Creating the future of schools through living educational theories

Dr Jack Whitehead
Department of Education, University of Bath
United Kingdom

How can people of all ages learn how to learn, unlearn, and relearn?

One has only to do a Google search on learning theories to appreciate the plethora or theories about how people learn how to learn. In my own teaching of a masters unit on ‘Understanding Learners and Learning’ with teacher-researchers at the University of Bath I focus on the generation of explanations for how people of all ages learn how to learn, unlearn and relearn. No explanation from existing theory can adequately explain how the individuals of all ages learn how to learn, unlearn and relearn. I stress the importance for the generation of valid explanations that draw on existing theory, of individuals creating their own theories of how they learn how to learn, unlearn and relearn. As a 62 year old practitioner-researcher, I continue to practice what I preach in explaining how I continue to learn, unlearn and relearn. The narratives of learning of individuals in infant classrooms to individuals in their 60s in university classrooms can be accessed from the living theory and masters educators’ programmes (see: www.actionresearch.net). The explanations show how people of all ages learn how to learn, unlearn and relearn in processes that include:

• expressing concern when values are not lived as fully as they could be
• generating action plans to enhance learning
• acting and gathering data to evaluate the educational influence of the learning
• evaluating the educational influence of the learning
• producing a narrative of learning from experience that is shared with others for responses that can help to improve the validity of the narrative and that can help with learning, unlearning and relearning.                 

How can individuals develop skills to deal with complexity and challenges that have never before existed?

In answering this question, individuals will need to be open to learning from possibilities that life itself permits and that include complexities and challenges that have never before existed. A clear example is the use of the internet and e-communications. Huge numbers of individuals have clearly been moved to develop the skills required to deal with a communications technology that didn’t exist 30 years ago. The ways in which the skills of many young people have developed beyond the skills of many teachers is because the technology was made available in ways that excited the interest of the young people. They have been excited by the opportunities of enhancing their communications, sharing their ideas, accessing music and video, through websites, email, blogging and mobile phone technology. 

There is perhaps a greater complexity and challenge in responding to the increased mobility of individuals and groups between nations and cultures with very different spiritual beliefs, values and cultural practices.

I think the skills necessary to deal with this complexity and challenge is likely to come through the development of empathy and compassion. From the front page of www.actionresearch.net, there are five volumes of Passion in professional practice from the Grand Erie District School Board. Volume five contains the accounts of teacher-researchers on how they are developing an understanding of the roots of empathy with their classrooms. From the living theory section of the website you can access Marian Naidoo’s doctoral thesis, which shows the expression of a passion for compassion in the generation of a living theory of inclusional and responsive practice. These explanations are showing how individuals can develop skills to deal with these forms of complexity and challenge while being open to making responses to possibilities that life itself permits and which are not yet in existence.

How can schools that were created for another time meet the needs of an increasingly diverse population of students?

They can do this by forming communities of teacher and pupil researchers who are seeking to explore their own learning as they seek to live values of humanity more fully in what they are doing.

Can schools alone meet these needs?

I do not believe they can. Partnerships between schools and schools; families and schools; school boards and communities; schools and universities; governments, school boards, communities, industry and commerce, will all be needed in creating schools of the future. Such partnerships are being formed and supported through the kind of work done by Marie Huxtable in the Bath and North East Somerset Local Authority. Her educational enquiry into this work can be accessed at: www.jackwhitehead.com.

What are the new possibilities for individuals, learning communities, and an emerging global learning society?

Branko Bognar, an educator in Croatia, and Margaret Farren, an educator in Ireland, are world leaders in exploring these possibilities. Farren’s exploration of these possibilities is in her recently completed doctorate and is accessible with her own writings about these possibilities from: webpages.dcu.ie. Bognar’s exploration of these possibilities using Moodle Forum can be viewed at www.e-lar.net. These possibilities include the opening up of e-forums for multimedia accounts of learning by individuals, learning communities and an emerging global learning society. These possibilities include the sharing of narratives of learning in which individuals, communities and global society hold themselves to account in learning to live more fully, the values, skills and understandings that carry hope for the future of humanity.

How do we make learning in the classroom more appropriate for a future world?

In answering this question, I draw on the ideas of Fyodor Vasilyuk and his psychology of experiencing. Vasilyuk makes a distinction between realistic, value and creative experiencing. To make learning in the classroom more appropriate for a future world, he focuses on the values that refuse to accept what is the case, on the grounds that the future could be better. He advocates focusing on creative experiencing as people learn to risk feeling defeated and in error as they respond to the uncertainty of not knowing and the tensions of responding creatively to what is given. I think we make learning in the classroom more appropriate for a future world by showing that, as teachers, we value what we learn from understanding our mistakes and that we value most highly creative responses that move who we are and what we are doing to a better place.

Have you personally changed your teaching practice recently to make learning more effective? What motivated you to do so?

I have changed my teaching practice to emphasise the importance of the narratives of learning of pupils and teachers. These learning resources are flowing through web-space from: www.actionresearch.net.

What are the new ways of teaching and learning for future classrooms?

I think the new ways focus on pupils as researchers of their own learning. In one primary classroom in Bath, a teacher explained to her primary school teachers that she was researching her own practice and studying her influence in their learning. The primary pupils wanted to know why their voices did not appear in the writings. The teacher has now included their voices in her account and is encouraging her pupils to research their own learning and to share their accounts of their learning. You can access this account at:
www.jackwhitehead.com.

What teaching and learning strategies are now outdated and impair innovation and problem-solving?

I believe that teaching and learning strategies that focus on the transmission of knowledge and ignore the learning as a knowledge-creator are now outdated and impair innovation and problem-solving. Where teaching and learning strategies use assessment techniques that reduce the outcomes of learning to a number, I believe that these are failing to recognise the nominal nature of educational values and the uniqueness of each learner and their learning.

What are the future teaching practices and curriculum of future classrooms?

I try to mirror in my classrooms in higher education the future teaching practices and curriculum of future classrooms. I make a distinction between the ‘given curriculum’ that is required in existing conditions and the ‘living curriculum’ that is the creative response of the individual teachers and their pupils to the ‘given curriculum’. I encourage a research-based approach to answering this question and keep a record of my own research into resolving this tension between the ‘given curriculum’ and the ‘lived curriculum’ at: people.bath.ac.uk.

What role do students have in creating future schools?

I think the role of students is vital in creating future schools. Karen Collins, a teacher-researcher at Bishop Wordsworth School, and researching her own practice in a doctoral research programme, has engaged her pupils as pupil-researchers. These pupil-researchers have presented their research to staff in the school, with proposals that are designed to improve the quality of learning. Collins’ writings distinguish her as a master educator as she creates a future school with her pupils can be accessed from: people.bath.ac.uk.

Do you have a creative and innovative idea about teaching and learning that you haven’t tried yet – but would like to someday? What is it and what’s holding you back?

I would like to integrate visual records of my classroom practice back into my teaching as part of the process of helping my students to improve their learning. The only thing holding me back is access to the technology that will enable me to be video-taping my teaching and, in the process of improving learning, to integrate this data back into my teaching, within a time-frame of the same or the next lesson. I have the multimedia technology on order that should enable me to achieve this during the coming academic year.

If you are an education academic or school leader, what advice do you give to teachers who wish to create future classrooms?

I recommend that they access the five volumes of Passion in professional practice from the Grand Erie District Board in Ontario (see: schools.gedsb.net), especially volume five, with the articles on the roots of empathy programme. I recommend that they access Kevin Eames’ doctorate at: people.bath.ac.uk and especially his chapter on ‘Action research as a form of professional knowledge in a whole school setting’. This shows how teacher-researchers, working in partnership with a university ask, research and answer questions of the kind, ‘How do I improve what I am doing?’ in creating their future classrooms.

Why is innovation in teaching and learning so important, anyway?

Without innovation, there is no responsiveness to changing conditions. Without innovation, schools would continue to reproduce forms of thought in pupils that would be inappropriate to meeting the ever-changing conditions in our environment. These include the influences of globalisation and new technologies.

What are the student learning outcomes?

One of the greatest learning outcomes of education is how to live a loving and productive life. It is to learn to be open to the flow of life-affirming energy that moves us to act in the world. It is to flow with a love of learning and knowledge creation that contributes to knowing oneself and contributes to the lives of others. Some evidence for such outcomes is in the educational enquiry of Ed Harker, a teacher at St Saviour’s Infants School, in Bath. This multimedia account shows the kind of student learning outcomes I have in mind (see: www.jackwhitehead.com).