NFB: "Brain Stream"

 Brain Stream: 

AR, Mental Health, and Film

What if we could invite people to wander along our neural paths as if they were in a film? What if we could give someone a “brain massage,” comforting their mind just by touching our screen?

“In 2028, Health Canada launches an anonymous online platform where anyone can get a brain massage by streaming their cerebral activity. Today, 17.08.2028, you will be massaging D’s brain.”

This is the experience promised by Brain Stream, an interactive animated project that brings us inside a young girl’s stream of consciousness. As she narrates her animated thoughts to us in real time, we offer tactile support by moving our fingers/cursors across the screen, building an empathetic connection.

Earlier this year, I was selected to be part of the National Film Board's Educator Network. Through this, I was afforded the opportunity to work on this fascinating project combining augmented reality, animation, film, and mental health.

The filmmakers (Studio AATOAA) wanted to address the loneliness and disconnection that youth across Canada are feeling during the continuing Covid-19 pandemic. Brain Stream, and my accompanying lesson,  attempt to foster empathy and virtual connectivity skills in our students. 

Brain Stream is premiering at the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam and FilmGate Miami.

Please feel free to use Brain Stream in your classes and provide any constructive feedback you think will be helpful. I hope the experience is of value to you!

LINKS

Brain Stream Interactive Video

Brain Stream Lesson

Brain Stream NFB Writeup

 

“Learning Loss” Is A Dangerous Myth

    In March of 2021, McKinsey & Company released a report sounding the alarm on global learning loss due to the Covid-19 global pandemic. This set off wave after wave of media stories lamenting the failures of education, and decrying a “lost generation” of students who would need a Herculean effort to catch up.

    This is simply untrue. Students absolutely feel a sense of loss, but it has nothing to do with their academic standing. The entire concept of “learning loss” is a false narrative supported by racist, neo-liberal ideologies.

“Learning Loss” Is Based on Bad Data

    Professional educators know that real learning doesn’t “start and stop”. Kids don’t become dumber over the weekend, or during the summer. In fact, we know that the whole idea of “learning loss” changes depending on which data collection method you use to track it. Research from the University of Iowa shows that by changing your research methodology, the same group of students can show learning loss, no learning loss, or active gains over the summer. We know that test scores are a faulty data collection method. Yet we still base policy on the bad data they give us.

    Not only are we basing the lie of “learning loss” on bad information, the whole idea of “falling behind” is illogical. If the whole world is behind, then who can be ahead? We are framing education as a “pass-fail” dialectic; if you’re not excelling, you’re failing. This is assembly-line thinking that values identical products being churned out at a predictable rate, not children’s mental and social development. It’s just not the way kids learn.

    So what is this sense of loss that we all feel? Professor Rachel Gabriel, from the University of Connecticut, says “it is loss of a previously imagined trajectory leading to a previously imagined future.” We’re collectively mourning the loss of what we thought was going to happen, not an actual loss.

“Learning Loss” Is Inherently Racist

    Pushing the idea of “learning loss” is, to be blunt, racist. 

    For starters, we know for a fact that black students actually do better over the summer than their white counterparts. As for students from marginalized communities who have “dropped out” of online or hybrid learning — well, wouldn’t you? In a system where the majority of teachers are white; where the majority of BIPOC students are overdisciplined and undervalued; where every story about you pushes “white exceptionalism”, framing your family and culture as unable to provide for you — what value do you gain from participating?

    The reality is that BIPOC students, homeless youth, those with learning disabilities, with mental health issues; these kids have always faced “learning loss” because of the systemic oppression built in to schooling. Now we push a story about how these families can’t provide for their kids, so it’s up to the schools to force them to catch up. This deficit model of education inherently assumes the worst of the students for whom we have done the least.

“Learning Loss” Is A Capitalist Tool (No, Really)

    It should come as no surprise that as soon as stories of “learning loss” spread, ed-tech bloggers and consultants come out of the woodwork to hawk their wares. A report from the Washington Post highlighted the growing influence of private education providers that have grown into “multibillion dollar industries. Peddling fear about the loss of school hours creating a gap between expected and actual learning is a great way to prop up these industries while simultaneously setting public schools up for failure.”

    This technocratic fascination with measurement means anything that isn’t quantifiable is irrelevant. At the risk of sounding like a 19-year old in his first Sociology course, this really is because of… capitalism. 20th-century schooling was designed like an assembly line, for the assembly line. This “lost year” is only a problem, says this thinking, in that it will supposedly have a negative impact on the workforce and economy.

    The bigger problem with this neo-liberal approach is that it covers up the real reasons for actual learning loss — the chronic, and purposeful, underfunding of the public education system; an unjust pattern of evictions that targets BIPOC families; and worst of all, the death of family members due to Covid-19. Schools are not dealing with the trauma of these issues in any meaningful way. Instead we give kids yet another round of high-stakes testing as a panacea for the real social disease.

“Learning Loss” is Ruining Student Mental Health

    Mental health professionals have been sounding the alarm over school stress for years. We saw that for many kids, being home away from school because of the pandemic actually improved their mental health. However, it didn’t take long for the “learning loss” narrative to inspire a wave of fear in parents and educators, and then the stress started again. All of a sudden we went from “don’t give your child too much screen time”, to “a good student sits still in front of a camera for 6+ hours every day” — and if they can’t, it’s a problem with them, not the learning model.

    The real loss students feel is the social loss. Students miss their friends, not tests. Their productivity is dropping because they are anxious and depressed, not because they can’t complete a government-mandated test.

    Further exacerbating the issue is the fact that we’re now labelling an entire generation as losers. Students known when teachers are being inauthentic. They know when they’re being defined by what they can’t do, rather than what they could do. Professor Gabriel puts it succinctly:

    “If we use words such as ‘slide,’ ‘loss,’ ‘waste,’ ‘pause,’ ‘gap’ and ‘cliff’ to describe their learning, literacy and achievement, what will they conclude about their own intelligence, potential and ability to learn independently?”

Let's Lose Learning Loss

    “Learning loss” may be a myth, but its a story that too many people believe. It’s shaping policy, classroom strategy, and how we view an entire generation of children. We know it’s based on faulty data. We know it’s inherently racist, classist, and detrimental to our students’ mental health.

    Students know all too well what they’ve missed out on during the pandemic. It’s our role as educators to help them celebrate what they have accomplished. If we want to build a successful foundation for their future, students need to know that we care, that we understand, and that we value their abilities. Otherwise, it’s we — the adults — who will have truly lost the opportunity to learn.

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WORKS CITED

Chen, Li-Kai, et al. “Teacher survey: Learning loss is global - and significant.” McKinsey & Company, 1 March 2021.

Diaz, Jennifer and Munoz, Joaquin. “On ‘learning loss’ and the critical need to address existing inequities in education.” Minnpost, 22 March 2021.

Downey, Douglas B., et al. “Are Schools the Great Equalizer? Cognitive Inequality during the Summer Months and the School Year.” American Sociological Review, vol. 69, no. 5, 2004, pp. 613–635. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3593031.

El-Mekki, Sharif. “Analysis: Pandemic learning loss is rooted in the racial chasm between educators and students of color. Only teacher diversity and a strong Black teacher pipeline can fix it.” LA School Report, 28 June 2021.

Fishman, Eric. “How the Rhetoric of ‘Learning Loss’ is Harming Schools.” The Progressive Magazine, 4 April 2021.

Javed, Noor. “ ‘How will we catch up?’ With the learning loss by Ontario students this year, what can be done in September to get them back on track.” The Toronto Star, 27 June 2021.

McKinney de Royston, Maxine and Vossoughi, Shirin. “Fixating on Pandemic ‘Learning Loss’ Undermines the Need to Transform Education.” truthout, 18 January 2021.

Reed, Deborah K., et al. “Exploring the Summer Reading Effect through Visual Analysis of Multiple Datasets.” Journal of Research in Reading, vol. 44, no. 3, 2021, pp. 597–616., doi:10.1111/1467-9817.12357.

Strauss, Valerie. “What ‘learning loss’ really means.” The Washington Post, 10 March 2021.

Strauss, Valerie. “Can we stop telling the ‘corona kids’ how little they are learning?” The Washington Post, 19 May 2021.

Young, Gabriel. “The Dangers of the ‘Learning Loss’ Craze.” Psychology Today, 4 June 2021.

Commodity vs Culture: Attempts at Cultural Integration through National Education Policy Goals

Commodity or Culture?: Attempts at Cultural Integration through National Education Policy Goals

Research Evidence: Canada, the US, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and India

     MacPhearson uses the case study of the Tibetan diaspora in Canada, the U.S., and India to examine three different approaches to integrating ethno-diversity into national educational policy: integration; achievement; and sustainability. Canada focuses on integration to create social cohesion, defined as a sense of trust and civic participation that creates a common identity across cultural or linguistic differences. The U.S. focuses on achievement, with MacPhearson noting that Americans are more likely to tolerate inequality if some marginalized people can join the ranks of the elite. One concern with both the U.S. and Canada is that racialized people who find success often do so at the cost of their cultural and linguistic backgrounds. India, however, focuses on sustainable ethno-diversity through participatory pluralism. Many Indians are trilingual and the country has a tradition of giving minority groups free reign over their own cultural traditions and education. The downside to participatory pluralism is that the success or failure of these systems lies within the cultural groups themselves, not the state.

            Engel and Siczek examine national education policy frameworks from the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Ireland, and Australia to determine their respective stances on global citizenship education. They found that all five countries focused on education as a commodity to increase national wealth, produce more competitive citizens, expand the influence of their countries globally and, in the case of the U.S., enhance national security. There was little to no mention of “global community” or “shared humanity” in their findings. This is at odds with the UNESCO goals of global education, leading Engel and Siczek to posit that any strategies for internationalization established by individual states are bound by their national aims, limiting their ability to form true global citizens.

            Dryden-Peterson and Mulimbi examine the history of Botswana to determine how civic education played a role in its becoming one of the most peaceful countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The three main factors they identify are: high levels of wealth redistribution after independence from Britain, so all people feel like they have a role in society; high rates of education across all ethnic groups, not only the majority Tswana; and increased funding in primary education giving all citizens a link to government services and concepts of state citizenship. Through these methods, Botswana has transformed their conflicts from horizontal to vertical and avoided the civil unrest of their neighbouring countries.

Comparisons and Synthesis

            MacPhearson’s argument that, within education policy, multicultural integration and achievement are fruitless in the long-term without sustainability, seems to be a direct response to the findings of Engel and Siczek. The latter show that the national governments of the top five “Anglo-Saxon” countries that are destinations for international students – Canada, Australia, Ireland, the U.K., and the U.S. – have little in the way of explicit policy goals that match UNESCO’s intent to promote globalized democratic citizenship education. Engel and Siczek often use the term “commodity” when referring to how these countries view the concept of globalized education; the neoliberal model at work here reduces the complexity of global education to supply and demand, casting students as widgets.

Conversely, Dryden-Peterson and Mulimbi show, in their analysis of Botswana, how a country’s education policy can change course to meet the needs of its citizens without bending to corporate interests. However it could be argued that Botswana does not function as an equal comparison to the five aforementioned countries; Botswana built its education system for the expressed purpose of not descending into civil war as its neighbours had done, while the countries that Engel and Siczek examine did not face that existential risk – not accounting for the tensions between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

It would be interesting to explore the future of Botswana’s education system if the country moves towards increased global integration and interdependency. Would they also market their system to other Sub-Saharan states as a premier destination for international education, for the express purpose of generating capital?  Once the existential crises of war have been removed and concepts of citizenship are enforced through hegemony, would the education system naturally creep towards neoliberalism?

Applications and “So What” ?

Canada prides, and markets, itself as being a multicultural country. However, based on this research, I wonder if the Canadian concept of “multiculturalism” needs to be rethought, particularly as it applies to how we inculcate our current and future citizens. A student learning to be a citizen in Scarborough will have a very different cultural experience than one learning the same lessons in rural Alberta. As hard as Canada has worked to establish a unique culture for itself, and to entrench those values in students, it could be argued that it has always been a patchwork country of regions held together more so by geography than shared cultural identity.

I have taught students from across the socio-economic spectrum; both heartbreaking examples of poverty, and families so wealthy their main form of transportation was by private helicopter. Although there will always be some similarities between high school students, the concepts they have of what it means to be a Canadian citizen vary wildly. How do I teach both those students that as Canadian citizens, both their cultures have equal weight? Can both cultures be sustainable and successful, or is the immigrant forced to acquiesce to normative structures in order to survive?

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WORKS CITED

Seonaigh MacPherson (2018) Ethno-cultural diversity education in Canada, the USA and India: the experience of the Tibetan diaspora, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 48:6, 844-860, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2017.1362547

Laura C. Engel & Megan M. Siczek (2018) A cross-national comparison of international strategies: global citizenship and the advancement of national competitiveness, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 48:5, 749-767, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2017.1353408

Dryden-Peterson, S. and Mulimbi, B. (2016) Pathways toward Peace: Negotiating National Unity and Ethnic Diversity through Education in Botswana. Comparative Education Review, 61:1, 58-82.

Alone With Everyone: Isolation, Egalitarianism, and Teacher Leadership

In their research on creating a Master’s program devoted to training teacher leaders, Taylor, et al. (2011) interviewed multiple students for their perspectives on how they had grown personally and professionally over the course of the program. One participant, when asked about the effects of co-construction on their view of teacher leadership, stated:

“[...]usually you go to class and they tell you what you’re supposed to learn and how you’re supposed to learn it. And then you do it and you’re never quite sure if that was the right way. And here it was, they trusted us to take ownership of what we were learning and use it in ways that made sense to us, which I thought was wonderful and exciting.” (Taylor, et al., 2011)

 

Aside from the professional revelation afforded to this participant, what struck me as most pertinent was that the language used here could just as easily be applied to an elementary or secondary student as it could to a Master’s level student. As educators we are often told that current best practice involves the gradual release of responsibility, inquiry-based methodologies, “genius hours” in the style of Google and other future-facing companies - all formats that are designed to help our students function in the world of tomorrow, rather than obtain a job that exists only today. Yet the unique nature of the teaching profession makes it difficult to apply that logic to our own work. We teach students to be flexible, but we rarely change our lesson plans from year to year. We foster community, but we do not seek best practices from those outside our departments or grade levels. This inherent tension between the skills we teach, and culture in which we teach them, makes the development and nurturing of teacher leaders an ever-more pressing need in our Western school systems. 

    Two of the most damaging normative states in teaching that lead to inertia in teacher leadership are egalitarianism and isolation. York-Barr (2004) refers to the longstanding culture of egalitarianism in the profession as “a significant problem with formal teacher leadership roles” by insinuating that “teachers who step up to leadership roles are stepping out of line.” This mentality, arguably fostered and encouraged by strong unions in the teaching profession, has benefits in terms of expressing solidarity across the profession but also disincentivizes advancement, particularly when the traditional path of advancement is through administration, who are seen as being on the “other side” (Wenner, 2017). Associated with egalitarianism - and yet, also in contrast to it -  is isolation. Curiously, educators move from a culture of shared learning in Bachelor’s and Master’s of Education programs, to a culture increasingly marked by isolation as they progress through their careers. 

    Multiple studies have noted how as teachers, we “often feel very isolated within our four walls [...] yes we do have rich staff meetings but rarely is there time for authentic discussion.” (Campbell, Lieberman, and Yashkina, 2017) Others have commented on the detrimental effect of this isolationist mindset on the profession, deeming “uncoordinated practice and isolated classrooms [as] relics of twentieth-century education not positioned to support the forms of organizational learning required for schools to meet the demands for improvement they face.” (Goddard, Goddard, Kim, and Miller, 2015) This sense of “frontier education” where the teacher proudly operates independently of others, particularly at the secondary level, is deeply ensconced within the profession, to its detriment. I present three anonymized case studies whose leadership structures suggest that teacher leadership is essential for effective educational change, as evidenced by the egalitarianism-collaborative professionalism and isolationism-deprivatization dialectics.

Caste Study #1

        Consider a traditional single-gender parochial school, centrally located, with decades of tradition. In this setting, the traditions of egalitarianism and isolationism remain firm and unchallenged. Daily lesson plans are written up and submitted to the department head, then enacted with no variation across sections. Students take notes from a PowerPoint, use those notes to write essays, tests, and labs, then write their final exams. Staff are held to a strict dress code, have their entrance and exit times from the building monitored by administration and other staff, and must visibly participate in all school-wide extracurricular events. This culture is disseminated top-down through the hierarchical leadership structure, and enforced by older teachers amongst newer staff members, so that they quickly became inculcated with the norms. Any attempts to bring changes even as simple as using Google Drive are met with passive-aggression rejection. Teachers work in isolation even within their departments, and there is little sharing of resources other than those that are officially designated as correct, generally coming from a textbook. At this school, teacher leadership - such as it is - exists only to reinforce and police the status quo. This reflects the observations of Taylor, et al. (2011) that traditional forms of leadership remove authority from the classroom and do not encourage innovation. However - the students seem mostly happy; class averages are generally high; there are relatively few behaviour issues; and staff have no real complaints about the environment. This could indicate the presence of the “unsanctioned work of [teacher leaders] as often covert and subversive, but not ineffective...that function outside of the administrator’s purview.” (Taylor, et al., 2011)

Caste Study #2

        In contrast, consider a suburban high school with an exceptional focus on academic and athletic excellence, and a parent base that is by and large very active in school affairs. Despite its success, the student and staff community feel overburdened with the stress of high expectations. This was effectively counterbalanced with leadership programs within the school that helped build a sense of community amongst students. These programs in student leadership, chaplaincy, mental health, and others, actively sought to break down barriers between students and staff and reduce the isolationist tendencies of both groups. These efforts reflect what Harris (2005) refers to as the “brokering” aspect of teacher leadership. Their goal was to link communities, share leadership amongst a wider network, and create new norms. Here, however, they met with considerable resistance from some staff and students, reflecting Wenner’s (2017) observation that taking on the role of a teacher leader changes the relationship with your peers. 

    To buttress against this resistance, the various aforementioned groups joined their efforts together into school-wide events that all could participate in, theoretically eliminating the perceive elitism of being a student or staff member in these groups. This intentional community building worked against the egalitarian model and formally recognized pre-existing leadership initiatives that previously operated alone, allowing these staff and students “self-concept [to] evolve from ‘content expert’ to change maker in their wider communities.” (Taylor, et al., 2011) Although effective, this process took “what was once a comfortable, primary social relationship with teaching peers” and shifted it “ to include implicit or explicit instructional, professional, or organizational expectation” amongst colleagues, which “violate[d] egalitarian professional norms” (York-Barr, 2004) and caused conflict amongst staff who could not disengage from their deeply ingrained egalitarian mindsets. However these initiatives did manage to meet most of the seven dimensions of teacher leadership: coordination and management; school work; professional development of colleagues; participating in school change initiatives; and community involvement. (Sinha and Sanuscin, 2017) 

Caste Study #3

          Finally, consider the non-traditional environment of a hospital-based school. The teacher participates in twice-weekly “rounds” meetings which were collaborative debriefing sessions with hospital staff - psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, child and youth workers, nutritionists, and others. These invaluable sessions met most of the criteria that Hargreaves and O’Connor (2018) establish for collaborative professionalism. They were embedded within the culture of the organization; they promoted challenging, but respectful dialogue; they were run by staff based on needs identified amongst the patients/students; when patient advocates were present, the voices of the patients/students were also integrated; and, arguably most importantly, the purpose of these meetings was to better understand the wider purpose of learning - to help the child build resilience and self-care techniques; to educate ourselves and themselves about their physical, mental, and social environments; and to equip them, their families, and their school communities to manage their reintegration into society. There was no sense of egalitarianism amongst staff, but neither was there a strict hierarchical model of leadership that was enforced amongst staff. The insights gained from patient/student interviews were expanded on in rounds meetings, then applied again to those interviews to help move the patient/student towards better mental health. This reflects the cycle of praxis and cycle of impact that Taylor, et al. (2011) identify: better understanding of the patient/student leads to better planning for that patient/student, which leads again to better understanding - reflecting the cycle of praxis - while the patient/student engages in the cycle of impact by engaging in actions that had net positive results in their mental health, empowering them to engage in further actions. The inclusion of collaborative professionalism is, why teacher leadership in this program was more effective than in the second case study, where it was well-meaning but disorganized, or in the first, where it was completely top-down and inauthentic. Based on the four quadrants of collaboration outlined by Hargreaves and O’Connor (2018), it can be argued that the collaboration in the first case has “high precision” but “low trust”, since all initiatives are top-down in design; this is indicative of contrived collegiality. In the second case, the initiatives show “high trust” but “low precision”, due to their disorganization; this is indicative of informal collaboration. 

Ironically, the case of  the least traditional schooling model best reflects current research and literature around teacher leadership, rather than than the quote-unquote “high achieving” schools. These experiences raise further questions around the interplay between teacher leadership development and the professional inertia inherent to the traditional conservative Western education system. The current political climate in Ontario adds another layer of uncertainty as to the next steps for teacher leadership. Regardless, if there is to be progressive, meaningful change in Ontario’s education, then teacher leadership, and its core tenets of deprivatization and professional collaboration, is essential for the effective enactment of that change.

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WORKS CITED

Campbell, C., Lieberman, A. & Yashkina, A. with Alexander, S. & Rodway, J. (2018).

Teacher Learning and Leadership Program: Research Report 2017-18.

Toronto, ON: Ontario Teachers’ Federation.

Goddard, R., Goddard, Y, Sook Kim, E. & Miller, R. (2015). A theoretical and empirical analysis of the roles of instructional leadership, teacher collaboration, and collective efficacy beliefs in support of student learning. American Journal of Education, 121: 501-530.

Hargreaves, A. & O’Connor, M., (2018). Collaborative Professionalism: When Teaching Together Means Learning for All. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Harris, A. (2005). Teacher leadership: More than just a feel good factor? Leadership and Policy in Schools, 4 (3): 201-219.

Lieberman, A., Campbell, C. & Yashkina, A. (2017). Teacher Learning and Leadership: Of, By and For Teachers. London & New York: Routledge: Chapter 5: Teachers’ Knowledge Exchange and Sharing of Practices Through the TLLP (pp. 85-120).

Sinha, S. & Hanuscin, D. (2017). Development of teacher leadership identity: A multiple case study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 63: 356-371.

Taylor, M., Goeke, J., Klein, E., Onore, C. & Geist, K. (2011). Changing leadership: Teachers lead the way for schools that learn. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27: 920-929.

Wenner, J.A. & Campbell, T. (2017). The theoretical and empirical basis of teacher leadership: A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 87 (1): 134–171.

 York-Barr, J. & Duke, K. (2004). What Do We Know About Teacher Leadership? Findings From Two Decades of Scholarship. Review of Educational Research, 74 (3): 255–316.

 

Teacher Identity and Morality:
A Thought Experiment

(The following is a fictionalized account. Potential resemblances are unintentional.)

"Mr. Green"

    Mr. Green is a new graduate of a B.Ed program who, the September after graduating, has begun his first LTO placement at Newbrook SS. The school has a reputation of both high academic achievement amongst its students, and over-involved “helicopter parenting” by the parent community.

Mr. Green is teaching first period Gr. 10 English, a mandatory course. The majority of his students are wonderful - with one exception. James is loud, rambunctious, overly chatty, and prone to wandering out of the class. His work is often late or incomplete, and even completed assignments are done poorly. Green pays little attention in class, preferring to gossip with his friends in a loud and dramatic fashion. After consulting the IEP, Mr. Johnson notices that James has AD/HD; after checking with the other staff, he learns that James poses absolutely no problems in their classes. When asked about this James admits that he takes his Ritalin after first period so that he can focus for the rest of the day. Further conversation reveals that James does not take his Ritalin in time for English class because he dislikes the subject. Mr. Green consults James’ mother about this and is shocked to find that she condones her son’s view of the class and his behaviour.

    Although James does well in his other classes, because he misses so much time in Mr. Green’s class, his average sits at around 30%. Mr. Green tries to engage James but the student will often simply leave the class. The teacher has tried to engage the students' parents, but James’ mother sees no problem with this behaviour, and offers little in the way of discipline or structure.

About three-quarters of the way through the semester, Mr. Green is called in to an emergency meeting with the principal, Mrs. Carpenter, regarding James, who has been absent from school for several days. At this meeting, staff learn that James was hospitalized for self-harm. He has been stabilized and will be returning to school shortly. Mrs. Carpenter is extremely concerned. She asks staff to waive the remaining coursework for James and assign him a final passing grade. Although the other teachers believe this was a behavioural outburst rather than the result of depression, they agree to waive the work since his marks are strong in their courses and he likely would have passed regardless.

Mr. Green, however, has many concerns. He would have to fabricate an additional 30% to make James pass, which strikes the teacher as patently unethical. Further, James completed so little of the course that even if he “passes”, he will not be prepared for the content in Gr. 11 English next year, which is also mandatory. Mr. Green is also worried about what kind of message this sends not only to James, but the other students in his class. Is he learning that by acting out in dangerous ways, he will be rewarded with a free grade? Does this reinforce the message that Mr. Green's class “doesn’t matter”? Yet if Mr. Green does fail James, will this trigger another episode of self-harm; perhaps a more serious one? Compounding this is all the pressure Mrs. Carpenter has put on Mr. Green; as a first-year teacher, his future employment is based on the assessment of this principal.

Critical Schemas

Educators are often faced with moral and ethical dilemmas in the line of work. To navigate these, it is important for teachers to have well-developed schema - a "conceptual cluster we create to help organize environmental information". Particularly in areas of ethical concern, educators must cultivate a value schema that gives them "conceptual tools and weapons that we all employ in order to maintain and enhance self-esteem" (Rokeach 1973).

This cognitive shorthand is helpful in a critical incident which marks a significant turning point in a teacher's approach. These incidents are important to identify; they can offer opportunities for professional growth; or, if mishandled, lead to a decline in professional development, as the negative reaction engendered can be repeated in similar situations (Shapira-Lischinsky, 2010).

How, then, should an educator form a critical values-based schema for dealing with incidents like those with "Mr. Green" ? What should his next steps be in this situation?

The Moral Stress of Education

Colenrud (2015) identifies the cognitive dissonance and moral anxiety that teachers face when dealing with these situations. Educators are held to a high moral standard institutionally, societally, and personally. Failure to meet these standards can arise when there is a lack of clarity, or conflicting responsibilities, that make ethical judgements murky. Many times a teacher will know the "right" thing to do, but for a variety of reasons may not be able to pursue the ethical course of action.

Teachers are possessed of a singular "moral sensitivity" (Colenrud) unlike other professions. When their students feel bad, they feel bad. This leads to a tangle of conflicting fairness dilemmas, where the principles of equality, need, and merit all intertwine. Personal interaction, progressive discipline, and evaluation of students are all based on a messy combination of equity, need, and effort, leading to a calculus of care that is difficult to balance. This juggling act leads to moral stress - internal moral imperatives that conflict with other internal moral imperatives.

Ultimately, teachers cannot look to an external principle for guidance. They must develop their own schemas for dealing with moral quandaries.

Moral Identity Formation

Broadly speaking, a teacher's career can be subdivided into three categories of concern (Clark and Conway, 2003):

• Preteaching - Operates with a schema similar to a student; specifics are not considered
• Early Teaching - Locus of concern lies with personal performance
• Late Teaching - Ego is tied into student progress

As "Mr. Green" is in the early teaching stage of his career, his schema will be based around the ethics of his own personal performance. This will be formed within the dichotomy between personal and organizational identity, as outlined by Caughey (1980). Teachers move between the end points of this dialectic, establishing a schema within:

Feared Identity (Failure) <-------> Idealized Identity (Perfection)

Personal Identity (Son) <------> Social Identity (Teacher)

Who "Mr. Green" believes he is - where he puts himself on this continuum - will define his critical schema, and thus his solution to the ethical dilemma he finds himself in.

Ethical Assessment

The crux of this quandry is whether or not "James" will pass the course. Most ethical dilemmas in education are based around marking, assessment, and evaluation - this is "not surprising, given the current climate characterized by increasing accountability, high-stakes testing and pressure to improve student learning scores" (Ehrich, et al, 2011). Failure to properly navigate this dilemmas results in "grade pollution", marked by purposely misrepresenting the students' mastery of the assessed material (Ibid.).

Now that "Mr. Green" has developed his identity, and thus his critical schema, how should he move forward to avoid "grade pollution" ? The solution, according to Ehrich, et al., lies in several levels of interconnected ethical decision-making

1. First, "Mr. Green" must bring his own schema to the fore and apply it to the dilemma.
2. Next, he must recognize the mediating morality of the organization (the school), which may be at odds with his own morality.
3. "Mr. Green" must now work to find a solution that appeases both his own schema and that of the organization.
4. In this solution, "Mr. Green" must acknowledge that the results will have impacts on both himself and the organization, and must consider those ramifications.
5. The solution will also impact the ability of "Mr. Green" to make future decisions.

This process considers the schema of both "Mr. Green" and the school; while likely totally satisfying neither, it will still work towards the common goal of student success while maintaining intact values for all parties.

In practical terms, Mr. Green would suggest an alternate modified assignment, or set of assignments, that could be completed in order to justify the additional 30% increase. While this may seem like a simple solution, it can be difficult to see or even accept it without feeling as though one's moral foundations have been violated. The best way to avoid the moral stress of these scenarios is to articulate one's professional ethics clearly, and model them publicly, so that all parties are aware of how the teacher will react. Over time this will result in a stronger critical schema, better self-identity, and clearer relationship between individual and organization that will make decision-making processes less stressful for all involved.

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WORKS CITED

Caughey, J. (1980). Personal Identity and Social Organization. Ethos, v. 8, n. 3, pp. 173-203. The American Anthropological Association.

Clark, C. and Conway, P. (2003). The journey outward: A re-examination of Fuller’s concerns-based model of teacher development. Teaching and Teacher Education, v. 19, n. 5, pp. 465-482

Colenrud, G. (2015). Moral Stress in Teaching Practice. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and practice, v. 21, n. 3, pp. 346-360.

Ehrich, L.C., M. Kimber, J. Millwater, and N. Cranston. (2011). Ethical Dilemmas: A Model to Understand Teacher Practice. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, v. 17, .n 2., pp. 173-185.

Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: Free Press.

Shapira-Lischinsky, O. (2010). Teachers’ critical incidents: Ethical dilemmas in teaching practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, v. 27, n. 3, pp. 648-656

"Love as An Alternative Discourse": Reflecting on the Research of My Grade 4 Teacher

(Mary Darmanin in 2009, from The Times of Malta)

Mrs. Darmanin, 1994

    My mom, a Gr. 8 teacher for about 30 years, disliked most of my elementary school teachers. She never elaborated on why, but she often said "it's a miracle you turned out the way you are, given the poor quality of education you had before high school". 

    One of the few teachers she did admire was my Gr. 4 teacher, Mrs. Darmanin. I had just moved to a new school and Mrs. Darmanin was my first teacher; after a few days in her class, any fears I had about changing communities melted away. To this day, over 25 years later, I still remember her class as being warm, compassionate, intellectually engaging, and encouraging. Her voice was raspy, but she was a beautiful singer and encouraged me to join the choir. Her Maltese accent and culture were fascinating to me. I remember feeling such a profound connection to her that, as a child, I couldn't explain. Now, I would say she radiated the Catholic concept of agape, "Christ-like love".

    While I was cleaning out some old paperwork, I came across my elementary school report cards. Reading what Mrs. Darmanin wrote was fascinating. For a Gr. 4 report card, she wrote beautiful, eloquent statements that showed a deeper understanding of my 10-year old self than anyone before or since. I was shocked - though perhaps I shouldn't have been - at how much detail, how much love she put into that report card. Not only that, but her writing style was far more advanced than any elementary school report card I'd ever seen.

    Some quick Googling showed that Mary Darmanin earned her PhD and became a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta, with multiple research projects published by the journal International Studies in Sociology of Education. One of her papers was titled "When Students are Failed: 'Love' as an Alternative to Education Discourse?"

   

Context - Malta & Tama School

    In the mid 1990s, Darmanin (since she's no longer my Gr. 4 teacher, I can drop the honorific) conducted a 5 month ethnographic field research placement at Tama School, an all-girls school in Malta that worked with disenfranchised students. At this time, Malta had a controversial elementary streaming program that used testing around the age of 9 or 10 to determine which middle school a student would attend; this was despite all the research indicating the program had negative effects on students; Malta had the highest rate of school drop-outs in the EU. Schools called "Opportunity Centres" - what we would call "at-risk programs" - received many more students from the lower level streamed programs. Malta's centralized education authority was weak, leading to schools with reduced enrollment, poorly-trained teachers, and curriculum that staff referred to as kummidji - "a joke".

    Darmanin critiques this through a world systems lens, noting that this streaming policy reinforces class inequality by "promoting a rigid two-tier system where social cohesion, rather than social justice, is the main objective" (164). Middle-class students get a good education and a chance at a good job, while lower-class students are labelled "at-risk" and contained in commensurate programs. Darmanin argues that this pathologies the "failure of the family", and uses school to compensate for their perceived deficiencies. Thus, school continues to promote educational failure while masquerading as ostensible social success.

A Pedagogy of Love

    At Tama School, the girls came from what I assumed to be a rural background. They, and their families, were functionally illiterate and suffered a host of complications from chronic absenteeism, to extreme hunger and poverty, to persistent infections, to cancer. Further, though the girls in the study were around 12 years old, in their elementary careers they were essentially abandoned by their teachers because of their placement in a lower stream. In an interview, the principal, Ms. Sisca, said to Darmanin: "You [researchers] forget that we do not start with a clean [white] slate but with a black one. First we have to clear up what there is.' " (149)

    So what happens at Tama School? Ms. Sisca takes a deep, personal responsibility towards the social and emotional health of her students. She engages in what Darmanin calls "pastoral care" - reaching out to late or absent students to improve attendance and engagement; calling parents directly; providing meals; reinventing curriculum to meet students needs; taking an interest in, and intervening in, students personal and family tumults; and more. Ms. Sisca admits she has very little time for, quote-unquote, "actual administrative work."

    However, Darmanin's 5 months at the school turned up practices that raised my eyebrows. Much of what she observed was singing, dancing, poetry recitals, sometimes in English or other languages that the students did not understand. There are endless assemblies, school fairs, community projects and activities, school trips (which Ms. Sisca personally subsidizes the costs for), attempts to win national competitions, various "Prize Days" throughout the year, even TV appearances. What she found little of was actual curricular content. In a Math class, Darmanin watched as the students struggled to identify multiples in a lesson - because the concept of "multiples" had yet to be introduced. A similar situation arose in a Maltese language class (which, for some reason, was being taught in English) - trying to form longer sentences, without first introducing the concept of "a sentence". Many classes used "fill-in-the-blank" or "underline the correct answer" worksheets, which were kept in student files as evidence of learning; when these files were too light at review time, students rushed to fill them with busy work before they were submitted.

    The teachers at Tama School varied in their reactions to this situation. They found Ms. Sisca's constant stream of events a nuisance that interrupted real learning. Yet they argue that the extreme modifications in their own classrooms are "built on love", and that they were "saving" these girls. The teachers could see the social and emotional skills of the girls improving, and that was their main goal - not necessarily academic advancement.

    As for the students themselves, Darmanin's interviews showed that they were very much aware of who was an effective teacher, and who was not. Regardless of whether or not they were learning at the level of their peers in middle-class schools, the students felt like they were learning; they did show improvements in literacy and numeracy, though the end goal was still manual labour. The students also loved Tama School.

The "Fairy Godmother" Effect

    In examining the personal narratives of staff at Tama School, Darmanin found that many attended teacher's college at Catholic institutions that focused on serving the poor. She posits that this leads to what she variously describes as "sentimental egalitarianism", "enhanced social work", or "the fairy godmother role" (150). Since the state had moved away from providing for the basic welfare of its citizens, the schools were forced to step in to fill the gap - leaving teachers not so much as teachers, but as "fairy godmothers" who had to solve all their students' problems. This desire to meet an imaginary list of student needs does create an atmosphere of love, care, and attention which can be profoundly nurturing to an underserved youth. However, argues Darmanin, so much time spent on pastoral care reduces the opportunity for more robust academic opportunities. Most graduates of Tama School do not attend high school, and thus cannot get higher-paying jobs that would elevate them out of the poverty cycle. So are they still students? Or social work clients?

    Darmanin used Focault and professional subjectivity to explain how teachers could move so fluidly between self-concepts; are they teachers or social workers? Why not both? She concludes by saying that although "fairy godmother schools" like Tama School may not be providing the most academically enriching environment, this pedagogy of love is a direct assault against the globalist system that perpetuates cycles of inequality. Rather than be deemed inferior and languish under that label, the unconventional methodologies of Ms. Sisca and the teachers at Tama School help give their students a sense of self-worth that would otherwise be taken away.

Mrs. Darmanin, 2021

    Darmanin's research begins with the idea that "everything counts"; even small classroom actions have an impact on a global scale. A discourse of love can make all the difference in a child's life, and that difference can reverberate across generations. Darmanin isn't starry-eyed about this; her research clearly indicates the academic cost of focusing so specifically on socio-emotional well-being. 

(Mary Darmanin in 2014, from The Times of Malta)

    Yet if we teach without love, what are we doing? If we work with children and cannot find some emotional connection to the work, why are we there? Teachers have a moral responsibility to base their pedagogy in love first and foremost, not academic rigor. We have to take care of ourselves and not take on burdens that we cannot shoulder, but that doesn't mean we can absolve ourselves of any non-academic burdens at all. Mrs. Darmanin infused her Gr. 4 classroom, over 25 years ago, with love; it still affects who I am today. 

    Mary Darmanin's official page on the University of Malta website indicates she hasn't published any research since 2013. I reached out to her via email a few months ago, but have yet to get a response. I hope she knows I loved her, in the way that a 9-year old loves his teacher, and that it made all the difference in my life.

WORKS CITED

Mary Darmanin (2003) When students are failed: 'love' as an alternative

education discourse?, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 13:2, 141-170