaimed by our rulers at the time. Unconsciously, my concern for the students´ learning how to think creatively, outside given or imposed boundaries, and how to use different concepts to develop value judgements, started, not by applying today´s recognised liberating historical skills but through the acquisition of ´background knowledge in the particular area (which) is a precondition for critical thinking to take place’ (Bailin, S. et al.1999: 271) In June 1982, due to the hostile conditions between Argentina and Great Britain I crossed the river to Montevideo in Uruguay to sit the A.C.P examinations. I became an Associate to the College of Preceptors and so familiar with child-centered education. This made me aware of how far I had controlled my students´ learning. I had actually been using the same methods on them that the dictators had used to control the use of knowledge in our society. . I remember the complaint of a colleague who was interested in the College of Preceptors course I had completed, saying:” None of these educational theories tell you what to do in the classroom.”Reflecting later, I thought that he had missed the hidden (to us) message. In not being told ´what to do in the classroom’but in learning different philosophies such as Peters´ on freedom and methods based on psychological studies like Bloom´s Taxonomy, Gagné´s Learning Process and J.Bruner´s Schaffolding to name a few, the aim of child – centered educational theories was to guide as well as to liberate teachers´ inner voices – to allow personal perceptions that would help us to experiment, under advice, different methods to achieve our learning and teaching aims. My role in the classroom changed from being a simple source of knowledge to that of facilitator, “representative of society, judge, helper and object of identification, limiter of anxiety, ego-supporter, parent surrogate, friend and Confidante” (Red & Wttenberg) without neglecting that of purveyor of resources. I may have fulfilled some of those functions before but without the awareness of doing so. In fact those roles became larger .I was inspired to devise thought provoking worksheets that opened new horizons to students by allowing them to practice the skills of a historian in research, analysis of sources and judgement of events and

personalities of the past. Introducing the concept of inquiry aiming at developing a spirit of inquiry´(Ennis, 1993; Perkins, Jay and Tishman, 1993 in R.T. Pithers, 2000: 239) being ´open-minded, ´ ´weighing the credibility of evidence´ valued by these authors, met at first and even today, with the resistance of students accustomed to receiving the teacher´s predigested opinions and judgements as true tenets. The change in aims and objectives introduced by the International General Certificate of Secondary Education, which became my history syllabus for the external examinations at the end of Year10 validated my efforts to apply child-centered methods of teaching. In 1983 the lifting of censorship restrictions on foreign literature allowed the free and open import of British textbooks to put into practice new ideas and in introducing the learning of historical skills in all the levels I taught. What have I done to persuade my students that they can think by themselves, disagree with me, argue to defend their opinions and accept their mistakes as well as my own (without gloating excessively?). I have, in a way, received the education I am trying to put into practice with my students. My British teachers might have had their failings but they did foster in me a strong sense of responsibility and a love of knowledge free of the constraints of censorship practised in my country on and off throughout my whole life. This resistance to external political constraints and the exercise of intellectual freedom I was fortunate enough to enjoy in my own learning and later in my teaching practice seems to have developed my confidence in trusting my instincts in understanding new concepts, such as the IGCSE criteria, and in interpreting theories of learning that have proved effective in my professional activities. 1. ii WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO ME AS A PERSON AND AS A TEACHER?

Person and teacher have become one: me. My personal values are the same as the beliefs and convictions that guide my practice. At the heart of my efforts to foster creative thinking and

critical judgement in my students is a clear and passionate sense of purpose. I try to be honest, to cultivate my integrity, to present my thoughts as clearly as possible and to be open.minded. I know I am enthusiastic, optimistic to the point of naivete at times and committed to my task. That all these apparent virtues mask insecurities, at times a low self-esteem and the feeling that I´ll never reach the top of the mountain that teaching and my students´ learning represents, may also be evident; but I count on my students’ sympathy and compassion which a few recognise as having learnt from me, to create a mutual trust which liberates us all to be able to use our imaginations and strive to understand the world we live in, to create a valid rationale to voice democratic judgements based on justice, freedom and equality: “The only kind of learning that significantly influences behaviour is self-discovered learning – truth that has been assimilated in experience.” Carl Rogers. The teacher who understands perfectly the theories of learning cannot promise an effective lesson.” (Educational Technology I. J.Ericson, 1999) In the classroom, capacities of judgement, perception and interpretation develop over time and are the fruits of practice that become that intangible quality called experience. Over the years, I have collected a bagful of teaching tools whose combination or individual uses have created my teaching style. Courses on psychology, pedagogy, Skinner´s Programme Learning, Neurolinguistics, discovery methods, aims and objectives of all kinds, behavioural, cognitive, affective and motor skills, assessment, skills analysis, curriculum development, development of emotional intelligence, evaluation of methods and self-evaluation have sharpened my quest for learners´motivation, thinking skills and changes in attitude.

1. iii WHAT DID I LEARN AND HOW REFLECTIVELY DID I USE IT IN MY PRACTICE?

I must answer negatively as far as ´reflection´ is concerned. They may have shaped aspects of my intuition and become an incentive to my imagination. They are likely to have become what J.Whitehead calls ´embodied knowledge’ perhaps to sharpen reflection-in-action. On the other hand how far has lack of opportune reflection led me into becoming a living contradition? It was a feeling of something lacking that I experienced at times, that drove me into action research to bring to the fore of my mind an awareness of my failings and to engage my feelings in my teaching. 1. iv WHAT DO I AIM TO DO IN THE NEXT TWO TERMS?

Nothing is more rewarding in a teacher´s job than to remark on the changes in our students; their growing confidence, independence from the teacher, increasing empathy and rationality from the start of the school year to its end. But they are not the only ones to change. As I write the introduction to this dissertation I become aware of my own changes and the need for further changes to take place. I hope to deconstruct my own pedagogy. I want to analyse how that ´embodied knowledge’has created my teaching style and what influence it has on my students; seeing it from their own eyes and hearing it from their own voices. A young colleague, last year, questioned my wisdom and praised what she saw as my courage ssuing a trial dairy plan in our ´difficult’ Year 10 during the last month of class. A recent reflective review of the two responses I received made me aware of the importance of my manner in the classroom. Both papers engaged in a one-to–one conversation with me. Both papers, one by an individual student, a girl, the other one by a male student who had gathered the voices of a group of four of his classmates, spoke mainly of their feelings as the vehicles for learning. Excitement, fun, feeling stronger and encouraged to do better, enjoyment and embarrassment in risking the mockery of peers were the main expressions from the boys’ paper 13

which included appreciation for my flexibility with schedules, help, clarity of instructions and explanations and variety of methods that had demanded from them, in their point of view, little home revision. They had found that ´studying and learning is not that bad’. The other respondent, speaking only for herself was more personal and disclosed her awareness of her growth as a learner. She realised that her increasing empathy with people in the past mirrored her own quandaries and doubts in the present. She described her deep involvement with history that allowed her to understand some contradictions happening in our country today. Both remarked on the deep influence they felt from my manner on teaching. These reflections brought home to me the importance of the intangible actions in the course of a lesson that go beyond classroom management, speech delivery, keeping order conducive to busy ness, assessment, stress and relaxation and friendliness with students. In asking volunteers to keep term long diaries this year, I want to explore the area of reflection-in-action as Donald Schon describes teachers´ improvisations in the classroom, these are spontaneous actions that are hardly intellectual although they often aim at intellectual stimulation in the students but work in the realm of surprises and illogical proposals. “Turning thought back on itself, to think in new ways about phenomena and about how we think about those phenomena” (D.Schon, 1987:3). When a student had difficulty in finding words to express an idea and I did it for him, his face and the way he let out his breath saying, ´Yes! That is what I wanted to say’. I may have disagreed with his idea but I had spontaneously guessed what he wanted to say to present him with a different proposal - stimulation by opposition - to create new thoughts. This is what I understand as reflection-in-action that I want to turn into reflection-on-reflection and show how my classroom responses build up into a style of teaching that will develop into my own living educational theory. 1. v THERE IS A LIVING CONTRADICTION IN MY MANNER IN TEACHING. “ We are one thing to one man and another thing to another.”…" There are al sorts of different selves answering to all sorts of different social reactions.”(Mead, G. H., : 42.1934 in What Counts as Evidence in Self- Studies of Teacher Education Practices? (Draft) J.Whitehead.2003,

:5) It has to do with meting out unequal treatment in the classroom where I am trying to foster values of justice and equality. I have a strong temperament which intellectually turns into passion for history and its teaching but which emotionally leads me to create ties of empathy with students who show a good disposition for learning and share my love for the subject. Conversely, I grow impatient and normative with students who show resistance to learning or have chosen history thoughtlessly and coast along without involvement. I allow myself to become too sensitive to strong external influences. Daily examples of corrupt practices in the government establishment of my country, the lack of the basic enforcement of the laws written in our constitution to protect law–abiding, ordinary citizens from the aggressions of the populism which panders to misery; not to vanquish it, but for the selfaggrandisement of unscrupulous rulers; has seeped down into the fabric of our society. When I find, my students, unconsciously mirroring the evils of our diseased society as something natural and good, I react strongly to plagiarism, selfishness and frivolous laziness. 1. vi HOW CAN I IMPROVE MY PRACTICE?

(J.Whitehead, 1989)

I must devise strategies to favour stronger working habits with no harm to the friendly classroom climate. My second aim is found in the title of the dissertation. What learning strategies will I use to encourage my students to think creatively and to develop critical judgement? My youngest students’ first surprise as they start the history course in Year 7 is the awareness of doubt, the lack of certainties in history, the dilemmas, ambiguities, contradictions and grey areas where it is difficult to separate the ‘good guys’ from the ‘bad ones’. This shocks their sensibilities, but critical judgement, questioning the validity of the actions of ´heroes’ in the past and the reliability of historical stories, is a necessary skill to live and grow in our complex society. I find it useful to reduce the anxiety levels of the new learning quicksands they meet by

the introduction of cartoons of their own manufacture. Thus they embrace a critical stance and develop originality and diversity of thought. As they grow older and are better able to deal with abstractions many become deeply interested in the need to look at all sides of an issue and realise that it is politically necessary to judge events and personalities through the values of justice, freedom and equality which are at the heart of the democratic society that we aspire to live in. Over the years, diversity has been my guiding principle in classwork. Materials that are popular and effective in the learning of students with visual perceptions may not reach the kinaesthetics who need to lay their hands on books and worksheets and to feel the teacherÂ´s hand on their shoulder to organise their ideas. Oral debates are often taken over by the extroverts and clear rules of timing and respect for others turn my manner normative. Short lectures, anecdotes and stories as well as reflective analysis respond to different learning styles. But to focus on my aim to foster originality and critical judgement this year, I will try to reach a deeper core in my studentsÂ´ learning. One of the objectives is that they should internalise issues and peopleÂ´s responses in the past that led to well-known outcomes. Devising a variety of scenarios, not all faithful to the past may be explored to find alternatives to what actually happened. This needs not only an intimate view of the processes leading to wars and extreme hardships but will offer grounds for the work of their imaginations and the application of critical value judgements. I will use direct and personal analogies in role-play situations and simulations to study conditions in the past, in depth. These strategies will involve students in psychomotor, affective and cognitive domains. Having tried this in the past, students experienced deep feelings about the significance and relevance of the acted situations and they remembered the learnt insights to use far in the future. In simulation exercises students will become aware of the difficulties in problem solving and the impossibilities faced by people in the past to resolve life-risk situations satisfactorily. In a

simulation, apart from assuming roles, students declare, propose, debate and devise different courses of action to reach judgements as to the wisdom of the chosen historical path or to find possible alternatives that were ignored at the time. In all these activities a specific objective will be the enhancement of the appropriate use of language and its importance in shaping our thoughts. This leads me to the philosophical heart of my quest in trying to develop the growth of creativity and critical judgement. By the use of the imagination students may â&#x20AC;&#x153; contrast the knowledges of episteme and phronesis: episteme aims primarily at helping us to know more about many situations whileâ&#x20AC;Śphronesis is better understood as embodied judgement linking knowledge, virtue and reason.â&#x20AC;? (D. Coulter & J. R.Wiens. 2002: 15). Both aims are intrinsically linked. My praxis - political action as a teacher empowering my students to think by themselves and judge according to values of justice, freedom and equality does not solely depend on teaching strategies but on my manner in the classroom that may lead my students to identify with the desired values to achieve phronesis.

CHAPTER 2. DECONSTRUCTING PEDAGOGY.CONTRAST BETWEEN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY AND MANNER IN TEACHING. 2. i THE PATH TO DECONSTUCTION.

I am starting a ´critical constructivist research’ (Kincheloe, 1991 in Laidlaw, M.2002) by trying to deconstruct what I understand as the two main strands in pedagogy: the technical engineering of methodology following educational theories and objectives of teaching and learning and the teacher in the classroom- a human being with spiritual values - interacting in a variety of ways with her students. Allan Feldman, introducing an existential view of validity and value in Self - Study at the AERA annual meeting in 2002 defines the teacher as “the person in the situation…” because what I do is what I am; “where teacher is one of the many ways that a person is and can be.” True to the principles of action research I will start by describing the educational tools and the principles behind them that I employ to awaken my students´ interest in the subject, impart the necessary knowledge and devise strategies and assessment methods in search of grades and significant examination results. But since the aim of my deconstruction of pedagogy is to show the shortcomings of a purely technological approach to education; my next task will lead me to an analysis of my teaching values and the learning values I hope that my students will create for themselves as worthwhile values of academic honesty, personal truthfulness, critical moderation and objectivity, as well as an ever-present compassion in regarding the plight of humanity in the twentieth century and in the present twenty first. “For your action to be informed you need to be proactive in exploring your own motives and values so that you are clear about why you are acting as you do.” (Mc Niff, J. Lomax, P. Whitehead, J. 1996: 17/18)

This theoretical account will show my reflection–on–action (Schon, D. 1987) based on an extract of a student´s evaluation and my personal assessment of my performance in 2002. In the action research spiral, I will argue in the monitoring step that engineered methodology may achieve an informed and technical type of learning that cannot be considered educational pedagogy in the widest sense of fostering moral growth in individuals with the encompassing values of justice, freedom and equality - giving others the importance and respect in which we hold ourselves - that will act in the healing of our social ills. So some of the requirements of action research will be met, but I hope that more actions will announce themselves for future changes in my ways of teaching as the fruits of this reflection. 2. ii MY USE OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY.

“Things believed, values and guiding principles, and things read, done and thought will all come under scrutiny.” (Mac Leod, D.M. and Cowieson, A.R. 2001: 242) A systematic approach to education using objectives is necessary for rational planning and design procedures. Before I learnt the basic techniques of action research of planning, doing, monitoring and observing, reflecting, evaluating and further planning (Griffths, M 1990 model in McNiff, J. Lomax, P and Whitehead, J. 1996) my approach to education in the classroom was systematic in the devising of objectives, rational and operational planning and in designing procedures to achieve those goals. This does not guarantee success by itself since the human element, the students, must be taken into account. To the above system, feedback must be added to judge how far the objectives are met and how effective the procedures may have been, to plan future lessons. 2. iii USES AND LIMITATIONS OF SMART OBJECTIVES. (Specific, Measurable, Accountable, Relevant, Timed)

. The introduction of a criterion of skills in IGCSE history reinstated the value of educational objectives that had been strongly criticised in the 1960s and early 1970s as restrictive and undemocratic.

Skills are useful in creating a hierarchy for historical analysis and criticism and are performed to given standards. Repetition of skills exercises allows the students to adopt a defining terminology that lends professionalism to their vocabulary and leads to a subconscious performance. “To have a skill is to have an ability to execute useful tasks to publicly agreed standards of performance.” (MacDonald – Ross, M. 1973: 162) To draw a timeline to a given scale, to use given sentences to draw a cause and consequence diagram, to read a source and identify words that show bias by using the background knowledge of a certain situation are measurable skills that help to shape frames of mind that will eventually allow thinking critically. Clearly stated objectives let students know what they have to do unambiguously. R.Gagné´s comparison table of instructional events for three modes of instruction: group, tutorial and individual learning, encourages a checking procedure to ensure that all outcomes are covered in the planning of instruction that matches behavioural objectives. In-group instruction, the teacher is the initiator of every event in a normative even mechanistic way. There is no response from the students contemplated. In tutorial instruction there is more interaction between tutor and student approaching Vigotsky´s theory of Zone of Proximal Development. Paul Hirst (1969) found that predetermined objectives might reduce content in education to an instrumental role, to a vehicle to arrive at an end. This is an incomplete scenario of what goes on in the classroom. As we all know instruction is part of education. Students need to be told what they will learn, how the teacher plans to implement their learning, how s/he will guide and stimulate their performance and inform them as to how well they have carried out their tasks. In this case the end of instruction is the product rather than the process. How do we know what the student is feeling? Has there been an attitude change?

Educational objectives make us think about meanings and stimulate clear thinking (MacDonald-Ross, 1973) to ease the way to rational planning, the selection and design of instructional activities and eventually a valid evaluation. Still, this would be a very narrow description of the function of objectives, considering the constant changes in personal dispositions of students and the flow of ideas in the classroom. “Although in theory, objectives come first and everything else afterwards, in practice all parts of the system can be mutually adjusted until a satisfactory fit is found” (MacDonald-Ross, M. 1973: 152) Clarity and explicitness are the virtues of the instructional aspects of teaching but the focus is only on the development of the basic skills in the first levels of Krathwohl´s and Bloom´s taxonomy of objectives in the affective domain. Students are able to work with advanced listening skills, become aware of the importance of stimuli offered by the teacher whether it is in written or visual sources such as photographs or cartoons, their interest is aroused to respond, to select, to show preference or opinion. 2. iv THE USES OF EXPRESSIVE OBJECTIVES.

To guide the students to reach a higher level in the Taxonomy, to involve them in an attitudinal mode to participate, to decide, to support or argue, to accept the importance of understanding other people´s point of view, Eisner in 1969 distinguished between instructional objectives to achieve mastery of cultural tools and expressive objectives to entice creative responses. (Stenhouse, 1976). Expresive objectives draw us away from the product to appreciate the process in education. They transform the teacher´s role from that of instructor to that of facilitator. I provide the situation and work in the classroom with the students to elicit a variety of responses, to explore through the use of historical skills and understandings acquired earlier, new territories where beliefs are discussed, hypothesis may be generated and commitments to different causes may be reached individually. We are in the process of extending the powers of the mind to create new ideas and observe the past with awareness of new possibilities that may not

necessarily lead to what actually happened. With a strong background of knowledge we are trying to create different scenarios using our values rationale of justice, freedom and peace-loving compassion to be able generate diverse criticisms. Educational technology´s focus on the learning of the use of skills in my area, those of the historian, has moved the narrow understanding of knowledge away from the mere body of facts to that of problem solving, to find by extrapolation, different solutions to new problems (Dewey, 1916 in Kelly, A.V. 1986) Historical knowledge highlights the role of man as the artificer of society. As such, knowledge must necessarily evolve and its incorporation by the students is done through a process of using it to create surrogate experiences of real events. Jerome Bruner´s scaffolding has been refined (Pithers, R.T. 2000: 244) by the introduction of the Socratic method of questions and answers to consider other arguments with the goal of developing openmindedness. Presenting questions of ´how’ and ´why’ aiming at diversification, I intend to ease the learner´s zone of proximal development by taking on the role of tutor to the student´s role of apprentice (Vigotsky 1978 in Pithers, 2000: 245) This student–centered / learning oriented mode (Kember, 1997 in Pithers 2000: 247) places the teacher beside the student to think together

by means of discussion and dialogue (Bailin et al,

1999: 289) 2. v

MY MANNER IN TEACHING.

“What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.” Henry Thoreau 1817- 1862. So far, by using technology I have focused primarily on the development of thinking skills to make the students proficient in explanation, interpretation, analysis and evaluation.These are the tools of the critical thinker. I.G.C.S.E history criteria are divided into knowledge and its recall, organization and deployment; 22

understanding where responses and reactions to descriptions of past occurrences are expected and evaluation of the usefulness and reliability of given sources as evidence of historical phenomena. This firmly anchors the skills of critical thinking to a strong factual knowledge of the past. But what of attitudes that necessarily spring from emotions, feelings and beliefs? 2.vi HOW CAN I LIVE MY VALUES MORE FULLY TO SUPPORT MY STUDENTS IN THEIR LEARNING HOW TO THINK CREATIVELY AND CRITICALLY?

“Both the creation of original ideas and the implementation of criticism rely on a spiritual background of emotions and feelings that must be engaged by the teacher.” (Brearley, .2001: 43). Many authors have referred to teaching and learning as a messy, untidy and incomplete business. (Schon, D. 1987. Mc Niff, J. 1993. Hopkins, D. 1985) Even if attitudes are always ranked third after knowledge and skills (Bailin, S. et al. 1999: 270), it is the emotions and feelings that will promote the motivation to start learning. Motivation is extrinsic: grades, examinations, promotion, future goals; or intrinsic: curiosity, natural ability, love for the subject, empathy with like-minded classmates and / or teacher. Option guides to decide on choices for IGCSE and IB subjects often give the children a staple advice: ´Don’t choose the subject because you like the teacher´. Why not?

Sympathy between teacher and students is a strong

ingredient in motivation. They will interact with love and empathy of thoughts will enrich them both. In instruction, in the ennunciation of objectives my students listen and accept the concepts to be learnt; sensitivity favours awareness in new situations and acceptance of different points of view in the freedom of knowing that I will consider their ideas and opinions with equal respect. In using the principle of freedom in the classroom, I strive to give my students the impression that my task is to orient them in finding their own meanings to encourage them to express their own ideas. This encouragement aims at increasing their spiritual capacity to become open-minded. Judgements are arrived at in reference to relevant background knowledge, evaluations must take into account different possibilities and the drive is

our spirit of enquiry and desire for truth. I am a strong believer in practice (Brearley, M. 2001: 36) employing comparisons, interpretations of motives, influenced by economic social or religious factors, analysis of circumstances from different social and personal points of view using a criteria of values that might have been absent at the time under study such as the role of the resistance in Germany to the Nazi regime or to find a rational explanation to the Holocaust in spite of the wealth of contradictory factors brought to bear in the matter. It is difficult, in the black and white world of adolescence to generate doubt and an understanding of grey areas in history. Only by introducing an element of tolerance and compassion may deep-rooted, cultural prejudices be put aside. For how long? That is a moot point. “Creation (of) an educational environment where critical enquiry is valued and nurtured. Provision for students of frequent opportunities to think critically about meaningful challenges with appropriate feedback” (Bailin, S. et al. 1999) The role of the imagination is primal in thinking critically. Multiple causes offered for an event urge the mind to imagine possible consequences and original alternatives. Encouraging empathy before problem solving, a study of the appropriate values that may have been present or missing in a situation, creating personal analogies may open the gates of the imagination leading to creativity. Creativity has a better chance to flourish in an environment where freedom and respect for each other’s ideas is nurtured. To offer the students opportunities for empathetic involvement to create personal analogies in impersonation exercises, may give free rein to the more imaginative ones to feel the satisfaction of achievement. •

Put yourself in the place of…. in 1929.

•

What would you have done? And you? And you?

•

How could your choice have changed cirircumstances?

•

What could have happened if your choice was put into practice?

Class brainstorming to list reasons for and against each side of an issue, explanations of terms used, asking for examples of circumstances when the term could be used, to ask for agreements or rebuttals to engage each member of the class in individual decisions, reinforcement of active learning by checking facts, dividing a difficult problem into a series of short questions (shades of Skinner´s programme learning) for easier and wider understanding keep my students alert and inspired to speak to each other and share ideas to complete their classwork. With my walks round the classroom to stimulate, monitor and help, we all move along a common path in our different ways. 2.vii WHAT AM I TRYING TO CREATE IN MY STUDENTS THROUGH THESE ACTIVITIES?

I am trying to form habits of mind and responsible actions. Through practice, some may start showing signs of enquiring attitudes, openmindedness, dispositions to accept their partners’ points of view and there are often a few who have the personal strength to hold on to their valuable beliefs and resist peer pressure. From these I receive respect for my intellectual authority and commitment to their thinking tasks (Bailin, S.et al. 1999: 295) as well as the joyful surprise that I am learning new ideas and novel approaches from their responses. These are the values that I use to support

students´learning

and

construct

classroom

community.

(Fenstermacher, G. D. 2001: 642). This construction is based on my personal relationship with each student. My educational planning resides in devising strategies to offer my students experiences in which each one individually, but conversing in pairs and in common in the classroom, will work to develop attitudes of mind according to their different dispositions, levels of maturity, intrinsic motivation, degrees of emotional intelligence and personal learning styles. At the start of the first term I encourage the children to find a ´working partner´who does not necessarily have to be their ‘best friend’. They may change partnerships as often as they like, but I know that it

will only take two or three trials at most before they settle down. That way they are discovering intellectual and affective affinities in different classmates and exercising freedom of choice. A loner may start off by working individually for a number of classes, but the lack of pressure to change his preference very often relaxes his resistance to seek a ´heads together’ partner. Usually the persistent loners are the more original and creative thinkers, self-demanding and holders of strong values and sometimes of equally strong prejudices. A healthy sense of humour and laughter at the periodic introduction of cartoons that are pinned up on the exhibition boards, soon make the new students feel at ease in my classroom. My use of the whiteboard is restricted to the writing of the lesson’s objectives, skills to be used and levels of assessment against each skill in an increasing order of importance. Although I am punctual in arriving in the classroom before my students, if I am distracted by a problem and neglect to write up these statements at the start of the lesson, I am soon reminded by someone who finds this information useful since they are all grade conscious as part of their motivation. I consider immediate feedback of oral performances and next lesson feedback of written work a priority as a show of respect for my students´efforts and important to support their learning. It often happens that students are impulsive and disruptive of other people´s concentration. They get ‘call out signals’ (Fenstersmacher, G.D.2001: 645) heard by all in the class to refresh everyone´s memory of what are the work ethics in History lessons. Corrections of more serious flaws in behaviour such as dogmatism, aggressiveness or simply anti-intellectual attitudes are dealt with in private converstions at the end of the lesson to persuade them to change or relax their ways. This needs constant reinforcement by reflection-in-action steps and the open encouragement of opposite attitudes in their classmates. Private conversations may also be effective with the fearful (low self-esteem) those who have difficulties with comprehension or skills’ performance and with those who may have personal problems that interfere with their work. According to Fenstermacher virtue cannot

be taught instead it is ´picked up’ by association. I am a believer in teaching by example as well as giving positive reinforcement and praise to those who succeed at their tasks, not only with the issue of merit slips which is a school policy, but also by giving verbal praise as I circulate around the classroom or return written work. There is the risk here of signalling out students as ´teacher´s pets´. So far the recipients seem to have had enough fortitude to enjoy the distinction. “ We have always had a good relationship and that shows too, but sometimes, when I see you deal with other students I can really distinguish with whom you have a good ralationship and with whom you don´t. Therefore, that can pull down some students which can believe they are not one of your favourite ones.”(V.C., Year 10, 2002) This comment from the course evaluation notes kept by a group of Year 10 students in October 2002 at my request, holds up a mirror to testify to my ´living contradiction’which is that while promoting justice and equality in evaluating historical events and personalities, I do not seem to practice those values fully in my classroom manner. This has brought up an issue of discrimination that my Year 10 students felt in my meting out of praise or disaffection. For me, it has highlighted the issue of discrimination in my manner in teaching that I will discuss further with the input of my new Year 10 students in 2003. “This is the case where pupils are the experts. They are the ones who can really inform the process.” (Whitehead, 2002 in K.Collins, 2003: 2) 2. viii HOW CAN I IMPROVE MY PRACTICE IN 2003 ? Reflecting on the description of my pedagogy, I find that my manner in teaching exercises excessive control and does not place the responsibility for learning in the students’ court. Putting into practice the action of personal analogies in role play and simulations and asking the students to reflect, first on their learning experiences and secondly on my influence on their sense of achievement or frustation, will, I hope, create higher feelings of success in some to increase their self esteem or focus on the obstacles to improvement found by others, in my discriminating manner

towards the lackadaisical and the disruptive. INTRODUCING “MOTIVATION” IN A DISAFFECTED Y10 CLASS

STUDENTS EVALUATION: EXPERIENCING LEARNING

ASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK

STUDENTS AT WORK

figure 1

RISE IN EXPECTATIONS

PLANNING A DIRECT ANALOGY

figure 1

CHAPTER 3. “Having made a discovery, I shall never see the world again as before. My eyes have become different, I have made myself into a person seeing and thinking “ Polanyi (1958) CHANGES… At the end of the first school term of 2003 I must remark on three changes that have taken place which I had hoped would happen at the end of chapter two. The first has to do with the basic concern voiced in my action plan that impelled me to start on this action research project which is external in the classroom but with an intrinsic influence on all our lives. There is hope in my country and in our society that a healing process may be underway to restore values of trust and integrity in our relations with each other. The second change has to do with the new set of students that I have welcomed to the Year 10 History courses. Year 10 H (Humanities) is working on the IGCSE syllabus to sit the examinations in November while the other group, Year 10 A (Art) is learning history as part of the official (National) curriculum. The H (Humanities) group has chosen to learn history under the pressure of external examinations at the end of the school year, while the Art group accepted with different degrees of willingness the imposition of history as a curriculum subject. Initially I planned to introduce the new approaches using direct analogy and personal analogy to develop my action research project, in the A (Art) group. The reduced constraint in time and content would allow for experimentation in improving my teaching and their learning developing creativity and critical thinking. This would be a testing ground for strategies that are, from a practical point of view, even more necessary to the H group who will actually need enhanced critical thinking for their examinations in November. This has been the empirical process (Eisner, 1985) on which I embarked in February 2003. In educational theoretical terms, Vigotsky’s zone of proximal development was present in the interactions of students with each other in role-play and simulations, in creating dialogues, acting out situations and practising reflection-in-action (D. Schon, 29

1983) in their personal analogies. These practices embodied Bruner’s ‘Scaffolding’ of new knowledge derived from personal perceptions in the development of given situations onto previous learning. Considering that the students would be my co-researchers in these tasks, the question of assessment naturally appeared as we considered the tasks to do. The assessment adopted was necessarily formative, matching my, intentions to the possible effects on the students (H. Torrance & J. Pryor, 2001). More than ever, my practice of making task and quality criteria explicit and transparent was appreciated and further explored by the students who became aware after receiving a full explanation of the aims, objectives and different expectations of our activities, of the exciting learning possibilities. Following Torrance & Pryor’s (2001: 620) analytical framework of the processes of formative classroom assessment, our exercises in this first term have covered the following teacher’s intentions with the corresponding effects for the students:

•

The communication of goals and success criteria in a given period of time was understood in terms of tasks and principles and achieved partially within the given time.

•

I gained in understanding of why and how the students approached and achieved the task. This enhanced student motivation due to teacher’s attention.

•

I explored and discussed students’ knowledge, understanding and skills. Students rehearsed knowledge, understanding and skills, articulating understanding to recognise it when it happened.

•

In both students and teacher, articulation of thinking about thinking reached metacognition.

•

The enhancement of future work, promotion of greater independence, communication of alternative or more acceptable production was discussed. The students interrogated quality criteria, enhanced understanding of quality issues and practice in self-monitoring.

•

Influence of students’ attributions and increased student motivation for further work grew. Students’ self-worth in a context of empowerment leads to positive evaluation of task.

The third change has to do with the class climate. Being acquainted with most of these students over a period of 2 or 3 years, I had to be aware of the changes bought about in them by maturation. I estimated that motivation such as love of the subject, desire to excel, even curiosity for how the past shapes the present, might not be as high in the A group as in the Humanities. So it was until I decided to make an early announcement of my plans to try new approaches in pursuit of an action research project to write my dissertation for a Master’s degree. I explained the purpose of the exercises as I gave the A group a description of the work involved, the expected effects and mode of assessment. I stressed the facts that a good empathetic knowledge of history not only would enrich their artistic background but also their cultural personalities. The responses were sincerely enthusiastic, and as I never tire of telling this class of nineteen, initially indifferent teenagers, they continue to surpass my expectations. 3. i HOW CAN I EXPLAIN THIS ?

Thinking back with a distance in time of four or five months when the project took off, I perceive that the favourable climate was created by the proposal that we would work together as a team that would share feelings and explore together some uncharted territory, i.e., we would be taking some risks but at the same time we could feel safe in our trust of each other. (H.P. Lunken, 1999: 2). After a number of introductory lessons with routine class work to establish the academic environment of our first simulation task, this was set in motion. The assessment aims were to discover what the students would learn, understand and accomplish. (H. Torrance & J.Pryor, 2001: 617). The practical implications were: •

Answering open-ended questions, stimulating creative responses in a diversity of forms; narrative, pictorial, map sketches.

•

Focusing on examples of work which would offer insights into developing understanding of the subject and on their understanding of how they understood; metacognition. 31

•

Lack of judgemental evaluation.

•

Involvement of the students in their own assessment, jointly with the teacher

. This led to an absence of conflict; it led to humorous situations and the knowledge that everything that was said would be accepted. There was honest communication among the members to agree or disagree, to discuss and persuade of the best ideas where everyone was accepted for who and what they were. “ The more supportive, accepting and caring the environment, the freer a person is to experiment with new behaviours and attitudes.” (H. P. Lunken 1999: 3) Since my immediate objective in pursuit of the greater aim to foster creative thinking was to create motivation in the A group, an added advantage was the homogeneity of this group. There are no serious emotional problems or learning difficulties that might impede normal functioning in learning tasks. Visual experiences contributed positively as well as oral explanations and instructions. Their only weakness was a lack of motivation and this seems to have been reduced by the implementation of this methodology. The positive effect was proven in the results obtained in routine testing which showed a high level of knowledge recall and interpretation as well as the recognition of the relevancy of given points in the treatment of open ended questions. This high level of achievement, 14 out of 19 students were in the A – B range, further encouraged them to improve their performances in ordinary, routine class work. One student showed disappointment in her skill to answer correctly and fully a question for which she had the information in her mind. This was an important lesson to her in what test skills she needs to improve her performance: time for reflection, reasoning organisation and diversity in her arguments. Exclamations like ‘I like coming to this class’, ‘what? Have we finished so soon?’ This previously disaffected group often voices ‘Why don’t we have more history lessons?’ 3.ii DESCRIPTION OF SYNECTIC MODEL: PERSONAL ANALOGY AND DIRECT ANALOGY. THE A GROUP: RISING MOTIVATION TO CREATIVITY AND CRITICAL THINKING.

The A group was set a simulation game: Rewriting the Peace Treaties at the end of the First World War as their personal analogy exercise. (Appendix: 1 a) After reading and exploring through source work in class, conditions at the end of World War I in Europe such as the devastation of Belgian and French cities and farmlands, the hardships and pain suffered by people both in Germany and in the Entente countries and civilian populations in all countries involved in this war, students studied the setting up of the Treaties and the three main leaders involved in the writing of the conditions according to their aims, principles and personalities in detail from books and videos. With this background knowledge they were asked to adopt one of the principal personalities: President W. Wilson of the USA, Prime Minister D. Lloyd George of Britain or G. Clemenceau of France. Divided in groups of three and a free floating adviser they set to work. (Appendix 1a and Appendix 2) (Source: The World Re-Made. The Results of the First World War by Josh Brooman. Longman Twentieth Century History Series. 1992, New York, USA) The students had no prior knowledge of the actual clauses in the treaties under discussion. As they took on the characters of President Wilson and Georges Clemenceau they warmed up to their impersonations to generate heated debates over questions of revenge and compassion which gave the Lloyd George impersonators the opportunity to mediate between the other two. An in depth knowledge of the map of Europe, ethnic characteristics of the populations of the different areas, their economic needs and resource areas was gained. Principles of compassion, deep empathy, concern for othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; expectations and means of securing a lasting peace were spontaneously explored in instances of reflection-in-action. The knowledge that historically, peace between the two Great Wars only lasted twenty years raised many questions and forced students to dig deeper into their empathetic skills to understand a variety of points of view, traditional prejudices and the emotional sources of patriotism and nationalism. Some decisions, different to the historical ones were proposed and discussed as to their practicality and possible

benefits for peace. A detailed interpretation of the tasks and a further evaluation of what-might-have-been scenarios gave the students a degree of empowerment, which reinforced their self-esteem. Possibly their lasting motivation has its roots in this reflection-on-action. THE H GROUP: RISING EMPATHY TO CREATIVITY AND CRITICAL THINKING.

The H group’s synectic exercise was divided in two direct analogies: a Soviet discussion on the collectivisation of a Russian village in 1928 and secondly an evaluation of the Solution, the actual collectivisation. The students had theoretical knowledge of the subject from textbooks and they obtained character examples from The Modern World. C. Jordan & T. Wood, 1989.History in Action. J. Murray, London, UK. From this resource, the students were focused on ´The Problem’ and ‘The Outcome’ but not to ‘The Solution’ which was the theme of the second exercise. (Appendix b and Appendixes 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d,and 3e) As a source of role models in a Soviet situation, they viewed Ken Loach’ s film ‘Land and Freedom’ which shows an excellent series of sequences on a similar activity in Spain during the Civil War in 1937. The fact that these scenes are spoken in Spanish and English added an ingredient of empathy for my students whose mother tongue is Spanish but who study this course in English. The opposing concepts under discussion involved not only the possibilities of the advantages and/or disadvantages for different characters: a kulak, a bedniak (poor peasant), large and small families, widows and orphans and some more prosperous farmers; but subliminally at first, preconceived thinking and family traditions sprung forth in a couple of students who got into a heated debate with those who impersonated the more miserable peasantry and those with a dose of idealism and sense of social justice. The repetition of the miseries of the plight of the landless peasantry, albeit in a rather restricted but accurately expressed vocabulary, coupled with the passionate manner of the students who defended that point helped to raise the awareness in the members of the group with blocks, to the magnitude of the problem and establish contact with other points of view. Although not voiced during the exercise questions such as 34

•

What is the concern?

•

How do we define it?

•

Who is affected by this concern?

Were dramatically answered. This helped to do away with stereotypes and turn impersonations into possibly real people. In the impassioned embracing of characters, both sides were able to incorporate arguments for future use in the need to display in depth knowledge and exercise critical thinking skills.

The H group presents different characteristics due to external influences that tend to bar the free flow of creativity as well as greater psychological diversity in learning styles and blocks that may be categorised as perceptual, cultural and emotional. (M.Zich 1996: 2: 9). The external influences are due to: •

Constraints in the large amount of content to be learned and in the need to comply with examination requirements such as the development of exam techniques and application of specific skills to source work which require a lot of practice.

•

The subliminal but ever present pressure of an external and critical evaluation in the future

•

The time pressure. (H. P. Lunken 1999: 9)

This last obstacle present in the creative environment rules over the other influences in its exercise of control by the needs to cover a good number of topics in the syllabus, not only to have a good chance to perform well in the examinations but for the need to offer the students a necessary over all view and in depth knowledge of the history of the twentieth century. This group of 23 students presents a greater diversity in learning styles, attitudes and learning and emotional difficulties. A few kinaesthetic students with different degrees of preference need different methods and materials to work with. One student suffering from a strong ADD syndrome compensates his weakness with a strongly supportive family background, great personal effort and a strongly empathetic relationship with the teacher. Some lackadaisical, immature individuals are gathered

in a group surrounded by strong, motivated intellectuals and receive special normative attention from the teacher. There are cases of highly motivated students with a preponderance of visual and auditory learning styles and excellent linguistic development who none the less present perceptual, cultural and emotional blocks. (M.Brearley 2001: 15 and M. Zich 1996: 2: 4: 7)In general there is a high level of anxiety in this group to cover a lot of ground and excel at skills performance. Never the less the direct analogy practised by these students in a mix of simulation, role-play, brainstorming and debate had interesting effects. In general it developed in all the members an enhanced level of empathy in the topic. Some students matched their personal characteristics to the assumed roles while others took on an opposite role, which encouraged the adoption of different points of view, while the subjects with greater problems profited the most. A number of perspectives were explored. There was strong polarisation of attitudes, which led to a good examination of ´the other side of the story’. The issue “A village collectivisation in the USSR in 1928” was discussed from different perspectives allowing some emotionally invested members to step away from their traditionally held stances and gain insight about the whole situation. (M. Zich 1996: 5) The diversity of characteristics in the H group was as positive in the outcome of the effects of the direct analogy on these students as the homogeneity was in the A group. There is no lack of motivation here except in a very few cases as there was in the A group. But there are some important cultural and perceptual blocks that have started to give way. A deeper understanding of different conditions and an improved use of vocabulary defused stereotyping. The fallacy of some preconceived ideas was exposed using open mindedness and compassion. Polarised thinking from emotional, traditional attachment to political ideology started to open up and reach a middle ground of acceptance, which favours objective learning in history. Surprisingly, students with a strong fear of failure due to their awareness of their learning difficulties were encouraged to express their points of view and hold their own in a rather heated debate.

3. iii REFLECTION – ON – ACTION.

Kurt Lewin in the mid 1940s constructed a theory of action research, which described AR as “proceeding in a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of planning action and the evaluation of the result of action.”( Kemmis & McTaggart 1990 in J.Masters,1995, 2000: 1 ) in Grundy (1998) may be found the Mutualcollaborative/Deliberative/Interpretivist perspective (J.Masters, 1995: 4 ) which I practised with these two groups of Year 10 students. The exercise of reflection-onreflection-in-action (D. Schon, 1983) to produce positive changes and arrive at an improvement of learning skills was part of the plan I presented to my students. The collective findings from the steps of action and observation in the first cycle of my project offer some of the following reflections.

•

Analogies require active learning where the emphasis is on sharing experiences by witnessing those of others while at the same time expressing one’s own. Situations must be well prepared and structured so that students may act with enough self-confidence to turn the activity into worthwhile learning time.

•

Self-awareness of an effective performance will increase self-esteem.

•

Mutual encouragement, in discussing albeit surrogate situations, will lead to openness and more trust.

•

A range of different behaviours will lead to a growth of different points of view on given subjects and changes in subjective criteria.

•

Members of a group discover each other’s perceptions and feel the need for new knowledge to widen their perspectives.

•

The reduction in teacher control, once the exercises are in action distributes the responsibility for learning and teaching within the group. Each individual shares a dual role, that of learner and teacher. This continues in routine class work where the spirit of cooperation persists. Students are ready to learn from their peers and willing to identify with those who may need particular help.

•

Autonomous learning becomes a possibility. The teacher takes on the role of facilitator.

Considering Flanders’ interaction analysis of the teaching act (D. Hopkins 1993: 110) the following points provide me with a mirror of my action: •

Accepting students’ feelings

•

Giving praise

•

Clarifying or making use of students’ ideas

•

Asking open ended questions to move on

•

Giving facts

•

Highlighting values

While from Redl and Wattenberg´s teacher sub roles I may identify with: •

Acting as resource manger

•

Providing guidance and direction

•

Limiting anxiety

•

Supporting ego

•

Acting as referee

•

Providing the right learning atmosphere and ensuring the right frame of mind and attitudes in the learner.

•

Object of identification.

(H.Schofield, 1981)

3.iv. CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING.

Working with groups of different sizes: three members in the personal analogy and whole class of twenty three in direct analogies, brainstorming appears spontaneously in the presence of well defined and clearly stated problems. Edward de Bono proposes that the whole idea of brainstorming is that people’s remarks act as stimulants in the group to generate new ideas in a sort of chain reaction. It could be argued that given the nature of the subject, history, and the type of activities carried out, according to de Bono what actually took place may be labelled lateral thinking. Since history has already established the outcome of situations, what we tried to do was to find new ways of looking at circumstances by trying to shape divers scenarios

and /or generate new possibilities and certainly creating different points of view. From these new points of view, students created and adopted ideas, which they had not contemplated before. The creative process may be identified in the quest for moral knowledge in seeking awareness of the needs feelings and experiences of others as well as of themselves. (H. Arendt, 1971) The skills involved in developing analogies, identifying characters and their ideas and possible arguments led to the creation of attitudes of open mindedness, objectivity, sensitivity, curiosity and commitment to work as in the examples of heightened motivation in group A and greater empathy, fairness and selfcriticism in group H. Metacognition, thinking about oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own thinking and dialectical thinking, seeing all sides of a question and analysing opposing points of view were practised by both groups in their different activities. Students became aware that in history they may and should move on beyond memorisation and passive acceptance of booksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; or teachersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; opinions to follow their own perceptions and arrive at cooperative but personal critical judgements. They realised that to arrive here, perseverance is an important virtue to reach not only clarity of thought but also of expression, considering that they are working in a second language. In trying to develop creative thinking and its evaluating quality in critical thinking, history offers many fields of practise. Observing, comparing, interpreting, classifying, synthesising are some of the skills, which these Year 10 students have been using for a number of years. Some are capable of reflective thinking and could match causes to effects but were still dogmatic, inflexible and fearful ( Raths et al,1996 in R.Pithers, 2000). In the practice of the Synectic model ( J. J. Gordon et al, 1961) with its strong empathetic involvement, students did away with traditional myths and looked for new approaches, learning to doubt preconceived principles and practise flexibility. They

became more independent and in control of their own learning. ( R.Pithers, 2000, :243). This practical model of action research with its scope for interactive communication, interpretation and negotiation allows us, I as the teacher and co researchers/students to gain a deeper understanding of our roles and their possibilities in new fields outside the traditional paths trod by teachers and students. However, considering that these particular sets of students finish these courses with me in November our interaction is short lived. To further develop and profit from our learning from the Synectic model chosen, a second cycle of planning, action / observation and reflection will be practised next term. The plan is to build up on the skills and knowledge embedded so far to further foster the practise of generating new ideas, processes and experiences and in further evaluating their impact on to-be-learnt situations and circumstances and on the individual ‘scaffolding’ of higher values and corresponding attitudes. EMPATHY

CREATIVITY

CRITICAL THINKING

Figure 2

Active learning

Choice of characters

Expressing ideas and feelings

Witnessing others’ experiences

Defending Own position

Awareness of opposite stances

Generation of truthfulness and trust

Changes in subjective criteria

CHAPTER 4. REFLECTION-ON-ACTION. “Thoughts have gone forth whose power shall sleep no more.” English Suffragettes slogan.1920. Where have I gone? Where have I been? Where am I going? I will try to answer these questions with the help of my students/ researchers and our shared reflections. The analogies with both groups finished by the end of May 2003. Formative assessment was carried out to develop their powers of reflection on the acquired knowledge, the depth of their understanding and the changes or widening of opinions and value judgements. As we all prepared to face the external examinations a few months away, past experiences blossomed in a deeper understanding of issues under study. Groups of students who had discovered in each other corresponding and supporting qualities in working styles and study dispositions gathered to share their efforts. The second term of 2003 was devoted to intense practise with past papers to hone historical skills of comprehension, interpretation, analysis of bias and its usefulness and evaluation in its widest aspect taking into account audiences, circumstances, tones, nuances of differences in meaning and empathy with the climate of the given times. 4. i REFLECTIONS ON AND BY THE A GROUP: RISE IN SELF ESTEEM AND MOTIVATION.

On reading the students answers to the issue of the qualitative questionnaire, ´Experiencing Learning´(see Appendix) I find a subliminal core question that I did not express even to myself when I issued it to the students. On reading Nell Noddings writings on Care and Moral Education I found a passage by Simone Weil that poses the question,

“What are you going through?” As the link that establishes the connection in a dialogue. The questionnaire’s first two questions focus on the ´high’ and ´low’ moments in students´ learning experiences tacitly asking ´what are you going through?’ ´” For the first time I wasn’t afraid of telling you what I think and make a mistake.” (A.L.15 years old. Appendix 4) “All the time I was being valued, for me”. (M.N. 15 years old. Appendix 5) “Last year when I started to improve the way you said it to me, like I was a clever girl, etc. that motivated me.”(V. 16 years old. Appendix 6)

Energies in teacher /student relations were diverted from work and study responsibilities in students and assessment judgements in the teacher, to the accomplishment of positive co-operative goals (N.Noddings, 2002: 5) In the open hearted responses of my students, dialogues started which continue to enrich and deepen the knowledge I am generating from my manner in teaching which is such an integral part of my burgeoning educational theory. V. Richardson and C. Fallona describe ´Manner in Teaching´ as possibly separate constructs of method and manner, and classroom management and instruction but argue that they become interwoven if they are analysed through the lens of the teacher’s beliefs and goals. They go to the heart of the matter when they focus on the relationship between student and teacher as being the core or centre in any analysis of manner in teaching. The Elli Project at the University of Bristol (REDC, Feb.2004) adds the theme of relationships to the development of learning power in what it means to be an effective learner which it defines as one showing or having readiness, resilience, resourcefulness,

remembering and reflection.( The Campaign for Learning talks, Greany & Parsons,2003) The three given comments from my students reflect: a) The loss of an inhibition leading to a disposition to take risks and eventually responsibility for learning. b) The growth in self-esteem from the appreciation of personal values. The link in these comments is the understanding they express of their feelings and how they lead to self-knowledge. The same students remark on ´interactions´ of myself with themselves and among each other as effective means of learning. “ It seems that the quality of relationships between learners and their teachers is central to the development of a climate where learners can change and grow and develop their capacity to learn.” (The Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory project) It is the manner of the teacher in the classroom that is focussed to the development of harmonious, helpfully integrating relationships not only of the students with her but among the students as well. The caring example of the teacher extends and permeates the classroom community. The small groups’ strategy seems to have enhanced curiosity/interest and created a safety net of trust to allow taking risks and accepting challenges. Some remarked that impersonations allowed them not only to learn the topic through empathy but also to connect with each other and reach an understanding of different opinions. The method and classroom management allowed subliminal instruction to take place through these experiences leading not only to the acquisition of knowledge and understanding but to the development of awareness of self worth and resilience when mistakes might be made. This reflects a change in students that shapes some of my primary goals: growing confidence, increasing empathy and rationality. Self knowledge gained through facing and vanquishing fears may lead to improve learning power and empathy with others going through the same process. These three students who show awareness of growing self-esteem will carry this in them from my manner in teaching. One step of this scaffold is the trust between my students and me. This trust is manifest in the open, unrestricted dialogues in which ´high´ moments were tempered with ´low´.

“When things weren’t as I wanted, and my opinion didn’t count…” (M. 15 years old. Appendix 5) 4.ii HOW DO THESE REFLECTIONS FROM MY STUDENTS CONTRIBUTE TO BUILDING MY LIVING EDUCATIONAL THEORY?

“When I called you or picked up my hand and sometimes you didn’t see me … I felt ignored.”(M.L.15 years old. Appendix 7) These students express frustration and uncertainty at certain times that reflect my living contradiction in my classroom management. Yet they are able to feel confident that our relationship will not break down and what they are doing is actually recognising my condition of learner and helping me to change and refine my manner in teaching. They show me their reflections in a logical manner to induce a philosophical conversation that will lead me to reflect upon living contradictions in my manner that need change. 4. iii HOW CAN I LEARN FROM THIS, WHAT RESOURCES DO I HAVE OR NEED TO GENERATE?

Answers are not unmoveable; questions that require time to mature are at the core of my critical thinking for continuous revision and learning. A living educational theory is about questions as much as answers. “Sometimes I feel I cannot express myself when it comes to written work because the class is very noisy…” “You are very expressive (for better or worse) and if I do well in an activity you always tell me so or give out merits.” (M.A.16 years old. Appendix 8). The ambiguity in these comments from one student highlights an apparent contradiction in my method and classroom management yet I can argue that they represent my beliefs in love and freedom, two of my guiding principles. I am confident that the love I feel for all students need no explanation and will shine through this discourse .The issue of freedom is a thornier topic. The appeals for silence and order from my more serious students were not ignored but answered with continuous positive feedback to pupils that either always or occasionally met the requirements of the course. (J.M.Halsted&M.J.Pryor, 2001:180) Still my answer to disruptive behaviour did not rely on dependence on external rules but on the

virtue of doing one’s personal best. The respect for each one’s individuality and freedom was in some cases not followed up by “the respect that each person must show for the rights of others” (M.Sanger, 2002.: 696) the immediate action was to call out the offenders repeatedly, which suggests “that dependence on external motivation (did) little to improve (the) sense of social responsibility” (J.M.Halsted&M.J.Pryor 2001,:180) In “Forms of discipline: a typology” by Tim Small, he locates ´Organisational Discipline’ in the classroom. This discipline is cooperative and evinces good order for the accomplishment of an enterprise. In my classroom I aimed at reaching the next stage ´Functional Discipline’ with encouragement and praise reinforced by experiences of success and self-knowledge. Although this was my praxis it was not the real life of my classroom. The drive, identified as positive encouragement leading to success, in a classroom inhabited by fifteen year olds led to noise and occasional disorder. The desired collaborative behaviour led to heated exchanges of ideas and opinions (see a video. Appendix 1b) and experiences of success were sometimes loudly celebrated. Yet there was evidence of some positive achievements: “We need to try to keep order so that everyone can be heard, but that’s more of a problem for us to solve.”(C. 15 years old. Appendix 9). C. gives evidence of her working consciousness in showing her awareness of student actions, their effects on the classroom community and her willingness to help the teacher in solving the problem by proposing the active participation of all. This interdependence towards the common good to benefit the classroom community is not a rare show of metacognition but was shared by a majority, albeit the more silent one, of the H group. But there was still some way to go to reach the ultimate goal, which relies on collaborative behaviour and low dependency rate. These last two characteristics take time in preparation and individual maturation. Perhaps it was too much to ask from this particular age group and its differences in personal development. Both levels of maturity and lack of intrinsic motivation played a part in these differences. Lackadaisical, troubled individuals with distracting factors from dysfunctional backgrounds needed persistent normative measures. I valued the support evinced by the majority expressed in C’s words for its contribution to the classroom caring climate.

The different objectives I set myself with group A and group H elicited corresponding differences in the answers to: What are you learning about yourself as a learner?

4. iv IN THE SHARED ACTIVITIES AS PRACTICED IN THE ANALOGIES , WERE CHANGES ACKNOWLEDGED AND ACCEPTED?

Some of the answers to the motivational objective transmit a sense of surprise at their own feelings of adequacy and powers of achievement, “That I can do more than I thought I could, this work helped me realise that.”(Au.15 years old. Appendix 10) “That I can get better results if I want” (J.15 years old. Appendix11) These mind states show student empowerment, which might lead to a transfer of cognitive abilities throughout their curricula. Some were able to differentiate strengths and shortcomings, “I’m learning that sometimes I like and find the subject interesting but I don’t know how to study.” (AL.15 years old. Appendix 4) Others showed awareness of a less productive attitude and committed to its correction, “To be more attentive in class.”(V.16 years old. Appendix 6) “…When we work in groups, so that we understand better…´(M.N.15 years old.) (Appendix 5) The mutual engagement of the small groups and their constant engagement with myself did not end with the analogy exercise but continued and raised my awareness to the effectiveness of my strategies to generate understanding and to develop in the future richer and more sophisticated methods for higher order thinking. These strategies are embedded in my manner in teaching and I doubt their effectiveness if the classroom environment is not nurturing and stimulated by positive feelings of love in accepting differences and freedom of expression built on mutual trust. This question invited a reflection on metacognition. This is the ability to know what we know and what we don’t know. Unless asked directly and given the time to ponder the answer, students are not in the habit of wondering why they are doing what they do. Less do they question themselves about their personal learning methods and the

efficiency of such in view of the results of their performances? In the students´ answers there were temporal and comparative judgements. In the H group a learning ´high’ was the Soviet analogy when students felt that they were ´connected’ and ´be in another person’s shoes’. Often in the past, routine class work may have led students to make immediate value judgements through a mechanical, hurried approach or “become addicted to being told what to think and do”(Freseman.1990: 26 in newhorizons.org.costa) The previous, careful preparation to the Soviet analogy informed students to exercise reflection-inaction while practising a listening behaviour (Piaget called it “ overcoming ego centrism”) to see through the perspectives of others. 4. v THE STORY OF MARINA:

Before we reached the stage of the Soviet analogy Marina had suffered a serious emotional crisis. When I introduced the Russian history unit Marina met with a very different perspective to the one that had been familiar to her throughout her life and that was deeply embedded in her intellectual and emotional being. Her grandparents are White Russian refugees who arrived in our country after suffering from their opposition to the Bolshevik Revolution, Civil War and Stalin’s government. The family environment in which Marina grew up is deeply religious and imbued with fond memories of Tsarist times. Marina is deeply attached to her grandparents who hold a very strong position as the elders in the family. They were her only source of historical knowledge about the ´old country´. Perhaps my deeply held conviction that to practice objectivity and open mindedness in exploring the cruel history of the Twentieth century needs compassion as an essential value to hold up as a mirror to my students had too strong an impact in showing Marina ´the plight of the landless peasantry´ and some examples of the contrasting uncaring attitude of the Russian aristocracy and Royal family which she met in working with sources. She started showing signs of distress and kept herself away from history classes. I misjudged the depth of her conflict. I considered her disagreements as simply springing from a lack of knowledge disregarding the emotional content in the issue. I approached the problem as a cognitive lack to be handled intellectually in contradiction

with my caring values. The problem came to a head in an interview with her parents who strongly expressed their disagreement with my resources and teaching approach and asked me to abandon this unit, which was causing their child so much distress. This I could not do. But how far had I lived my moral obligation to care for the well being of my students? How secure was the classroom environment if Marina’s distress had reached the point where she did not want to come to class for fear that her family values would be contradicted? Nell Noddings in ‘Care and Critical thinking’ in her book Educating Moral People highlights Simone Weil’s emphasis on attention on the living other by asking the question, “What are you going through?” “Asking such a question fastens our attention on the living other and not on a set of principles or our own righteousness.” ( Noddings, 2002, :2 ) 4. vi WHAT WAS MY HEALING ACTION ? I decided to give Marina more space in class to relate her family lore and encouraged her to bring some valuable historical material that her grandparents possessed. Paradoxically much of it consisted of revolutionary cartoons not at all flattering to White officers in the Civil War with whose names we were acquainted. I photocopied all this wonderful visual material in colour and returned it to Marina to fashion a Red and White poster which still hangs in my classroom as her donation from her passage through year 10 and as a permanent reminder to myself to practice my attention to others with greater awareness. When the moment for the Soviet analogy arrived Marina had the opportunity to impersonate a ‘kulak’ with a group of classmates who shared her views. This gave me an appreciation of the power of role-play in learning not only as a cognitive activity but also as a window to emotional awareness. Playing roles that did not match their personal beliefs or after listening to an opponent’s views had a liberating effect. “This role playing made me understand both points of view and I really liked defending what I thought was right.” (Marina, 15 years old. Appendix 3) from someone with very

strong cultural blocks M.L. seems to have become a good listener trying to understand what others were saying (see video, appendix 1b) to be able to learn what she had until then disagreed with ´because she had been told what to think´. Now she knows exactly what it is she disagrees with ´both points of view´, hers and the opposite, to be able to defend what she thinks is right, but with a difference, now she is aware of the opposite reasons to her convictions. There was consensus that critical thinking had started. We were aware of what could be, the possibility that listening to different voices would have a positive social value. We envisioned some epistemological aims. We started conjecturing from the awareness gained in empathy from modelling behaviour, that our strongest held opinions could be questioned by ourselves and observed from different angles. This was a big step for some students with cultural blocks. A learning ´high´ for one of these was

“Playing the role of a commissar, even if I don’t agree with collectivisation. (A.V. 15 years old. Appendix 2) In some aspects I did change it (my opinion) and in others not, because I understood some things I didn’t before.” (M.L.15 years old. Appendix 7). They shifted from their ego centred point of view by acquiring new knowledge and associated understanding to reach allocentrism. By ´being in another person’s shoes, taking through role playing an orientation they had until then rejected through lack of knowledge, they were able to enrich their opinions (which did not change) and use them with greater freedom and expertise. Others became aware of capacities that had already been recognised by their peers but not by themselves. “I learnt from myself that I have more potential to discuss than what I thought.”(M.L.15 years old. Appendix 7) Previous preparation to this exercise had given her powers of

expression

she had

not

explored

before.

The

understanding and use of the correct terminology cleared her thoughts and sharpened her language. This raised her awareness of a natural disposition she had until then ignored although it had been recognised by her peers in its incipient form. The objective of the development of creative and critical thinking in the H group received responses that show differences in learning styles, changes in cultural blocks and stages of maturity. These answers in inchoate metacognition paved the way to the systematic instruction and practice in procedures to develop increased proficiency in carrying out the historical skills needed to answer examination requirements. “ I think I learned to adopt different points of view and to evaluate what people might think and why.” (M.A.16 years old. Appendix 8)

. M.A indicates with these words that she is ready to listen to others with understanding and empathy that A.L.Costa identifies as one of the highest forms of intelligent behaviour in his Thinking Skills Program. (New Horizons, 2003) To adopt different points of view it is necessary to become a skilful listener to be able to see through the perspectives of others. To evaluate what people might think and why, means to pay close attention to what is being said beneath the words as stated by Senge et al. In Costa’s Program. Other responses still show a greater reliance on teaching strategies, “When you explain well, I grasp the idea easily,” (A.V.15 years old. Appendix12) “Now I understand quicker when we study a new topic. Before it was more difficult.” Mt.15 years old. Appendix 13) For others, doing led to knowing, “I find role playing more effective…it helps me to remember.”(C.15 years old. Appendix 9) But Mel found a correspondence between her particular learning style and the variety of strategies employed in this course. 50

“Visual learning style: that with different skills (meaning strategies) I learn more. She has learnt that her

talent

myself” meaning her ease

with the use of language

does

attention shortcomings.

complement

her

“to

express

“And then I have a very

strong talent to express

myself which helps me

when I can’t develop

very well my hearing

style.” (Appendix 14)

Mel has given careful

thought

her

capabilities and taken advantage of the strategies offered in the development of different tasks through her awareness of her primary and secondary learning styles. Her sensitivity and imagination allowed her to increase the range of her senses to create empathetic bonds with her classmates and her teacher, ‘all connected’ were her words. 4. vii IS THIS MY LIVING EDUCATIONAL THEORY?

“The need for reason is not inspired by the quest for truth but by the quest for meaning. And truth and meaning are not the same.” (H.Arendt, 1971:15) I have explored the grounds in my manner in teaching through my students´ thoughts and it is time to weave strands of reflection together. My students and I have put our thoughts to work on historical matters to find meaning in many puzzling and unresolved matters. Each one has walked along different paths and found tentative meanings to changes and to find justifications for old and new ideas. We have all grown in awareness in the process. Hannah Arendt writes that morals comes from mores, the Latin for rules of behaviour or customs, and ethics comes from ethos, the Greek word for habitat or habits. I set out to instruct in thinking skills, to provide content tasks requiring skilful thinking and asked my students to reflect upon them. Have I created habits of mind? Did my students show dispositions to reflect and to open their minds and hearts to honesty through trust, compassion through acceptance of differences in their written dialogues with me, their teacher?

I venture a tentative yes, although Hannah Arendt warns that “only habits and customs can be taught and we know only too well the alarming speed with which they are unlearned and forgotten when new circumstances demand a change in manners and patterns of behaviour.”( H.Arendt, 1971:5) I have learned that learners are motivated by hands on tasks that are well structured and planned to challenge ingenuity, include knowledge of the subject and stretch their skills from mere comprehension to problem solving and evaluations that deepen their understanding to make informed decisions as to what opinions to hold on topics of their subject matter. So I offer examples of my learning aimed at improving my educational influence on my students learning to think creatively and critically with only a temporary certainty on their part, as evinced in their writings, but a more lasting and hopefully evolving learning on how to improve myself as a teacher. In deconstructing pedagogy, I separated my technological approach to education, that is instructional objectives and tools of the teaching trade to construct new knowledge in the learner’s inner scaffolding, from my manner in teaching described by Gary Fenstermacher as “manner is defined as conduct expressive of dispositions or traits of character that fall into a category of moral goods known as virtues”. (G.Fenstermacher, 2002: 640). Some of the virtues cited in this study. On the concept of manner and its visibility in teaching practice, are the ones I have tried to awaken in my students. Looking back through the past 20 months, I see the need to put together that deconstruction to generate a living educational theory, which I hope may be seen as “constructivist and learner centred´”. ( L.Shulman & M.Sherin,2003 :136) I wish to echo the characteristics of the Fostering a Community of Learners reform with my students’ engagement in tasks to foster the development of higher-order understanding (metacognition) and skills (self assurance in the practice of historical skills) and the collaboration reached by some who continue to share study time outside school as I was informed lately by my 2003 former students.

Weaving together educational technology and manner in teaching I endeavoured to construct a classroom community which in spite of shortcomings created by careless behaviour in some, created bonds of better understanding, shared ideas, mutual accomplishments and respect for cultural and ideological differences. Through a shared commitment to achieve a variety of tasks, some of them risky in their originality as judged by colleagues, significant steps were made by students in political objectivity which pointed the way to acceptance of differences while maintaining personal beliefs, as is everyone’s right. This was understood as my commitment to respect democratic freedom as a history teacher. To build a classroom community involves the construction of a framework consisting of mastery of the subject and a wealth of vocabulary that will transmit to the learner an adequate dose of professionalism to inspire trust and respect. It is important, as a significant factor in effective teaching to present students with the query for the main ideas in any history topic. •

What is the concern? Social distress?

•

How do we define it? Radical life changes?

•

Who is affected by it? Everyman?

This will lead to a deep sense of awareness, a prerequisite to all further tasks like source analysis. The issue of control in the classroom community must be raised as some of my living contradictions in leading adolescent students. It rests on two legs: assessment of work and classroom management. In a learner-centred, constructivist ambience, assessment needs to be formative, explicit and open to negotiation if students show a commitment to improvement. “There is a characteristic that really helps me and that is that you allow us to correct the questions we had wrong and you change our grades. So in a test, Depth Study etc. we have the possibility of improving and learning from our mistakes.” (Mt.15 years old. Appendix 13) Classroom management moves into the area of manner in teaching. Here my sense of justice and equality are called into action and tested. Justice as well as equality are subject to the encouragement of virtuous conduct of respect and consideration for 53

others. I think it is no sign of inequality to try to control disruptive behaviour by highlighting exalted examples of positive social attitude and task commitment. A strong point in my living educational theory is achieving improvement in studentsÂ´ social relations to allow for all round dialogue and sharing of ideas to achieve interdependent thinking and flexibility of criteria. As the subject of this dissertation is the study of the extent of my influence in my studentsÂ´ learning to think creatively and critically, I feel that this is the place to attempt to speculate on it as both mastery of the subject and manner in teaching are intrinsically involved. Extending influence means inspiring trust, one will not accept what is offered with uncertainty in risk taking. The drive in extending influence is motivation. Studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; need to develop skills or learn content requires certain skills in the teacher. These may be my own passionate commitment to the subject matter expressed in continuous learning of which the students are aware, and my open and friendly disposition demonstrated in a fair negotiating attitude based on genuinely held values of love, freedom and justice.

CHAPTER 5. CLOSURE. 5. i. CONCLUSION RELATED TO MY AIMS. “The role of ‘others’ in action research is a central concern that needs to be given careful thought.” ( McNiff, Lomax and Whitehead, 1996, :16 ) I am holding up my living educational theory to judgment and will endeavour to give feedback in an effort to refine it. One of my aims in the introduction to this project was to analyse how my embodied knowledge created my teaching style and what influence it had on my students. I have gone into my knowledge and have observed my manner in teaching, I have engaged in “the soundless dialogue of me with myself” (H. Arendt, 1971: 31) and with the help of my students´ reflections I can attempt to show that my students have been empowered to develop creativity and critical thinking in this action research journey that we travelled together. Their empowerment extended to the recognition that my embodied values of compassion and justice led us along this road of active empathy. This was a learning community lodged in the classroom where tasks were designed and done in a climate of caring, where I strived to do my personal best. This was understood in the trust that my students have expressed and by my efforts to improve the discipline of those that needed external order to assimilate their learning. It has also brought evidence of a living contradiction in me. I was not sufficiently alert to a student’s distress brought on by thoroughness in the use of resources that showed up a measure of bias by not presenting the two sides of an issue with sufficient fairness. Early on I asked myself how I would know if my practice has improved. I have made choices ´to please myself and because I wished to set an example`, two motives described by H. Arendt for our actions. My actions had a purpose, to show my integrity with honesty and clarity. My guiding challenge has been the Socratic test “Be as you appear” (H.Arendt, 1971: 37). There 55

is no end to this challenge. It is a daily task, a continuous reflection-on-reflection-inaction to echo D. Schon´s words. “Moving on to the aims of the field work to foster creative and critical thinking in my students in the hope of eliciting my own learning, I have ´turned thought back on itself, to think new ways about phenomena and about how we think about those phenomena” (D. Schon.1987: 3) Through my fieldwork I have learnt from my students that role-play has effectively helped them to internalise issues by engaging their emotions and their intellect to “link knowledge, virtue and reason.”(D.Coulter & J.R.Wiens. 2002: 15). At the start of this project I announced a living contradiction in my manner in teaching. I presumed that my values of justice and equality were put to the test and found wanting by the different treatment I meted out to students committed to learning and to those who impeded that learning by their disruptive behaviour. I feared that I was exercising excessive control by being normative. Yet as the project moved along I found understanding and support from the majority and eventually and surprisingly if IGCSE results are anything to go by, the unmotivated ones did better in their examinations than I had anticipated. 5. ii. WHAT HAVE I LEARNT HERE? I have learnt that encouragement and praise leading to improved relationships and setting limits to behaviour, which is unacceptable to the community with its support rather than uncomfortable confrontations may foster what Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”(H. Arendt, 1971,:223). As to my living contradiction in my manner in teaching with care for my students, I have learnt that my judgement must not be obscured by my efforts to develop cognitive achievements in detriment of the emotional aspect since both work hand in hand to achieve positive learning. The dichotomy I believe may have resided in the different timings of the students´ psychological conditions and the work in progress.

Finally I have explored the classroom environment where I still find myself with new groups of students, every day. At the heart of my educational theory I find that my professionalism inspires mutual respect, daily exercised in non-threatening but stimulating activities, in the acceptance of individual differences, in acknowledging every one’s responses, in practicing flexibility born of self-assured experience and in taking care that all my actions should be clear and explicit to offer modelling that should be taken only by the free choice of the students. So ends my first conclusion related to my aims. I have identified and analyzed living contradictions in my manner in teaching which present conflicts for future resolution. I have given life-affirming claims to the generation of creativity in my students´ concerns for truth and compassion. There are signs of their burgeoning awareness of the complexities of making sense of the past with impartiality. There is evidence in the video recording of their analogies that in role-playing of two momentous events in history – the re-writing of the Treaty of Versailles and a village Soviet on collectivisation in the USSR in 1928 they have developed their awareness of the diversity of human endeavour. There was a further and deeper educational process going on in the practice of these activities. Active empathy bonded the students with each other, with the plights of humanity and with me, their teacher in our common praxis. 5. iii. CONCLUSION RELATED TO MY METHODOLOGY. “To make changes and seek evidence that the changes did indeed represent improvement.” (Russell, 2002: 3-4 in Whitehead, 2003: 1) To give closure to my action research expedition I will attempt to fulfill the last steps in

evaluating my methodology as modeled in Mc Niff, Lomax and Whitehead, 1996.

Through observations and step by step evaluations throughout this dissertation I have accumulated knowledge of my students’ learning processes and my teaching connecting both as far as possible with other bodies of knowledge established by other

methods in the works of educational researchers and philosophers as analyzed in my literature review in chapter 1. I find that my attempt has been explicitly analyzed in the dichotomy of ´spectator` truth and ‘living’ truth by Gabriel Marcel (Burke. A, 1992: 222 in Whitehead, 2003: 3). I have been guided in my profession by writers one step removed from reality. This was expressed by a colleague who said to me, “none of these educational theories tell you what to do in the classroom”. I attempt to bridge the gap by bringing forth from within the classroom, the ´living’, ‘authentic’ truth of our situation, my students as coresearchers and mine. In clarifying the meanings of my embodied values I try to turn them into the living, communicable standards of judgment that I am using to judge my educational influence on my students. 5. iv. DOES MY ACTION RESEARCH ACCOUNT RING TRUE AND DOES IT ENABLE RE ADERS TO ESTABLISH CONNECTIONS? I wish to explain this point by linking it to Habermas’ ‘truth claims’ (Hartog, 2004)

•

Is this account comprehensible?

•

Does it represent a truthful and sincere account?

To these two claims, Mary Hartog has added to her standards of judgment In her Doctoral Thesis (2004), a third one: •

Is it appropriate, has it been crafted with due professional and ethical consideration?

On this last point I wish to make clear that at all times I was careful to explicate my aim of using written and visual material provided by the collaboration of my students in this dissertation, which would be submitted to the University of Bath for the achievement of a Master’s degree in Education.

•

Does it represent a truthful and sincere account?

I have drawn together the strands of my educative influence on my students learning by using their own voices and images in video recording (Appendixes 1 a and b) the activities corresponding to the research exercises as examples of our work together and in video clips that high-light special moments.

•

Is this account comprehensible?

I have told the dramatic story of a student who experienced an emotional conflict with my teaching and the living contradiction I demonstrated in not exercising my caring values strongly and promptly enough to avert the onset of distress. It was only the trust we had in each other fostered by a fairly long relationship in her young life and the warm support of her classmates that allowed us to move on and achieve the desired effect of opening up her mind to others’ plights in her history learning, to reach a measure of change in her opinions in the service of historical objectivity. I learnt that my efforts to provide a caring environment for my students needed further development creating a new spiral in my action research project. This living contradiction as well as others analysed in my writing created conflicts, which energized the crafting of my living educational theory rooted as it is in my manner in teaching. I have systematically gone through sources of conflict that further revealed my living contradictions in trying to work with my students in freedom but in an orderly manner as well to allow for productive busy ness. My students’ comments inserted in my narrative and shown in appendices showed their approval and willingness to help in limiting disruptive behavior. (Appendixes 8 and 9) In transforming my embodied value of integrity I have endeavored to engage the history of our 2003 school year, my students’ and my own, in a forthrightly and honest manner laying bare the inside of situations in the practice of analogies to provoke motivation, empathy, creativity and critical thinking as improvements in my students´ learning and in my own as an educator.

5. v. STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS. “My own identity crucially depends on my dialogical relations with others.” (Taylor, 1991:47-48 in Coulter and Wiens, 2002:17) The strength of my study resides in the enthusiastic collaboration of my students as evinced in their responses to questionnaires included as appendices and in video clips that image their joyful commitment in answer to my passion in teaching. These primary sources, both written and visual, provide an inside view of the expressions of participants’ thinking and feeling. These students’ reflections have contributed to building my living educational theory that aims to show that as a mainly liberationist teacher (Fenstermacher and Soltis, 1998: 38) my educational technology is insufficient to produce learning without the engagement of my students’ feelings “for better or for worse” (M.A.16 years old. Appendix 8) through my manner in teaching. This manner is grounded in values of equality of opportunity, freedom to develop personal opinions and points of view with the aim of ´constructing` (Bruner in Pithers, 2000: 244) a code of worthwhile values in which justice will be exercised in shared agreements of assessment (Torrance and Pryor, 2001: 620) to evaluate students` learning and my own performance. The limitations of my study rest on the constraints laid on by a tight time schedule, two terms with my co-researchers in Year 10, the requirements of a two year examination syllabus compressed by school policy into one year and my ability to adapt this syllabus to the action research strategies I devised – a synectic model of direct and personal analogies. Further limitations became evident in the three questionnaires I crafted. ´Experiencing Learning`, the first one I issued, was inclusive of my aims in the scope of responses it elicited as it focused on the expression of feelings and their potentials for change or even their awareness of changes in progress. (Appendices 4 to 14).

The second and third questionnaires focused on the development of historical skills and examination techniques, useful to the students Â´technical performance but less useful to the turn that my dissertation took in providing arguments for my living educational theory in which educational technology needs the support of my manner in teaching to engage feelings in learning to think empathetically, creatively and critically. (Appendices 15, 16, 17 and 18) 5. vi. DATA AS EVIDENCE.

There is a clear distinction between data and evidence, which I have tried to establish by using the data, provided by my students in their answers to Â´Experiencing Learning`1, 2 and 3 and the use I have made of this material. I have analyzed the data provided in the video recording (Appendixes 1a and b) of two classroom activities to illustrate and provide evidence to my claims to changes in motivation in one group (Group A) and the generation of empathy and creativity to form opinions and points of view in another group (Group H). This evidence is used as well to illustrate the models used in planning direct analogy in Re-writing the Treaty of Versailles and the personal analogy in the 1928 Collectivisation Soviet by providing Notes and Instructions. (Appendixes 2, 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d and 3e.) Finally this data provides evidence to test the validity to my claim to have developed motivation in a disaffected group of students - Group A - and in my further claim to have opened windows in traditional cultural blocks to foster empathy, creativity and critical thinking in Group H. These new insights into my practice result from the periodic reflections-on-action, the moments throughout this narrative where I have stood back from the hurly burly of the classroom together with my co-researchers to systematically make explicit the metacognition gained from our actions. This intentional process was driven by my own values about what was good for my students to progress in freedom of opinion and compassion for the plight of the people in the past and to develop their empathy that it may stretch into the present to encompass the future in my primary aim that they

may use critical thinking in the exercise of responsible freedom of choice in their actions. 5. vii. CHOICE OF SUBJECT AND METHODOLOGY. The choice of subject for research was important for my sense of purpose and commitment to the task. That it was the result of two fortuitous happenings shows that something genuine was at stake in my praxis: •

Reading Coulter and Wiens article in the Educational Researcher May 2002 Educational Judgment: Linking Actor and Spectator.

•

Viewing Costa Gavras film ´Amen’ led me to delve in depth into H.Arendt’s 1971 book Life of the Mind.

I connected these experiences with strong feelings of dissatisfaction with my national/ social environment and my lack of action to make a difference. This created in me a sense of engagement and the purpose to find meaning to my own identity and my role as a teacher. ´Action´(Canovan, 1974:58, Coulter, 2002:198-202 in Elliot, 2004:5) involves initiating change in a social situation to bring about something new in the web of social relationships that constitute it. Action in this context is a process which admits a plan but with unforeseen consequences which allow for further change in a spiral leading to improvement. The choice of research methodology was impelled by the desire to improve my practice in putting to good use my values of honesty, democratic freedom and social justice. I introduced a new strategy in my practice – the analogies. I initiated something new, linking objectives and planning the construction of role-play developed by the students. In the exercise of the 1928 Collectivization Soviet I effaced myself as seen in Appendix 1 b-in the CD Rom video-recording of the activity and in the video clips to allow the revelation of the students’ opinions to themselves and to each other. In this profound sharing, strong traditional blocks started giving way allowing the free flow of creativity to take place. (Appendixes 7, 12 and 15). Following Elliot’s interpretation of Arendt’s ‘action’, my aim was to enlarge the space in which students could relate to each other as individuals taking on roles of others in a mock situation or personal analogy. 62

5. viii. HOW FAR ARE WE AWARE OF ´SELF´ IN DIFFERENT TIMES AND PLACES? “The gradual defining of identity (is) a central task of education…connected with the personal formations and defining the identity of both the teacher and the students” (Whitehead, 2003: 4). I have striven to be the subject and the object of my research in my reflections and through those of my students’ comments. I have taken responsibility for my own actions acknowledging my living contradictions when I failed to exercise my caring values in full awareness. As the author of my own research account I own my claims that learning is best achieved where the manner in teaching is based on values that aim at the personal improvement of the students through the critical development of me as the teacher. It was only in editing this dissertation and in writing this end piece that I introduced my own ‘I’ in ´How do I improve my practice? ` By reflecting upon how Harré (1998) and Mead (1934) argued the point of identity. In J.Whitehead´s interpretation (2003), Harré explained it by deconstructing it thus: The ‘self’ being the collection of attributes of a person and the word ‘self’ is also used for the impression those person’s characteristics make on others. Those attributes or characteristics may be fairly permanent or evanescent perhaps existing in relation to different environments. These totalities are the personal impressions we make on other people. Am I able to connect these thoughts to what Schon calls reflection-in-action, my responses to the actions of students in the classroom and build a body of reflection-onaction from it? Mead (1934) reinforces this hypothesis when she states “we are one thing to one man and another thing to another”. (Whitehead, 2003: 5). Our different selves have different answers to different social situations. May this be the source of our living contradictions that on reflection will lead us to improve our practice?

In my action research expedition in the deconstruction of my praxis lays the intention of creating future spirals of improvement. Being true to myself led at times to being in conflict with others being true to themselves. This conflict has led me to carry out an in depth reflection to improve my practice. Hamilton and Pinnegar (1998) in Whitehead (2002) analyze how self-studies generate educational theories in the narrations of practitioners’ research to provide insight and understanding for others. They identify living educational theory, in that it is ‘living’ in me, the teacher committed to a deep understanding of her practice. I can only claim that the fruit of my reflections as gathered from the evaluations embedded in my narrative shows that the roles have been reversed as I announced in the introduction to this work and the deeper understanding of my practice springs from what I have learnt from my students. I have explored living my values as fully and as honestly as it is possible for me to do so but most of the discoveries in this area have been better expressed by my students’ comments in their responses to ´Experiencing Learning` (Appendices 4 to 14 and 15, 16, 17 and 18) My teaching evolved during this action research journey and I as a human being changed in ways unsuspected by myself as stated before in ´…a plan with unforeseen consequences`. 5. ix. SHAPING MY STANDARDS OF JUDGMENT. Tacit manner has become explicit to me. In attempting to build my living educational theory, my students’ reflections have allowed me to stand back and question my motives in adopting this methodology and the use of my embodied values as standards of judgment. I have adopted action research urged on by the need to explain my search for teaching approaches that would allow me to lead my students on the path of the free flow of creativity to generate critical thinking. “Studying ourselves does not always involve major change; sometimes it is just about revaluing what was already there and using it in new ways

that are informed by both the personal and the social.” (Mitchell and Weber, 1999, 232 in Whitehead, 2003, 20). I started this action research on studying my influence to foster students’ creative and critical thinking by focusing on their intellects to develop cognitive skills but soon I was forced to acknowledge the power of my manner in teaching. But I am only now gaining in-depth awareness through the declarations of my last year’s students encountered circumstantially in covering the absence of their present History teacher. They raised my consciousness to the importance of feelings generated last year and their consequences for them at present. Such importance has had greater relevance to them than I could have foreseen. They claim to have formed habits of friendship, camaraderie, sharing and caring for each other irrespective of gender from the deep interactions created by the exercise of the analogies. Their declarations may extrapolate to Noddings’ identification of what was for Aristotle the highest form of friendship and most likely to endure, the mutual admiration of the other’s virtue. In this fortuitous encounter they were more articulate and open in their comments than they had been before. They attributed my observation of these new characteristics to the improvement in their relations with each other, the effect of the interactions done in History class last year. They claim to have created a supportive community with purposes of mutual personality growth and sustained learning. They revealed that there has been a positive change in the increased interest in listening to what others have to say which they attribute to the role-play exercises done in 2003 so laden with opposite points of view and passionate expressions as evinced in the attached CD Rom (Appendix 1 b). This seems to show that the action research carried out in 2003 by my students as coresearchers and I produced changes that represent learning from a process of active empathy that occurred within all of us as we communicated and transformed our embodied values into living experiences. The video clips inserted in my narrative and the students’ comments which serve as captions show the beginnings of these personal and collective processes which have blossomed with their own maturation a year later.

I am using the educational values embedded in my practice to measure the effectiveness of the innovations I introduced to carry out this action research. In creating my living educational theory I have questioned and clarified my values when I fell short of my ideals to move on to improve my practice. “Reinvention through self-study can be a powerful and highly effective means of self-transformation and a catalyst for professional growth.” (Mitchell and Weber, 1999: 232 in Whitehead, 2003: 20) Have I lived my values fully enough to support my students in their learning to think creatively and critically? Validity and reliability may only be found in Arendt’s idea of a proper action and in the values that I, the writer, evinced throughout my research work. During this action research expedition, we reached a level of communication that went beyond instrumental language. This happened in a public sphere such as the one created in the methodological invention of the personal analogy. So I base my standard of judgment on Arendt’s thinking, a proper action has the idea of freedom inherent to it. This freedom was exercised in our personal analogy in the context of a public sphere. It was so, precisely because in this public sphere we were able to present each other in our own uniqueness, but not disregarding our underlying equality. In this process something new was created: a transformation of my educational judgments and a transformation of my students’ values as well. The Socratic test, to be as I appear may be turned back on itself. Appear as I am. This is a lifelong challenge where appearance and identity, actor and spectator, are interchangeable. I act as a teacher trying to transmit knowledge and values to awaken phronesis, strengthened awareness in students to enable them to act with virtue and reason. I am the spectator of my students’ changes in answer to my praxis. These are the principles that I have striven to clarify and to establish as my standards of judgment. I am moved to claim that the reciprocal transformations that my students and I have experienced in our values of compassion, freedom, justice and equality in our outlook on humanity as a whole, may be called active empathy which I add to claim as another living and communicable educational standard of judgment. ( J.Whitehead, 6/24/03).This was a participatory, democratic process in pursuit of worthwhile human purposes (Reason,P.and Bradbury,H.2001). We have created and shared new forms of 66

understanding, which have had liberating effects on my students and have provided me with inspiration and guidance for the future.

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