We have been noticing and reflecting-on our decision making all year. We started by identifying basic-level actions we use in our practice, and have used video to refine their meaning.
In this week's meeting we decided to think about the coherent principles which underlie our pedagogy - what we might call a theory of practice. Here are some of the themes and ideas we discussed, along with a few I have thought about since the meeting.
We talked about making decisions in the classroom by shifting attention between 'units': individuals, groups, actions, relationships, the classroom as a whole.. as well as considering 'outside' forces acting on the classroom: school, society, culture, history... Can we move away from unhelpful dichotomies, adopting a stance of both/and, rather than either/or?
2 Dilemmas not deficits
Teaching - human development - is complex. Decisions are dilemmas, sometimes between conflicting or unfavourable alternatives, often made in-the-moment. We may look back at some decisions and wish we had acted differently; can we say that we responded (rather than reacted) in line with our ideals (as far as was possible)? It might be more helpful to aim for good-enough practice, rather than best practice.
3 Time and space
Considering how we mould, and are moulded by, the classroom as a space, over time. We must create a potential space filled with reliability, trust, confidence, independence, autonomy, self-efficacy, belonging, equality. The teacher considers his/her (physical/social) position relative to the students. Is there time and space for dialogue, negotiation, conversation? Do we allow students the time and space to develop? What is the nature and sources of authority in the classroom, and what are its effects?
We find the metaphors of the classroom as a community and teaching as an apprenticeship helpful. How do our actions produce/re-produce the habitus? What would we like to change? Can we change others, or can we only work at changing ourselves? How can we foster coherence - integration between diverse elements, consistency, connection - while recognising the diversity of individuals?
Shifts in attention are the process of learning - between the concrete and abstract, between the particular and general, between the past, present moment and future. "Only awareness (of awareness) is educable": how can we educate discernment through repetition and change, sameness and difference? We must recognise/celebrate partial understandings as children build schemata and develop Intuition.
Mathematics can be both a verb and a noun. How might a change of emphasis affect our teaching practice? A shift from knowledge as (only) acquisition, to a conception of knowledge as adaptation-to, and organisation-of, lived experience might be useful: "All knowing is doing, all doing is knowing."