Signature Pedagogies Agogo - The Teachers must be Taught

Oh, Mister Shulman, you make things sound so complicated.

Pedagogies.  When a word is unpronounceable, it stands to reason that it should be incomprehensible as well, however...

What I have come to understand on Reading Lee S. Shulman's Signature pedagogies in the professions and some of his other related articles (if you're interested, try http://www.taylorprograms.com/images/Shulman_Signature_Pedagogies.pdf which is a lecture showing more specifically how pedagogies in the professions can aid and inform modern educator's practice) is that Shulman is trying to quantify, and qualify the various types of teaching practice, by no means a easy feat, and therefore I surmise, highly deserving of an unpronounceable title.

Teaching is described as an art, not a science.  When practiced correctly, by someone with a true vocation for it, it can be like magic, seamless trickery in which knowledge is sublimated without any visible force or mechanism.  I'm sure everyone remembers at least one teacher of their youth for whom this is true.  And yet we also remember the bad teaching - ineffective, and in some cases, downright damaging.  In a large scale state education programme, where it sometimes feels Fordism's production-line techniques are being applied to our children's future (gosh I'm cynical), teachers cannot all have the intuitive skills, in order to homogenise the education system it stands to reason that the magic of good teaching practice must be unveiled, that the teachers must be taught.  Ironically I think that teaching, good teaching, may be one of the hardest things to learn.

Shulman has concentrated on higher education teaching methods for vocational professions, in this extract he focuses on medicine and law.  By comparing the way in which they are taught to the qualities we value in these professions, he has come up with an interesting way of looking at education, in terms of knowledge gained, but also (and more importantly I think) the qualities of thinking and of processing information that are more oblique in the professions, but as relevant elsewhere. 

For example, he mentions the relevance of classroom shape to the subject taught, but also to how that effects the power placement of the room, directly influencing the pupil's idea of themselves and therefore creativity.  I would argue that while in a maths lesson it may be appropriate to set up a classroom with lines of desks facing the front where the teacher stands, dishing out problems and solutions, this would be highly inappropriate in any creative lesson.  In Maths, answers are absolute.  No discussion is required.  Creativity is almost actively discouraged.  Creative subjects, for example the Creative Writing I am studying, could not operate in this fashion.  It needs group discussion to share and encourage creativity.  Have a 'front' to a class would imply an authority, a 'right' answer and impair experimentation.  The idea of space was not a main theme in the article, but certainly made me think.  I identified a few classroom shapes for different purposes....

The Lecture for formal information giving. - definite power to front.
The Horseshoe for teacher lead discussion. - less formal front, professional layout, all students equal status and looking at each other.
The Island for group discussion and creative work. - no formal front, floating teacher. Could also be used as individual islands for solo creative work.

Can anyone else out there think of any classroom shapes and how they effect teaching practice? 

Okay, so onto signature pedagogies proper.  The summary seems to be that there are three dimensions....

• Surface Structure - concrete, operational acts of education giving.

• Deep Structure - the subject specific assumption as to how to best impart information.  

• Implicit Structure - moral dimension, beliefs, attitudes, values.

But how does that relate to the teaching of Creative Writing?  I would suppose that the surface structure is that of writing, reading and workshopping, editing and discussion, writing exercises, analysis of structure, function and form.  The Deep structure, that of teacher as facilitator not dictator, that learning must be through experience, and the Implicit structure one of dedication to one's own practice, established grammatical and punctuation practices, an attitude of creative freedom and expression.  However, I as much as I try to delineate the rules of writing, (the underlying expectations) I am also aware that writing, though it does have rules, is often about breaking those rules in line with one's own expression.  As in the teaching of art - though there must be structure, does one want to churn out class after class who can draw like Da Vinci, or write Dickensian prose, are there not many ways in which the rules can be, and must be corrupted in order to advance creative thought?  It's the Damien Hurst argument - is a pickled calf art? Maybe, maybe not, but the question is necessary, the production of new and innovative works is necessary.  Writing cannot stick to one form.  Is a graphic novel literature? Is the rich vernacular of Irvine Welsh good English?

Though I question the role of the rigidity of the Implicit Structure within the creative arts, I do understand where Shulman is coming from.  In the article I linked at the start of this, rather long and rambling blog entry, he talks about the need for consistency of delivery, for students and teachers, because successful lessons come from a safe environment, where the pupils and teachers know the what is expected of them and how to achieve this.  The new drive for Lesson Objectives, that should be clear from lesson planning, and imparted to the class at the start of each lesson is a clear result of this thinking.

As much as I respect the work and experience of Shulman, I believe that other pedagogies should also be examined.  Friere describes in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, (this is chapter 2)http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/education/freire/freire-2.html  that we should avoid the 'banking' or 'depositing' method of education, in which student are filled up with information, as you would a piggy bank, without any thought to the development of the processing of that information.  Something I believe in whole-heartedly, and think is several lacking in modern British education.  Only the other day, in a class dedicated to discussion of America Theatrical texts, a fellow student said to me that she felt unable to join in the discussion because we were 'plucking things out of the air'  putting together literature with context, culture and opinion that left her 'spinning'.  I don't believe this reflects on her ability, but the way that she has been taught to think.  Or not to, as the case maybe.  But that's for another blog perhaps.

Academic and Reflective Writing

Class on Academic and Reflective Writing

The topic of discussion today was that of the correct methods of Academic and Reflective writing.  Though I understand its merits, especially for those unused to writing essays in their subjects, but for those of us who have been doing it for the last few years, as part of our university course, it was useful revision, but a little obsolete. 

It made me think of the reading we did on Group Work (Chapter 18 of Geoff Petty's Teaching Today (4th ed).  I wondered if the class would have been more successful if there had been more allowance for the differentiated knowledge within the class.  We could have been put in discussion groups, or 'buddied up' in pairs and allowed to share knowledge within peer groups, discussing questions set by the lecturer and then sharing this discussion with the class, when the lecture can fill in any holes.  This is a more active way of learning, more apt considering our subject, and leaves more room for the sharing of individual methods - where interesting and helpful things can crop up.




The Essay Burger
The whole essay is a burger, topped and tailed by
the bready buns of introduction and conclusion
But the meaty middle (the main body of your essay)
should also be made of paragraph burgers.
Burgers within Burgers.
It's Burgers all the way down.....

For example, when talking about the structuring of essays, one of the students was struggling with the dry terminology, so I told her about the 'essay hamburger' a visual mnemonic of both essay and paragraph structure that I use with the students I tutor. Though the same theory as the one on the slide, it proved useful to the class in providing a more visual, and visceral explanation, helping to digest the information into more bite sized, manageable chunks. 


Likewise, other students had information on referencing systems and resources that had helped them that they were able to share.  Though this came up in discussion, It was only at the end and slightly tentatively, as with a rigid lecture or presentation, one feels less inclined to break the flow, and disrupt the class, or undermine the authority of the teacher.  It was only the reading which made me reflect on the different ways that the information could have been imparted, and the class could have been led.

Reflecting on McLoughlin

Decentring Everything

A Reaction and Reflection

It is interesting to read Nigel McLoughlin's Pedagogical Philosophy for Creative Writing from the perspective of a Creative Writing Student, having been taught as an undergraduate for two years.  While I acknowledge that it is a difficult subject to teach, being utterly subjective, I admit to having felt a little frustrated with the guidance I have previously received - I felt like we were being encouraged to think small, work within boundaries and follow pre-existing (and successfully published) examples.  Where, I wanted to scream, is the place in this course for the exciting literature, that challenges ideas and formats, that breaks existing forms, that carves new niches, the literature which I love and aspire to?  Are we to be rolled out of university like clones, each parroting the same pulp fiction mass market paperback pap! After reading McLoughlin it starts to make a little more sense.

Mcloughlin quotes Bulman, saying ‘the very act of breaking a rule implies a knowledge of it’.
It's right that in order to escape the form one must first master it, or at least understand it.  It it also important that we understand the construction of sentences, of paragraphs and of stories.  One of the most profound differences I found in my first year was the experience of reading as a writer, completely different to the act of reading for pleasure.  And as McLoughlin calls it I learnt from 'aping the masters', both referring to there styles, and to their construction, in some instances even copying verbatim a page of text in order to better comprehend it's structure.

However, though his analysis is thorough, and useful, (would have been more useful at the start of my studies - in the same way as objectives are given as standard in compulsory education, giving students an idea of what they should be getting from each lesson) I also think it is important to help the students discover their own voices, and how best they learn and write.  Creative writing is such a personal subject - subjective to each individual.  This is part of what makes it such a difficult, and interesting subject to try to teach.  It must be both general enough to appeal to everyone, and yet allow enough room to cater to the individuality of each writer.

Tricky....

Teaching Writing - an introduction

Teaching Writing

the first class....

Today we were introduced to the Teaching Writing module.  I had thought that this might be a subject that was to be a painful necessity - not a subject for my heart (which wants to learn more about the craft of writing) - but one for the head (that knows that this will assist in converting my creative writing skills into teaching English, and help to get a PGCE place).  However, I have been rather wonderfully surprised! 

This module seems well set out, with examination of relevant pedagogy as well as encouraging the practise of theory and individual exploration and reflection, which really appeals to me.

I feel that by learning to teach writing, I will actually be learning to teach myself better writing, and therefore become a better teacher! We all win!  This cycle of knowledge is what I am referring to in the title of my blog, Learning Teaching Teaching Learning.

Part of the course is the maintenance of this Blog, in which I will chart my experience of the course, clarify my thoughts about the issues raised, materials read and discussions had.  I hope to include all the exercises and ideas I find useful in one easily accessed place. 

I can't wait now, for the learning, and the teaching to begin!