Building aspiration and re-imagining community through curricular and pedagogical redesign

1. Building aspiration and re-imagining community through curricular and pedagogical (re)design Lew Zipin University of South Australia For Symposium: Making desirable futures possible through pedagogical and curricular change 7 May 2010

2. A prevailing policy/media commonsense about the need for greater �aspiration� among �less achieving� population groups Presuming that all people do/ought to aspire towards the same �goods�. These �goods� are narrowly defined in terms of economic rationales. Constructing �individual� and �national� needs, desires, and hopes in the same economic terms. Facilitating pursuit of these �goods� is the prime purpose of schooling. Dominant policy/media �commonsense� about getting the less advantaged to �aspire� presumes that all people are driven to want the same �goods� for their futures. These �goods� are narrowly defined in terms of economic rationales about what people need, desire and hope for, conceived as congruent with similarly narrow notions of �the nation�s� needs/wants/hopes. Likewise, purposes of schooling are overwhelmingly construed in terms of pursuit of these narrowly defined economic �goods�. Dominant policy/media �commonsense� about getting the less advantaged to �aspire� presumes that all people are driven to want the same �goods� for their futures. These �goods� are narrowly defined in terms of economic rationales about what people need, desire and hope for, conceived as congruent with similarly narrow notions of �the nation�s� needs/wants/hopes. Likewise, purposes of schooling are overwhelmingly construed in terms of pursuit of these narrowly defined economic �goods�.

3. At the core of the dominant �aspirations� paradigm: three logics of capital Cultural capital: a hidden, deep-structural logic of sorting and selecting for �winners� and �losers�. Human capital: a powerfully mediated ideo-logic of neoliberal (economic rationalist) individualism. Social capital: an extension of �human capital� logic to regional �community� populations. At the core of this kind of �aspirations� paradigm are three logics of �capital� (i.e. logics of stronger and weaker accumulation of powers for acting to meet needs, interests, desires): cultural capital: a silent but deadly deep-structural logic by which winners and losers are sorted and selected based on their relatively more, or less, powerful accumulations of the �right� kinds of knowledge and dispositions for knowing, as encoded and assessed in school �standards�. By this structuring logic, there are necessarily �winners� and �losers�, and we can�t all aspire to equal levels of possible �good�; so schools function to accustom people to �higher� and �lower� levels of aspiration. human capital: a powerfully mediated ideo-logic of individual responsibility to aspire � as economically motivated and self-interestedly individualistic worker-�citizens� � to improve prospects for both self and nation. social capital: an extension of human capital logic to regional �community� populations, in ways that lump complex social-cultural differences together, as if people sharing regional proximity are more-or-less homogeneous. At the core of this kind of �aspirations� paradigm are three logics of �capital� (i.e. logics of stronger and weaker accumulation of powers for acting to meet needs, interests, desires): cultural capital: a silent but deadly deep-structural logic by which winners and losers are sorted and selected based on their relatively more, or less, powerful accumulations of the �right� kinds of knowledge and dispositions for knowing, as encoded and assessed in school �standards�. By this structuring logic, there are necessarily �winners� and �losers�, and we can�t all aspire to equal levels of possible �good�; so schools function to accustom people to �higher� and �lower� levels of aspiration. human capital: a powerfully mediated ideo-logic of individual responsibility to aspire � as economically motivated and self-interestedly individualistic worker-�citizens� � to improve prospects for both self and nation. social capital: an extension of human capital logic to regional �community� populations, in ways that lump complex social-cultural differences together, as if people sharing regional proximity are more-or-less homogeneous.

4. The limiting effects of logics of capital on educational possibilities Stifle efforts to (re)design curriculum and pedagogy to engage local populations. Inhibit recognition of funds of knowledge and aspiration that are �organic� to specific groups and their lifeworld locales. Reinforce �deficit� viewpoints in terms of both aspiration and capacity of the �less advantaged� to achieve educationally. These logics, and the �aspiration�s paradigm that harbours them, operate powerfully upon educational institutions to block efforts towards engaged and challenging teaching-and-learning for learners in high-poverty settings. They stifle incentive for both schools and universities to interact with learners, their families and communities in a reciprocal and meaningful two-way exchange, from which curricula and pedagogies that work in rich ways for those in particular social-cultural settings could be (re)designed. They prevent a meaningful tapping into funds of knowledge and aspiration that emerge distinctly among specific groups in their local lifeworlds. They close down what can be recognised, articulated and (re)imagined as locally meaningful senses of need, desire, hope, aspiration. They reinforce a deficit viewpoint: the �less advantaged� lack knowledge, skills, abilities and aspirations that �all� should have, and that families/schools/teachers must instil if learners are to succeed in school and thereby gain access to pathways of further education and gainful employment. These logics, and the �aspiration�s paradigm that harbours them, operate powerfully upon educational institutions to block efforts towards engaged and challenging teaching-and-learning for learners in high-poverty settings. They stifle incentive for both schools and universities to interact with learners, their families and communities in a reciprocal and meaningful two-way exchange, from which curricula and pedagogies that work in rich ways for those in particular social-cultural settings could be (re)designed. They prevent a meaningful tapping into funds of knowledge and aspiration that emerge distinctly among specific groups in their local lifeworlds. They close down what can be recognised, articulated and (re)imagined as locally meaningful senses of need, desire, hope, aspiration. They reinforce a deficit viewpoint: the �less advantaged� lack knowledge, skills, abilities and aspirations that �all� should have, and that families/schools/teachers must instil if learners are to succeed in school and thereby gain access to pathways of further education and gainful employment.

5. A more participatory-democratic conception sees aspirations not as pre-determined �goods� that all should want, but as capacities to: Make sense in-and-of lived conditions Imagine different and better life conditions and goods Articulate these sense-makings and imaginings Work to realise desired re-imaginings, not as mere �individuals� but as inter-active, civic-social people who collaborate in exercising capacities to aspire

6. What is meant by �capacities�? At a very rudimentary level, capacities to make sense, imagine, articulate and collaborate inhere as basic intelligence powers of all people, poor or rich, �advantaged� or �disadvantaged�. However, these capacities need to develop as effective, empowered, specifically expressed forces through enabling social-cultural conditions and processes � i.e. education � especially for learners whose families cannot endow them with inheritances of power-elite cultural capital. At a rudimentary level, these capacities to aspire inhere as basic powers of �intelligence� in all people, poor or rich; and these capacities of individual and social agency need to be enabled, developed and empowered through social-cultural means, i.e. education. This is especially vital for those in high-poverty and other �less advantaged� circumstances, who do not inherit from families the power-elite cultural capital that schools privilege. Sadly, curricula, pedagogies, assessments and informal processes (�hidden curriculum�) of mainstream schooling � under the sway of logics of capital � typically limit, inhibit and dis-empower capacities to aspire among those in high-poverty and other �less advantaged� circumstances. At a rudimentary level, these capacities to aspire inhere as basic powers of �intelligence� in all people, poor or rich; and these capacities of individual and social agency need to be enabled, developed and empowered through social-cultural means, i.e. education. This is especially vital for those in high-poverty and other �less advantaged� circumstances, who do not inherit from families the power-elite cultural capital that schools privilege. Sadly, curricula, pedagogies, assessments and informal processes (�hidden curriculum�) of mainstream schooling � under the sway of logics of capital � typically limit, inhibit and dis-empower capacities to aspire among those in high-poverty and other �less advantaged� circumstances.

7. Enabling capacities to aspire: working with home/community funds of knowledge Learning and teaching take place in many contexts, including home/community settings which precede, extend wider, and have deeper influence than school settings in shaping learners� identity structures. Meaningful funds of knowledge and aspiration are carried culturally, learned-and-taught socially and (re)created actively in home/community sites. Substantive educational use of home/community ways of knowing and aspiring � designed into curricula, pedagogies and assessments � can fund� richly engaged, rigorous and challenging learning-and-teaching in school settings. Schooling (and other educational) institutions are hardly the only settings where capacities to aspire are cultured: the ways of knowing in family and community settings are prior, wider/deeper, and in many ways more vital as inter-generational learning and teaching settings, where funds of knowledge have use, around which young people build senses of identity, need, hope � i.e. aspiration. If the �less advantaged� are to engage, succeed and gain through schooling, then, in its significant �message systems� (curriculum, pedagogy and assessment), schooling needs to make substantive and meaningful use of vital community-based funds of knowledge. Units of curriculum work that incorporate home/community- based funds of knowledge and aspiration � if robust rather than tokenistic � are far more eliciting of, and challenging to, learners� intelligence, while at the same time far more engaging of learners� identities, and thus their willingness to engage educational spaces. Such work engages through recognising who learners (and their families/communities) feel they are: i.e. what they know and do in vital lifeworld sites. Schooling (and other educational) institutions are hardly the only settings where capacities to aspire are cultured: the ways of knowing in family and community settings are prior, wider/deeper, and in many ways more vital as inter-generational learning and teaching settings, where funds of knowledge have use, around which young people build senses of identity, need, hope � i.e. aspiration. If the �less advantaged� are to engage, succeed and gain through schooling, then, in its significant �message systems� (curriculum, pedagogy and assessment), schooling needs to make substantive and meaningful use of vital community-based funds of knowledge. Units of curriculum work that incorporate home/community- based funds of knowledge and aspiration � if robust rather than tokenistic � are far more eliciting of, and challenging to, learners� intelligence, while at the same time far more engaging of learners� identities, and thus their willingness to engage educational spaces. Such work engages through recognising who learners (and their families/communities) feel they are: i.e. what they know and do in vital lifeworld sites.

8. Incorporating funds of knowledge in a �two-way� pedagogical approach (based on Delpit: �The Silenced Dialogue� Give curricular pride of place to home/community-based funds of knowledge that engage learners. Scaffold from this engaged curricular work to learning that acquires the �capitals� necessary to succeed in terms of assessed mainstream �standards� (make the codes of both home/community and mainstream ways of knowing explicit). Frame this two-way learning with age-appropriate critical reflection on why both ways of knowing are needed. At the same time that we design learning based in home/community funds of knowledge, we cannot ignore the need to redistribute/develop capacities for success in mainstream curricular terms. Indeed, a funds-of-knowledge approach can be scaffolded to learning in terms of mainstream �standards�, to make for rich and critical �two-way� learning of both the �culture of power� and the home/community culture. [If time � which is unlikely � illustrate with Delpit�s account of native Alaskan classroom.]At the same time that we design learning based in home/community funds of knowledge, we cannot ignore the need to redistribute/develop capacities for success in mainstream curricular terms. Indeed, a funds-of-knowledge approach can be scaffolded to learning in terms of mainstream �standards�, to make for rich and critical �two-way� learning of both the �culture of power� and the home/community culture. [If time � which is unlikely � illustrate with Delpit�s account of native Alaskan classroom.]

9. Making complex communities curricular: Significant challenges The structural and ideological gravities of the three logics of capital, which need to be negotiated but also courageously contested and shifted. Difficult and dark knowledge in the lives of young people in high-poverty regions � which we need to learn to make use of as bona fide funds of knowledge. The complex social-cultural fabric in northern suburb areas and schools: liquidly mosaic rather than homogenously cohesive communities. We need courageous intent not to surrender to the constraints of human/social and cultural capital logics, which are powerfully imposed and reinforced through policy mandates, �basic skills� tests, performance accountabilities (with funding levers) and many other institutional means. (Serious discussion is needed about how to work around/through these constraints; I must leave this for later dialogue.) In high-poverty settings, the funds of knowledge that learners carry in what Pat Thomson calls their �virtual school bags� are by no means all happy. Their complex contents and ways of knowing involve constructive home/community knowledges, but also difficult/dark knowledges that accumulate in regions of prolonged high poverty. We need to learn how to work with the fullness of life-based knowledge, seen not as deficits but as assets for learning. The social-cultural fabrics of �communities� that learners in �the north� inhabit are very complex. �Community� is a problematic term: not a simple coherence of lived association (as a reality or an ideal); nor simply �dysfunctional� spaces needing our repair of them: these are the false assumptions of much �social capital� discourse. The cohorts that inhabit classrooms and schools in the northern suburbs typically reflect a liquid mosaic of historical-cultural-national differences. We need courageous intent not to surrender to the constraints of human/social and cultural capital logics, which are powerfully imposed and reinforced through policy mandates, �basic skills� tests, performance accountabilities (with funding levers) and many other institutional means. (Serious discussion is needed about how to work around/through these constraints; I must leave this for later dialogue.) In high-poverty settings, the funds of knowledge that learners carry in what Pat Thomson calls their �virtual school bags� are by no means all happy. Their complex contents and ways of knowing involve constructive home/community knowledges, but also difficult/dark knowledges that accumulate in regions of prolonged high poverty. We need to learn how to work with the fullness of life-based knowledge, seen not as deficits but as assets for learning. The social-cultural fabrics of �communities� that learners in �the north� inhabit are very complex. �Community� is a problematic term: not a simple coherence of lived association (as a reality or an ideal); nor simply �dysfunctional� spaces needing our repair of them: these are the false assumptions of much �social capital� discourse. The cohorts that inhabit classrooms and schools in the northern suburbs typically reflect a liquid mosaic of historical-cultural-national differences.

10. Aspiring to make better futures possible: Re-imagining community �[B]y not elaborating ... norms for futurity as a cultural capacity, ... [most conceptions of �culture�] allow a sense of culture as pastness to dominate� (Appadurai 2004: 67). Given the unsettling complexities of globalising processes, �the work of the imagination [is] a constitutive feature of modern subjectivity ... [and] a fuel for action� (Appadurai 1996: 3). In schools of �liquid-abject� regions, curricula and pedagogies that enable future-oriented, re-imaginative capacities are vital for mobilising learners� funds of knowledge and aspiration as resources of hope: of agency to create new possibilities for lived community to come. A key pivot in this argument: if we are going to make �community� curricular, without ignoring the liquid-abject challenges of life in high-poverty regions, then we need to develop curriculum work that engages learners not just in community-as-it-is, in the historical present; but also community-as-it-could-be. We need mobilise young people�s aspirations to create new possibilities of communal life, open to their agency to affect their historical futures. This future orientation summons a higher octave of educational development of capacities to aspire: to empower learners to make articulate sense of present conditions and to (re)imagine, articulate and build new �community� futures to come A key pivot in this argument: if we are going to make �community� curricular, without ignoring the liquid-abject challenges of life in high-poverty regions, then we need to develop curriculum work that engages learners not just in community-as-it-is, in the historical present; but also community-as-it-could-be. We need mobilise young people�s aspirations to create new possibilities of communal life, open to their agency to affect their historical futures. This future orientation summons a higher octave of educational development of capacities to aspire: to empower learners to make articulate sense of present conditions and to (re)imagine, articulate and build new �community� futures to come

11. Re-imagining classrooms as communities that embody and work towards future community Classrooms in schools of the north embody diverse mixes of culture, language and nation-hyphenated identity (First Nation-Australian, Lebanese-Australian, Sudanese-Australian, Anglo-Australian, etc). Such diversity can challenge cohesive learning-and-teaching; but it can also �fund� the development of capacities to re-imagine and re-create the knowledges, practices and relations that constitute being-in-community. Working with/on funds of knowledge and aspiration: going beyond reproduction of communities; becoming knowledge-building and community-(re)building schools. Schools and classrooms need to be sites of embodied creation and practice of rich ways of being communal through active development and use of viable capacities to aspire. This works from, and upon, community-based funds of knowledge, yet goes beyond reproducting communities �as they are�, working towards re-imagined communities of the future. In this way, schools � in taking local community funds of knowledge into curriculum � also give back to local community by putting young people to work as creators of knowledge, practices and relations that build new community possibilities.Schools and classrooms need to be sites of embodied creation and practice of rich ways of being communal through active development and use of viable capacities to aspire. This works from, and upon, community-based funds of knowledge, yet goes beyond reproducting communities �as they are�, working towards re-imagined communities of the future. In this way, schools � in taking local community funds of knowledge into curriculum � also give back to local community by putting young people to work as creators of knowledge, practices and relations that build new community possibilities.

12. An illustration: Debbie�s clay animation art-and-literacy work with year 8/9 students Discovering a thematic �hook� that engages lived identities: in this case, violence in local community life. Negotiating a problem-solution genre that both recognises dark funds of knowledge and re-imagines community. Developing a pedagogy of safe space and collaborative work. Negotiating robust literacy work in creating clay animations. Exhibiting projects: giving back to local community. Empowering hopeful, future-oriented aspirations: �We can find ways to solve problems in our community, or the community can�. (See Henderson & Zipin, Chapter 1 in forthcoming book: Connecting Lives and Learning: Renewing Pedagogy in the Middle Years.)