Class...shocking!

How interesting to see what happens when social class is raised in the battle for the General Election. Shocking! The most common view held by the media, the Conservative party and the LibDems is rather like the one in the clip below from David Cameron, that it's some how spiteful and petty. 'It's not where you are now that matters, but where you are going'.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/8397729.stm

According to Marx and Engels the whole of history has been the history of class struggle, but according to those I've seen, heard and read talking about it in the media its really not relevant at all. Why would the media say that...?

Am I right in thinking that The Labour Party was created to represent the working class in Parliament? Some would say that Labour MPs were put there to 'fight the corner' for the working class as the Tories and the Liberals had other sections of societys' interests at heart.

One might be able to argue that the best class fighters in Parliament have always been the Tories and that despite their leader's rhetoric their levels of class consciousness have always been very high indeed. Discuss.

Cambridge

I'm back in Cambridge for the 5th Writers' Workshop that I run with with Professor Tony Booth from my university. We take 12 colleagues away to Cambridge to write. We talk together about each others work and spend hours in our rooms writing. A meal in the evening and then the pub in the centre of town to round the day off. It works every time - work for publication and great conversation.

Free Schools

As explained in the Observer (22.11.09) "Local authorities in England are no longer able to simply open a school, which they then run. Instead, following regulations that came into force in the summer of 2003, they have to put proposals out to tender..The Conservatives want to take things a step further by setting up a Swedish "free-school" system in which the government will fund schools to be run by charities or groups of parents"

Toby Young (pictured) wants to do this and send his children to his new school. In the same Observer article he writes: "We have no doubt that the school we want to set up will be popular with local parents. Its key differentiators will be rigorous setting, high academic expectations and an old fashioned system of pastoral care, with a uniform, houses, etc." In an earlier article (I think in the same paper) he argues that his school will be non-selective, but that children who do not behave will not be tolerated. All this raises some questions:

1. By allowing parents, charities and businesses, who can or want to, open schools, does this undermine the local authority which are under the control of elected local councillors? Does this undermine real local democracy and democratic influence on schools?

2. Toby Young wants his schools to be non-selective, but will his zero-tolerance rule mean that his school will become exclusive? Some children can not behave in the ways that Mr Young will want them to.

3. Will the charities be running the schools for children excluded from Mr Young's school and others like it? Can we expect the return of real Victorian values?

4. Will the 'Free School' break the social class segregation that currently is creeping more and more into our schools, or will it make it worse?

5. Is the Free School movement as advocated by the Tories part of a neo-liberal policy that Tony Blair and New Labour advanced?

Answers on a postcard

Perform a Poem

This is a wonderful resourse for teachers and children. Download and up-load a poetry performance! When Michael Rosen was the Children's Laureate he had the idea of creating a safe site for children to up-load their own performances of their own poems and those of others. Find it here http://performapoem.lgfl.org.uk/

Ground Rules for Talk: The Acceptable Face of Prescription

I have been completing the proofs for an article on the 'Ground Rules perspective' for talk as constructed by Professor Neil Mercer and his colleagues. It will be published in the next edition of The Curriculum Journal. This article is my second piece on this subject in this journal. The first article, that can be found in Vol. 17 No.1 March 2006, was critiqued by Professor Mercer in his and Littleton's book Dialogue and the Development of Children's Thinking: A Sociocultural Approach (2007).
Professor Mercer can be seen in the picture on the left. Both of my articles critique aspects of Mercer's position on ground rules for talk. I hope it at least contributes to lively debate.

UKLA National Conference 30th March 2010

Tuesday 30th March 2010: The British Library, Euston Road, London 9.30 - 4pm

Choice and Voice: Reading and Writing for Pleasure and Independence

Richard Andrews (London, Institute of Education) 'How do we bring pleasure and independence to the development of writing?'

Prue Goodwin (Reading University) on 'The making of a reader'

Alan Gibbons (author) 'In defence of reading: the campaign for the book'

Choice of 5 workshops

Book on line www.ukla.org

Bears

In 1891 Oscar Wilde wrote:

"The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism - are forced, indeed, so to spoil them....accordingly, with admirable, though mis-directed intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves the task of remedying the evils they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease...but this is not the solution; it is an aggravation of their difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life - educated men who live in the East End - coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises...It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair"

The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Discuss

Furedi on Education

I have just bought this new book by Frank Furedi (Professor of Sociology at Kent University) on education. Frank's views are always worth reading.

I heard him speak at my University a while ago on the same subject. I suspect his opinions in this book will be both enlightening and extremely irritating.

However, a critique of education, as sculpted by governments over the last 25 years or so, is much needed. Looking forward to reading it.

Flu

I had forgotten how frustrating having flu can be. It's also hard work having to email and telephone people you are having to 'cancel' 'due to the flu'. People have been very understanding and kind.

Peter Greenham was great artist. This is an oil of his that is presently up for sale.

Good to see that the prospect of a poetry seminar series is back on the cards - time to start bidding.

Sublime to the...

Bolgona was great. Just right for a weekend. When can I go again.

I've been reading more on postmodernism for the next chapter in the book I'm writing. Sheehan's chapter in the Cambridge Companion to PM on philosophy starts with a description of postmodernist thinking on origins (a first cause or foundation) and ends - the end of authorial presence and ideology for example. For postmodernists, knowledge is deemed questionable and is no longer the job of philosphy to provide...

Reader in Education

I heard today that I have had the title of Reader in Education conferred on me by my University.

This means that I am no longer Principal Lecturer in Education. I'm a Reader in Education. Yay!

For those who don't know what it is, Reader is a Professorial title..one down from a full Prof.

Reading Week

Next week is 'Reading Week' in the Faculty of Education. Some of my students will be busy 'reading up' for essays and presentations which makes up their undergraduate and Post graduate life.

I'm delighted to have been asked to give, what can only be described as, a 'Key Note speech' at the University Greenwich on Writing in March as part of a conference for teachers they are organising.

I'm grateful to Prof. Guy Merchant's Blog for this site http://animoto.com/ He's going to be using it with Primary School teachers for work in the classroom. This is a superb tool for making your own slide shows and video. The site will create an exciting presentation based on the photos or video you upload. So much potential for schools.

I'm off to Bologna in Italy this weekend...not for work just pleasure. Back Monday

The Cambridge Primary Review

Do your colleagues know about the findings of the Cambridge Primary Review?

Professor Robin Alexander (pictured) and his team have at last completed their work.

The final report is out now on this web site: http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/

What about a staff meeting on the report? How about a day with other schools around with some speakers and group discussions about what the findings of this report means for your school and its future?

A piece of research of this size MUST be central to professional discussions in Primary schools up and down the country.

Endgame

Booked to see Endgame by Samuel Beckett in London in November..on my birthday

Charles Spencer writes in the daily Telegraph:

Endgame is the masterpiece that sorts out the men from the boys when it comes to admirers of the bleak dramatic world of Samuel Beckett.

In Endgame (1957), however, Beckett mercilessly excludes every possibility of the positive. The world outside is described as a zero, and while Beckett was doubtless considering the possibility of nuclear annihilation, his evocation of an arid planet now also reminds us of the possibility of a world laid waste by global warming. Inside the grim penumbral room where the play takes place, cruelty prevails.

I like to take in a cheerful show on such an occasion as my birthday. I'm a hard core Beckett fan so I can take it and the actor Mark Rylance who plays Hamm (pictured in the dark glasses) is in my view our greatest living actor.

'Two Posts in One Day'

The main political parties continue to boast about the cuts in public spending they want to make. These cuts will of course impact on the poor.

The raising of the pension age is one that will affect everyone. The argument is that "we are all living longer" and the 'economy' just can't afford it.

It is worth questioning the notion that we are 'all' living longer. In this country alone, thousands of people every year die of heart disease, cancer and strokes. Despite wonderful advances in medicine, the tragedy of an early death in the family is still not at all uncommon. I myself have lost a number of friends and colleagues over the last ten years.

Perhaps news of a medical breakthrough that can prevent and/or cure some of these fatal illnesses would justify discussion of raising the pension age.

If the economy 'can't afford' to provide people with a long retirement, then life may only consist of toil for many. It may be the 'economy' that needs to change to ensure that hard working people have a long and comfortable retirement.

Boys into Reading

We have been working on a new project with the wonderful teachers at Stockwell Park High School in South London. We are exploring the relationship that boys have with reading in the school. In doing so, we are discussing with the teachers essentialist and anti-essentialist positions around the issue of boys and girls and reading. Essentialists view boys and girls as being 'naturally' different in their dispositions and characters - 'boys will be boys' and 'girls will be girls'. Anti-essentialists believe that, if boys and girls are different in these ways, than they are 'made' this way by society. We think it is important to study the ways that those with these conflicting views on boys and girls approach literacy interventions in schools.

We are presently awaiting the views of the students in the school on some of these issues and how they perceive reading both inside and outside of school.

Write Away

Another great web site that provides information about the best children's literature available and the authors who create it is the 'Write Away' web site. Perfect, if you are a language coordinator. You can find it here: http://www.writeaway.org.uk/

United Kingdom Literacy Association

Those who are new to this blog and to education studies may well find the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) website a useful site to visit. You can find it here: http://www.ukla.org/ I am the Kent and Surrey representative.

UKLA have their international conference every year. This year it is in Winchester. They always have interesting speakers, workshops and a wonderful bookshop. The weekend of the conference is particularly for teachers. More information on the web site.

The Safe-Guarding Inspectors

The new school inspection regime is worthy of comment. In a primary school there will be two inspectors - one to inspect the school's teaching and learning and one to inspect the school's capacity to 'safe-guard' the children.

Should the school be perceived as neglecting the safe-guarding of the children in any way then they can not receive a good inspection report.

The notion of safe-guarding children that ofsted is using is the following

"The Government has defined the term ‘safeguarding children’ as:
‘The process of protecting children from abuse or neglect, preventing impairment of their health and development, and ensuring they are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care that enables children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully.’"

Ofsted offer a whistle-blower hotline for public service employees to inform them of any 'mis-conduct' they see.

'Race to the Bottom' Savage Cuts

Is it me, or is it rather curious that all the main political parties are boasting about the extent that they intend to make public spending cuts?

Is this really the way to attract votes? Their rush to out-do each other over the cuts they want to make has been called a 'race to the bottom'.

It was the tax payer who has provided the money needed to prop up the banks. Did I also read, that bankers were back to giving themselves huge bonuses...?

I try to avoid overtly party political comment on this blog, but this strikes me as remarkable.

A Culture's Culture

I am writing a book about literacy and it's political background. I find splurging ideas out on this blog can help in the process of understanding the different positions. So forgive what comes next...

Marxists would support the view that the cultural life-styles of working class people should be respected and valued.

Yet, Marxism would argue that the cultures that have been developed within the working class have come about because of the relations that have been produced through the organisation of production within a capitalist economy. The working class are an oppressed group.

For Marxists, Capitalism is one important stage in the development of human societies. The next stage - a classless society - brought about by a revolution led by the working class would eradicate the state and the exploitation by one class upon another. Marxism wants to see the end of relations of production that make a working class and a middle class and with it bring in a new society where all can engage in the riches of a human culture.

No one can know what this culture will be like, but it will mean that all will have access to the fruits of humanity's scientific and artistic potential. What is certain, for Marxists, is it will not be a 'working class culture', that will never exist - not a culture that belongs to the working class. Nor would it be desired. The culture that currently corresponds with groups of working class people under capitalism cannot be looked at in a particularly favourable light by Marxists. It is simply the culture attributed to working class people under capitalism. In a sense it belongs not to workers but to the ruling class of society, but will ultimately be swept away when the next phase of human development is brought about. A culture linked to the working class could only be good in so far that it forms part of the seeds of capitalism's own destruction. It has no universal validity and it will perish.

In my reading of Marxist literature I see that Trotsky, one of the two leaders of the Russian Revolution, believed the working class to be a 'nonpossessing class' - that they own nothing - and who are not given access to the forms of culture that the more wealthy have. I shall read on...

Film and Education

I am about to start teaching on a course called 'Film and Education'. It is concerned with how film has represented teachers, schools and education. It is based on the belief that it is possible to learn about many of the issues that surround education through watching films.

Often teachers have been represented as charismatic figures who have the means to tackle all the problems that school students face, forming special relationships with them and persuading those in the toughest of circumstances to make the right choices in school and in life.

What's your favorite film about school?

New Term

I'm on my way to Cambridge to lead, with Professor Tony Booth, the faculty's Writers' Workshop. This is a superb opportunity to work alongside colleagues who want to begin writing in their academic careers and Cambridge is a great place to 'get away from it all' to start that process.

Tony and me have been running these trips for a number of years and it gets more and more popular the longer we run it and as word has spread.

The poster, by the way, comes from the USA - seems to suggest that teachers are recognised as holding a unique form of social power that should be feared by those who rule society...Teachers may look very wholesome and innocent but...

Professor Honey

In reading the arguments over literacy between the left and the right, I had the opportunity of reading Professor John Honey's book: Language is Power: The Story of Standard English and its Enemies (1997) again. In this book Professor Honey takes on those, like Brian Street and James Gee who advocate a tolerance and appreciation of literacy in all of its forms and shows that the way people use language has been hard fought over as a means to dominate society. From this perspective, standard English is not simply a neutral and benign way to communicate across cultures, but a hard fought sign of domination by one class and culture over others. Those who control the literacy curriculum ensures social reproduction through success at school and other institutions that privilege those who already have begun to master these forms of literacy and language-use before they come to school. In finding favour in one form of literacy over another others lose out. Professor Honey says:

"We know that the particular values which dominate our educational systems, which have to do with cultivation of the mind by reading, by trained methods of thinking and observing, etc., are not in fact found interesting by a significant proportion of people in out society. They may defer to those interests in other people but do not desire them for themselves, indeed they may feel the symbols of educatedness to be threatening" (1997:234)

"Are Footballers who do not make the first team, but only play for the second or third, robbed of their human worth?"

MA in Literacy and Learning

Numbers for the MA in Literacy and Learning are on the rise and once again, we should have more than enough applications to run the programme. There has been more interest than most years. As usual, I ran two promotion evenings in Chatham and Canterbury, with a very large group attending the Canterbury session. I have a list of contacts which I send promo material to and plug the MA where ever I go. Nothing new there. So, what has made the difference this year? I can't know.

The book is underway with the first chapter about to be finished in draft form. This chapter needs to draw in the reader and I attempt this by perversely offering intellectual discomfort and challenge. I declare, that after reading the book, readers will be able to plot their attitude and approach to literacy education on the political spectrum.

A friend of mine has just bought the house that appeared in the film 'Withnail and I' as Monty's Cottage. A favourite film. He intends to restore the house to how it appeared in the movie and rent it out for holidays to the faithful - "free to those who can afford it, very expensive to those who can't"

Return from Holiday: UKLA Key Note Speech

I am home from Tuscany and Umbria. We stayed at two great places, one in Tuscany and the other in Umbria. Leave continues until the end of August.

My task now is to write 'Literacy on the Left'. I also learn that the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) has invited me to give a Key Note speech at their International Conference next year, to be held in the University of Winchester. I see Gunther Kress is giving one too...

Whilst staying in Umbria, we witnessed the most ferocious thunderstorm I have ever seen. The hotel was high up in the hills. We sheltered with hotel staff in the main house which was struck twice during the storm. Mean while outside, a tree was hit and cut in two (see picture above). This storm was not typical of the weather during our stay. Sunny and warm for most of the time.

Dr Mike Presdee

It is with great sadness that I have to report that Dr Mike Presdee has died after a brave battle with cancer. Mike was a neighbour and a friend. He was also an esteemed academic around the world for his work in Cultural Criminology. Even though his work was not essentially in my own field, it became a great influence on my research, particularly my Doctoral work into children's literature and poetry. His work around the concept of Carnival provided a brilliant way to analyse children's relationship with certain forms of literature and to begin to understand their responses.

Of course, Mike was once a very good school teacher himself and he always had plenty of lively and stimulating things to say about education in its present form. He was from the working class and, for me, this had greatly influenced his approach to his research and to academe. He leaves a huge legacy of exciting and original scholarship behind which will continue to inform others work in his field and beyond for decades to come.

Mike was good to talk to and his and his wife Gill's dinner parties were always filled with great food (that he had cooked to perfection), conversation and laughter. Mike will be missed by many, both locally and world-wide

A week to go...

As thoughts of holidays begin to emerge, I'm also beginning to think about writing 'Literacy on the Left' when I get back -when and how to begin the process...

I'm also considering preparing another paper for publication on working class student teachers from some research I have been doing in my University. The concept of 'aspiration agents' in the family has cropped up from my data. I've used this term to mean those in the family (usually Mothers) who encourage their children to engage in the curriculum at school, but more than this too - to convince their children of the merits of particular cultural investments that may not be common within the context of that family. Is 'aspiration' the right word? Is it loaded with values? I used it at the UKLA conference on Sunday morning and it was receieved favourably by the 7 delegates that were able to get out of bed after a night of drinking and dancing.

Greetings from Greenwich

This must be the most well-attended UKLA conference to which I have been. It's packed out. Robin Alexander's Key Note speech was very good. He was talking about his experiences of working with politicians and how he noticed a clear split between the private and public discourse that went on. Meetings, he said, were always constructive with 'give and take' on both sides. Yet, the reports in the media from the same ministers were completely different, not reflecting the meetings at all.

Alexander provided us with what he saw as the 'discourses of power':

Discourse of dichotomy - a gross reduction by Ministers to binaries in education - traditional/progressive, real books/phonics

Discourse of Derision - headlines about 'weirdy beardies' taking over schools and universities for example.

Discourse of Myth - the idea, for example, that before New Labour the world of education was in chaos

Discourse of meaningless - the crazy government documents that can often say nothing

My paper in tomorrow...

John Agard wins CLPE Poetry Prize 2009

Last night I attended The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education's Poetry Awards. John Agard was the winner with his superb poem 'The Young Inferno' Regular readers of my blog will know I was one of the three judges with Jackie Kay.

I'll be judging next year's with John Agard

Over the next four days I will be in Greenwich for the UKLA conference. I was giving my paper on the Friday (peach of a spot) but have been moved to Sunday (prune of a spot) to accommodate a delegate that needs to fly home on Sunday. I agreed for the 'love of the association', but demanded a Key note speech next year in return...! We'll see.

I hope to blog from Greenwich on any exciting papers and events that may occur.

Mobile Phones Means High Test Scores

Professor David Crystal speaking at Canterbury Christ Church University last week told the audience that the earlier children start using mobile phones and texting, the higher their test scores at school. Prof. Crystal was citing research that had found this to be the case.

All I can say is "I'M ON THE TRAIN!"

I have not seen this research, but I would suspect there may be other variables at play - perhaps socio-cultural and economic issues too that make a difference. Prof. Crystal described how in order for children to use the discourses of text which omit letters etc., children need to know something about the spelling of the words in the first place to know where to leave letters out.

On another issue, Prof. Crystal also described as "acceptable" notions about language taught in a way that promotes 'appropriateness' as a leading principle. So there is no real right or wrong about how language is used - dialect and so so - but it is the appropriateness of its use in contexts that matters. This is a strongly contested point. In certain contexts certain forms of language must be used. I'm thinking of the work of Fairclough (1992). He writes: "In no actual speech community do all members always behave in accordance with a shared sense of which language varieties are appropriate for which contexts and purposes. Yet such a perfectly ordered world is set up as an ideal by those who wish to impose their own social order upon society in the realm of language (1992:34)

Fairclough's argument is that if one teaches children that one form of talk is better within prestigious and powerful contexts like schools, universities and other formal arenas for discussion it makes children's own habitual ways of talking rather marginal and irrelevant. I discuss all this in my second article in The Curriculum Journal that critiques Neil Mercer's Ground Rules for talk perspectives.

Food for thought,

Digital Literacy

Here is Professor Guy Merchant's definition of Digital literacy. Guy works at Sheffield Hallam University. The definition is contested as the, soon to be defunked, Primary National Strategy was introducing more screen texts and digitally generated texts into its curriculum.

You may find it interesting.

Guy blogs at http://myvedana.blogspot.com/ if you want to read more.

"My basic standpoint that digital literacy is best described as digitally mediated written communication (literacy qua literacy) remains unchanged. Unchanged for the reasons I’ve put forward elsewhere and synthesized in this piece. It seems to me that there are two substantive criticisms of this position. The first is that digital communication has become such a densely textured multimodal affair that it is unrealistic, reductive or somehow artificial to regard the different modes as separately functioning entities. They make meaning in and because of their interaction. The second criticism flows from this first one and suggests that that a literacy purist’s definition of the digital reduces literacy to letter-acy or basic alphabetic decoding and is therefore old-school. My counterargument is that literacy has always described the production and consumption of written language in a way that includes everything from the simple, perhaps unattractive but nonetheless essential, act of decoding letters, right up through comprehension into the critical reading of literature, media texts and so on in the various and diverse contexts in which it occurs. The fact that many texts are complex multimodal constructions does not undo the fact that we read different semiotic systems differently in order to build our various holistic meanings (that point follows on from Kress). In other words digital literacy has its origins in print literacy but reaches out and beyond the confines of bookspace. And this, I think, is the point at which digital literacy gets interesting; the very point at which the written word starts to take on new appearances, to perform new functions, to interact with new media, to connect different ideational and relational resources, to mutate, hybridize and so on. When we apply this sort of view of digital literacy to education it gets even more interesting! We are forced to re-evaluate the curriculum (what is literacy and literacy learning, how does it develop, where should it be placed in an education of communication etc etc) and our pedagogy (who learns what from whom and what, as well as how and when). I suspect that these are thoughts that will get developed in later posts!"

The Primary National Strategy is Dead: Hoorray for Diffendoofer Day...?

The Primary National Strategies are going. The strategies came and were enforced by agents of the government with a ferocity never seen before. Some will say, they were responsible for many good teachers leaving the profession, as they perceived their own personalities, professionalism and knowledge being no longer valued.

The pedagogy of 'Flobbertown' (to draw on the wonderful 'Hooray for Diffendoofer Day' by Dr Seuss and Jack Preluksky), where everyone does everything the same, was its aim. Incidently, I would like to remark on what a comfort Seuss and Preluksky's book has been over the years of the strategy. The message it gave through the actions and principles of the central character of Miss Bonkers will never be forgotten by teachers and educationalists around the country. It was Eve Bearne who introduced me to this book - thanks Eve!

Does this mean a new freedom for teachers to concentrate on the local needs of their children in learning literacy and numeracy? Well, one must not forget that freedom in a market economy has its own meaning. Drawing on the work of Stephen Ball, the privatisation of schooling and the invasion of the market into schools has already taken hold. Its continued advance is inhibited by any form of centralised and prescriptive state intervention in teaching like the strategies if schools are to compete for children in a marketised educational environment. If you are a member of the 'freedom' loving half of the Conservative Party, or follow Neo-liberal policy in education - The Primary National Strategy must die...now!

Professor David Crystal At Canterbury Christ Church University

Professor David Crystal, one of the the most important linguists of our time will be speaking at Canterbury Christ Church University at 4.30pm in the Powell Lecture theatre this Thursday 25th June.

The title of his lecture is: 'New Discourses in Electronically Mediated Communication'

The lecture is free. Don't miss this event. I shall be rushing back from the University of Greenwich that day to hear him speak.

Tories to abolish SATS!!

The Conservative party have said that if they win the next general election they will abolish SATs at the end of Key Stage 2, replacing them with an entrance exam at Secondary.

What can we conclude from this? This is the party that gave Chris Woodhead real Power as head of Ofsted; believes in selection and has a tradition of being the 'natural' party of the market economy.

It strikes me that that primary teachers may have seriously mixed feelings about this. The test the children will be given as they start Secondary school will be like a Key Stage 2 Sat after a five of six week break; will children need to revise over the summer? Will there be 'summer schools' run by teachers? How will the Government continue to test the effectiveness of primary schools? Hmm, watch this space...

Glogging...yes, glogging

Have you ever thought of 'postering' yourself? This site tells you how. http://www.glogster.com/ It has a multi-modal approach to communicating messages on a range of subjects. People are posting their glogs!

Bologna Process

I've been reading about the Bologna process for Higher Education. The stated aim of the Bologna process, when first announced in 1999, was to create a common market for European education. The idea was that there would be a standardised system of qualifications throughout the continent making it easier for students to work and study in foreign countries.

As the Economist reported in April 2009, the governments of Europe embraced the Bologna process as a way of bringing in shorter and more work-related degrees. In Spain, the government used the process to introduce fees for MA students and France called their change of funding circumstances for Higher Education 'Bologna'.

The stated aim of Bologna is a good one. It's the way Higher Education appears to be seen by governments across Europe as a way to prepare students for work (produce specific forms of Labour Power) rather than provide a personally enriching intellectual experience for people that worries.

UKLA 45th International Conference 2009

Do come to the 45th United Kingdom Literacy Association International Conference being held at the University of Greenwich in their historic buildings. 10th - 12th July 2009

You can find all the information about how to book a place here http://www.ukla.org/site/conferences/event/the_45th_ukla_international_conference/

Keynote speakers confirmed so far:
Robin Alexander, Cambridge University

Courtney Cazden, Harvard University

Malorie Blackman, Author

Teresa Cremin, The Open University

Jonathan Douglas, Director, National Literacy Trust

Angela Thomas, University of Sydney

Sarah McIntyre, Petr Horacek, and David Roberts - Illustrators and artists

Sats, Education and Consciousness

As the National Sats in primary schools comes to an end for another year, I have been wondering about what teachers actually think of the practices and processes involved in preparing children to sit an examination at such relatively young ages. Is there a 'hegemony' of practice in primary schools which has made these processes appear 'natural' and unquestionable as the means to assess children?

"Gramsci used the term hegemony to denote the predominance of one social class over others (e.g. bourgeois hegemony). This represents not only political and economic control, but also the ability of the dominant class to project its own way of seeing the world so that those who are subordinated by it accept it as 'common sense' and 'natural'. Commentators stress that this involves willing and active consent. Common sense, suggests Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, is 'the way a subordinate class lives its subordination' (cited in Alvarado & Boyd-Barrett 1992: 51)" (Chandler 2000:1 http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/marxism/marxism10.html).

Does this make teachers (and teacher educators) believe that grading children with a National Curriculum level and sub-level is in some way a reliable and responsible way of articulating a child's intellectual development? Has this become part of the professional consciousness of teachers? I'm not convinced at all. Just as I question Gramsci's conception of 'hegemony' as a way to explain what he saw as the lack of class-consciousness and will to fight back against the exploitation of capitalism - even when the inequality of society is obvious - I also question those who have this view of teachers' professional consciousness and their knowledge of schooling and learning.

Right Honourable Friends

“The public mood in Britain this week has been beyond extraordinary. The only analogy that springs to mind is with the hysteria that took hold following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, 12 years ago.
“Then, the British turned on the royal family for its refusal to join in the display of emotional incontinence that they thought ought to characterise grief. The crowds assembled outside Westminster Abbey for the funeral were so worked up that if Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, had ended his eulogy with a call to arms, I am convinced they would have marched behind him to overthrow the monarchy.” (Financial Times, 16-17 May)

Write Away Conference: Something Old, Something New

Friday 22nd May at the Institute of Education in London - superb children's literature conference. Go to the 'Write Away' web site for more info. http://www.writeaway.org.uk/ and a booking form.

Congratulations to MA Literacy and Learning Graduates

Congratulations to all those Masters in Literacy and Learning Students who graduated this week and last week in Rochester and Canterbury Cathedrals. I'm just sorry I could not get to the Rochester ceremony.

Congratulations to all the tutors who guided those hard-working teachers to reach this achievement. It is so heartening to know that that there are teachers in schools who have thought hard, researched and written about education at this level. Long may it last!

Pedagogy as Gift/Meetings with Minds

I'll start this blog with some thoughts about Literacy on the left and then move on to report on a good day on Tuesday 12th May

The book Pierre Bourdieu and Literacy Education edited by Albright and Luke (pictured) is 'so right' for my thinking about my book I'm writing called Literacy on the left. I'm very interested by left thinking educationalists', like Allan Luke, views on how to overcome patterns of underachievement amongst the working class whilst operating within a capitalist society that, from a 'left' perspective, has interests in the social reporoduction of inequality. I'm interested to explore to what extend they can be seen to be or not to be part of a 'reformist discourse', as I'm calling it.

Luke's chapter called 'Pedagogy as Gift' is intriguing in Luke's attempt to reconcile the dilemma by drawing on Bourdieu's discussion of pre-capitalist approaches to pedagogy. Pedagogy as gift is decribed thus:

"..a practice normatively expected and reflexively constructed in reciprocal acts and exchanges with elders. I speak not of an ideal literacy event - but rather of a literacy that is insured and assured by contract between elders and youths, families and schools, cultures and civic societies, by a moment of "positive reciprocity" (polanyi, 1944) in the dialectics of cultural gifting" (2009:81)

I am getting the feeling that Luke's views can be associated with post-mordernist perspectives. This chapter is also really interesting, in the way he describes different models of literacy education that attempt to overcome the dilemma faced by all teachers in teaching working class and subordinated groups in the present socio-economic order.

I spoke to Michael Rosen last night before his inaugral lecture as visiting Professor at Birkbeck College. He offered to meet me and talk about my book and the place of his father, Harold, (and Michael) in an analysis of 'literacy on the left' - wonderful!

I was also a judge of the CLPE (formally Signal) poetry prize yesterday afternoon with the poet Jackie Kay. Margeret Meek Spencer was chairing the discussion. Afterwards, on our way to the lecture, I chatted to her about her memories of Basil Bernstein. It was a very good day...

Derby

I'm in Derby. Just for tonight...don't ask. Home Thursday.

Understanding Reading Development

I'm writing a book on Phonics with Kathy Goouch. Below are some thoughts and observations about the nature of learning language both written and oral. Do these observations make us think about how we 'teach' about language - including learning to read?

“Though we share the same earth with millions of kinds of living creatures, we also live in a world that no other species has access to. We inhabit a world full of abstractions, impossibilities, and paradoxes...We tell stories about our real experiences and invent stories about imagined ones, and even make use of these stories to organise our lives. In a real sense, we live our lives in this shared virtual world. And slowly, over the millennia, we have come to realise that no other species on earth seems able to follow us into this miraculous place” (Deacon, 1997:22)

The unique way that human language can represent the world – objects, events and relationships – facilitates an infinite variety of representations and a powerful means of predicting, organising memories and planning actions (Deacon 1997). This form of representation of the world shapes our thinking and the ways with which we know our world. Our acquisition and our uses of language are natural, honed by thousands of years of evolution, and are inseparable from our intelligence. As teachers, our understanding of general human abilities and the awe inspiring phenomena of human intelligence and mental capability will direct our approach to curricula and pedagogy. As we begin to realise our role as mediators of a culture and nurturers of young minds we recognise that teaching has no place for amateurs or ill-informed technicians; it is a position for fully informed, creative professionals.

The linguist Chomsky (1972) puzzled over how children as young as four seem implicitly to know an enormous amount about complex grammatical rules and their application, without any kind of teaching – indeed this form of knowledge is arguably far too complex for children to learn in any formal way. Chomsky argues that a child’s incredible feat of learning results from some kind of ‘innate competence’.

Goodman (1996) contends that written language is learned later in life, after oral language, but is in no way less natural than oral language acquisition. Both, he argues
“develop out of the need of humans to think symbolically and to communicate in a growing range of contexts and functions, as individuals and as societies. Written language is an extension of human language development that occurs when it’s needed: when face-to-face and here-and-now language is no longer sufficient.” (p. 177-125)

'Pierre Bourdieu and Literacy Education'

Allan Luke and James Albright (2008) have a new edited book on Bourdieu (in the picture) and Literacy for Routledge. I'm reading it at the moment for more ideas for my own book called 'Literacy on the Left' which has its own thesis about political backgrounds to literacy pedagogy.

Luke and Albright's opening chapter starts this way:

"Literacy education is indeed at a historical crossroads. If we are to take educational policymakers, politicians and the media at their word, it is the same old great debate replayed over and over again: declining standards, loss of the literary canon, troubled and unruly students, irresponsible parents and overly permissive teachers. These we are told yet again, can be fixed by marketization of schools, increased testing, a return to the basics of reading and writing, better teachers, and a more disciplined approach to child-rearing, education and schooling. In this way the neo-liberal focus on tightened accountabilities and steering mechanisms blends seamlessly with a neoconservative educational fundamentalism: economic and bureaucratic rationalism in the delivery of the basics. This is the public policy doxa of literacy education" (2008:5)

'Doxa' is a term that Bourdieu uses to conceptualise the way 'we' tend to take certain aspects of our world for granted - indeed the business of social life can only carry on by taking much of it for granted. So, for literacy we begin to take what politicians, media and policymakers are saying about it as the truth. We could compare the term 'hegamony' with the notion of the 'doxic experience' perhaps. I think Luke and Albright's opening paragraph makes sense. I'm looking forward to reading more.

The Term Begins

New term. Some gloom. Missed the Poetry conference organised by Morag Styles at the British Library today and next day. Only read an email from Morag today that offered me a place...hmm - my fault - been to France.

Mark Betteney, a past MA in Literacy and Learning student, now working at London Met., has an article published in the Spring 2009 edition of English 4 - 11. I was glad to see that Mark's article has a critical edge. It's on the use of the Interactive white board. Cracking review of my little mini-book 'Poetry Matters' on the back of the same issue. I really like the idea of this journal, although I would like to read articles in it that are a little more daring and veer from the government line more often.

I'm giving a lecture on popular culture and digital literacy tomorrow to undergraduates. I wish someone had leaked the Rose Review intentions on twitters to me. I'm having to draw on the press - really tedious stuff about how twitters will be replacing the teaching of the Victorians...yawn.