Democratic Teaching + Post Truth?
How do things change when Tait and ‘the boys’ are about
I just found an exciting paper whilst looking for references for a near submission version of a paper of mine. It’s right up my alley, exploring lots of topics that are on my mind: crisis responses, AI, democracy and curriculum.
Not only that, but it’s referenced three of my authors from Empowering teachers and democratising schooling - 2 of the 3 being their first citations for their book chapters, and all 3 being teachers rather than scholars.
As we know, “Democracy in Australia has been under more critical scrutiny in recent years (Shiel, 2022; Tormey, 2016): Although existential threats such as the bushfires of 2019 and COVID-19 enhanced localised social cohesion in the short term, this has contrasted with the forms of inequality that have gradually increased, particularly in economic and educational terms (Flanagan et al., 2020; O'Donnell, 2022). Perhaps, the most visible consequences in education have been embodied in continued speculation over the consequences of students' 'learning loss' during 2020-2022 (Merga et al., 2021; Smith et al., 2021).” (P3). That old chestnut that looked at a crisis, that effected negatively, and indeed killed many people - and went, hmm but were the kids still learning lots?
This is the kind of reductive thinking that shapes much of the academic and public discourse around schooling - an intent focus upon the exact wrong things, and always at the wrong time.
As, “education began to be described in policy documents as an industry in need of regulation and reform, rather than a discipline responsible for generating, preserving and consolidating knowledge and skills within a society.” (P.3). See case in point as outlined above!
He notes, “Humanities curricula in particular have operated as conduits for teaching explicitly about democratic values within schools since the 1990s (Innes, 2022).” (P.3). So we see that democracy, that monolithic concept that should be the water that surrounds us, is instead taught through the history classroom - which by design has a focus upon the past… not an ideal match if we truly ever want our kids to be agentic and to have a role within the democracy, so perhaps, let’s just be up front and say that this is explicitly what we don’t want to be doing!
He continues, “These academic developments influence the means by which democratic ethics might be conceptualised as relativistic rather than representing the range of perspectives and groups within a population. Methodologies such as the meta-meta-analysis from works such as John Hattie's Visible Learning (2009) and its sequel (2023) have been, as Scott Eacott (2017) and James Ladwig (2018) have pointed out, adopted with a largely uncritical stance in policy circles, with the end point being manifested in New South Wales' What Works Best (2020) and Victoria's High Impact Teaching Strategies (2023) documents. Notably, the meta-meta-analysis was constructed with the intention of deciphering the science of education to pave the way for more consistently effective pedagogical and administrative decisions, encouragement for teachers in their practice and for school executive members to engage with research findings.” (Nally, 2024, P.5). Research simplified as a tool to control - the common call of teachers and leaders.
And, “The impact of these trends is compounded by the recent uptake in the use of AI, which has been indicated by Farrokhnia et al. (2023, p. 4) to 'serve as a starting point for novice teachers who have less teaching experience and pedagogical knowledge'. In practice, it has been used to automate the learning intentions and lesson plans (cf. Limna et al., 2023).” (Nally, 2024, P.5). So you narrow the focus of teaching through simplifying bodies of complex knowledge into narrow bands of possibilities, which in turns leads to the possibility of automating this work through AI tools.
And, “These uncritical approaches, in a similar manner to the reception of Hattie's meta-meta-analysis, perpetuate current biases rather than positioning educators to be agents for change (Thomson & Thomas, 2023).” (Nally, 2024, P.5). So as we simplify, we also make it hard for teachers to enact change, we tighten the space between the bars of teachers prisons, as it were.
Continuing, these ideas become viral, “Methodologies such as the meta-meta-analysis from works such as John Hattie's Visible Learning (2009) and its sequel (2023) have been, as Scott Eacott (2017) and James Ladwig (2018) have pointed out, adopted with a largely uncritical stance in policy circles, with the end point being manifested in New South Wales What Works Best (2020) and Victoria's High Impact Teaching Strategies (2023) documents.” (Nally, 2024, P.5), which in turns simplifies and continues this narrowing work.
Which in turn means that, “schools provide the means for educating all students about democratic principles, by way of their class and community activities reflecting practices of democracy.” (Nally, 2024, P.6). So it’s not just on the shoulders of teachers and educators, but rather it’s on the shoulders of the way that school is run and managed also, placing some burden upon the leaders within schools to shape a democratic space for the school itself. No small undertaking!
Meaning, “That is to say, the way that democratic structures can be built within a class depends on the sense of place, the culture that is developed by all the people present, along with the shared goals they have as a result of constructing a consensus-based perspective.” (Nally, 2024, P.6). To simplify something written so well - it’s harder to ‘do democratic teaching’ in a school that doesn’t allow that democratic teaching stuff to be especially possible through the shaping of culture and criteria within schools.
So what has changed over time? Well, “What has shifted since the need for mass remote education in 2020 is a seemingly exponential trend of teachers leveraging digital tools-ranging from search engines to Al assistants—to allow students independence from human-based instruction. This tendency is laden with the assumption that digital nativity equates to having developed expertise in how to use such technologies.” (Nally, 2024, P.7). We know that the concept of digital natives is not real (as explored elsewhere), but this idea has not permeated beyond the academic world, or those who have read papers on that particular topic.
For teachers, “One caveat is that these do not necessarily have an accurate understanding about the purposes that underpin their curriculum, since much of this is filtered through the way it is translated by leadership figures they report to.” (Nally, 2024, P.7). Teachers do not always directly engage with curriculum documents, but rather are left to have these documents interpreted for them.
Which means that, “A democratic curriculum therefore goes against many of the practices currently in place at educational institutions, but may also provide a starting point by adjusting the narrative to include opportunities for growth and limitations and efficiency and effectiveness.” (Nally, 2024, P.7). So it may not be a popular choice for teachers, but it will be exciting!
He notes that, “This is a significant opportunity for schooling approaches to be more inclusive of Indigenous cultures and knowledge (following from Yungaporta and McGinty, 2009; Commonwealth of Australia, 2022).” (Nally, 2024, P.7). As there are many parallels between a democratic approach to teaching and one that might allow for Indigenous perspectives to also be present, and indeed co-exist.
And, “there is currently an intensive focus on how classroom practice can be refined in the face of the current teacher shortage in Australia (such as NSW Government, 2023; Louden et al., 2023).” (Nally, 2024, P.8). Often one that might lead to questions of whether teachers might be minimised or bypassed.
Moving the research agenda forward, it’s been noted that, “Previously, the focus has been on large agendas, such as teacher supply and demand, community attitudes towards teachers and teaching, and the quality of pre-service and beginning teachers. Now, we see a focus on teachers' work lives and the provision of support to attract and retain teachers.” (Allen et al., 2019). Teacher’s working lives are increasingly being shaped by what is positioned here as the ‘post-truth era’ where everything is up for grabs.
As, “In an Australian context, this set of priorities has resulted in students being provided with limited exposure to how, for instance, new social media technologies can strengthen links to the community by both students and teachers, as well as give them input and control over how they shape their own place within larger digital narratives.” (Nally, 2024, P.8). Which certainly suggests that there are interesting pathways where democracy might be accessed, modelled, etc. via social media technologies. And, “Such contextual issues are embedded in the Australian HASS and History Curricula through the limited reference to how students' strategic use of skills can help discern which types of change may contribute to a better world (Reynolds et al., 2019).” (Nally, 2024, P.8). So teachers are implored to do this work, but do they know that they are being implored in this way, or not?
And, “over the long term the trends that affected socio-political cohesion filtered into educational discourse, and in Australia—as with many countries-during recent years, there has been a succession of crises: bushfires, floods, COVID-19, pressures on health and logistics organisation and the creeping challenges of climate change.” (Nally, 2024, P.9). Which further complicates the ideally simple act of teaching.
Just as, “Dewey's notion that student learning would be more effective when integrated with a community that existed within and around a school, rather than being disconnected from the world (1916)” (Nally, 2024, P.10), here again we see the manner in which social media might be able to assist with matters.
To close, “a democratic curriculum will need to start by a school community positioning itself within the various narratives that exist amongst the interest groups that exist within education: 'public vs private, early childhood vs primary vs secondary, city vs country, indigenous vs non-indigenous, large vs small schools ...' (West, 2023, p. 33).” (Nally, 2024, P.11). This is the core challenge - we need to unite the clans, unify the techniques…..
When was the last time you spoke to someone across one of these divides?
Having just spent a saturday at Wesley College, it was hard not to see the teachers there as coming from rather another planet to the Government school in which I plied my trade for 12 years. So I’m no better than what I’m asking of others.
References
Allen, J., Rowan, L., & Singh, P. (2019). Status of the teaching profession—Attracting and retaining teachers. Asia-Pacifc Journal of Teacher Education, 47(2), 99–102. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 1359866X.2019.1581422
Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) (2023) Spotlight: Australia’s teacher workforce today. Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, September 2023.
Nally, D. (2024). A democratic curriculum for the challenges of post-truth. Curriculum Perspectives, 1-17.
Running Word Count (the second 100,000): 88,844