My last post set out some initial thoughts I have about my (very) long journey towards constructing a version of pedagogy with which I am happy. It was unashamedly self-referential, partly because I was exploring my own potted history but also because I wanted to set out the route I had taken (truncated it must be said) to arrive at where I am now (possibly). I ended the blog with the view that pedagogy, for me, is:
Being in and acting on the world, with and for others
Such a position may be taken to be informative in that it extols the openness that is (and perhaps should be) teaching. It can, though, also be taken as too open, in that it leaves all involved in pedagogy with too much room for manoeuvre. My aim was the former, but I can quite see that the latter may be a valid criticism. What I wish to do here is explore how the former might be supported in ways that develop the definition I extol.
As a parenthesis, however, I feel it necessary to explain my thinking about the relationships between education, curriculum, and pedagogy.
Education, curriculum, pedagogy
Part of the issues we face is the lack of precision often inherent in the English language. These three terms, for me, demonstrate this quite impressively. Starting with education: the term engages across society. In its plurality of linguistic forms, it conjures versions of events that, broadly conceived, generate discussion about the conferment of some form of learning between generations through a variety of experiences. Quite how these are constructed depends on the culture in question. Across the English-speaking world, it would be fair to say that education has become synonymous with three things. First, structural, and experiential provision as defined by age and stage to both support society (broadly conceived) and develop the individual so that they might live in that society. Second, the articulation and expression of forms of credentialism for the purposes of judging individuals, and the system itself. In Scotland, such credentialism operates via testing in primary and secondary school, particularly through matters such as Nat-5’s, Highers, or Advanced Highers. Although league tables are not officially constructed, they are produced for journalistic purposes, particularly we are told, so that parents and carers can be informed of the quality of schooling in their area and so that politicians might comment thereon as well. It is important to note here that I have slipped the language slightly: I just talked of schooling, not education. This was deliberate, for I wanted to demonstrate for this second aspect of education, the leverage ‘school’ has on such matters.
The third synonym (if we might use that term) for education is more elusive but, I think, potentially more nefarious. Here education becomes a form of control; a means whereby certain societal structures can be reinforced, often quietly and subversively. Sociologists talk of education here as functional; education functions to reinforce societal structures and forms. Freire noted this in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972) where he talks about the need to emancipate marginalised groups so they might realise the ambition in their lives and the structural obstacles in their way. While many judge his work as a means to explain and challenge prevailing orthodoxies, others also comment on his seeming underlying Marxist line (see for example Knoblauch, 1988) and the ways it struggles to effect significant change. Certainly, his work is no fillip to those who seek to maintain their position in society, after all it is an unusual policymaker who would seek to educate the masses to replace them. For Freire, and indeed, many others, education is not and should not be just a matter of provision or expertise or classes or lessons; it is a complex interaction between society and the individual.
The same might be said for curriculum. The simplicity of curriculum stems from the belief that it is merely that which is to be taught. There are many who challenge such matters in far more erudite ways than I, for example Mark Priestly (see for example, Priestley et al., 2021). To suffice here, it is worth noting that while, certainly ‘knowledge’, ‘skills’, ‘concepts', etc. form pillars for curriculum it is not just that at all. By choosing that to be taught (if we stay with the simplistic), we are, in the very least, expressing an educational vision; we are constructing a response to that outlined previously. In the least, that explained and explored through ‘curriculum’ is an expression of values, ideals and positions deemed important, and in turn both expresses, and is expressed by educational interpretation. There seems scant difference between education and curriculum for both identify, locate and laud particular forms of the interplay between ‘those who teach’, ‘those who are taught’, and ‘that to be taught’.
It may well be that a turn to pedagogy denotes the ‘how’ of this endeavour: the ways in which we might affect change/learning/etc. Here, arguments abound as to whether curriculum is a subset of pedagogy, or vice versa. In part, this expresses the current vein for pedagogy: discussions on how we might teach to influence learning. Partly, I do not dispute this; even if we return to Greek origins for the Pedagogue (see for example, Smith, 2021) we can observe the ways in which teaching and learning are not only supported, but also how they are understood. Thus, an enactment of pedagogy originates in what might be termed ‘hands on the table, sitting next to’ but becomes referential for contemporary matters.
Pedagogy: being in and acting on the world with and for others
My line is that by thinking about pedagogy as the relationship between people, and between people and the world we effect a shift in these relationships themselves. Rather than be driven by static interpretations of ‘the teacher’, ‘the learner’, ‘the curriculum’, ‘testing’, etc. pedagogy here notes how these come together to provide for inter-relational experience to effect change.
This requires a shift in focus from ‘role definition’ to ‘position’ (cf. Harré, 2004) so that the interplay between individuals and between them and their world augments the positions taken-up, resisted, amended, or subverted in moment-by-moment constructions of versions of events. Betwixt the storylines people bring to the moment and the language deployed in the moment, individuals are positioned, or position themselves. Not only do they do this in relation to each other, they also do so in relation to structural matters, historic interpretations, knowledge forms, likes, dislikes, etc. Indeed, all these will themselves be positioned and repositioned through a phenomenology of time.
Graphically, Positioning Theory (see Harré, 2004; Korobov & Bamberg, 2004 for example) can be presented thus
Figure 1: The Positioning Triangle
What I argue is that such forms are central to the fabric of pedagogy, the very ways in which we understand and direct our attention towards pedagogy as a relational endeavour, driven, yes, by for example, psychology, but much more than this; by understandings that are sociological, anthropological, political, economic, etc. Pedagogy must take on the three functions of: understanding the world; exploring the world; and transforming the world with and for those to whom the world relates.
Pedagogy: a solution?
I am not drawn, you may probably appreciate, to a view of pedagogy that deals simply with matters of teaching interactions at the level of ‘how can I get them to learn this?’ Even this seeming simple question is, in my mind deeply problematic for underlying it are a host of assumptions that call into question, in the very least, ‘them’ and ‘learn’. Germanic and Nordic interpretations readily attest to this; it just seems that in the Anglophone world we have become wedded to a view of pedagogy that is simple, direct, and focussed on technique far too readily. Perhaps, then, we should explore further afield for our interpretations?
References
Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Harré, R. (2004). Positioning Theory. Retrieved from www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/virtual/positioning.doc.
Korobov, N., & Bamberg, M. (2004). Positioning a “mature” self in interactive practices: How adolescent males negotiate “physical attraction” in group talk. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22(4), 471–492.
Knoblauch, C.H. (1988). Some Observations on Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed”. Journal of Advanced Composition, 1988, Vol. 8, No. 1/2, pp. 50-54.
Priestley, M., Alvunger, D., Philippou, S. & Soini, T. (Eds.) (2021) Curriculum Making in Europe: Policy and Practice Within and Across Diverse Contexts. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.
Smith, M. K. (2021). What is pedagogy? The encyclopaedia of pedagogy and informal education. Retrieved from https://infed.org/mobi/what-is-pedagogy/.