I cut the section ?Consultation as reinforcement? below from a paper to be published shortly from my ACSA presentation.?The beginning of the paper reads?
Teaching happens in place, this place can be anything from a large metropolitan city to a small remote community.? Each place is different, situated in a unique context with a unique meeting of contextual factors to contribute to the ?thisness? (Thompson 2000) of each school, indeed each classroom. Common among each of these classrooms is that their purpose is organized by a teacher in relation to a written curriculum.? In this paper I want to dwell upon the example of two teachers, Sally and Sam[i], in different rural schools who are connected by the NSW History Curriculum.? In so doing I consider the place of rural education in the new Australian Curriculum and explore how an appreciation of place can be of value to teachers in rural schools.
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When pushed Sally often talks about the usual things in relation to rural schools ? the staffing challenges, access to resources and activities, the general isolation, the transient students, and her concern for their futures, all those things that are typically associated with the challenges of country schools.? However Sally prefers to talk about what she was doing with her History class.? They were investigating the local community, collaborating with the Aboriginal Elders as resources, accessing the online records of those who signed up for wars, accessing old newspapers online, and of course the historical society in the annex alongside the post office.? By all accounts both Sally, and her students were totally engaged and the work had blended into the teaching of English and Geography, for which she also took the students.? She said it was like the students were writing their town into History, while at the same time she was subtly steering them towards the curriculum requirements.? Sally?s approach seems like such a simple, discipline-based, approach to teaching the subject.? What?s more, it was the exact opposite of the approach adopted by Sam, a teacher in a similar school teaching the same topic. In contrast, Sam was trying to teach the Syllabus to the students, using the standard set of texts and resource material, and having a challenging time.? Consequently his perception of the rural was one more akin to Wake in Fright?
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A couple of hundred kilometers can be a long way when we think centre-periphery; however Sally and Sam are essentially in neighboring schools though they are about 120KM apart.? They are both new teachers, but neither has met, or talked to the other.? What is striking is that they have such a different attitude to teaching in the rural, and such different approaches to teaching the same subject.? That such difference exists in the implementation of a curriculum raises a number of important questions about teaching in rural schools as the Australian Curriculum is rolled out. ?Perhaps, though, such question also contain the answer.? Both teachers seem to have a very different perception of what the rural is, and what it means to teach their subject in a rural context.? Sally is clearly situating her practice in a place-conscious manner and using local knowledge, whereas Sam is importing his practice and knowledge base, with the only reference to place being minor affordances to delivery.? Consequently Sally is experiencing a professionally rewarding time and empowering students, whereas Sam is questioning his self-efficacy as a teacher and positioning students at the periphery of important knowledge and social power.
[i] Sally and Sam are fictional teachers who represent two categories of teachers developed from interviews conducted for a PhD project.
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Rather than discard I thought I?d post this bit of text while I work out what to do with it. ?I think it will have use in relation to the AARE presentation. Some of the context is of course missing, though the excerpt above may help overcome that.
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Consultation as reinforcement.
Writing from the position of an insider, Kiem (2011) reinforces the centralised and bureaucratic tendencies of Australian Curriculum Development and raises the concerns this raises for (history) curriculum development, in particular effective consultation.? Supporting these concerns with specific reference to rural communities, Drummond, Halsey and van Bredar (2012) demonstrate that the absence of adequate consultation is a concern for rural communities.
Interesting for the argument here, Drummond et al (2012) also show that where respondents to their survey feel there has been more consultation, the curriculum allowed for the importance of local knowledge. This point raises a number of important possibilities for rural schools, whilst also highlighting the centralised cosmopolitan character of Australian curriculum concerns.?? Drummond et al?s (2012) survey was conducted in June 2010 and therefore in relation to draft curriculum version 1.0 (ACARA 2010).? The first consultation version of the Australian History Curriculum (I acknowledge that Drummond et al (2012) paper does not include a variable for which curriculum area respondents are familiar with) included in Years 7-9 a ?school-developed study?.? For example:
?21. Depth Study 4. The making of the Modern World and Australia ? A school-developed study.? Schools will develop a depth study of their choice related to the making of the Modern world and Australia, choosing from an aspect of local, national or world history that relates to this historical period.?
The inclusion of this school-developed study provided opportunities not normally afforded in curriculum as a distinct study.? Usually the inclusion of local material is a pedagogical decision made by the teacher, linked to student engagement in relation to a pre-determined topic.? Its inclusion here reflects also a disciplinary approach to history, where the historical thinking is more important than the topics covered.? The power of this inclusion is reflected in the support of teachers and leaders in remote predominantly Aboriginal communities who saw this aspect as allowing them to connect kids to the curriculum by beginning with a local study in local languages (Roberts 2012b).? In doing so, the power of the curriculum is being challenged by such local approaches.? Wisely, these teachers are in de Certeauian terms employing the tactic of localising the mandated curriculum as a way of disrupting the strategies of the government to control space.
Such tactics are risky though, as they also challenge the very fabric of what many take for granted.? This indeed is one of the problems of the rural, in that while socially many think they know the rural it is only through a deep engagement with it that one comes to really understand it: educationally, then, it is only when teaching in the rural in a deeply engaged way that one comes to see that some aspects of the curriculum are not relevant.? This can be seen in the example of Sally and Sam, where Sally is employing the tactic of reworking the curriculum to meet her needs, conceivably as she has engaged in understanding her place, whereas Sam values other knowledge and is instead employing the strategy given to him.
For two reasons, the inclusion of a local case study in the curriculum could be professionally challenging ? first, it is not a directed content approach and leaves the definition of the nation open for interpretation, and second, it challenges the cosmopolitan knowledge base and leaves it exposed to being undermined. Sally for instance would be comfortable with this, as she is displaying aspects of an activist teacher professionalism (Sachs 2003) in using her professional knowledge to redefine and shape her practice, whereas Sam seems stuck in the idea of a good teacher promoted by the architecture of neoliberal governance (Connell 2009) of a foreign context.? The recognition of context in this architecture is crucial, as Sam is expressing dismay and professional dissatisfaction, precursors of transferring out of these areas or leaving teaching all together (Roberts 2005), while he is exhibiting pedagogical approaches that seem valued and the hallmarks of good teaching.
Recognising that the architecture of neoliberal governance has created a performative culture within schools and within teachers? identities (Ball 2003, Connell 2009), it is not surprising that a loosely defined school developed option would challenge.? In this respect, the consultation report on the Australian Curriculum suggested these options be removed, as it read;
?Delete school-developed studies in Years 7-9.? These are unnecessary in an ?essential learning? curriculum and will free up time for the essentials? (ACARA 2010:157)
This is in stark contrast to the view of the relevant teachers professional association, the History Teachers Association of Australia, who stated in their submission that ?the school developed options in Years 7-9 provide some scope for local history? (HTAA 2010).? Regardless of this official response from the professional association, it appears that many teachers in the feedback were unsure of what to cover here and to what standard (Roberts 2012b).
The wording that the school-developed options were not essential illustrates two important considerations: firstly for all the rhetoric the curriculum is clearly an essential learning focus and secondly, this essential learning must be directed to a view of the national image created through the history curriculum ? one that doesn?t recognise the importance of local places, let alone rural places.? This ?essential? learning is inevitable constructed here as essential content important to becoming a nation demonstrates a continuation of much early curriculum work in Australia (Green 2003).
Australian schooling has traditionally been centralised, organised by and referenced as it were to state capitals on the coastal fringe. As Browne expressed in 1927, in a review of education, ?the truth is that centralization is the best form of educational rule for a young country with a vast hinterland.? It ensures that the children of the rural pioneer receive as good an education as the children of the banker or the artisan in the city? (1927:xvii-xviii).? According to Seddon, this was achieved through the curriculum, as ?from the late 1880?s to the 1970?s State Education Departments exercised virtually unconstrained authority with state systems of public education ? substantially realized through the state curriculum ? orientated to the building of each state? (2001:315). Thus rural spaces were controlled by uniform education provision underpinned by a notion of equity? (Green & Letts, 2007).? While Seddon finishes the time frame in the 1970?s, it would accord with Ball?s notions of performativity that the loss of departmental authority has coincided with the development of other forms of perhaps more powerful control and authority, namely the legislating of separate curriculum boards throughout Australia and regimes of assessment and monitoring.? With the rise of the non-governments sector around a simple period, supported by the state, these new forms of authority come across as deliberate attempts to maintain a form of state control over what is taught.? In some ways, the response of teachers to an ill-defined school developed option suggests that performative governmentally has in fact been achieved.? The notion of equity is clearly defined as a concern for metropolitan cosmopolitan values and achievement, there is an inherent incapacity to recognise that quality may in fact take a different form in different contexts, and while the rural pioneer may want the same options as the city banker the approach to teaching either needs to be responsive to place. It should seem self-evident that teaching the rural pioneer as though she is the banker?s daughter is an absurd proposition, however the example of Sam makes it not so absurd.
There is also a tension around the disciplinary nature of history within the HTAA?s response compared to the curriculum and teachers? understandings.? The interest in supporting ?local history? in the senior years recognises a disciplinary approach to history, where the procedural knowledge, the skills of history, and the development of historical thinking, are more important than the substantive knowledge (Levesque 2008).? Without moving into a separate discussion on the nature of history, I want to suggest that this procedural approach is able to incorporate place (Roberts 2011) and hence appropriate for incorporating the needs of rural students whereas a substantive approach, arguably adopted in the Australian Curriculum, is not, as it defines the knowledge base and how the knowledge fits together.? Taking a procedural approach, as Sally has done, allows her to focus upon the skills of history, use local examples to engage her students, and then show how this fits in with the valuable knowledge of the curriculum (assuming we can?t alter that), in the process valuing and validating place; the Substantive approach taken by Sam instead values a ?cannon? of knowledge without reference to the skills and therefore in the example of history positions local experiences as peripheral to important knowledge and as such devalues place.
The use of ?consultation? by the official ACARA document needs to be considered in light of Kiem?s (2011) criticism of the this very consultation ? either way, the rural is at a disadvantage, as the weight of consultation will favor metropolitan concerns, even when rural representatives and consultation are included unless they are given greater individual weight. Questioning the extent of consultation and understanding suggested by Drummond et al (2012) is the year progression of the Australian Curriculum, something not practical for small rural schools who teach multi-year classes and that is being raised now that schools are really considering the implications of the document (Roberts 2012b).? The persistence of year by year progression shows a lack of understanding of teaching contexts. In some respects, this could suggests a break from a long-standing concern in curriculum development identified by Green (2003) that much bureaucratic and centralised curriculum reform has been organised around schooling.? However it probably provides greater evidence that it is organised around a view of schooling that does not take into account small rural schools. As such, the de-coupling of curriculum from schooling that Green (2003) refers to may in fact be a coupling of curriculum with cosmopolitan non-rural schooling.? Either way this false consultation reinforces the position of the architects of the curriculum and performative regime and is in keeping with Marsh and Stafford?s assertion that major curriculum and schooling reform in Australia has been implemented by educational bureaucrats (1988 in Green 2003).
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