BOOK REVIEW
THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION
THE JOYFUL REMAKING OF EDUCATION
THINK PIECE: OODA MODEL FASTER THINKING IN EDUCATION
THE JOY OF LEADERSHIP
Issue 11
WELLBEING
DEAR JACKIE
FEATURE ARTICLES - HOPE
joyfe
STORIES OF JOY
welcome to Joyfe #11
by katheryn cockerton
This month’s edition is about HOPE. Hope means so many different things to different people. Having lost a close friend this week I was struggling to find the right words. I decided to send for your help and you sent me the words that describe Hope to you. I am happy to be able to share this word-cloud as it has given me a cup full of joy to take me into the Spring. Thanks to each of the 23 contributors. Which words best describe Hope to you?
2
stories of joy
5
wellbeing 9
7
8
15
dear jackie
16
3
in this issue
13
28
the joy of leadership
9
4
book review
snippets of joy
11
think piece: ooda loop
future of education
feature ARTICLES: HOPE p16- 26
27
Compiled by Heather BoothMartin
Mohamed Hajji It is very pleasing to be working in a friendly environment where teachers, administrative staff and collaborators from the industry work together to accomplish success stories. But you get the real joy when you see the young learners progressing and growing their abilities and skills. It might take time, effort and patience, but the outcome is worth it. What a delight when you see the happiness on a learner’s face as they are passing one milestone after the other while marching towards the door of a bright future. What a joy when you are part of that process as an FE teacher.
STORIES OF JOY JOY...
Shelley Franklin-King Bradford Doulas is a fantastic project that has been supporting women, babies, and their families in Bradford for the past ten years. I have been involved for 3 years and there is no shortage of joy to be found. Meeting new people and seeing groups form together; a mixture of folk who would likely not meet in other spaces brings me much joy. The diversity in age, ethnicity and relevant experience always brings freshness and great depth to any training. This richness is precious and adds so much to learners' and trainers' experience alike. I am in awe of how committed the volunteers are and their ability to take difficult subjects and situations in their stride, approaching with openness, kindness and creativity.
by lou mycroft and jane Weatherby
Social Purpose Leadership: A Story of Hope Five years ago, with my friend and former colleague Jane Weatherby, I wrote a book chapter which was published in an anthology called The Principal. We imagined what leadership might look like now, had it taken a different path five hundred years ago. Our inspiration was the Dutch philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, who viewed power differently than we do now. Spinoza identified two types of power: potestas (as we normally define it) and the rather less well-known potentia (activist energy and influence). We were also inspired by the anti-hero work of Richard Wilson (2014). Our chapter imagined how a leadership infused with potentia could ignite profound change in FE. Spinoza’s potestas is ‘politics as usual’ - a negative, go-backery force as it works to maintain the power differential of the norm. Potentia, on the other hand, offers possibilities, producing resistance to the status quo when energies are combined around an affirmative project: an event, an exhibition, even - as we have seen with #JoyFE - a hashtag. Potestas works via hierarchies; potentia via organic networks: constellations. Spinoza’s times were as uncertain as our own, leading him to question everything. The great shock of the pandemic has galvanised much of a workforce which had - in many cases - withdrawn its goodwill. Traditional heroic-model leaders were sometimes slow to rise to the challenge, their energies drained by forces of compliance. When we are put under great strain, we show our mettle and we witnessed the change agents in our midst operationalising values of joy, openness and care. Nearly a year into the pandemic we can see some formerly ‘heroic’ leaders clinging onto the hope of a return to more familiar times. But uncertainty is here to stay and the change agents - the anti-heroes - know it. We are what Sam Conniff, author of ‘Be More Pirate’, calls ‘uncertainty experts’, learning antifragility skills to help us thrive, and not merely survive, in the uncertain seas ahead. We need ideas, not heroes. We need potentia leadership to make those ideas happen. Wilson’s concept of the anti-hero finds a welcome in social purpose education, a democratic pedagogy based on transformational principles originally laid down by bell hooks and Paulo Freire, developed and revised by current and former staff, students and graduates of the TeachNorthern teacher education programme at The Northern College, where Jane and I worked together. Our chapter suggested that FE needed social purpose leadership in order to ignite its own agency and bring about change. We proposed a leadership of hope and potentia in three dimensions: digital, dialogic and democratic.
6
Social Purpose Digital Leadership It took the shock of Covid-19 to break through resistance to digital working in FE and there is still a huge gravitational pull which refuses to hear that digital can have a place at the table, even after we return to some form of physical togetherness. We wrote that digital can disturb the power structures of old, so that material which was once only available to privileged groups is now open to anyone with access to the internet. Most powerfully, it allows us to connect across traditional demarcation lines of organisation, subject, geography, race and class. Our own research taught us that different voices are amplified in different real and virtual spaces (2014). Digital allows greater access for people from unheard groups to shape the telling of their own stories. White, male-centred, reading lists and book pricing cartels are exploded by the availability of dissident thinking, supported by open movements such as Creative Commons (Price, 2013) and promoted via social media platforms like Twitter.. Such disruptive energy needs an ethical leadership to suit, not least because digital has both affordances and dangers. The heroic leader finds the potentia of digital life terrifying; he needs to tame its chaos in policy. The anti-hero builds critical digital endurance; creating diverse alliances which share potentia and draw courage and strength from thinking differently, together. #JoyFE is just one of many examples, see also: #FEResearch, #APConnect, #ukfechat, #AdultConversations, #AmplifyFE. Social Purpose Dialogic Leadership Dialogue shaped by potentia is shared, open-minded, open-ended and rhizomatic. In this model, listening (or reading) holds equal status to speaking (or writing). Heroic leaders may well see their role as that of giving information, issuing dictats or presenting stirring calls to action; anti-heroes understand that careful and deliberative listening is key to thinking and acting differently. Dialogic processes such as the Thinking Environment (Kline, 2020) pro-social - they co-create knowledge and - crucially - new understandings through dialogue. It is impossible to be part of working this way without contributing and for many people, this is a terrifying prospect. But in the boardroom - as in the classroom and everywhere in between - there are silent voices and unspoken thoughts. The work of anti-heroes is to unlock this creativity. Potentia is not about finding new ways to do the old; potestas does that job. Anti-heroes take every opportunity to transcend existing ways of thinking so that dominant assumptions can be exposed and new possibilities have the chance to emerge. Social Purpose Democratic Leadership Anti-heroes provide decision-making spaces which generate new thinking. The same spaces also contain disagreement, tension and misunderstanding but the crucial thing is that everything is out in the open. For potentia work to happen, the tooth and claw of democracy needs to be exposed and handled with respect in the decision-making space. A democratic leadership of hope also means looking beyond the boundaries of the organisation and contributing to the greater whole: the reimagining of education. Potentia work forms alliances, it scans the horizon for possibilities, it recognises that the language we use forms the thinking that we do. Connecting with others in potentia is the democratic responsibility of the anti-hero. Conclusion - why a leadership of hope? Social purpose leadership is not easy work. Not only does the anti-hero have to contend with colleagues holding desperately onto their personal potestas, she also has to unsettle those who don’t want to think. Culture change takes time and not everyone has an appetite for it. Endurance is difficult to maintain, when the constant rhetoric of scarcity drives out ease. And in truth, as soon as we have any influence, we are all in potestas. Any work which is 100% potentia may be brimful of new possibilities but won’t get a foot in the door. We need a blend: and we need to keep our feet grounded in hope. For educators grounded in social purpose practice, the concept of hope is fundamental. Freire (1972) and hooks (2003) frame hope as intrinsic to transformative practice. It allows us to imagine a better, more equal future. In the potentia work of the anti-heroic leader, it can help us see beyond that which is taken for granted, to the margins of possibility, where we can pool our potentia energy and work with others for affirmative change. Conniff, S. (2018). Be More Pirate. London. Penguin. Daley, M., Orr, K. and Petrie, J. (2017). The Principal: Power and Professionalism in Further Education. London. Trentham Books. Kline, N. (2020). The Promise that Changes Everything. London. Penguin. Wilson, R. (2014). Anti-Hero: the hidden revolution in leadership and change. OSCA. https://osca.co/publications/anti-hero-the-hidden-revolution-in-leadership-change/
Social Purpose Democratic Leadership Anti-heroes provide decision-making spaces which generate new thinking. The same spaces also contain disagreement, tension and misunderstanding but the crucial thing is that everything is out in the open. For potentia work to happen, the tooth and claw of democracy needs to be exposed and handled with respect in the decision-making space. A democratic leadership of hope also means looking beyond the boundaries of the organisation and contributing to the greater whole: the reimagining of education. Potentia work forms alliances, it scans the horizon for possibilities, it recognises that the language we use forms the thinking that we do. Connecting with others in potentia is the democratic responsibility of the anti-hero. Conclusion - why a leadership of hope? Social purpose leadership is not easy work. Not only does the anti-hero have to contend with colleagues holding desperately onto their personal potestas, she also has to unsettle those who don’t want to think. Culture change takes time and not everyone has an appetite for it. Endurance is difficult to maintain, when the constant rhetoric of scarcity drives out ease. And in truth, as soon as we have any influence, we are all in potestas. Any work which is 100% potentia may be brimful of new possibilities but won’t get a foot in the door. We need a blend: and we need to keep our feet grounded in hope. For educators grounded in social purpose practice, the concept of hope is fundamental. Freire (1972) and hooks (2003) frame hope as intrinsic to transformative practice. It allows us to imagine a better, more equal future. In the potentia work of the anti-heroic leader, it can help us see beyond that which is taken for granted, to the margins of possibility, where we can pool our potentia energy and work with others for affirmative change. Conniff, S. (2018). Be More Pirate. London. Penguin. Daley, M., Orr, K. and Petrie, J. (2017). The Principal: Power and Professionalism in Further Education. London. Trentham Books. Kline, N. (2020). The Promise that Changes Everything. London. Penguin. Wilson, R. (2014). Anti-Hero: the hidden revolution in leadership and change. OSCA. https://osca.co/publications/anti-hero-the-hidden-revolution-in-leadership-change/
Coming soon…. Joyful Education offerings on innovative supportive cultures. For now come and join us in the IdeasRoom on Wednesdays at 8pm to see some of the principles of innovation in action.
The OODA loop is thought to bring about better decision making faster and was created originally by a military strategist John Boyd. It encourages us to observe what is happening and be brave to make changes as soon as we can see something that isn’t working, rather than keep doing it. How often to you have a hunch that something could be better, or has an element of ineffectiveness, yet we don’t change it because it’s a process that’s been decided on for the year? We tend to continue to do things and say ‘we will review it for next academic year’ even though it might be November. It doesn’t make sense; if we continuously critically evaluated how a process was working more frequently and embraced making changes more often, we could create more momentum forwards in a shorter space of time. If we embrace a faster pace of change, major or minor, by changing the things that are not working for us or the organisation, we could evolve in a more responsive way. The model can encourage the development of innovative cultures, agile thinking and connected ways of working. We need to be connected to a wide variety of people and information to be able to ‘observe’ and ‘orient’ effectively and with a wide lens. Imagine what we could achieve if we worked in a more connected, quick thinking, change seeking way to improve the quality of education.
Thinkpiece : ooda model Observe, Orient, Decide and Act.
By STEF WILKINSON
Real wellbeing strategies are not those we often see put in place in our organisations
A colleague of mine entered the office and asked if I was going to the yoga session held in the gym on the ground floor of the building. I paused to think for one second and then replied: ‘I’d love to but have too much to do’. Smiling, he said: ‘Well, that is exactly the point,’ and left the room hurrying to get downstairs. The number of tasks in my ‘to-do’ list did not let me think about that short but important conversation me and my colleague had just had, but I’ve given it more thought since then. Yoga sessions, night quizzes or perks offered at work, make a good opportunity for staff to relax, spend time together and forget about work temporarily. In the winter, when days are short, or during very busy periods of the academic year, these can be beneficial for some members of staff. And yes, this is an easy way to tick the staff wellbeing boxes in the SARs and QIPs of the organisation too, especially since wellbeing was included in the Education Inspection Framework. I have nothing against yoga sessions, night quizzes or perks offered at work, but I do not believe this is the essence of wellbeing at work. I will draw on the maths anxiety analogy to explain what I mean. Many of our maths learners fear and dislike maths for many reasons – whatever provider you work for, you will know the issue we face with students not turning up for maths lessons, or if they do, they experience a feeling like that of going for an interview or public-speaking when exposed to maths. Two maths teachers, A and B, have completely different approaches from each other in how they tackle maths anxiety in their lessons. Teacher A recognises maths anxiety and talks about it when students first join, in the middle and at the end of the course. She even gets learners to write a letter to maths, where they express their feelings towards the subject in writing at these points in the course, which can be useful for tracking progress in this area over the course. There is no work done in helping learners with maths anxiety in between these sessions.
wellbeing feature
BY MARSida horeshka
10
Teacher B does all the above but also works on building students’ confidence in maths, using every opportunity to emphasise that mistakes are opportunities for learning, throughout the year. He does not overload them with information but builds on what students already know, revisits taught topics frequently and talks openly about maths anxiety, sharing strategies to help combat it. Wellbeing is no different to maths anxiety. If not using a holistic approach to tackle it, the benefits are minimal or non-existent, like they are expected to be in Teacher A’s class. But what does a holistic approach look like for wellbeing at work? Staff are given the chance to have a say. Main decisions that affect staff, should be discussed with staff and their opinion should be taken into consideration. How does it feel to not be listened to? Unnecessary workload is reduced and hopefully, eliminated. There is nothing more frustrating that having to do a task you do not see the point in. This is often the effect of not involving staff in decision-making. Information overload is reduced. It is making us all feel drowned, especially now that a chat we used to have with a colleague in the corridor about a work-based project or a quick catch up before entering a meeting room has been replaced by Zoom and Team calls. Can a piece of information be shared with staff when really needed, not as soon as you learn about it? Can only relevant staff be emailed about a piece of news? Can we disseminate a piece of information in a format different to an email? Perhaps a call, an audio or video message? Learning theories apply to all people, not just students. I could go on with a longer list of these but will stop here because I know you will perhaps give this more thought and will apply this to your work context. Please share with us on Twitter (@JoyfulFE) any other ideas you have about how you can improve wellbeing at work.
by :Ali Longden
The Future of Education...
By ali longden and helen hazlehurst
In February 2021, we met as part of the #APConnect Constellations, to talk about the work we have been doing around social purpose education. This article is drawn from the transcript of that meeting. Ali: My idea at the start of #APConnect was to think about how I, as a middle-class white educator, could teach others how to do anti-racist work. I’d been influenced by attending the Working Class Academics Conference back in Summer 2020. I didn’t know where this exploration would take us but I recognised that it felt really important work to be doing with trainee teachers. Being part of the Social Purpose Thinking Space on #APConnect really pushed me to think more about what we are actually doing. I felt inspired by peers to be more reflective and more open to challenging conversations and that has given me the confidence to start really thinking about what I’m doing when I’m teaching classes about social justice. I’ve been braver, I think, in the content and in the conversations we are having. Helen: I remember back in the summer I was working with younger students around Black Lives Matter and at the same time thinking how comfortable will I feel doing this work with teacher education students? I can be relatively convincing with younger students but it’s obviously much harder working with peers who are going to take you down to the nuts and bolts of it. Can you feel authentic and know what you’re actually talking about when you haven’t had that lived experience? Lots of the research I’d read said that some kind of understanding of difference and exclusion was helpful in delivering an anti-racist pedagogy and obvously I don’t have that and I’m never going to. So on #APConnect it has been good to think about how I can do this to the best of my ability. I started to focus back on that whole idea of social justice and what it looks like as an explicit pedagogy. What the constellation has helped me do is develop an explicit social purpose pedagogy where we teach equality through, for example, our focus on hidden curriculum, white curriculum and behaviour in a socially just manner. This has also come out strongly in the research I’ve been doing into behaviour management for my MSc. We can be explicit about finding inclusive ways to manage behaviour which do not rely on being authoritarian. The whole experience has strengthened my resolve to facilitate and encourage critical thinking and I hope over time that this becomes infectious, that everyone wants to buy into it, especially my younger students who are just starting out on their lives. I want them to have an opinion and to form that opinion with information and that’s what I’m trying to bring into my practice all the time. My biggest fear is getting into a sort of group think, so it’s quite a fine teaching balance. Ali: I’m reminded of a class I was teaching a couple of weeks ago; we were looking at unconscious bias and the work of Helen Turnbull and we were also considering critiques of intersectionality. I didn’t agree with the opinions of some students, but it was still important to create a safe space for the conversation to happen and one of the ways in which I did that was to say, I don’t know what it’s like to have this experience, and that gave us all permission to listen and to tell our own stories. I'm realising it’s about being upfront and open and honest and saying, this is how we’re doing it. We might make mistakes. We don’t know. However, if we set up conditions that enable people to listen to one another, they start thinking. It’s always an amazing moment when people realise that they do, in fact, make assumptions. And it’s not about shame and guilt once that’s realised, but about thinking, OK what do I need to do now. It really impacts on students’ written work; it’s much more thoughtful. I can’t emphasise enough how important it is for us to continue to be reflective. One of the things we’ve done recently is to refresh the four social purpose cornerstones we’ve been working with since 2014. Spurred on by Lou mentioning them in a #JoyAM broadcast, we got colleagues, students and graduates together in an Ideas Room to give them a rethink. We found that graduates in particular were very protective of them as a foundation for their own practice, but everybody got why we wanted to take another look at them - the world has moved on. Helen: The same shifts happen with the #APConnect constellations, our focus shifted from the narrowness of anti-racism work to a more generic social purpose space, without diluting the power of the work. People have brought different aspects of social justice to the space and that has driven us all to think differently about things because we’ve taken it outside of the team and listened to diverse perspectives. For many people - and for us - there has been some unlearning to do. I like to think I’ve always been ‘professional’ and now I’m also authentic: not less professional but more efficient. Ali: I’m remembering the Ideas Room and the graduates saying, we still feel inspired by the social purpose cornerstones outside of Northern College so we remember how it felt to be there. They have taken the social purpose cornerstones out beyond Northern College and there’s something now for me about networking back through those constellations to get the message out further. It’s not about saying this is how or what you should teach, it’s about sharing a model of practice which is authentic and which is mindful of its impact on the world. And which allows educators to be themselves. This whole process of being involved in the constellations and revisiting the social purpose cornerstones has given me a reason to think deeply about my practice and that has given me confidence in the work we’re doing. Work which should be the norm and which could be if we continue to ripple it out through these thinking encounters with other people. Helen: Our own awareness of what we are doing as educators is absolutely central; we are doing particular work and we need to be constantly refining it and thinking about it. I would be excited to create some examples of the particular ways we’ve seen students becoming social justice practitioners and share them with colleagues in the constellation. Not reinventing but curating and repurposing the things people are doing to decolonise the curriculum, so that we can all reflect upon and adapt our practice. And perhaps we could introduce the cornerstones themselves as an activity, for colleagues and for students; a really useful practice that could help tie up the learning from this year. Maybe I’ll get the Lego out again!
12
It’s the little things that count… Whilst many of us are preparing to return (or get used to) a new way of working, it is important to remember the little things that keep us smiling and feeling ‘the joy’ during each day. Daily ‘check ins’ with teams, random acts of kindness and thoughtful gestures are incredibly important when building and maintaining supportive and effective team working. The ‘JoyFE’ constellation has been amazing at this over the past 5 months; we have sent our own ‘snippets of joy’ to each other (see images). These small yet incredibly powerful postal gifts have shone bright lights during dark times. This highlights the importance of inclusion and building a unified working space where everyone feels recognised and appreciated. Taking this into your work space and life in general is highly rewarding and fills your ‘joy cups’ as Sandi and Chris Phoenix agree enhances adult wellbeing (Early Year Wellbeing Festival – Kathy Brodie., 2020). Why not give it a try, see how much joy you can bring to someone's life:)
Snippets of JOY
AP Connect participants have been busy bees this month, so busy this whole page has an AP flavour. To set the scene firstly may I suggest a soundtrack to your reading today, click on the link (https://tinyurl.com/ak9h4z4) to find the fantastic #Fabfriday playlist compiled by Sinead Blakledge, with contributions from every JoyFE wo/man and her/his dog, want to contribute? Send your choices to @TutorSinead on Twitter. AP Connect is in its 3rd year now, an ETF supported development programme organised by Touch Consulting (Joss Kang and team) and the ever imaginative and passionate Lou Mycroft, bringing together advanced practitioners, coaches and professionals from across FE in the UK to collaborate, share and magnify the importance of the work FE does. This year projects across the constellations have been broad and exciting from individual and institution led projects to nationwide campaigns highlighting the awesomeness of FE. So here we go…
Podcasts to check out: Let’s Get Digital FE This fab new kid on the block is a podcast made by Eve Sheppard and Stacey Salt from Oldham College. In their first episode they find out the ‘Power of YouTube’ from their English and maths team who have been creating bitesize videos for learners to help them with their studies. Reflective Ed This little shy one (oh okay, it’s mine, but I’ve got to plug it somewhere!!) informal, short and reflective podbites of an FE lecturer in Covid times, here I reflect on what’s going on in FE, in teaching, quality, and college life online. People tell me it’s honest, brave and funny.
By ISLA FLOOD
Snippets of JOY ......
14
Teaching from the Front Another new podcaster, Alison Loughnane, takes us round practitioners in different departments within Hopwood Hall and listens to their experiences of when we were in the social distanced classroom, a good one to catch up on as we return to our buildings, lots of great ideas. Teaching Excellence Along with TES FE podcast that used to run with Sarah Simons presenting, my first forays into listening to podcasts with a professional development theme started with this beauty, Stef talks us through major themes in quality improvement and assurance along with lots of guests from FE and further afield, this informative offering always peaks my thinking. FEResearch podcast This one is another goodie, Jo and Alistair have racked up quite a few podcasts now interviewing FE research stars, really inspiring for anyone interested in practitioner research and did you know these two are now radio presenters?! They’ve only gone and done their own show on Teacher Hug Radio. And talking of radio stars, our very own Sammy White @whatthetrigmaths has only gone and podcasted/liveradioed too (erm it’s a new term didn’t you know?), well last week she was on another new teaching focused radio show Teachers Talk Radio on Podbean talking about all things English and Maths and we are super pleased to say that, empowered by this experience she’ll be back flying the flag for FE in a brand new venture - so keep 8.00 on Thursdays free! (all podcasts available via a quick internet search)
This new book should be part of every teacher training programme. It’s a deep dive into the learning experience that offers new approaches to create a mindful experience for both teachers and students. If you need a guiding hand for implementing change this is provided, along with reflective tasks and encouragement to scribble your thoughts down as you go. Key to the use of this book is the reader’s own reflection and intentions, including the involvement of others – be it students or colleagues. Kevin introduces concepts through a series of guided steps. His aspiration to enable a mindful approach is developed through Four Learning Needs – Power, Belonging, Choice and Fun (PBCF). The book contains examples which readers can apply to their own practice. Personal anecdotes give credibility along with reminders of perspective from the teacher’s point of view – you too can have fun! You are invited to examine wide ranging issues such as relationships, feelings and behaviours – and to view learner behaviours as a symptom of learning needs. Inevitably you will challenge your thinking around existing constructs and see how you can facilitate managed choice – as a result, you enable the individual learner to own their experience. Chapter summaries give the reader a sense of direction and purpose. Additional materials with QR codes bring the experience into line with modern accessibility. By helping learners to see a connection between their own needs and behaviours – growth mindsets, limiting beliefs, motivation to learn - you also improve your own experience. The book focuses on the balance of responsibility in the learning process and how this develops and changes over time. This guided reflection resource is beneficial to aspiring and practising teachers, as well as those who provide transition support and - dare I say it – those who design and develop qualifications. Sprinkled throughout the book are drops of humour to give those smile moments: “I am not claiming to have a magic wand or that there were not occasions when we fell out too. After all, in any dance there are occasions when you may step on each other’s toes”.
BY SUE DAY
book title : If You Can’t Reach Them, You Can’t Teach Them’ BY Kevin Hewitson
BY Gaz Hopkins
hope: Spark in the Dark
Sometimes it is hard to find the joy in a job that takes so much but often gives so little back. Education has been my profession for over twenty years, having worked across a broad spectrum of settings from school to colleges and community-based projects to Her Majesty’s Prisons. But in that time nothing has presented the challenges I’ve encountered over the last two years, working at one of only three Secure Training Centres (STCs) in the UK. Places of incarceration can often feel foreboding; the sense of oppression is palpable and this has been exacerbated in the current global climate. Fear, uncertainty and paranoia is consolidated within the confines of gates, bars and walls. A recent investigation conducted at my place of work revealed that the majority of education staff currently experience aspects of negative participation, ranging from non-compliance and verbal abuse through to threats of physical abuse not on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis, but predominantly on a sessional basis: a revelation that is unthinkable in nearly every other sector of education provision. Staffing issues, always a pressing concern due to the alarmingly high level of staff turnover, have become even more pressing in the current climate, with many staff on long-term sick leave, isolating or working from home. More is required of those still in attendance, spread thinly in their job roles in order to ensure the minimum curriculum learning hours are achieved; for fear of reprisal by an invested internal or external party. Work colleagues who relentlessly attend their place of employment. Striving on a daily basis to provide a comprehensive education. Everyone around you is working so hard, giving 100% of what they have, to ensure a good standard of provision and that individual learners are not forgotten about. Working hard to make just a small positive change to some individual’s life, reducing the likelihood of them returning to such an institution again in their future. And yet, a sense of gallows humour is often present amongst staff. It can work miracles on staff morale; a small chuckle becomes infectious and staff have their spirits raised in esprit de
17
corps. Sometimes the absurdity of our surroundings lends itself to a sense of disassociated reality. We are irrepressible optimists who never fail in identifying the good in every situation and the more stoic amongst us who endeavour to endure in ever trying times. Sensitivity and empathy are also present. Staff members, like the rest of us the world over, have struggled coming to terms with the strange days we find ourselves in; when a staff member is overcome with emotion, another is never very far away to lean a shoulder to cry on. Others are there to listen, allowing moments of catharsis to purge negativity. All unsung heroes, who have contributed without recognition for their efforts, with an indomitable spirit Learners also offer opportunities for inspiration and joy. Planning, preparing and delivering a session to an enthusiastic learner can produce a sense of fulfilment and purpose. Individual moments of engagement can provide much reward: a young person sitting down at a table and engaging in conversation, sharing ideas, hopes and aspirations, including deep and personal reflections upon the past, present and possibilities. The very nature of the environment means these interactions are just as rewarding, if not more so, than those found within more mainstream education. These moments can validate your sense of being and worth, they matter because I like to believe that working in education is not just a job, performed solely and soullessly for financial remuneration. For most this is a vocation, a chosen field of expertise in which we take pride and a sense of accomplishment, every day striving to be better than the day before, bringing about not only the best in ourselves, but in those around us. These are the things that inspire me; give me a reason to wake every day and pass through the gates into the arena of my profession. In the darkest of night, the lights shine brighter than ever. At times like these we must let our lights shine, as beacons to others and as an act of the indomitable spirit. Because this is who we are, and this is what we do every day, to the best of our abilities.
About to teach my last lesson on the last but one FriYAY before half term, I can already hear my chilled wine cooing at me from the depths of my fridge (don't judge me, I know you’re feeling the same - it's 5 o’clock somewhere when this laptop lid closes right?!) And I’ve been pondering the idea of hope. Anticipating the Welsh Government to declare all schools are back after the break, I close my eyes tightly and hope that doesn’t happen, not yet anyway. I'm slightly apprehensive to return to the normal autopilot of the school week, 6 hour days followed by meetings and deadlines, home to mark, sleep, repeat. I've enjoyed being able to put a wash on during lunch if I'm honest, it's simple things. Anyway, this got me thinking about my future, our future, the future of our students. What do I hope it will look like? After a year of tragedy and heartache, educational innovations and new approaches to teaching and learning that have emerged out of the turmoil we now prepare to return to our ‘churches’. I hope we all ensure we don't revert to pre-Covid operating on any level. I believe this last year has taught us to appreciate the little things, that they in fact will some day accumulate into something spectacular in the hope that from now on we’ll implement this new relevant learning ecosystem that we, the teachers, have created, because news flash.. we know our students best, funny that. The ability to be autonomous learners was not really a well refined skill many students held pre-Covid, yet they have navigated and embarked on “learning to learn” over this past year, a lifelong skill that will enhance their resilience. This renders our factory models of lesson frameworks and prescribed syllabus inadequate. Students are no longer just digitally competent, they are 21st century digitally literate; Jambassadors and Zoom Wizards if you will, unintentionally enhancing their independent learning and doing a sterling job, not to mention the staff who previously had hard copies of every past paper since the dawn of time stacked up neatly in the store cupboard, now proudly showing off their Kami and Kahoot hacks. New education alliances have been forged, networking beyond our physical classrooms, with business, entrepreneurs, show and tells and stakeholders sharing advice, knowledge and expertise. The role of parents; engagement post primary school, which was previously an oversight, has now become a powerful force, together developing a holistic learning experience. And last but not least, school last minute closure plans, i.e SNOW DAY. Covid left us scrambling to create and provide online learning activities at the drop of a hat which undoubtedly we have aced for almost a year.️ So I guess we can say goodbye to that snow day phenomenon. If there is ever a burst pipe, foot of snow or even a zombie apocalypse, then our government will no longer be calling Ghostbusters, they will leave it up to us, the professionals, who have proven that they can handle anything, even a global pandemic with just a little HOPE.
Feature: Hope /Gobaith - Daw Eto Haul Ar Fryn/ The Sun Will Shine Again
bYNatalie Sherlock
19
BY nick hart
20
Feature: Serendipity
Serendipity, a wonderful word which once upon a time I taped to the door of my classroom. The idea being the students come in and see the word then it sparks conversation. As I cycle up a bridleway I stop and chat to a person, we are several metres apart respecting personal space and lockdown rules, for me a fear of a virus which combined with underlying health issues may be very serious. We discuss the beautiful area we live in, the struggle of keeping going through lockdown version 3, nature, hobbies and a rare bird he is hoping to lay eyes upon. We don’t know each other, we just chat because we are people and we need the interaction with each other. We say our farewells and I potter off again uphill. I pause, take in the scenery and reflect, I reflect on who I am, where I am and where I have been. I set off again and bump into one of my best friends. If I hadn’t paused, if I hadn’t chatted, if I hadn’t pottered I wouldn’t have bumped into him. Serendipity. My life has been ups, downs and round and rounds. Leaving school as I hated the education I suffered, working in shops and catering and as a delivery driver, I finally found a place that my head fitted: engineering. A world in which perfect is nearly good enough and could actually be better. The bottom fell out of my world when I was made redundant; I had trained two guys from the shop floor and they took my job. I had a 2yr old, a 2month old and literally no roof on our house. My wife had to go back to work earlier than we had planned and I had to find a new job. A conversation with one of my old university lecturers pointed me towards teaching, the world I had never thought about, never revisited since my less than happy days at school. An opportunity to work a day in a local school, after a conversation with a friend of my dad’s, and I was hooked. Long story short, I completed my PGCE and worked at a big secondary in the next town over. I had good days and I had bad, but being a newly qualified teacher afforded me time. Being an inquisitive sort I would walk round the school and chat to people, finding out who they were and where they worked. For the sake of devilment when the management brought in period six which was a staff cpd session I went round the workrooms and stuck up posters for period eight. This would be a night out, open to all, no work conversation (yeah right!) just like minded people having fun. To my amazement people came, we had fun and people chatted and socialised.
Many of those people sent messages when I was in hospital with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. My wife asked the staff at the school to write on post it notes which she then brought to my hospital room and read to me and stuck them on the wall. Not just staff but students as well, even the one who I’d shouted at for trying to steal my bike. Little colourful rays of light in a really, really dark place. Having returned to work I was judged to be poor at teaching. An observation, a bad day and from being a confident teacher I was again broken. They did the support plan, I did the support plan, they saw improvement where I did not. It was my wife who saw the advert for a lecturer of engineering at the local college, I was thinking of being a postman or working in a bike shop . Little did I know going into the world of FE that I would find a world that allowed me to combine my two loves, engineering and teaching. I now have what I consider to be the best job in college. I teach, I coach and I develop materials. I work with amazing people, students and staff. The aim being to improve the lives of our students, be that academically or improving their potential.I have met thousands of people in my life and I thank each and every one of them. They have given me challenges, they have given me help but because of them I have always had hope. Hope that tomorrow will be a good day. Trust that meaningful conversation can change the world.
BY jO fletcher-SAXON Feature: High hopes
22
Kodaline, the Irish rock band, released a studio album in 2013 called ‘In a Perfect World’. This album featured the single High Hopes. Feeling we are in a moment of the perfectly imperfect with burgeoning high hopes, this feels a fitting track to take some inspiration (and lyrics) from. But I've only got myself to blame for it, and I accept it now. But it’s not easy. No. It is not. Lockdown 3.0 in the depths of winter. No early evening sunshine beers or baking this time. To be honest, there was limited baking in lockdown 1 for me but I gave it a whirl. And burnt it. My erroneous ordering reported in earlier JoyFE magazine articles has continued. February’s highlight is a pack of fancy padded envelopes arriving. Only it isn’t a pack, it’s a large box of quite some size that I’ll need to keep in the garage. I’ve had my fair share of digital disasters too including the curious case of the invisible mouse on screen. Anyone else had to lead a lecture on Teams and have to guess where the various ‘buttons’ are to click? No? Just me then. But what can I say, but I nailed it! Short webinar series to share this skill due out soon. I remember it now, it’s taken me back to where it all started.At the start of lockdown 1, myself and Alistair Smith had started playing around with a podcast idea for sharing research by and for further education. We could not have imagined or even hoped that by February 2021 we would have interviewed 21 amazing people and be celebrating our 21st #FEresearchpodcast release or that we would be presenting a radio programme reviewing podcasts on Teacher Hug Radio. But there we go, strange things do happen. Since joining the FE research community back in 2017, it has been a delight to track and contribute to the scene and champion real impact through research coming from within the sector. Let’s hope this long continues. It’s time to let go, go out and start again. We are all saying it and we are all hoping it. What do we need to let go of? What do we need to start again? There are definitely aspects of life now that I wish to retain. There have been some real joys and advantages of working with students in a digital classroom community not to mention the joys of the plethora of communities of practice I access online, mostly in relation to practitioner research or my own development. @AmplifyFE are
now on the scene and happy to promote any community of practice, however you might define that. Check out their account and tag them in to get your community of practice noticed. But the world keeps spinning around. Remember how everyone in lockdown 1 embraced a daily constitutional and began bird watching? We became at one with nature. Well I thought I’d get in on the act in Lockdown 3 and record myself feeding the little flock of sheep I have. Communing with nature I thought. It generally results in me being head butted or chased and so far has involved much snow. #Sheepcam posts, however, have entertained a handful of people. If you like your ruminants in black wool, check us out on Twitter. And I do believe that …There will come a time when we can gather again. Maybe not in huge crowds just yet and maybe with some rules. However, being ever optimistic, Graham Pitchforth and I are setting a date. @BrewEdFE #OktoberFEst here we come. If we have to bounce it onwards for another year so be it, but if we don’t begin to plan, I believe we lose hope. I have finally embraced more walking in my life too. I now truly do believe in the mental health benefits of a good walk but it took my sister, Vanessa Porter, Cardiac Physiologist, NHS shero (who has yet to have a decent break since last March), dragging me away from my screen when I felt I had hit rock bottom last month to persuade me. I offered to clap for her to say thank you, she said she’d rather have a bottle of Prosecco. But I’ve got high hopes. And what might I have high hopes for? Well this month (year even) it is adult and community education. After a stonkingly busy #UKFEchat to launch this little grassroots campaign back in December, we have launched. We are cheekily calling it #AdultConversations. Our ambitions are high, our costs are low! Our aim, in a nutshell, is to put adult community education back into the national conversation. To achieve this, we have two key actions: 1) hosting some regional ‘big conversations’ with adult educators and those invested in making UK adult education a real thing, not a second cousin twice removed and 2) weekly posting of articles or artefacts from the adult community education scene. The weekly posting has the hashtag #52weeks52 speaks. We shall be relentlessly optimistic and fiercely hopeful for adult community education. Want to speak for adult community education? Get in touch to either feature in one of the 52 weeks or to be in our adult education special edition of this very magazine next month. www.AdultConversations.uk Thank you to Sammy Lambert, Google Innovator and the first female Google Certified Coach in Europe for helping me create the little #AdultConversations website. I am totally learning new Googley skills! I know it’s crazy Apparently the word Kodaline has Hebrew origins meaning ‘the beautiful broken’ and that’s very much the lens through which I am currently viewing the world. Join my Community of (needs a lot of) Practice @jfletchersaxon
23
24
Preface It’s been almost six months since we sat down to collaborate on this piece together; three practitioner-researchers who wanted to pause and look back at the road travelled before turning to face the unexplored paths ahead. At that point, I naively thought that we’d got through the worst of Covid-19, and had started planning how to get back into the swing of writing again. All three of us successfully passed our transfer to PhD vivas in September - a huge milestone and one personally, I didn’t ever imagine I’d reach when I started out on this journey. And then Lockdown 2.0 hit. And now we’re in the midst of Lockdown 3.0. So where now? It’s true that things feel pretty tough right now and the job of juggling remote teaching, home-schooling and thesis writing, whilst generally staying alive, seems on some days a push too far. When the JoyFE crew got back in contact and said they’d like to publish this piece, to be honest, I’d forgotten that we ever wrote it. But reading back over our stories has been therapeutic, amplifying once again the joy and fulfillment we’ve collectively found in researching within our respective contexts. So, take heart friends! If we can do it, then so can you and whilst we may not be ‘burnin through the sky’ or ‘travelling at the speed of light’, in the words of Mr. Mercury, we’re still having a ball and we don’t wanna stop at all. We hope you enjoy our stories, Beth x Beth Curtis Clandinin and Connelly refer to teachers, learners and researchers as ‘storytellers and characters in their own and each other’s stories’ (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000:2). When I started out on my own practitioner-research journey in 2017, I was brimming with ideas about what I wanted to explore in relation to my own teaching practice and subject delivery. What I wasn’t anticipating was the unexpected joy of spending dedicated time in conversation with other practitioners, all with their own unique stories about their experiences as educators. It made me realise how the busyness of everyday life as a teacher often means little time and space for deep dialogue, having to make do instead with a snatched conversationduring a coffee break The dedicated ETF/SUNCETT practitioner-research program places the narrative and experience of practitioners at the heart of educational research, challenging the assumption that teachers are ‘passive consumers of knowledge gained from
hope: don't stop me now tHE UNEXPECTED JOY OF PRACTITIONER RESEARch & why now we've started we just can't stop!
BY bETH CURTIS , OLIVER CAMERON-SWAN & WILL COSSEY
Oliver Cameron-Swan For me this entire process has grown out of a brief lunchtime conversation over a coffee with a colleague. There was one standout question from this chat. “How would you like to improve your practice at college?” We talked about what we felt was important in making changes in relation to my teaching practise and settled on some ideas for action research. Soon after this I was pointed in the direction of the MA Short Course programme offered by SunderlandThe very first discussion with my tutor completely reorientated my understanding of what this research might look like. I was introduced to ideas of narrative inquiry, to the opportunity to work on research that had a creative element to it.What’s more I was studying with a group of like minded practitioners. It felt like someone had switched a light on in a part of my thinking.Two and a half years or so in and I’m really pleased to think that I might be able to take my research further. There’s lots to explore and consider, and despite the occasional frustration when getting to grips with a concept or argument (or trying to remember what to add to an impact grid or review), the course has been a pleasure to be a part of. I’m not ready for it to stop just yet.
research conducted by others’ (Gregson and Spedding, 2018:166). Taking part in the program has not only reinvigorated my own classroom practice but has also reminded me of the value learning from and with others. As John Donne tells us, ‘no man is an island’ and as teachers we must rejoice in any space that invites us in to share our stories and enter into ‘a learning experience involving ‘dialogue’ between ourselves as researchers and that which we are trying to understand.’ (Usher in Scott and Usher,1996:22).
Our three stories are accounts from ETF/SUNCETT MPhil practitioner-researchers, a collection of educators from a diverse range of backgrounds and educational environments. Whilst our individual narratives are situated within our own specific contexts, we find common ground in our love of learning and sharing our research experiences. Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework Overview of Research paper (2019), speaks of ‘the relative paucity of research in FE&S compared with the other sectors’ (Ofsted, 2019:3). The narratives featured here are a retort to that claim, a resounding clanging of the bell and shouting from the rooftops that, ‘research in FE is alive!’. Practitioner-research in FE is in fact, more than just alive, it is thriving, and it’s high time we make some noise in celebration
25
26
Will Cossey “You cannot understand a system until you try to change it" Kurt Lewin (1946) I’ve taught Vocational and A-level Film at a large FE college in the South West for over 10 years. For me, the research project, instigated by taking part in the SUNCETT and ETF MPhil programme has benefitted my students, the college and myself. Simply put, it’s the best CPD I’ve done since starting teaching. My project was about how to best utilise online learning platforms whilst also changing the teaching environment that my students and colleagues use. Over 3 years ago I started reflecting on my practice, researching educational theorists who specialise in this area and changing the software we use as a teaching team and lobbying for new kit and classroom layouts. Now in my third year of study and research in this area. I’m conducting the final analysis of the impact of the change in classroom environments and students and staff’s experience of teaching and learning in a mixed digital and ‘offline’ educational setting. The project has become even more topical bearing in mind the Lock Down and the impact that Covid 19 has had on having to remote teach. How exactly should teachers best use IT to teach, rather than just facilitate, students learning? As Turkle points out “learning isn’t all about the answers. It’s what the answers mean” (2015:8). If anything then, the research has made me a more reflective and participatory member of my educational setting and a wider research community. It’s also helped me make links with colleagues who teach in different colleges and fostered a network of other teachers who face the same daily challenges in the classroom around the country. A network that I wouldn’t have accessed and benefitted from, without this research project driving me forward. .
By Jackie Rossa
Dear Jackie I have always tried to help my learners to become independent learners, and to develop the skills of learning that will help them throughout their lives. I thought that this would be a bit easier in lockdown, with students having less contact with me, and having to take more responsibility for their work, but the reverse seems to have happened with my level 2 students. They don’t seem to complete work or meet deadlines, and I feel as if I am chasing them for everything, including tasks I give them in the online lessons. They just don’t seem to care. I am not sure if it is just me – some other teachers are seeing the same, but not all. Please help Jackie says: This is a really tricky situation and might depend on the individual learners. In your longer letter, it sounds as if this is most, but not all of your students in this particular group. So what is different about these students? Lockdown has affected people in many different ways, and our students can sometimes feel that there is little to point to completing work, and even their course as the future looks so uncertain. The trouble is that we don’t know, but here are some things that might be worth a try: Set small, achievable tasks instead of longer, larger tasks. This can create a sense of success. Sometimes a task might only be a minute long – they should all be able to do that. Get the students to recognise and reflect on the skills they used to complete the tasks. Sometimes we need to teach students how to learn independently – can you explicitly teach skills such as time management, research etc. If possible, get them to peer mark – students tend to be better at producing work if they know one of their peers might be having a look at it. If you have 1-1s with students, try to link work completion to their wider ambitions and career goals, and do talk to them about why this is happening. Individual circumstances might be making this difficult for them. This does not mean you should lower your expectations, but perhaps work with them to overcome the barriers. Dark Jackie says: What I actually read into your letter was that you can’t really be bothered to teach these students anymore, and are hoping they will save you the trouble by doing it themselves. This is what we all aspire to, and is, of course, eminently possible. A very enterprising colleague of mine simply hands her students the syllabus in September, and arranges to meet them after their exams in June. This is so much easier to achieve in lockdown where you don’t have the problem of unoccupied students wandering college corridors and setting off fire alarms. The other advantage of course is that you cannot be held responsible for any poor results
Dear Jackie
contributors
marsida horeshka @marsmaths ali longden @Ali_longden beth curtis @curtis_beth1 oliver cameron-swan @cameron_swan jo fletcher-saxon @jfletchersaxon jane weatherby @weatherbyjane Katheryn Cockerton @katheryncocker1 nick hart @moorideasthemerrier Heather Booth-Martin @HeatherBMartin Isla Flood @islaflood Jackie Rossa @JackieRossa_ Lou Mycroft @loumycroft stefanie wilkinson @stef_wilkinson natalie sherlock will cossey helen hazlehurst gaz hopkins mohammed hajji shelley franklin king
Want to be part of the #JoyFE conversation? Join our #JoyFE Facebook group Listen to the live #JoyAM Broadcast via our JoyFE Facebook group Monday-Friday 7.35am with @LouMycroft OR Join us on Zoom for the #IdeasRoom on Wednesday evenings at 8pm using the Thinking Environment to explore ideas and change the world!(DM @joyfulFE for the password). OR Why not write an article ? Submissions always welcome Just ask for the guidelines! EMAIL: joyfulfe@gmail.com
Want more joy delivered to your Inbox? Click here to receive #JoyFE magazine direct.
