@viderealia
Interested in questions of learning, autonomy, and ownership within education. Curious about how institutional structures shape (and limit) self-directed learning, including for neurodivergent learners. Teach FE/HE in the UK; previously KS1–4.
If the model of learning being promoted in schools equates to “work”, then the message being promoted by schools is that learning not a leisure activity. So any concept of reading for pleasure being promoted by schools is working against a headwind. To be effective it needs to promoted elsewhere .
Initial thoughts on the SEND white paper from me.
Honestly this was pretty rushed cus I am v time-poor atm so maybe I’ve missed something or it’s not as bleak as I think, but either way I hope it’s of some use to someone
borrowed-language.ghost.io/initial-thou...
I'm aware that #SEND covers far more that Autism, that was just a for instance. And again nob-of this is to say special needs don't need specialised provision and funding. I'm saying we should abolish the idea of the mainstream with it's insistence of standardisation and norm-definition.
Reading what us actually being proposed by the Govt re #SEND reform, is far what is needed. Support us still gatekept and deviation from an artificially defined norm is still ghettoised. Undiagnosed #autistics, for instance, will still be encouraged to mask and conform until the system breaks them.
Of course, I'm not here siding with funding cuts to services which support learner's needs, I'm just pointing out that the problem is with the concept of a mainstream education system which normalises e.g. neurotypicality or non-disability.
Re #SEN debate: this is the symptom, not the cause. The problem is not SEN, the problem is mainstream education. Current model = standardise everyone, allow exemptions only with diagnosis. #Neurocosmopolitan model = assume different, design the system for it.
SEN = the frontline of a bigger fight.
Shows clearly that there is a difference between learning, assessment & certification. Certification can clearly be gamed, learning not so much. Certification = useful way to ensure people can do what they claim, gaming it erodes its value. Aim for learning, which will show up in assessment anyway.
open.substack.com/pub/profbeck...
We need more challenges to assumptions like this piece does. Whilst the curriculum may claim knowledge can be divided up into chunks (which in itself can be disputed as this article does), The aim of education should be wisdom which is seeing the connections.
Difficult to express that in 300 charaters. What I am getting at is the question of the ownership of the education process. If its about indiviuals learning, those individuals should have control over the process. They do not owe their attendance to the state/school. Seems to be more about control!
The assumption here that education is about socialisation, not learning, or that these are the same thing. Yet schools also claim learning=memorisation, which works on individual learners minds. By claiming authority over children's development schools appropriate learning from indiviual learners.
Feeling a bit #burnedout at the Moment. Trying to teach in a #neurocosmopolitan way, through #dialogue, valuing & respecting each learner's internal learning process, feels draining; especially when it has to be done #subversively, under the radar of #NT performative expectations
#EduSky #ND #Freire
Observing feedback on a #learningwalk. It’s clear reviewers seem to believe the external, performative actions expected of teachers & learners are what learning actually looks like. No dialogue with students that might reveal the internal processes of learning, which differ individually. #EduSky
I know the ED Hirsch idea is that core learning provides a common platform for later development and a common language for discussion, but I'm not sure this is ever applied in the school system - seems to be just a matter of memorising knowledge content
Reflecting as I prepare for the week on how often learning is framed as memorising. When is it expected that learners actually apply/use the #knowledge?
It seems to be the emphasis all the way up to #ALevel. In #FE/HE I'm working with the consequences of this. When should #theory become #practice?
Part of my argument in Empire of Normality was that normality very much does exist, and is determined primarily by the logics of colonialism and capitalism. The no such thing as normal framing obscures its material basis and force imo.
www.newscientist.com/article/2508...
We should also remember that any changes in learner's memory is a change imposed on their selfhood. If education is a process done TO learners by the schools, rather than being done through learners' conscious volition ( i.e. #autonomy), then the tendency will be towards disengagement not joy.
New from @kieranrose.bsky.social
There is no such thing as SEND
theautisticadvocate.com/there-is-no-...
Agree 👍. I teach computer science. Of the 7 coding languages I have some familiarity with, I taught 4 to myself whilst in my current post (last 10 yrs). I completed my schooling in 1987, so have learned everything IT related as an autodidact. I don't lie to my students about needing instruction.
Much better now, thanks. I remember reading a year or so back and thinking it needed updating. Let’s hope your edits don’t get overwritten by people wanting to restore the way it used to read.
Thanks for this analysis, it’s helpful. I’ve also been thinking along these lines, except with 3 aspects. What the world sees, what you experience, and what is actually happening neurologically. Diagnosis is based on the 1st, not enough is known about the 3rd. Posts like yours help share the 2nd.
Why are there so many undiagnosed adults who are only now discovering they're autistic or otherwise neurodivergent?
I have an explanation...
If GCSE examiners “can’t recognise legitimate but less common approaches, pupils are disadvantaged precisely for engaging with their subjects at a deeper/more authentic level … success depends less on mastery of knowledge than on 2nd-guessing what examiners know/expect”
💯
#autism
#monotropism
Exam questions take as definitive the knowledge that’s defined in the syllabus (ok, yes, students need to know what they are being examined on). But this has the side effect of reducing knowledge to categorised lists of facts, and crucially stops students seeing connections between areas of study.
Clearly skills are transferable because that’s what happens throughout your life. The knowledge I gained at school in the 70s and 80s is not really relevant now. I teach computing & all of the knowledge/skills I teach were gained after I left school, through the transferable skills of how to learn.
Cynically, I’d say this feeds into the packaging and commoditisation of learning. Knowledge is easier to categorise and package than the whole bundle of knowledge and skills that make up the “wisdom” people need in life. Hirsch makes money out of selling a core knowledge curriculum.
It’s the E D Hirsch core knowledge approach which was championed by the Conservative Government (Gove), who seem to have loaded OFSTED with adherents. The labour Govt have done nothing to change this. Hirsch set up a false dichotomy between knowledge and skills.
Oh and by the way by ”teaching coaches” I am referring to the kind of internal OFSTED that institutions operate - What I think of as the “Teaching Police”
Just do your thing and “speak as much truth as the times allow”
The greatest thing I have learned in my teaching career is not to worry too much about what the “teaching coaches” and those that do “learning walks” expecting “snapshots” snapshots of the latest buzz trend say. I’ve learned to stick with what feels right, and subvert the trends.
So in other words, young people aren't lacking in intrinsic motivation, they are just less motivated to do the things which he system tells them to do, rather what their growing autonomy makes them want to do.