Beverley Day
Ballajura Community College
Perth, Australia
This paper would, perhaps, be simpler to read and understand if we were able to begin with a clear, simple account of the critical incident that sparked it. However, our individual accounts are so different that it would be possible to derive only a 'lowest common denominator' description of events. Such an account would necessarily be so impoverished of meaning that it would not support rich investigation and discussion. We have chosen instead to juxtapose our separate accounts, to reflect tentatively on them, and to allow readers to develop their own readings of the critical incident.
Peter - the university teacher - prepared this impressionistic account (van Maanen, 1988) one year after the evening of the critical incident to describe both the 'critical incident' that sparked our inquiry and its context:
As I trudged alone along the black wet path that led from the main school building, skirted
around the new gymnasium, and emptied into the expanses of the distant car park, I couldn't
help feeling wounded despite my attempts to rationalise what had happened during the last two
hours. The futility of furnishing this silly small umbrella in a vain attempt to gain a measure of
protection from the driving rain magnified the sense of despair that darted between my stoic
defences... Part of my mind raced through a retrospective of possibilities. The remaining part
scanned the future as I pulled myself deeper into the folds of the umbrella, peered through the
darkness towards my car, and regretted the invisible minefield of puddles that lay around me.
Would there be a way of avoiding a drenching as I juggled car keys, umbrella, box of books and
bag while opening the car door? Would there be a way of avoiding 'the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune' in next week's class as I juggled my teaching goals for student
empowerment and reflective thinking with whatever expectations the students might be
harbouring? One thing was certain: the level of discontent, including mine, couldn't get much
worse than tonight. Why had this occurred and why tonight?
The government-controlled middle school sited in Perth's recently developed outer metropolitan
area had opened under a revolutionary banner only a month earlier. With an 'integrated
curriculum' philosophy, a code of ethics that enshrined respect and care as guiding principles for
teacher-student relationships, and an organisational structure centred around collaborative
planning and teaching, the school promised much. I had been delighted and more than a little
awed when I accepted the invitation of the school administration to teach my Curriculum course
to interested teachers. As it turned out, I was teaching largely 'out of field'; only two of the eight
teachers who enrolled were specialist high school science or mathematics educators. The others
were art, music, or English specialists with a mix of primary and secondary level teaching
experience. Walking into the first class, I felt rather apprehensive about the daunting prospect of
modelling exemplary teaching practice to such a diverse group of professional educators.
David - a Doctoral student and Peter’s 'critical friend' - recorded independently his impressions of the evening's key events two days later:
This was quite an astonishing session, particularly in the light of the past two very positive ones. The intended agenda was left completely, in a wide-ranging and sometimes quite hostile discussion of the technical interest and its application to schooling. Bev, particularly, seemed quite threatened, and therefore lashed out, suggesting that Peter's description of the course was 'a farce', in that it claimed to eschew a technical focus, while in fact having a strong technical focus. (Geelan 4-1995)
Bev - a school teacher and student in the course taught by Peter - construed the events and the tone quite differently: as a positive and valuable exploration of the ideas presented, which led to clearer understanding and a decrease in her frustration with the course. Bev's account also identifies influences and frustrations arising in the school itself, of which David and Peter were unaware:
The teaching role at [Clifftop] was very challenging and the university programme offered reflective time to consider the implications of our daily events and trying to place them against theoretical perspectives. As the semester progressed and problems arose many staff noted some sort of professional crisis at about April of the year. I was enjoying the reflective opportunities of the course yet my day to day teaching role was weighing heavy on my mind. I found strategies that had worked previously were now not and I felt that my needs were not being met in the classroom. It took a lot of soul searching and examination to see how and why these problems had surfaced which I now account to not only the clientele we teach but the arrangement of the school structure which made my role very much like a 'relief' teacher.
At the same time we were completing a reading from a Shirley Grundy (1987) text that was quite deep and trying to make sense of Habermas' three interests. I found that in the presentation of the interests I could not visualise them as distinct entities. I was being frustrated by my own inability to categorise them as I perceived that I was expected to. My frustration arose at trying to separate something that could not be separated, to see a distinct difference to coexisting states. I recall one evening in particular where in order to try and make sense of the information. I began to challenge it, via Peter Taylor, with the problems that I was having with attaining a firm understanding of it. From later class reflections and the end of semester evaluation I believe that Peter may have personalised the questions I had of the information which was not my intention. It was to challenge the information itself. (Day, 3a-1996)
Peter now presents his reconstruction of the key events of that evening:
What had happened during that class held in Week Six? I abandoned my teaching plan to
respond to a vigorous and unanticipated attack from several students. What was the focus of
their discontent? The essence of the criticism was as follows. Bruce complained about an
inability to understand the theoretical framework of the course (ie., Habermas' 3 interests as
presented by Grundy). Roger argued that the technical interest was redundant because
positivism had been demolished intellectually in the academic community. Bev regarded the
negative image of the technical interest portrayed by Grundy as an implied attack on her own
teaching practice where the technical interest had an inevitable presence. Fiona argued that she
did not want to be confined to the 3 interests framework but to go beyond it and explore
alternative theories.
But it was not simply a critique of the Habermasian framework with which I had to contend. Bev
also criticised my teaching approach, particularly my assessment-related requirement to
construct a portfolio; she felt that I was being duplicitous in 'playing down' the importance of
the portfolio whereas it had a central role in the course. (Taylor, 3-1996)
David: The interesting thing is that although it wasn’t terribly comfortable for you (Peter) they
were engaged learners, they were into it.
Bev: See, I was actually surprised when at the end of term that you had sort of thought that, that
was a bad night, I actually thought it was a really good night.
Peter: Isn’t that interesting.
Bev: Because to me it was where I got the opportunity to work out what an earth this thing was
about. In fact I really liked that night because I felt that I really learnt something that night and
felt like I was active that night. (Geelan, Taylor & Day, 3-1996)
As we write this paper, Peter has come to construe the evening in a more positive light. Although he acknowledges that it was quite painful at the time, he has learned a considerable amount from the experience. David, too, sees the events as valuable, particularly in drawing his and Peter's attention to shortcomings of Grundy’s (1987) text, and in clarifying their understanding of Habermas's scheme.. Bev continues to value the understandings she gained:
Since the evening in April I went on to form a sound understanding of the information in the course... Overall I have very positive memories of the growth I experienced in the last fifteen months. (Day, 3b-1996)
Confidence struck me as a central point which simmered below the whole session. The fact that
Bev felt threatened, possibly because she lacked confidence in the 'validity' of her work in light
of the critical scheme, is contrasted with her confidence in attacking you, clearly a powerful
figure within the context of the group... Bev's case shows that these judgements are not simple -
she lacked confidence in one sphere, but not in all.
The issue of expertise, which was also raised in the discussion, seems to me to be linked with
confidence: one definition of an expert is a person who is confident enough to trust his or her
own judgement, not that of the instructor.
Your alternative reading - that some learners had become empowered enough to exercise
'critical voice' without becoming mature enough to be concerned with politeness and
relationship - seemed very plausible. It gave me a valuable way of looking at the situation in
different terms.
Your suggestion that what we faced was a re-assertion of the technical interest was
plausible to me. (Geelan, 4-1995)
As we write this paper, we feel that it is more valuable to hold a variety of readings in a ‘dialectical tension’ than to choose one as the 'true' description of the events and their meanings. Each perspective adds richness to our understanding of a complex situation, much as several perspectival drawings can add richness to our knowledge of a three-dimensional object. Yet, this analogy is not a strong one when considering a social event: with a change of perspective, the 'object' of study itself changes (Bauersfeld, 1988). In writing this paper, the objects of study chosen deliberately by Peter and David are the problematic ‘authority’ of Grundy’s (1987) text, which we believe was instrumental in precipitating the critical incident, and Peter’s ‘solution’ of portraying an ideal state as the 3 interests ‘being in balance’, a strategy that he designed in response to the critical incident.
With encouragement from the school’s administration, I decided almost at the last moment to use the textbook ‘Curriculum: Product or Praxis?’, written by Shirley Grundy (1987). I had used the book before but had abandoned it largely because of the difficulties experienced by students in making sense of the densely-written text punctuated frequently by specialised terminology. Since then, however, I had not found a better alternative and, with some misgivings, decided to give Grundy ‘another go’. (Taylor, 4-1996)
It's clear that Peter had his misgivings about the use of this particular text. Yet his critical attitude toward the text - and toward texts in general - did not seem to ‘come across’ to the students. The text, having been presented (as from Mt Sinai!) by the university teacher, takes on an inviolable aspect: as Bev said "If the lecturer gives it to you, you assume they think it's good and that you should accept it" (Private conversation).
The group’s response to the text consisted generally of a degree of intimidation and confusion but, by the time of the critical incident, Bev's critique had become cogent and focussed. She felt that Grundy had been overly negative about and dismissive of the 'technical' interest. Grundy also appeared to identify the technical interest with activities designed to produce ‘products’. As an Art teacher, Bev found this denigration of the technical interest both threatening and implausible:
I know that we all probably...struggled with the chapter from Shirley Grundy and I actually really believe that her presentation of the technical interest is flawed in that she seems to totally devalue it and I don’t think you can have any of the other interests without it, I don’t think it is possible to. So partly it was trying to come to terms with the information and apply it to something useful, because without being able to understand it and apply it it was useless, so it was theoretical nonsense unless it could be applied and I guess where I was using the university course and my own classroom stuff as examples was trying to make sense of it in a realistic manner. So the Art teaching is the product or the university portfolio is the product...I was trying...to needle out what was actually being meant and I still believe that is the basic problem I had with the information was that it was saying..."come into this Utopia where everything is empowered" and you can’t, you can’t get there without the rest as well. (Geelan, Taylor & Day, 3-1996)
It is widely acknowledged amongst critical theorists that the technical interest has been dominant to a damaging extent in Western society, however in attempting to redress this dominance, it is important to avoid the error of describing the 'Utopia' - entirely free of technical concerns - which Bev perceived in the text. Further, it could be suggested that by subordinating the practical interest to the emancipatory, rather than exploring it fully, a distortion was introduced into the groups' understanding of Habermas' scheme: a misunderstanding which contributed significantly to the 'critical incident' described.
It is possible also that the metaphor of finding an appropriate 'balance' between the 3 interests, which was explicitly used by Peter, is not an appropriate one. To use a related analogy, it's impossible to place stones on one side of a set of scales, and love on the other side: things which are different in kind do not necessarily balance one another. The metaphor of a 'dialectical tension' between the three (incommensurable?) interests, in which each restrains the excesses and 'questions the answers' of the others, seems to us to offer a richer and more powerful scheme for understanding and transforming educative relationships amongst teachers and students.
In characterising the practical interest, I felt that it really had two facets: the removal of institutional and power-based obstructions to communication, and a concern for developing caring, communicative relationships. One possible 'reading' of Bev's behaviour is that the course had been very successful in the first of these facets - she felt able to point out perceived shortcomings of the course and of Peter's teaching - but that it had failed to facilitate Bev's development of the kind of concern for the feelings of others and for mutually caring relationships which is also an important facet of empowerment. In this sense, empowerment was a two-edged sword: it had been presented in ways which supported some facets of the practical (communicative) interest, but apparently did not support other, equally important facets. (Geelan, 3-1996)
One way in which Peter and David have been supported in developing our current perspectives is through reading Sockett's (1993) "The moral base for teacher professionalism". He speaks of five "professional virtues" which characterise morally well-grounded teaching practice: courage, care, fairness, honesty and practical wisdom. His notion of care, which draws on that of Nel Noddings (1984), seemed to us to encapsulate that side of the practical interest which had been glossed over or lost in the rush toward emancipation.
We now feel that, rather than being the ideal state, the emancipatory interest is most powerful when it serves the practical interest. Its critical focus on the removal of barriers and distortions to effective communication is a means toward Habermas's 'ideal speech situation' (Habermas, 1987) - the more complete development of the practical interest in caring, moral, and open communication. If teachers and learners are to truly communicate, to create collaboratively new meanings, ideas and understandings, then relationships of trust and mutual respect must be built. This involves the avoidance of such negative behaviours as coercion, sarcasm and destructive criticism, but is most fully embodied where all members of a teaching/learning group are committed to the development of caring educative relationships. It may well be that critical voices have their greatest impact when these conditions flourish.
We still have different perspectives both on the events of that evening last April, and on the continuing importance and usefulness of the Habermasian scheme in our lives. One thing we have learned in common is the importance of caring, of practical wisdom, and of relationships in learning communities.
Grundy, S. (1987). Curriculum: Product or praxis? London: The Falmer Press.
Habermas, J. (1987) The theory of communicative action. London: Heinemann Educational, Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring : a feminine approach to ethics & moral education. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sockett, H. (1993). The moral base for teacher professionalism. New York: Teachers College Press.
Taylor, P.C. (in press). Mythmaking and mythbreaking in the mathematics classroom. Educational Studies in Mathematics.
Van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Day, B. (3b-1996) Reflective notes after the Geelan, Taylor and Day recorded discussion (3-1996) describing her current understandings.
Geelan, D.R., Taylor, P.C. & Day, B. (3-1996) Transcript of discussion held at Ballajura Community College, 20 March 1996.
Geelan, D.R. (4-1995) Contemporary reflective notes, prepared on the morning following the 'critical incident'.
Geelan, D.R. (6-1995) Reflective notes prepared at the end of the semester, two months after the 'critical incident'.
Geelan, D.R. (3-1996) Confidence and Empowerment: Two Two-Edged Swords? Personal narrative/reflection, prepared for sharing with the other participants in the 20 March discussion.
Taylor, P.C. (3-1996) Treading The Fine Line Between Empowerment and Disempowerment Personal narrative/reflection, prepared for sharing with the other participants in the 20 March discussion.
Taylor, P.C. (4-1996) Peter’s (Partial) Account. Personal narrative/reflection, prepared after the 20th March discussion.
© 1996. Copyright on this paper belongs to the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia.