Reclaiming radical democratic education Michael Fielding

1. IN DEFENCE OF YOUTH WORK CAMPAIGN Youth work under the ConDems Manchester Metropolitan University14th September, 2010 Reclaiming radical democratic education Michael Fielding Institute of Education, University of London, UK m.fielding@ioe.ac.uk

2. Taking stock of student voice • Teachers feel threatened / no time • Using students as QA donkeys • Innovation or compliance? • Box – ticking • Whose voices? Silences / condescension e.g. race, gender, class, ‘ability’ • Purposes –in whose interests? • Peer support • Organisational reflection + renewal e.g.research / appointment panels • Teaching + learning e.g.learning walks / evaluation • Classroom consultation e.g. Student-Led Reviews / Students as Learning Partners • Community engagement + citizenship e.g.Student Action Teams / Child-to-Child approaches

3. l Instrumental dimension Patterns of partnershipHow adults listen to and learn with students in schools Fellowship dimension High performance schooling through market account-ability (6) Intergenerational learning asLived Democracy Shared commitment to / responsibility for the common good Person centred education for democratic fellowship (5) Students as Joint authors Students and staff decide on a joint course of action together (4) Students as Knowledge creators Students take lead role with active staff support (3) Students as Co-enquirers Staff take lead role with high-profile, active student support (2) Students as Active respondents Staff invite student discussion to deepen professional decisions (1) Students as Data source Staff utilise information about student progress and well-being

4. Inclusive approaches to Student Voice (1) Person-centred education, democratic fellowship Person centred education • Concern for young people as persons, not just as bearers of results • Emergent, dialogic, relational and reciprocal • Mutual trust, respect and care • Formal + informal arrangements express inclusive spirit of engagement, not the thin entitlement to superficial + occasional consultation

5. Inclusive approaches to Student Voice (2) Person-centred education, democratic fellowship Democratic fellowship • Intergenerational learning • Transparent power relations • Overt values • Exploratory, tolerant of ambiguity and unpredictability • Commitment of ‘shared responsibility’ e.g. School / sub-school Meeting • Companion development of minority spaces

6. A refusal of the world picture implanted in our minds The culture in which we live is perhaps the most claustrophobic that has ever existed; in the culture of globalisation … there is no glimpse of an elsewhere, of an otherwise. … The first step towards building an alternative world has to be a refusal of the world picture implanted in our minds … Another space is vitally necessary. John Berger

7. Thinking back and thinking at all Society remembers less and less faster and faster. The sign of the times is thought that has succumbed to fashion; it scorns the past as antiquated while touting the present as the best. Society has lost its memory, and with it, its mind. The inability or refusal to think back takes its toll in the inability to think. Russell Jacoby On the importance of countering ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’ E.P.Thompson

8. There is an alternative - reclaiming and re-narrating our radical histories (1) Early 20th century • Homer Lane – The Little Commonwealth (Dorset) • Russell Hoare - Riverside Village (Leicestershire) Mid 20th century • David Wills – Hawkspur (Essex), Barnes (Peebles), Bodenham Manor (Hertfordshire) Post WW2 • Alex Bloom – St George-in-the-East, Stepney • Howard Case – Epping House School, Hertford • R.F.McKenzie – Braehead, Buckhaven, Fife • Tim McMullen / John Watts – Countesthorpe, Leicestershire

9. There is an alternative - reclaiming and re-narrating our radical histories (2) Social pedagogy (mainland Europe - especially Germany) • Well-being: social pedagogy is essentially concerned with enhancing individual + collective well-being + human dignity • Holistic learning: addressing “head, hearts and hands” in harmonious unity • Relationships: relationships central to well-being + learning - SP practice as essentially relationship-centred, seeing young people as part of a group • Empowerment: Promoting + enhancing children’s rights, especially the right to meaningful participation in decisions affecting people’s lives SourceEichsteller and Holthoff International traditions • Anton Makarenko (Soviet Union) Lawrence Kohlberg (USA)

10. Prefigurative practice rather than waiting until all the necessary social engineering has been done education through its processes, the experiences it offers, and the expectations it makes, should prefigure, in microcosm, the more equal, just and fulfilling society … Schools should not merely reflect the world of which they are a part, but be critical of it, and show in their own processes that its shortcomings are not inevitable, but can be changed. (Roger Dale)

11. Waystations + ‘Real Utopias’Erik Olin Wright • Central to the problem of envisioning real utopias concerns the viability of institutional alternatives (waystations) that embody emancipatory values, but the practical achievability of such institutional designs often depends upon the existence of smaller steps, intermediate institutional innovations that move us in the right direction but only partially embody those values Democratic experimentalism Roberto Unger • We need to establish ‘small-scale, fragmentary versions’ of future society because without these kinds of ‘experimental anticipations … there would be no way to pass from one set of assumptions about group interests, collective identities, and social responsibilities to another’

12. Dimensions ofPrefigurative practice

13. Dimensions ofPrefigurative practice (1) • Profound change • Beyond Innovation Unit ‘Next Practice’ or co-option of student voice to question fundamentals of society • Education + radical social change • Schooling / education distinction • Schools as agents of democracy? 3. Positional restlessness – egalitarian possibility • Rebuttal of hierarchy + labelling • Openness of possibility that honours difference + denies deference

14. Dimensions ofPrefigurative practice (2) 4. Permanent provisionality – libertarian imperative • Apprehensive about authority • Open up spaces for exploration • Transgressive holism • Relational interdependence of our work • ‘You must be the change you want to see in the world’ Gandhi • Transformed conception of community • Honour difference – agonistic community

15. Dimensions ofPrefigurative practice (3) 7. Celebrating + contesting history • Histories pluralities + chosen genealogies 8. Persistent pull of personalism • Specialness of ordinary men + women • Wariness of their betrayal + belittlement by so many regimes / ways of life • Relational self that is communal, not collective 9. Radical incrementalism • Possibility of a deep break with hegemonic dominance of capitalism through anticipatory enactments of different ways of being in the world

16. Dimensions ofPrefigurative practice (4) • Strategic engagement • Connect with social movements, political alliances • Local, regional, national + international solidarities 11. Institutional transformation • Psychological pull – the power of presence refutes the lies of ‘There is no alternative’ 12. Narrative engagement • Role of language exciting our narrative sensibilities, engaging in the subtleties of personal experience

17. Towards theRadical democratic common school

18. Seize the time ‘Some changes have to start now else there is no beginning for us.’ (Shelia Rowbotham)