 
Week 2 - Healthy School Communities
|  | Acknowledging Students' Voices: Narratives of Healthy School Communities |
| |
Listing of Papers | |
DR LINDSAY FITZCLARENCE
South Australia, Australia
IN MARCH 2000 the national press featured a story about a group of Year 12 schoolboys who had been suspended from their school for killing two kangaroos during a school excursion. The seven students, from a secondary school near Albury, had reputedly left their sleeping quarters late at night to club the two animals to death. Michelmore's (2000) press coverage of the incident listed various reactions, including that of the NSW Education Minister, who described it as '... disgusting, shocking and completely unacceptable' and the RSPCA Deputy Chief Inspector, Brett Bell, who said, 'we are appalled at the alleged callous acts' (p 3). Bell's subsequent reflections on the factors behind the incident are informative. The causes of such behaviour were seen to be 'closely linked to their parents' actions, family values and their interaction with animals at home' (p3). My purpose in highlighting these reactions is not to lend support for those who perpetrated the wanton killings of the kangaroos but instead to focus on the sources of the emotional energy behind the public reactions, such as those reported here. Following this, I want to consider what the reactions mean for schools and school leaders.
A Graphic Symbol of Our Times
This account of the behaviour of the school students is a graphic symbol of these times. The press and electronic media consistently report events of violence and antisocial behaviour in and around schools, highlighting the anxieties of parents and teachers with such developments. One example will suffice to dramatise this issue. In June 1999 the Sydney Sun Herald featured an article titled, 'I fear massacre in our schools: Abbotsleigh headmistress reveals why Australia is on track for Denver-style tragedy' (Patty, 1999, p 18). Presumably, such headlines are provided in order to give expression to underlying fears about the behaviour of some young people. Given the power structures of the mainstream media within this discourse, young people remain relatively silent, mute objects of the voices of the powerful and influential.
At the same time, these types of concerns end up having real effects. In several large private schools in Victoria, there are currently moves to introduce drug testing. For example, Paul Sheahan, Headmaster at Melbourne Grammar, writing on the school's webpage (update: 10/4/01 - this page is no longer available) highlights the problems of widespread marijuana use and the associated problems of the 'marijuana hangover'. According to Sheahan, the school policy makers believe that there is a warrant for exploring the use of drug testing as a 'second tier/second chance' process. The proposals are controversial, and if the reactions provided by listeners to Radio National's 'Australia Talks Back' and the topic of 'Drug Testing at School' (ABC-RN, 3/4/2000) was any indication, there is polarised opinion 'out there'. What are we to make of the media reports of violent incidents in and around schools, and of measures such as the 'second tier/second chance' proposal?
The Meaning of Schooling
These recent developments can be seen as struggles over the meaning of schooling, and of the appropriate form of education for young people at the start of this new century. The examples that I have highlighted are expressions of a belief that formal education, as a prelude to life in the competitive marketplace, is very serious 'business'. Accordingly, economically driven education has developed beliefs and practices that run parallel to the corporate world. Mainstream education is expected to inculcate order, control, consistency and accountability. There should be no surprise here. These values and beliefs are central to the highly bureaucratic and technologised society we live in. As such, education has an important role to play in preparing young people for the rigours and demands of an increasingly complex social world. Progressive/reformists, conservatives, and all those in between in mainstream education, have major commitments to this discourse.
Limited Capacity for Meaning
My concern is that a corporate-driven view of education is limited in its capacity to give full meaning to the complexity of the world that young people already experience. More than this, when order, control, consistency and accountability become education's prime values they institutionalise, and legitimise, the dominance of adults over young people/children. There can be no argument that, given the total dependency of infants and very young children, adults are required to exercise a duty of care which effects maximum control. However, when this approach is extended to teenagers and young adults, there are serious issues at stake. In particular, we witness the formalisation of a narrow conception of desirable and 'healthy' relations and a limited view of the conception of 'community'.
Before proceeding further, I need to offer an explanation of the sources that support this claim. Here, I will briefly outline an historical sketch of childhood as separate from, and inferior to, adulthood. It is this view, experienced as an ideology, that has given licence to many of the concerns and control measures of current times (see Miller 1983, 1986). According to Jenkins (1998) there are two major contrasting traditions that frame contemporary understandings about childhood and, by implication, the appropriate role of schools. On one side are views handed down by those including William Blake and Jean-Jacques Rousseau that depict children as 'naturally' free from social convention and utilitarian calculation and subject to the impulses of the imagination and free movement and play. As such, this view has maintained a deep suspicion of schooling as an institution designed to 'corrupt' children into the ways of adults (p 18). Contrasted to this view is a conception of childhood '... grounded in puritan assumptions, focussed on adult responsibility to constrain and "manage" the child, shaping development in line with community standards' (p 18). According to Jenkins this account of children's socialisation has traditionally placed primacy on adult regulation and formal instruction.
It is this latter view that interests me most because it can be seen to be reasserting itself in the concerns and measures of contemporary times. Jenkins argues that the puritan view is constituted by sharp distinctions between childhood and adulthood and by '... wax, clay and botanical metaphors (designed to) rationalise increased adult control over children's minds and bodies often resulting in harsh punishment' (p 18). The zero tolerance policies for juvenile justice programs of the Australia's Northern Territory and the State of Western Australia are graphic examples of how the puritan ethic lives on.
Surveillance and Regulation
One result of the trend I am describing is the way that schools, and school leaders, are under intense social pressure to effect and maintain the surveillance and regulation of young people (White, 1995, p.51). That is, school communities are placed in an invidious position to manage and police, in ways that are consistent with the concerns and demands of anxious parents, demanding employers and tight-fisted politicians and policy makers. Given these cumulative pressures and demands, there seems to me a basic question of what image of a healthy school community is tenable and achievable in these times?
This leadership conference, with its focus on 'Healthy School Communities', provides a moment to reflect on the deeper historical processes that Jenkins has identified. In particular, there is an invitation to ask what form of 'health' emerges from communities constructed around, and designed to maintain control, surveillance and regulation. Such concerns might well satisfy parents paying high fees, business leaders preoccupied with securing cheap and efficient labour and policy makers driven by politicians and a managerial class concerned with efficiency and accountability. Meanwhile for students, teachers and principals caught in the middle of all of these pressures, developing and maintaining healthy school communities becomes increasingly problematic. Fortunately, we have ample evidence that this ideology has not totally colonised the work of teachers and principals and that there are many examples of alternative 'ways of being' in education.
Challenge to the Silencing of Youth
In the short space I have remaining I want to take a sharp turn into new territory, in order to dramatise some alternatives. I have in mind the insights generated by family counsellors and, in particular, family therapists who have worked with narrative approaches designed to transform the dominant practices and understandings of community life. According to Michael White (1995), one of Australia's leading practitioners of narrative therapy, a cultural theory of education, as distinct from a developmental view, offers extended possibilities for alternative pedagogies. When a cultural perspective is used to think about relationships between adults and young people, educators are offered an ongoing invitation to engage students' knowledge and understanding about the conditions of their world. That is, the process of education is opened up to the claims and ideas of many voices. An immediate result is a challenge to the silencing of young people that I noted previously.
It is this potential of a narrative approach that encourages White to think of schools as 'communities of acknowledgment'. That is, contexts which acknowledge the active understandings that young people possess and the meanings that they attach to those understandings. This is a view that is given empirical support by the work of people such as Morgan (1995) in work about teasing and bullying, Beckett and Denborough (1995) in their work combating homophobia in schools, Denborough (1995) in his work aimed at reducing violence. These works are examples of developing schools as healthy and safe communities and to engage in processes of co-learning.
Let me make the idea of a narrative method concrete with a specific example. The following is an outline of the method Chris Hickey and I (2000) have used in our teaching with the narrative method. The approach begins with recognition that, within any given community or group, there will be sub groups that often have widely divergent views and values. Quite often, these differences are not given full expression. Thus, we encourage different 'affinity groups' to work with each other in a co-operative exercise. With this method we advocate the use of what is known as 'reflecting teams' (Doan & Bullard, 1994). This is a strategy designed to organise and co-ordinate feedback to the different 'affinity groups'. The general logic we employ is therefore use of a narrative method, whereby each group's members reflect on, and can reconsider, their personal knowledge and assumptions.
Organisational Structure
The group is organised into three circles. The two groups that make up the inner and middle circle would normally be an 'affinity group', or group that has a pre-established identity as a group. The first, or inner circle, engages in discussion of the issue/topic in question. The second, or middle circle, 'reflects' on the ideas of the first group. The third, or outer circle, comprised of all other participants, observes the whole process involving the other two groups.
The Organisational Process
An issue (represented as a vignette) is read to the whole group.
Everyone writes a short personal reaction to the vignette on a small card.
On the other side of the card, each person writes a one-word title, which represents how the vignette made them feel.
On the other side of the card, each person writes a reaction to the vignette, outlining the key themes and issues.
Group 1 (inner circle) discusses the themes written on their cards.
Group 2 (middle circle) listens to, and reflects on, the issues discussed by Group 1.
Group 2 moves to the centre and then discusses what they heard when listening to Group1.
Group 1 then moves back to the centre and discusses the issues raised by Group 2.
The activity concludes with Groups 1 and 2 joining with Group 3 (the Outer Circle). This is an open discussion by all participants on the outcomes of the discussions that happened in the inner circle.
The following is a brief review of feedback provided by different students who have experienced this approach.
The Method in General
The process provides the opportunity to share commonalities.
The method has helped break out of the old patterns, including not being able to speak.
The method allows for clarification of thoughts and understandings.
The method serves two purposes; the group in the middle has the opportunity to voice opinions, and the outer group has the opportunity to process this information and opinion.
The method opens up the possibility for a wide variety of discussions.
Teacher/Student Relations
The method changes the relationship between teacher and student - this method is student-centred. The real value is in the outer circle observing/questioning/predicting/analysing. The outer circle plays the role of the traditional teacher.
The method outlined here is developed on an assumption that schools, as cultural formations, involve many different points of view and knowledges. As such, it is a method designed to overcome the enforced silences of marginal groups and individuals that often occurs in the pressure cooker environment of our modern institutions. This particular approach is just one of many possibilities designed to give fuller expression to narrative pedagogies, and to help alleviate some of that pressure.
Providing forums for groups and individuals to share and debate the issues that matter to them is the first step towards developing alternative forms of healthy school communities.
_____________________________________________________________
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Lindsay Fitzclarence is an Associate Professor in Education at the University of South Australia, where he is a senior research fellow with the team developing the South Australian Curriculum and Accountability Standards Framework. Prior to this he was at Deakin University, in Geelong, Victoria. His initial training and teaching was in physical education, an area of interest and expertise that he has maintained through coaching in junior sport, including football. This interest area has provided the practical context for ongoing investigation into issues related to the construction of gender identities, and the emergence of widespread concern about the link between violence and some forms of masculinity.
Lindsay Fitzclarence can be contacted on email:
Lindsay.Fitzclarence@unisa.edu.au
_____________________________________________________________
References
Beckett, L & Denborough, D. (1995) 'Homophobia and Sexual construction of Schooling', The Dulwich Centre Newsletter, 1995. Nos. 2& 3, p 73-89.
Denborough, D. (1995) 'Step by Step: Developing respectful and effective ways of working with young men to reduce violence', The Dulwich Centre Newsletter, 1995. Nos.2& 3, p 73-89.
Doan, R & Bullard, C, (1994) 'Reflecting Teams: exploring the possibilities', Dulwich Centre Newsletter, 1994, No. 4, pp 35-38.
Hickey, C., & Fitzclarence, L. (2000) 'Peering at the individual: problems with trying to teach young males not to be like their peers' in the The Australian Educational Researcher (forthcoming) .
Jenkins, H. (1998) 'Introduction: Childhood Innocence and Other Modern Myths', in The Children's Culture Reader, H. Jenkins (ed), NewYork/London: New York University Press.
Michelmore, K. (2000) 'School bars boys over roo killings' The Age, 6/4/00, p 3.
Miller, A. (1983) For your own good: hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence, Alice Miller; translated by Hildegarde and Hunter Hannum.New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
Miller, A. (1983) Thou shalt not be aware : society's betrayal of the child; translated by Hildegarde and Hunter Hannum. New York. Meridian books.
Morgan, A. (1995) 'Taking Responsibility: Working with teasing and bullying in schools', The Dulwich Centre Newsletter, 1995. Nos. 2& 3, p16-28.
Patty, A. (1999) 'I fear massacre in our schools', Sydney Sun Herald, 13/6/1999, p 18.
Sheahan, A. (2000) from the Headmaster, drug testing.
White, M. (1995) 'Schools as Communities of Acknowledgment', The Dulwich Centre Newsletter, 1995 Nos. 2& 3, p 51-66.
|
|
| | |
