REFLECTIONS ON ETHOS AND CULTURE

JOHN MACBEATH

University of Cambridge

ETHOS

CULTURE

ETHOS

CULTURE AND

STRUCTURE

PISA The learning Environment and the

organisation of Schooling (2003)

% of variance in performance explained by ethos and socio-economic factors

Ireland

US

UK

Finland

0 10050

Concealed works

Smoke alarms

AntI-truancy illuminated panels

Hand driers

Television camera

Full length walls and doors

AN ETHOS

OF ACHIEVEMENT

A CULTURE OF LEARNING

pupil learning

Professional learning

System learning

THE LEARNING WEDDING CAKE

HOW GOOD IS OUR ETHOS?

Learning A Culture of learning

What do we know?

What do we not know?

What would we like to know?

How might we find out?

Imagine yourself on a ship sailing across an unknown sea,

to an unknown destination. An adult would be desperate

to know where he is going. But a child only knows he is

going to school...The chart is neither available nor

understandable to him... Very quickly, the daily life on

board ship becomes all important ... The daily chores, the

demands, the inspections, become the reality, not the

voyage, nor the destination.

(Mary Alice White, 1971)

DOING SCHOOL

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Copyright 1993 Watterson/ Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate

‘Children come to school with a hundred languages and leave with one.”

The Carpe Vitam Project, 2002

TAMING THE WILD…..

…AND WILDING THE TAME

THE HOLE IN THE WALL

Research papers by Sugata Mitra on MIE

Pavan at a Madangir kiosk with his goat

Girl in village Kalse, Sindhudurg district, and her painting after 3

hours of seeing a computer for the first time.

Intelligence is knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do

Jean Piaget

CONFIDENT UNCERTAINTY

Learning starts from the joint acknowledgement of

inadequacy and ignorance…There is no other place

for learning to start. An effective learner, or

learning culture, is one that is not afraid to admit

this perception, and also possesses some confidence

in its ability to grow in understanding and

expertise, so that perplexity is transformed into

mastery… (Claxton, 2000)

How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

OK, so what's the speed of dark?

CONFIDENT UNCERTAINTY

“Neurons connect parts of our brains with one another but no cables made of neurons drape from person to person. We talk about ideas. We share insights. We pool recollections.” (Perkins, 2004 p.22)

DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE

Delivering the curriculum

Discussing purposes and objectives of

learning

Pupils devising indicators of achievement

Pupils as assessors their own and others’

work

Pupils as determiners of learning

Pupils as learning partners

DEVELOPING A LEARNING CULTURE

• Social bonding

• Social bridging

• Social linking

Social Capital

Warum muss Ich in die Schule gehen?

“In school you meet people from different from yourself from different backgrounds, children you can observe, talk to, ask questions, for example someone from Turkey or Vietnam, a devout Catholic or an out and out atheist, boys and girls, a mathematical whiz kid, a child in a wheelchair... I believe whole heartedly that the open school is there first and foremost to bring young people together and to help them to learn to live in a way that our political society so badly needs.”

(Von Hentig, p.47)

Human capital

Making learning an

object of attention

Making learning an

object of

conversation

Making learning an

object of reflection

Making learning an

object of learning

A CULTURE OF LEARNING

The force field

A culture

of learning

TOXINS

• ideas rejected or stolen

• constant carping criticisms

• being ignored

• being judged

• being overdirected

• not being listened to

• being misunderstood

Southworth, 2000

NUTRIENTS

• being valued

• being encouraged

• being noticed

• being trusted

• being listened to

• being respected

Southworth, 2000

“Somehow educators have forgotten the important connection between teachers and students. We listen to outside experts to inform us, and, consequently overlook the treasure in our very own backyards – the students.”

(Soo Hoo, 1993, p. 389)

THE TREASURE WITHIN

Pupil representatives at staff meetings

Pupils graffiti board in staffroom

Pupils produce learning, assessment, careers booklets

Pupil representatives in staff meetings

Pupils on staff selection and appointment panels

Pupils on inspection teams

Headteacher parliamentary questions

The Bubble Box

Tuning in to the secret harmonies

manipulation

decoration

participation

consultation

Adults decide. Inform pupils.

Pupils decide. Adults support.

Adults and pupils decide together

Adults consult pupils then decide.

Adults use pupils as decoration

Adults consult and take pupil views into account.

The ladder of participation

(from Shultz in Democratic Learning, MacBeath and Moos.)

A GLOBAL MOVEMENT

Government intervention

Local school management

A GLOBAL MOVEMENT

Government intervention

School autonomy, school choice

Intermediate support and moderation?

A GLOBAL MOVEMENT

Government: provider and quality assurer

School: compliance and subversion

The accountability improvement interface

• The Manufactured crisis

• The improvement illusion

• The magnificent myth

• The post truth political environment

LIFE IN A PSEUDO ENVIRONMENT

The improvement illusion

“Nine and a half our days, class on Saturday, school during the summer and two hours of homework each night are non-negotiable...”If you’re off the bus you’re working” says Feinberg...... Each morning students receive a worksheet of maths, logic and word problems for them to solve in the free minutes that appear during the day.”

Teachers carry cell phones with toll free numbers and are on call 24 hours a day to answer any concerns their students might have. “Ten calls a night may sound like a drag”, says Feinberg,” but everyone goes to bed ready for the next school day.” (No Excuses, Lessons from High Performing Schools)

‘In the 70s and 80s nobody was interested in achievement in schools’. (ht secondary school)

‘Not long ago there was a time when teachers took no responsibility for children’s learning at all. They had no expectation of them at all.’ (primary ht)

‘Look at any school mission statement and you will find an inverse correlation between achievement and caring’

HOW MYTHS GAIN INERTIA

PISA The learning Environment and the

organisation of Schooling (2003)

% of variance in performance explained by ethos and socio-economic factors

Ireland

US

UK

Finland

0 10050

GREEDY WORK

The task of leading a school in the twenty first century can no longer be carried out by the heroic individual leader single handedly turning schools around. It is greedy work, all consuming, demanding unrelenting peak performance from superleaders and no longer a sustainable notion.

Peter Gronn, The New Work of Educational Leaders: Changing Leadership Practice in an Era of School Reform, 2003

THE POST TRUTH POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT

Public opinion is shaped in response to people's maps or images of the world, and not to the world itself.

Mass political consciousness does not pertain to the actual environment but to an intermediary pseudo-environment.

When deals must be struck and compromises made on behalf of large purposes, Presidents tend to prefer deception over education.

Eric Alterman, The Nation 2004

LET PUPILS HIRE THEIR TEACHERS says Labour adviserPupils should be given power to apoint their own teachers, according to one of the government’s most senior education advisers.

THE SUNDAY TIMES July 13, 2003

LIVING WITH PARADOX

self evaluate

take risks/innovate

think long term

be flexible

collaborate

share leadership

encourage teamwork

apply given criteria

avoid mistakes

deliver results now

follow the rules

compete

retain control

assess individuals

SEVEN KEY PRINCIPLES

1. Justice .. as a first unalienable principle

2. Reciprocity.. Observing the me-too-you-too principle

3. Steadfastness….in holding on to what matters

4. Solidarity… in the strength of the collective

5. Diversity .. The enrichment of difference

6. Stewardship.. .Active concern for the shared resource

7. Accountability …for the moral imperative

“Not everything that counts can be counted. And not everything that can be counted, counts.”

Albert Einstein