Education through Elegant Subversion David Zyngier

No arbitrary obstacles should prevent people from achieving those positions for which their talents fit them and which their values lead them to seek. Not birth, nationality, colour, religion, sex, nor any other irrelevant characteristic should determine the opportunities that are open to a person — only his [or her] abilities.
(Friedman & Friedman, 1980, p132). AUSTRALIA HAS WITNESSED a growing trend to mass secondary education in the past 50 years — in 1940 only one in 10 students completed 12 years of school. In the 1970s this rose to one in three and then to three in four in the 1990s. There has been a corresponding flow on into higher education with one in four attending university in 2000s. Comforting as these high rates might be, they rest not on higher aspirations but on a collapsing full-time labour market which effectively trapped people in schooling. The expanding education system has resulted in an increase in social inequalities and economic segregation rather than a narrowing (Teese, 2007). With the election of a new Labor government in November 2007 came a proposed “education revolution”. The newly-elected Prime Minister:

…cannot understand why public institutions such schools should not be accountable to the community that funds their salaries and their running costs. Right now, we do not have accurate, comprehensive information to allow rigorous analysis of what schools and students are achieving. This must change.
- Kevin Rudd, address to the National Press Club, August 27, 2008. Once again the very people responsible for the excellent achievements of Australian students (in comparison to other OECD countries) are being blamed for their supposed failures. But some schools are doing amazing things, especially for children from culturally, linguistically and economically diverse (CLED) communities. Broadly speaking the strategies fall into three areas: new pedagogies and curricula; social support and wellbeing; and community participation. It is the new pedagogies and curricula which I believe hold the greatest potential for what I have called the elegant subversion of the current dominant paradigm of division and disadvantage. Most of the programs described reflect the important point that there is no single recipe for program development. This article briefly reviews a school program that is elegantly subversive in that it is achieving the required results by doing school differently especially for children from all communities. In doing so I highlight the achievements of one particular project (of many) that has had enormous impact on the participants and their communities. 1

ruMAD? Are You Making a Difference? Over 1000 Australian schools have participated in ruMAD? since its inception in 2001 as a pilot project of the Education Foundation. Currently over 230 schools are participating. ruMAD? has the following aims: • • • • • • • • The active participation of young people in the community through action research projects Providing young people with opportunities for engaging, independent, studentcentred learning Modelling engaging, student-centred learning for teachers Enabling young people to make a difference in their school or community Supporting student leadership Creating the conditions for identifying core values Building social competencies such as self-esteem and confidence Building the skills and knowledge to solve real world problems.

The program is an inquiry-based pedagogical framework that (a) accords with state and federal policy emphasis on values education; and (b) encourages, educates and empowers young people to enact social change – to make a difference within their school and community. Predicated on the belief that everyone is able to improve and help change the communities in which they live, the program provides participants with opportunities for experiential civic engagement. “Jessie’s Creek” school: Whitfield District Primary School Whitfield is an agricultural township in the King River valley 170 km northeast of Melbourne. The primary school has around 20 students from kindergarten to Grade 6.1 Jessie’s Creek runs through the town and behind the school and was cloaked in a blanket of weeds that had accumulated over the years, aided by the dumping of green waste (weeds, grass clippings, etc) and miscellaneous rubbish. Despite the creek being the town's main water supply there was also a lot of rubbish scattered about; creepers, ivy, blackberry and lucernes covered a creek that looked more like a botanical garden (National Resource Management, 2008). The students at the primary school took on an ruMAD? project to carry out a biodiversity study of the creek and clean it up. From the outset they have been at the centre of the campaign to save Jessie's Creek, mustering community support by producing brochures, conducting surveys and sending letters to government bodies linked with management of the creek.

1

See the website of the National Resource Management department of the Australian federal government for maps and more details http://www.nrm.gov.au/projects/vic/nev/2006-02.html

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After carrying out the biodiversity study, and after only one afternoon of attempting to clean up the creek, the students decided that there must be a better approach. They looked at how they could influence other people and organisations to come on board as partners. Thomas (Grade 6) explains: “We quickly realised hand weeding wasn't going to do the trick, so we used an excavator to remove the big weeds.” The students wrote to environmental organisations such as the Wilderness Society and Greening Australia, and to the Rural City of Wangaratta (the local shire) to share their findings. They developed a survey for the local community, produced a brochure to publicise their ideas, and prepared presentations for groups including Landcare, the North East Catchment Management Authority, and the school principals of the Goulburn North East Region. After the weeding and excavating the locals couldn't believe the difference it made to the appearance of the entire town — they said they hadn't seen the creek for 50 years. The students studied local native vegetation before planting hundreds of trees and shrubs together with a variety of grasses and sedges in flood-prone areas to prevent further erosion.

From their presentations and letters the students attracted official funding totalling more than $40,000.

“You have to believe in what you are doing and make a fuss to get things moving. People were surprised that kids could do this stuff.”
-- Grade 6 girl, Whitfield District PS Students and teachers from surrounding areas also pitched in with weeding and planting. Many of these schools have now started their own ruMAD? projects. ruMAD has at its core the philosophy that students need to be involved in curriculum and pedagogy that: 3

• • • • • • • • •

Come from the kids’ own ideas about what is possible, inspiring enthusiasm among all those involved Create real and lasting change by tackling the main causes of the problem Acknowledge and build on previous successes, big or small Get kids involved in the community to tackle issues of social justice, responsibility, tolerance and cultural diversity Create awareness and understanding of the needs of others through personal action Allow everyone involved in the project to take greater responsibility for their own lives Share the results with others, inspiring them to take further action Consider the effects on the environment, society and economy (both positive and negative) Help kids to express their views, become critical thinkers and learn how to put problem-solving skills into action to create the world they wish to live in. (Zyngier & Brunner, 2002)

It is values-focused, student-led and at its core starts from student-identified values and visions. The ruMAD organisation provides schools with curriculum materials and resources that enable students to design, implement and evaluate action projects. Examples include building links between a school and local nursing home; anti-bullying strategies; support for homeless people; support for children with cancer; environmental degradation and restoration projects. ruMAD? is underpinned by four main educational objectives: • • • • To To To To engage young people in issues of social justice engage young people with a high level of authenticity promote student-led classrooms, thereby challenging teacher practice create real community change. (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004)

So what are the possibilities of the elegant subversion of educational policy? This has demonstrated that the re-examination of education provision in disadvantaged communities can foster the transformative engagement of students in empowering and collaborative experiences that link curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to identity, politics, and social justice. Teachers and schools can become “elegantly subversive” through a strong sense of collective effort built on isolated individual projects. Student outcomes for CLED children will be successful if NGOs, teachers and academics work together, deconstructing the binary of hands-on versus heads-on learning and teaching. When students do not believe their school experience has much bearing on their future and do not feel accepted by their classmates and teachers (Zyngier, 2007), they gradually become disaffected and withdraw from school life. Some become disruptive. As evidenced by ruMAD?, an engaging pedagogy should ensure that what teachers and students do is based on what I have termed CORE Pedagogy. 4

It is when teachers and students respond to each other in pedagogical reciprocity that we truly see whether or not students feel that school is “for them”. It is within a “community of learners” where adults and children collaborate in learning activities (Rogoff, Turkanis, & Bartlett, 2001) that education can provide a chance that is not illusionary and can be engaging and lead to purposeful, relevant and productive educational outcomes. Critically, these systems must connect to and engage with the students’ cultural knowledge while also affirming the different strengths that knowledge forms bring to classroom pedagogy, if those most at risk are to find themselves in schools, so that their knowledges, histories and experiences are validated and accounted for. Such student engagement is an empowering one, developing a sense of entitlement, belonging and identification. Otherwise students are doing time, not doing democracy. Through pedagogical reciprocity, what the teachers and students do together as part of ruMAD? involves: • • • •

Connecting to students’ cultural knowledge Ownership by the students so that they can see themselves represented in the
work

Responding to students’ lived experiences and, actively and consciously, critically commenting on that experience Empowering students with a belief that what they do will make a difference to their lives.

Many programs designed to re-engage students reinforce the status quo, reproducing a pedagogy of poverty (Haberman, 1991) within their classrooms, even when this is not their aim. Transformative engagement, as employed by the ruMAD? program, was not pedagogy for students or to students, but pedagogy with the students. However, “participation is a means, not an end … for empowering education” (Shor, 1992, 51). It is possible, through pedagogical reciprocity, for teachers to reconceive student engagement “where difference is accorded respect and all voices are deemed worthy. [This] can make the classroom a place where students come out of shame … to experience their vulnerability among a community of learners who will dare to hold them up should they falter or fail” (Hooks, 2003, 103). In order to solve such problems we need to be linking curriculum, pedagogy, assessment to identity, politics, and social justice where teachers take an historical and sociological perspective beyond the classroom and the school — becoming “elegantly subversive” through a strong sense of collective effort that may be built on what otherwise might be considered isolated individual projects. Whether teachers will decide on the path of least resistance and change what they do, or continue to try to change their students, remains to be seen. Elegantly subversive programs like ruMAD? challenge the dominant views that since school works for middle-class students, then working-class students “must deserve the blame” (Howe & Moses, 1999, p39). References 5

Friedman M, & Friedman R (1980). Free to Choose: a personal statement (1st ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Haberman, M. (1991). The Pedagogy of Poverty Versus Good Teaching. Phi Delta Kappan, 73(4), 290. hooks, b. (2003). Teaching community : a pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge. Howe, K. R., & Moses, M. M. (1999). Ethics in Educational Research. Review of Research in Education, 24, 21-59. National Resource Management (2008). Students save Whitfield waterway. Retrieved September 20, 2008, from http://www.nrm.gov.au/projects/vic/nev/2006-02.html Rogoff B, Turkanis CG, & Bartlett L (2001). Learning Together: Children and Adults in a School Community. New York: Oxford University Press, USA. Shor, I. (1992). Empowering education : critical teaching for social change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Teese R (2007). Structural Inequality in Australian Education: Vertical and Lateral Stratification of Opportunity. In Teese, Lamb, Duru-Bellat & Helme (Eds.), International studies in educational inequality, theory and policy (Vol 2, pp36-91). Dordrecht: Springer. Westheimer J & Kahne J (2004). What Kind of Citizen? The Politics of Educating for Democracy. American Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 237-269. Zyngier D, & Brunner C (2002). The ruMAD? Program. Kids Making a Difference in the Community with MAD Projects (Vol. 1). Melbourne: Education Foundation. [ends]

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