Testimonial by Professor David SmithCurrently schools and schooling are at a turning point. They are caught between their origins which lie in the thinking and structures of an industrial-age society, and the challenges of moving increasingly rapidly into that of a post-industrial age. This book not only illustrates those tensions and challenges, but, more important, provides strategies to meet them and bring about the changes that will become increasingly necessary.
Developed in the industrial age, schools and schooling reflect the values of that age - those of hierarchy, mass production, power and control. So too does teacher education which emphasises the acquisition of subject matter knowledge rather than the empowering of the individual learner. It is this subject knowledge that then forms the basis of teacher-as-expert where teachers’ knowledge is deemed more important than the learners’ - sometimes not even acknowledging that the learners have any worthwhile knowledge at all. Thus it is teaching rather than learning that dominates the ideas of industrial-age schooling. There is an infallible belief that somehow teaching will necessarily result in learning.
Schooling of the industrial age was, and to a large extent still is, based in mechanistic and linear notions. It begins by those in power in society deciding, in their own interests, what it is that young people need to know and be able to do to occupy a useful place as adults: the product is pre-specified in terms of outcomes. Schooling then becomes the process in which the individual differences, those that make us the unique and wonderful souls we were born to be, are largely ignored so that the demands of society can be achieved. Those children and young people who do not conform to such expectations find enormous pressure to do so from the system, teachers, and the peer group. Such pressure does not only produce discomfort, sadness, anger and rebellion, but alienation from both self and others. There is little room for the expression of intuition, sensitivity, passion and creative being in industrial-age schooling, only slavish rule following and learning one’s place in the hierarchy. The result for many young people is often the closing down of their true selves. Rather than an exciting journey of self-discovery, schooling becomes a journey of self-denial, in which, maybe forever, awarenesses, sensitivities, and knowings that are the essence of our humanness, are blocked. As Erin’s book demonstrates, however, it takes only one teacher who is prepared to stand up to the system and create an environment that is about freedom and empowered learning to counteract this journey of self denial and to make a difference that lasts for a lifetime.
One of the powerful tools in achieving the purposes of industrial-age schooling is the curriculum. This is the knowledge and messages that are central in forming the views of ourselves both as individuals and as a collective, the world we live in and the relationships between ourselves and the world. Again the messages are those of an industrial age. Of the world, the messages are of a machine, disconnected and separate parts whose systems can be explained by intellectual rationality and logic. Of ourselves, the messages are the same. We are conditioned to see ourselves as physical bodies, ego centred, mechanical and made of matter. Our survival is supposedly guaranteed through the accumulation of physical and material possessions which give us power over others. Such accumulation also feeds our self esteem which has been largely destroyed by the processes of socialisation, including schooling. No matter that cutting edge science in all disciplines already discredits such views, it is the rational logic of Science and Maths and the concepts of growth economics and the work ethic of Business Studies and Economics that dominate the curriculum.
As Erin so ably shows, these messages of industrial-age schooling are wrong - demonstrably and undeniably wrong. The view of the world that leading scientists are uncovering is of a boundless, beginningless and endless universe: a world that is organic, not mechanistic: not disconnected and separate but wholistic, interrelated and interdependent: not explained by the dualistic logic of causation but by creative intuition, feelings and inner knowing (the awakening of echoes buried deep within ourselves). And as human beings, it is not undeniably clear that we are much more than skin, bone and mind. Our essential nature is that of creative beings of energy made of the same non-material stuff as the world in which we live: beings whose prime purpose is to learn and experience using our creative capacities and our minds towards our own development. When such intention and capacity is blocked, it can cause disease (dis-ease), which is increasingly being shown to be the result of how we think and create our reality rather than because of physical breakdown, which is the symptom rather than the cause.
This book then is one way of responding to the challenge of industrial-age schooling and its restrictive curriculum and structures. It begins with a well substantiated critique of traditional approaches to schooling and then proceeds to provide an alternative framework for organising schooling and teaching and learning. Some of the most important and central features of this framework are the autonomy and freedom of learners and the role of the teacher, not as expert, but as an authentic person, who in teaching through love is able to create an environment in which students’ inner knowing is able to be manifested in highly creative and original ways toward the realization of their own individual potential and power.
If this were all of the book that would be significant enough. However, one of the most important features of this story is that it is a shared and collaborative enterprise. It is the voice of not only Erin but also the voices of her students, both as Year 7 students and now as adults that combine to present the ideas. The voices of the students are not just in the form of interview transcripts but more important, in the creative writing that was one important result of the environment and relationships established between them and Erin during the last year of their primary schooling. Sometimes the voices are tentative, sometimes reflecting the mixed emotions of young adolescence, but always they are filled with an honesty, authenticity and power that was the result of feeling free to be able to express whatever was inside them. Thank you Erin and your students for having the courage to be different and for sharing your experiences with us.
Thus this book is not just an important piece of educational research, a cast study based on the analysis of longitudinal data, it is in the tradition of all good research into schooling in that it provides clearly established and validated strategies and guidelines for those teachers who wish to create their classrooms differently and wish to teach from a base of love, freedom and empowerment rather than control and restriction: who want to emphasise learning rather than teaching: who want to move from schooling to educating. But as Erin shows, for those who want to do this the way is not easy or simple. It takes strength, honesty and courage. Most of all it takes a willingness to be prepared to step outside the comfort zone and learn about yourself: learn things from your students about you that may not always find easy to accept or deal with.
This is a book about powerful authentic and wholistic learning for both students and teachers, about empowering both teachers and students. But most of all it is a book about celebration and hope: hope that schools, teaching and learning can be different and that one teacher and her students can make a difference. It is a book that all teachers, teachers-in-training and parents should read.
Congratulations and thank you Erin and your students for a book that is not only inspirational but practical. Erin, as you will discover readers is a remarkable teacher and this book exemplifies all of those qualities that make her the wonderful and special human being that she is. In this book she has planned a special and creative journey. I hope that you not only enjoy it but that, whatever you do, it motivates you to believe that schooling and education can be liberating and powerful in the realization of individuals and their destinies.
David Smith Professor of Education School of Teaching and Curriculum Studies University of Sydney
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