“So much reading Miss! ...” Embracing epistemic virtues for critical practice in Higher Education”

ACTT 1st International Conference on Quality Assurance in Higher

Education

Jennifer Lavia, PhDDirector, Academic Services

UWI/ROYTECjennifer.lavia@roytec.uwi.tt

•The Return of The Teacher•Critical Practice and Epistemic Virtues•Examples of Critical Practice

The Return of the TeacherNigel Tubbs:• Takes a Western

philosophical position of critiquing what and where is education in the post-modern times that we live in.

• Deskilling and de-intellectualising

• Critique of schooling and education

• Tubbs expresses concern that Education in the broadest sense does not seem to fit into this post modern rush for accountability; target setting; performativity; national testing; etc that is characteristic of modern day schooling

• What then is the teacher to make of this end of education?

The Return of the TeacherLaurette Bristol:• Takes a critical, Caribbean

perspective• Responding to ‘teaching

troubles’• By this she means: the

shackles of teacher accountability; performance appraisals; and national testing; etc

• We have seen that the period from 1990s to early half of the 21st Century has been pregnant with an agenda of improvement through effectiveness, efficiency, quality and quick responses to the dynamic nature of technology

• How does the teacher challenge her practice?

The Return of the TeacherBoth Tubbs and Bristol interrogate the

teacher’s central dilemma:

What of the relationship and interaction with the student?

• Education occurs in the self-interrogation of the teacher over what constitutes her practice.

Critical Pedagogy and Epistemic Virtues• I had to be more than socially just – also culturally

relevant• “The hallmark of educational quality is that teachers

prepare people to appraise their systems of governance, understand the implications of international and global change, address patterns of injustice, hold politicians accountable and experiment with problem-solving, both nationally and in alliance with global civic movements (Hickling-Hudson, 2004 p.299)

• Change is fundamental to contemporary social political and educational existence and this is the essence of CP.

Critical Pedagogy and Epistemic Virtues• Teaching is a political activity• Teaching has the potential to be emancipatory• Teaching for education requires that we prepare ourself

and our students to interrogate common assumptions and the taken for granted

• It survives through a process of ‘defamiliarisation’• It requires risk taking, innovation and a perspective that

blurs the lines between teaching and researching• Teaching is a vehicle for ‘conscientisation’ where the

traditional institutional and other devices for silencing are interrupted.

Critical Pedagogy and Epistemic Virtues

Epistemic Virtues: Integrated and Overlapping

• Positionality• Criticality• Subjectivity• Historicity• Relationality• Reflexivity

Critical Pedagogy: Example 1Basic framework: Creating dialogic spaces with self

(reflexivity); with community (class or broader) and with the profession (other teachers/ collaborations)

Teaching Education Research to a group of first year MEd students.

• Students steering the curriculum• Learning by doing• Integrated practice

Critical Pedagogy: Example 2- B.Ed

Beginning with the Autobiography• UNDERSTANDING EDUCATION• Auto/biography Workshop• Exploring self and learning• Setting up the guidelines for the Reflective Journal• Developing the Reflective Practitioner• Developing a philosophy of education

Critical Pedagogy: Example 3- Ed.D

The theme for the Student Seminar is Decolonizing Methodologies: My Perspective. For this seminar, each of you is required to give a 20 minute presentation which addresses the title. You can either: relate your talk to the methodologies you have used, are using or plan to use in your doctoral research OR speak in a more general sense about your views on decolonizing methodologies

Critical Pedagogy: Example 3- Ed.D• Post-colonialism as post-independence and post-British-

mediated education• Decolonization as De-linking Colonial structures,

systems, knowledge and ideologies that have dominated and exploited Caribbean education and society

• Revisiting the ‘Power—Discourse—Praxis’ Relationship• Paradox of British EdD Promoting Decolonization in

Caribbean education….neo-colonialism, de-colonialism or re-colonialism?

• Epistemologic nature of myself as researcher re-writing educational history (Eduardo)

Critical Pedagogy: Example 3- Ed.D• Research in the Caribbean therefore, in my mind

could/should support the human agency which comes with decolonization. It should take into account the indigenous lifestyle, values, history, culture and hopes of the people. Moreover, it should employ the vehicles of their culture, such as language, passions, folklore. The factors of feedback and reciprocity should be built into the exercise whether or not the research is conducted by an insider or outsider. I refer to part of my assignment 5 where I explore the possible use of the orality of the West Indian people which is cultural and expresses their live circumstances which find voice in art forms such as the calypso. (Elphege)

Critical Pedagogy: Example 3- Ed.D

• Because of the multi cultural influence that we face and continue to face in St. Lucia, it is my view that we have evolved into a hybrid cultural space and I ask the questions, “ Is it possible to totally decolonize our research methodologies?” Do we really want to decolonize our research methodologies?” and “ Is it really necessary to decolonize our methodologies?”(Windy)

Critical Pedagogy: Example 3- Ed.D Transformative/Decolonizing methodologies are about

a journey from the periphery to the centre. These methodologies suggest that the colonized should be in control of the body of knowledge, the modes of discovery, analyses and sharing of the results of their research for their own liberation. Decolonizing methodologies are about correcting distortions which required a paradigm shift from the margins to the centre, from the colonizers’ to the colonized peoples’ perspectives, in ‘relation to their epistemologies, ontologies and axiologies’ and as Dr. Eric Williams aptly declares ‘Every age rewrites history, but particularly ours, which has been forced by events to re-evaluate our conceptions of history and economic and political development.’ (BA)

Critical Pedagogy: Example 3- Ed.D• Which part of me do I leave out?

• I have expressed within the time how CP can be an organising, intellectual framework for the teacher.

• The return of the teacher takes on greater significance.

• Plantation pedagogy is therefore central to the choice of the teacher (conscious action) to foster change; to seize where ever the opportunities are to seek social transformation and to develop a practice that blurs the line between the personal and profession and sees the professional as political.

Thank you all for coming and sharing!