As teacher supply issues threaten to hit critical levels, a leading academic has claimed that only one thing can save us: education theory.
Writing in the 15 April issue of TES, Dr Helen Lees, of Newman University Birmingham, argues that theory can both explain and solve the teacher supply crisis.
“Usually theory is seen as dry and uninteresting, devoid of any practical knowhow or common sense,” she writes. “But I would suggest that, contrary to this, theory is pretty damn hot.”
In terms of diagnosis, she cites work by Z R Gasparatou who argues that a common educational sense of things - the shared and shareable world - can act to stop new ideas.
“If the worldview is one that suggests testing is normal, useful, necessary, then any teacher who disagrees with that and has a critical opinion about what is going on is in trouble,” she explains. “Think again? You’re stuffed. This can leave teachers feeling powerless or bored, or both.”
She adds that if a school has no opportunities for teachers’ opinions to be heard, theory (from economics, namely Albert O Hirschman, in his 1970 book Exit, Voice and Loyalty) says that they will leave.
Solving the problem
Having identified how theory can diagnose the problems, Lees goes on to explain how it can solve them.
“Sustenance comes from theory as thinking again. There are so many places that one can to go to get this kind of food,” she says.
She lists a whole menu of theory dishes in her article, and then offers a little theory of her own.
“Education is a bit like BDSM: bondage and discipline/domination, submission/sadism and masochism,” she says. “Schools use submission, discipline and domination.
“But it is not like schooling in that schools and teachers dominate students and expect submission, without asking students if that is OK. There is no ‘mutuality’. BDSM practices require, for safe and sane sexual activity to take place, strongly understood and negotiated mutual consent protocols. Getting consent is deeply important. To not have it is really bad.
“If kinky sex can bother to get mutual consents for action in place, should schooling do so? It currently does not, really. Would that make schools more democratic? Better?
“That’s got you thinking, hasn’t it?”
This is an article from the 15 April edition of TES. This week’s TES magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here
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