When asked to articulate their own ideal views of the purpose of schooling, or
full development of human creative capacity was raised with general agreement across all three roundtables. Terms like passion, curiosity and creativity were elevated as important in such a process, as shown in the following comment from Heidi as she is thinking through what she wants for her son.
I want [my son] to be engaged with learning, and really fired by his own curiosity and interests and I guess lead the way without fear of being assessed or judged by other people (Heidi).
The theme of learning having deep relevance in students’ lives was emphasised in another contribution from academic Kim, who also raised the importance of relationships.
… I want the schools to bring out the passion in those kids, what is it that makes real meaning in their lives and then how can the schools work with them to do that… it is the passions of each of those kids and how they relate with the people in their classrooms and their teachers, that is terribly important as they grow through the school system (Kim).
The following two comments from parent Rebecca and community activist Michael illuminate the ways in which the conversations explored the relationship between the individual and the collective in an idealised education system. Rebecca talked about the importance of shared learning as a fundamental aspect of community democracy and shared vision of the ‘public good’.
…to learn social agreements… giving them “what’s our social plan”… we’re expanding [students’] horizons to other cultures, to other ways of life whatever. …ideally … it’s building as many of those little neuron connections in the brain as possible so that when they’re adults they have the capacity to do whatever [they want], but also providing them with “this is the agreed social contract in our society”… I think sometimes for me that obligation to send your children to a state school isn’t about funding or whatever, it’s about making sure everybody understands that there’re agreed obligations in our society and there’s an agreed base from which, as a culture we’ve decided this is the parameters within which we operate (Rebecca).
Michael referred to education as analogous to being on a journey of both self-discovery and social consciousness (awareness), with learner initiative at the centre of the process.
… to me the purpose of education should be the empowerment of the individuals within, and communities that should emerge out of those relationships, it should be about people going on a journey to find themselves, to learn something about the world around them and to work out how to relate to each other, to the rest of the environment, in society, in the economy, in the family, in the community,
whatever it might be. And it should be, in an ideal world, it would be able to respond to every initiative that the learner wants to take (Michael).
Sophia also raised the question of social relationships being at the heart of learning, recounting a conversation she had had with a principal of a school which revealed that school’s commitment to a strong emphasis on developing students as whole people, something Sophia’s comments suggested was rare.
… [the principal said] “we observed the kids had very little access to pets at home, because there was less time to look after them, or the parents had decided against it… well how can we make sure the kids still have the experience?” So they set up all these pet areas in the school corridors… and he said [this] group of kids, they had responsibilities so the pets were being looked after, and one girl she was nominated the head of the group, and he said “oh why did you nominate her?”, and they said “oh because she always cleans up the shit”, and he said “oh that’s interesting, someone who gets their hands dirty is recognised by the grade oners, as the person who takes responsibility!” So he has all these little social situations… lots of social experiences outside of school to make sure that the kids go to the nursing home and have an experience of caring because all that caring work that is totally unacknowledged, is something that kids will have to do one day or at least relate to, or there might be social experiences already in their families, and it’s just a way of having outside of the school experiences that not only validates their social knowledges but also brings it back into the classrooms and have discussions… (Sophia)
Taken together, the comments from Rebecca, Michael and Sophia go some way to capturing the sentiment of the roundtable participants that ideally, education should be a process of full creative engagement with the development of oneself as a rounded whole, human being, in an overall context of developing social consciousness based on collective responsibility and collaboration. The ‘values’ they evoke in describing this ideal infer that success might therefore be measured on the basis of such attributes as creativity, cooperation and social responsibility. Such values and attributes are
antithetical to the indicators of ‘success’ under Neoliberalism, described here by Giroux (2002, p. 100).
Escape, avoidance, and narcissism are now coupled with the public display, if not celebration, of those individuals who define agency in terms of their survival skills rather than their commitment to dialogue, critical reflection, solidarity, and relations that open up the promise of public engagement with important social issues.
Extending those fundamental ideas the discussions then led to the more explicit concept of fostering critical consciousness through learning, evoking what might be described as a specifically Freirean perspective on learning as individuals constructing meaning in their own lives. In other words, developing a “world-view” which Hiebert describes as the “fundamental cognitive, affective, and evaluative presuppositions a group of people make about the nature of things, and which they use to order their lives” (Hiebert, 2008, p. 15). The Freirean concept of conscientização which “refers to learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (translator’s note from Freire, 1970, pg. 17) was inferred as the participants used their own words to describe such a process and its perceived
importancein a learning context.
… education should be about people realising and developing their full human potential… and schools specifically should be about helping students to develop critical and creative capacities to deal with the world around them and to
emancipate themselves from dominant systems and ideologies in society (Pablo). I sort of see my function in the classroom as trying to develop… critical
consciousness … around the political system and around society so that people will hopefully leave the classroom and start to engage so that they can be part of making change in society, and having the capacity to sort of see through the lies (Rachel).
Rachel and Pablo’s comments here introduce a more politicised notion of critical consciousness., and capture how the conversations explored the concept not only from an individual development point of view, but in terms of the potential for individual and collective empowerment, through agents knowing and understanding, as the basis for action.
Higher Education equity worker Jim located the discussion explicitly in the context of current partnerships activity which emphasises ‘inclusion’ and ‘aspirations’. For Jim the emphasis must move from individual benefit and gain to a commitment to the public good.
…when it comes down to it, my understanding of how I imagine education to be… should be that for students you are understanding the society you’re in and there’s all these opportunities you should have but you critically understand it, and that basically … depending on your position in that society you have lots of opportunities or very little, and it should challenge you to do something about it regardless of your position, so if you’re in a privileged position do something about it (Jim).
In what emerged as an important thread across all three conversations, the emphasis on critical consciousness as fundamental to education for public good was directly counter posed to neoliberal versions of ‘inclusion’ and ‘achievement’ as successful education. Neoliberal partnerships viewed as largely disempowering for grass roots actors, were rejected in favour of a process of collective consciousness building that positions people to determine their own needs and appropriate course of action for change.
Central to this was consideration of the relationship between education and democracy. Having characterised Neoliberalism as inherently undemocratic, and neoliberal
partnerships as maintaining current privilege and disadvantage as opposed to
challenging it, the roundtable participants expressed a range of views on the democratic potential of public education systems. Sophia, parent and academic, suggested a
framework of deliberative democracy as a means to develop an education system based on and informed by a collective sense of purpose, and genuinely inclusive and
democratic in the fullest sense.
… it’s around styles of deliberative democracy where we all get together and we talk about what our goals and aims are, of the education system, so ideally from a progressive point of view, you could say well if there are ten things we can all agree on, maybe sustainability, human rights… it’s not proscriptive, but is there a process of arriving at this kind of purposeful education and then designing a model and streams, and subjects, rather than a discipline driven curriculum? Have a deliberative democracy kind of approach and then derive whatever comes from that… it’s usually the other way around. And there is nothing wrong with disciplinary knowledge or anything, it’s just where do we want to head? And probably throwing in some kind of capabilities approach where you talk about the full human capacities that we could all hope to develop, one day or another, without this grand thing that we all need to reach and this kind of perfectionism, and exploitation that will come with a vast set of developmental aims that you hope to never reach, kind of thing… I think for me the purpose of education and the democratic process are in-divorceable, really part and parcel, and so even if we talk about other social problems, or issues, it’s always well how do we get the lot there, not just a few people (Sophia).
The important elements of Sophia’s vision, and those which distinguish it from the present system, are a commitment to publicly determined curricula based on broad social needs as opposed to individual advantage, and the genuinely expressed intention to involve (include) all (“not just a few people”). The scenario she imagines, of
collective, democratically organised forums defining a shared set of objectives aimed at reaching full human capacity, can only be conceived of outside of the current system
which sees educational decision-making subsumed under market needs and goals. Sophia is advocating an approach where the education system is central to developing people’s individual and collective capacity to determine educational (and other) needs and goals apart from the market. Through one contribution, Jim attempted to explore how such practice might look. Speaking specifically about schools but making a point more generally applicable to educational institutions and possibilities for ‘partnering’, he suggested that active participation in local democratic structures and processes, as a means to ensuring the voices and experiences and needs of students and families are heard, would be necessary and an important aspect of determining the basis for collaboration.
…the way I’ve been thinking about it too, is not just about schools reaching out to communities, but having schools playing a role in community level democracy. So it’s not just about, ok you have representation from different groups on the school council, it’s - and this is the kind of vision thing, the ideal - you say well the school is part of how this community determines what its educational needs are, and its starting point is the most oppressed and disadvantaged people in our community, and how do we make sure that they are being heard. And that may involve a process of dialogue where the school actually assists (Jim).