Contemporary paradigms of rural teaching: the significance of place.
Green, Nicole C. ; Noone, Genevieve ; Nolan, Andrea 等
INTRODUCTION
The recruitment and retention of teachers in rural and remote
locations is under the government spotlight. Issues relating to tenure
and turnover of skilled and experienced teachers, the impact of
'culture shock' that some early career teachers experience,
affordable housing and limited opportunities for professional learning
in relatively isolated communities have been reported (Productivity
Research Report, 2011). These lead to negative perceptions of rural
Australia which act to deter the take up of teaching positions in
'the bush'. This paper offers more contemporary paradigms of
rural teaching as ways to reconceptualise thinking and move beyond these
negative notions of rural teaching. These paradigms highlight the lived
experiences of being in a rural place. By drawing attention to the
personal, interpersonal and collective experiences of (rural) place, a
better understanding and appreciation of what is experienced by those
working and living in these locations can be gained which can inform
both pre-service teacher preparation and early career teacher support.
Beginning with an overview of the literature examining teacher
preparation for rural and remote settings, the paper then presents two
studies which offer new ways of thinking about teaching in these
communities. Each of these studies begin by drawing attention to the
emotional embodiment the researchers engaged in, as a tool for beginning
to re-imagine rural teaching from a different perspective. This required
a 'letting go' of any negative perceptions of both rurality
and teaching, and engaging with their own and their participants'
lived experiences of (rural) place. This data, which is embodied in the
researcher, has been called transgressive data. Transgressive data
includes data which is emotional, and data which is sensual and
responsive (St Pierre, 1997a). In both studies the researchers attempted
to ensure that the research "honours the views and expressions of
the participants" and that there is a "balance of bias for
both the participants and the researchers" (V allance, 2005,
p.194).
LITERATURE REVIEW: TEACHER PREPARATION FOR RURAL AND REMOTE
LOCATIONS
From an examination of government reports, reviews and inquiries
over three decades, Boylan (2010) concludes that 'special
attention' is needed to prepare teachers to work in rural schools.
This has been supported by Auh and Pegg (2009) who determine the need
for some form of 'intervention' in both the pre-service and
in-service contexts to improve rural education. This
'intervention' in relation to teacher training is seen as
developing preservice teacher understandings of rural schools and rural
life. In the past there has been little or no preparation of teachers
for rural teaching, with emphasis instead being placed on helping
beginning teachers get established once they had started (Baills et al
2002; Howe, 2006). There is now a stronger movement to prepare
preservice teachers adequately before their first teaching appointment.
There is evidence that a range of initiatives have been trialled to
improve preservice teachers' capacity to confidently take up
positions in rural and remote locations. These include innovative ways
of providing authentic teaching experiences for preservice teachers in
rural and remote locations, as well as monitory and/ or resource support
enabling preservice students to take up such practicum opportunities
(Nelligan, 2006; King, 2006; Hudson & Millwater, 2009; White, 2006:
Maxwell, Reid, McLoughlin, Clarke & Nicholls, 2002). Another focus
has been on the course offerings and how understandings of rural
education are embedded within courses (Baills et al, 2002; Page, 2006;
Gregsom, Waters & Gruppetta, 2006). Lock (2008), from research
conducted in Western Australia focusing on the preparation of teachers
for rural appointments, suggests a number of content areas that need
inclusion in teacher preparation courses to ensure a program
specifically targeted rural education. These areas include the
development of appropriate teaching/ learning strategies,
characteristics of students in rural/remote schools, general operation
of rural/remote schools, school expectations of teachers, managing
student behaviour, teaching in multi-age classrooms, support provided
for teachers in rural/remote locations: e.g. District Office as well as
resources within schools themselves, staff-student/staff-parent
relationships in school, staff-student/staff-parent relationships
outside school, community expectations of the school, community
expectations of teachers outside school hours, rural/remote lifestyle,
and development of one's own living skills.
Lock, Reid, Green, Hastings, Cooper and White (2009), reporting on
the first set of data collected from a study of three states, presents
the preliminary conclusion that pre-service education should enable
students to understand the concept of rural social space. For example,
Somerville (2007) experimented with 'place pedagogy' as a
post-graduate student undertook an extended internship at a school in
NSW. This form of authentic learning sprung from the idea that
"learning place and forming community" (p. 1) are part of
preparation for rural service, "especially in the context of
culturally and environmentally challenging places" (p. 1).
Considerations of 'place pedagogy (Somerville, 2007) and
'rural social space' (Lock et al. 2009) provide means to begin
discussions about the impact of place and time on cultural behaviours
when related to rural and remote locations. Student teachers can be
challenged to think about influences impacting on their social lives and
behaviours in these contexts with the notion of 'place'
providing "a category of investigation and analysis"
(Somerville, 2007, p. 1).
It is time to go beyond dominant past approaches to rural
education, gather together all the good ideas about improving rural
teacher education, show what was working and what was not, and develop a
pathway for national development (Lock, Green, Reid, Cooper, White &
Hastings, 2008). What we see as the way forward is the importance of
making connections between preservice teachers learning and their
backgrounds, considering 'place-based pedagogy' (White &
Reid, 2008, p. 48).
The following studies, which received ethical approval from the
participating universities (Study 1--University of Alberta; Study
2--University of New England) and school jurisdictions in which the
studies were conducted, deliberately draw from personal, interpersonal
and collective stories of place, as a way to understand and present the
lived experience of working and living in rural and remote locations.
This is an attempt to go beyond a surface, often negative view that is
equated with rural and remote settings. Each study begins with excerpts
from field notes to offer a sense of the places of inquiry, and then
moves into a consideration of the experiences of the participants in the
studies. Study 1
STUDY 1: SCHOOLROOM PLACES--MOTHERS, CHILDREN AND RURAL PROPERTIES
July 25th ... My first visit to the Michaelson's. My first
visit to any of the families. I feel so alone. Alone in research. Office
mates and university colleagues too far away to share my joys and
anxieties. Supervisor and committee members too far away to ask
methodological questions. Friends too far away to understand. In my car,
sound of the engine, old songs on my tape deck, quick bump of a cattle
grid. In my car, sight of brown landscape, trees in the distance, the
odd car or semi-trailer and a friendly wave from the driver. Large blue
sky; open, clutter-less land; seemingly endless narrow roads, and
then...
Relief! I am on the right road! A small sign, a windmill and
looming shady trees. A turn right and a gate--no remote control? Three
gates to discover; open, close, open, close, open, close.
Feelings of being a city girl. I am distastefully attentive to the
smell of cattle crammed into the metal cages on the semi-trailers
passing by; to the dust which has clogged my nose and caused it to
bleed, and to the concern for my car tyres on the rocky, uneven surface
over the next 21 kilometres to the family's house. Was I ever a
country girl? I have forgotten how to drive safely through "bull
dust," I swerve and veer and become relieved that there is nothing,
nothing around to drive my car into. A connection is lost, could it be
regained? Although my choice was not to continue a life in the country,
I always felt that I could if I had to. Not now. On this Sunday, as I
step out of my dust-soaked car and hear Louise calling my name to join
her in the schoolroom (she is spending the afternoon in the schoolroom
preparing for the week ahead), I stand back and admire the distance ...
I stand back and wonder with curiosity about the distance ... distance
from anywhere ... distance from everyone ... I smile with openness and
walk over to the small wooden building.
August 1st ... Sunday again already. I haven't felt like I
have had time to breathe since I arrived home last Tuesday evening from
the first home visit ... reviewing transcripts, revising interview
questions, responding to journal entries, all in addition to what is
required of me in my teaching role at the school. I am relieved that
this week's visit is only a two-hour drive. When I visit some place
new, I experience such nervousness--am I on the right road? Will I make
it on time? It is always a sense of relief to arrive. This week, it is
not so much about the shorter drive, it is the feeling of being less
remote, less distanced.
August 29h ... Journeying on the 40 kilometres of dirt road, I
experience feelings of despair hoping my car survives the length of my
inquiry ... the corrugation, the unmissed boulders lying on the road,
the dirt sticking to the new suspension. Distance is so relative. I
recall fellow graduate students at the University of Alberta (Canada)
contemplating the one-hour drive to a school outside of the city. I
smile as I think about the 1600 kilometres I have already journeyed in
three visits, with nine visits remaining. I am feeling emotionally
exhausted even though I am enjoying the visits so much. Staying with a
family, each family I do not know very well, keeps me feeling on edge
for the entire three days. I am shy and less talkative so it is a big
effort for me to be around the family constantly and in conversation. I
am fortunate the families are so welcoming and hospitable.
The field notes shared above were recorded during a study of the
distance education experiences of three families in Queensland. As
discussed elsewhere (Green, 2006), much of the previous research on
distance education in Australia has been concerned with innovations in
technology or curriculum. Some attention has been given to home
tutors--their roles, effectiveness and professional development.
Overall, the trend in most reports reveals a tendency to treat home
tutors as deficit and to not value their knowledge and experience. New
curricula tend to be planned on the basis of inference and philosophical
frameworks external to the distance education families. The nature of
the curricula being delivered by new technologies tends not to be
questioned. Therefore, the intent of the study was to learn how the
mothers as home tutors and their children experience distance education
and how it is that they come to experience it in that way. The three
families lived on sheep and cattle properties; enrolling in distance
education due to their geographical isolation. Because the three
families valued both family life and the lifestyle afforded by their
properties, home educating became the first choice option. Louise, Kate
and Cherie, as mothers, chose to be home tutors in their distance
education programs because of the costs of engaging governesses
(employed tutors) to take this role.
Data collection occurred during four three-day visits with each
family over a period of six months. The participants and I selected the
most appropriate data collection methods to gain insight into their
experiences and their narratives--dialogue journals, photography,
drawing, informal conversations and semi-structured interviews, and
observations. As a first level of analysis, a descriptive narrative
portrait of each family and daily life on the family's property and
in its schoolroom was crafted. Well-crafted narratives were needed to
illuminate the ambiguity and complexity of the family's experiences
(Tuan, 1991). In further analysis work all of the data were examined to
address three questions: (1) how did the mothers experience being home
tutors; (2) how did the children experience the places of their everyday
lives both in the schoolroom and on their properties; and (3) how did
everyday life in the schoolrooms evolve as it did. The following offers
snapshots of the findings relevant for this paper.
PLACE, RELATIONSHIPS AND EVERYDAY LIFE
As the home tutors and students spend just over 150 days of the
year in their schoolrooms, these spaces are transformed into places as
they become invested with meaning by the mothers and children. The
initial research question framed for the study was: How do home tutors
and students create and experience a 'school learning place'
for the distance education program? My use of the word,
'experience', in this question reflected my understanding of
place as everyday life in a space, or the whole experience of being
there (Ellis, 2005). I used the word, 'create', because I
expected that home tutors would have agency in introducing rules,
routines, and resources in the schoolrooms. I also expected that both
home tutors and children would be shaping everyday lives for themselves
in the schoolrooms. In hindsight I would say that the research question
became: How did everyday life in the families' schoolrooms come to
evolve as it did? This second version of a way of framing the research
question better reflects an appreciation that much of what happened in
the schoolrooms happened in spite of rather than because of the agency
of the home tutors and children.
I tried to make sense of the home tutors' and children's
everyday lives both within and outside of the schoolrooms. I sought to
understand how each 'school learning place'--the everyday life
that was evolving in the schoolroom--reflected or arose from the
resources, relationships, rules, and routines of the schoolroom and the
identities of its inhabitants. Using place as a conceptual framework, I
recognized that the everyday lives home tutors and children shaped for
themselves in the schoolrooms would be constrained by structural
formations of place (Eyles, 1989)--rules, resources, routines,
relationships--and influenced by the identities they had already been
constructing in places outside of the schoolrooms (Ashcroft, 2001). I
also expected that the meaning of activities in the schoolrooms to home
tutors and children would be informed by the values, motivations, and
roles they experienced in their routine activities and interactions
outside of the schoolrooms (Ashcroft, 2001).
Place is both a human conception and a social construction. It is
the experiences, activities, routines and interactions (or ways of
inhabiting a space) to which individuals or groups assign meaning,
thereby creating and defining a place. There exists a reciprocal
relationship between people and places because the inhabitants of a
place do not exist independently of that place (Helfenbein, 2004).
Meaning is a key attribute of place and this has often been discussed
within the topic of sense of place (Derr, 2002; Lippard, 1997; Rivlan,
1990). Using all of these understandings about place in my inquiry, I
paid attention to everyday life within and outside of the schoolrooms. I
remained alert to the ways in which everyday life in the whole place of
the home sites might be a source of meaning for the families'
interpretations of events in the schoolrooms. I expected that the
identities home tutors and children brought with them into the
schoolrooms would play out in the kind of 'school learning
places' that evolved. I was aware of the significance of the
resources, rules, routines, and available relationships in the
schoolrooms as structures constraining the everyday life that
constituted the 'school learning places'. Being aware of these
ideas focused my attention as I endeavoured to perceive and make sense
of the complexity and dynamics of everyday life both within and outside
of the schoolrooms on the families' properties.
I paid particular attention to the relationships between the home
tutors and their children as these were negotiated or re-worked in the
schoolrooms. I was very interested in the quality of the relationships
and social interactions in the schoolrooms (Clark & Uzzell, 2002). I
observed that the women in the three families had pedagogical
relationships with their children in other places outside of the
schoolrooms (Wenger, 1998). Learning and teaching extended beyond the
schoolroom door, into the house yard, into the sheep or cattle yards,
into large work sheds, into the seamlessly endless paddocks, into dried
creek beds and water-filled dams, into town communities and
school-organized events. I paid attention to the mothers' diverse
personal, familial and professional roles in other places to further my
understanding of their behaviour in the schoolrooms.
I learned about the relationships available to children and home
tutors in the larger places of their everyday lives. Further, by
inquiring into the children's everyday life experiences in the
places they used outside of the schoolrooms. I was inclined to consider
how the children's experiences in the schoolrooms were the same or
different from their experiences in other places. I was able to better
appreciate their identities and their responses to everyday life in the
schoolrooms (Chawla, 1992). Learning what was afforded in their
favourite places outside of the schoolrooms helped me to consider both
the nature of experiences that were supported or limited within their
schoolrooms and their responses to these (Gibson, 1997).
The following interpretive accounts and analyses result from my
efforts to makes sense of how and why the school learning
places--everyday life in the schoolrooms--were evolving in the ways they
were. I endeavoured to understand what everyday life in the schoolrooms
was like for home tutors and children, why it was like that, how it came
to be that way, and what it meant for home tutors and the children to
experience it in those ways.
LIVING THE CURRICULUM-AS-PLAN
Louise, Kate and Cherie are mothers who care for their children,
want to give them a good lifestyle, and want to ensure that they have a
good education. The home tutors valued both family life and the
lifestyles afforded to families by living on the remote properties they
had. Home schooling became a forced choice because of these values. Thus
they began their home tutoring work with the support of the Gorman
School of Distance Education. Once in the roles of home tutors, the
mothers worked within their means and ways of understanding to do a good
job as teachers for their children. The mothers accepted the role of
home tutors and saw it as a serious responsibility. They valued
education highly and believed their children's formal school years
would equip them with the skills, knowledge, attitudes and work habits
that would provide opportunities for success.
The resources provided by the Gorman School of Distance Education
were very significant as a structural formation constraining everyday
life in the schoolrooms. Although the three women were not always happy
about the described or prescribed curriculum, they did not have the
background to work well with it differently. What they did have, was a
belief that their own educations had been successful experiences and a
strong desire to support their children's education.
Louise, Kate and Cherie did not have professional preparation for
teaching. Within their own ways of understanding teaching and learning,
however, they were adamant about standards for doing things properly.
Because of their isolation, Louise, Kate and Cherie also lacked access
to many resources or experiences that might have informed their critique
of the dated curriculum or their understanding of teaching, learning and
development in ways other than what was stated or implied in the
correspondence papers. In discussions about the curriculum materials,
Louise, Kate and Cherie did not speak of the curriculum in terms of
learning philosophies or teaching approaches. Each of them did, however,
express concerns of one kind or another about the curriculum. For
example, Cherie recognized the content of the curriculum was not always
conducive to enjoyable learning as there was such a large amount of work
to be completed in such a short period. Louise spoke about some topics
within the curriculum as not being relevant to her children because of
their experience in the place they live. Kate recognised that many of
the activities are closed-ended in terms of allowing her daughter,
Melissa, choice and giving her the opportunity to bring in her knowledge
and experiences. With continued distance education experience from year
to year, working from the same curriculum more than once, and receiving
feedback as each year progressed, Louise, Kate and Cherie showed that
they were increasingly familiar and confident with the curriculum
materials. They felt comfortable in making certain decisions about
leaving some activities out, usually activities like art or music, or
adapting some of the activities to ensure their child/ren's
understandings of a concept. However, even with this increased
confidence and familiarity, the home tutors' actions and words
remained focused on being able to: 1. See the work completed; 2. Tell
the school of distance education staff teacher the work is completed; 3.
Complete the curriculum work on time, and 4. Receive feedback from the
school of distance education staff teacher.
The home tutors were vigilant about the responsibility they felt to
have their children complete the prescribed school work. They were
trying hard to make sure that their children got a 'good
education'. Each home tutor ensured that the 'school day'
outlined in the curriculum materials was completed, in particular, the
activities in their child/ren's workbooks which were to be sent to
the school of distance education staff teacher.
HOME TUTORING AS 'A CHORE' AND DOING A GOOD JOB
Living and working on sheep and/or cattle properties in Western
Queensland, each home tutor was also a
partner/co-worker/homemaker/mother on her property. As part of the
research each of the women took photographs of their daily lives and
discussed these with me. In categorizing the photographs, the women
differentiated between chores that needed to be done as opposed to
activities they would choose to do out of interest or
enjoyment--something that needs to be done, something that one accepts,
but something that keeps one from other activities of greater interest.
The mothers' memories of their own school experience resonated
with and supported the 'follow directions' approach offered by
the distance education materials. Everyday life on the properties meant
that time was a limited resource. The home tutors felt compelled to
contain the time in the schoolrooms to very specific and tight time
frames. This made the time and activities in the schoolrooms feel very
pressured and made routines and schedules in the schoolroom very
important. Experiencing the home tutoring work in this way--as pushing
children through the completion of all of the prescribed daily tasks on
schedule--was very stressful. Even finding time to prepare for daily
tasks in the schoolroom was stressful given that the home tutors had
multiple roles and responsibilities as mothers, wives, property workers,
and community members.
The 'household work' and the 'property work'
completed by the women involved keeping up to schedules, doing
particular tasks on time, seeing tangible results, and being able to
evaluate the work's results. Unlike most chores in their daily
lives, the women's work in the schoolrooms could not be easily
evaluated. Without professional backgrounds in teaching, how would they
know if they were doing a good job? Routines, deadlines, and the
tangible product of completed workbooks became the daily criteria for
their evaluation of their work in the schoolroom.
The women did have other occasions to appreciate their successful
teaching. For example, they witnessed their children spontaneously
reading or counting outside of the schoolroom, their children received
awards, and their children became more willing to stay at distance
education school-organized events without their mothers remaining with
them. On a daily basis, however, all that they largely had to go by was
the completion of the prescribed activities for the day.
BEING 'MOTHER-TEACHERS'
In this study of the school learning places that evolve when
mothers are the home tutors in the schoolrooms I have had the
opportunity to witness what can happen when women are mothers first and
then become their children's teachers. To better appreciate their
ways of being teachers, I paid attention to the ways in which they are
mothers. This sub-section is intended to offer a sense of the way they
live out their mothering roles.
Louise, Kate and Cherie spend time with their children in a
multitude of contexts in the house, in the sheep and cattle yards, out
in locations within the wider property boundaries, in the local town/s
at community, sporting and school-related events. Depending on the place
and the activity, the mothers assumed many diverse roles in relation to
their children. While visiting with friends, watching or participating
with their children in physical activity, doing tasks together, or
sharing a meal, Louise, Kate and Cherie took roles such as
'protector', 'friend', 'coach',
'cheerleader', 'judge', 'pastor',
'encourager', 'teacher', and 'police
person' in relation with their children.
Louise, Kate and Cherie all enjoy playing with their children,
laughing and joking with their children, having conversations with them
about current affairs or closer-to-home issues, and relaxing with them.
They independently observed, judged and encouraged their children's
competence in many activities. In the school learning places, these
multiple dimensions of their mother-child relationship were markedly
less evident in their home tutor--student relationships. Their
inclination to extend themselves to support their children's growth
and development in their daily lives outside of the schoolrooms was
clearly evident.
As mothers, each of the women felt responsible for their
children's growth and development. The three women's
'just get it done' approach to being home tutors in the
schoolrooms may have been a consequence of their lack of knowledge and
interest related to teaching, and/ or their expectations for how to
'do a good job of chores', and/or, the constant press of being
with one's children. In these comments, Cherie also speculated that
mothers as home tutors expect more from their children which can
exacerbate the sense of pressure they feel in that role.
THE CHILDREN'S EXPERIENCE OF THEIR 'MOTHER-TEACHERS'
The children's experiences were analysed using Chawla's
(1992) and Langhout's (2003) understandings of 'place
attachment', and Rasmussen's notion of 'children's
places' (rather than 'places for children'). The seven
children in the study had many places and activities they enjoyed within
and outside of the families' properties. These places supported the
development of self-identity both by affording opportunities for them to
try out predefined roles in conventional settings and by offering
unprogrammed space (Chawla, 1992). They learned to muster, build fences,
clean ponds, work in the garden, cook, ride horses, build motorbikes,
and more with encouraging attention and useful feedback from their
parents. Research by Rasmussen (2004) and others (e.g., Bartlett 1990;
Hart 1978; Hester 1985) has shown that children prefer to play in
naturalistic places rather than those that are landscaped. Malleable
environments provide better opportunity for imaginative play (Chawla,
1992). In their own unprogrammed space on the properties they built
private retreats, jumps for their bikes, and a variety of temporary
structures for use in their imaginative play. The places of their
everyday lives outside of the schoolrooms supported meaningful
relationships and opportunities for creative expression and exploration.
The children experienced and enjoyed their mothers in many roles and
moods outside of the schoolroom.
As the children and I looked at the photographs they had taken of
the various places of their daily lives, we discussed their views on
'mum' in different places. The children described the places
where they had the most fun with their mothers and the places where they
didn't enjoy being with them. In their own ways, the children
related how their mothers behaved in different places, including the
schoolroom. None of the children had taken a photograph of the
schoolroom; however, they all described their 'mum' as being
different there--different from the way she was in other places. Nathan
had difficulty in articulating the difference but just knew she was
different in the garden than in the schoolroom. All the children
described 'school' as a place they didn't like but they
all also appreciated having their mothers as their teachers and
preferred to work with them rather than having any volunteer retired
teachers who visited annually for six weeks. For both the children and
the home tutors, the experience of everyday life in the schoolrooms--the
school learning places that were evolving--was an aversive one.
THE MOTHERS' PERCEPTIONS OF THEMSELVES IN THE SCHOOLROOM
Each of the women believed that their identities did not change
when they were in their schoolrooms. They viewed themselves as their
children's mothers and the difference in their role was not that of
becoming a 'teacher' utilising particular skills, knowledge
and abilities, but a difference in their attitude to the task.
The mothers acknowledged that they did not take some of these more
enjoyable aspects of themselves into the schoolroom. The mothers'
more limited and less enjoyable forms of interaction with their children
in the schoolrooms, together with the routined approach to following the
distance education materials meant that the school learning places that
evolved lacked aspects of children's favourite places opportunities
for social affiliation, creative expression and exploration (Chawla,
1992) or social support, autonomy, and positive feelings (Langhout,
2003).
The three women viewed the school curriculum work as a task to be
completed. No 'mucking around' suggests completion of the task
is to be undertaken seriously. While the women saw their identity as
parent and educator as not different, one could argue that the tasks,
roles and responsibilities required of each were quite different. One
could also argue that the multiple parent roles they demonstrated so
spontaneously and adeptly outside of the classroom, e.g.,
'encourager', 'coach', 'playmate', etc.
were not as evident in the schoolrooms. The distance education
materials, while providing a resource for home tutors, failed to rescue
school learning activities from becoming simply a chore for both
students and home tutors.
This summary of highlights from the findings has underscored the
way the schoolrooms as places were parts of the larger place of the
families' properties. For both home tutors and children, the
schoolroom experiences could not be well understood in isolation from
the network of the other places and experiences in their everyday lives.
As in this first study, the study presented in the following pages
also used the concept of place as a central organising theme, beginning
with the notion of sense of place, moving to an exploration of place as
an experience; as a mutual relation. This second study also moved from
the concept of the individuated self to the Deleuzo-Guattarian (1988)
rhizomatic notion of becoming. Place and becoming themselves are
constructed as relational concepts, and so a complex picture of
movements is created to represent the often difficult and challenging
work of teaching in an unfamiliar (rural) place.
STUDY 2: CLASSROOM PLACES--TEACHERS, PUPILS AND RURAL COMMUNITIES
12th January 2005. It is a very hot day. I head off about 1
o'clock in the afternoon. After the drive down off the tablelands,
the landscape for most of the rest of the 400 odd kilometres of the trip
from my home to Neil's place is undulating, the vegetation varying
from completely cleared cropping land, through partly cleared open
woodland and closer scrubby land, to densely vegetated (at least by the
road) eucalypt and native pine forests. On one particularly flat stretch
of road, the view out the front window is very hazy, as is the view in
the rear view mirror. It is like driving in a steam-filled bubble ...
Everything is fuzzy. I'd driven this stretch of road often ... and
every time it felt like this: a feeling of being "out of
place"; of being in-between, in-between home and my destination.
And it is the same today. And so hot. With the air-conditioning vents
turned so as the cool air is blowing onto my hot skin, I feel cold; my
body shivers. But if I turn the vents away from my body so as the cool
air fills the car, I feel my body burning up--the direct sun on my
"driver's arm" and the radiated heat from the dashboard
are unbearable ...
Sunday 13th March 2005... as always, the vegetation fascinates me:
What is that crop? And that one? Which eucalypts are these? Are these
pines really native? There is so much one doesn't know when one is
"out of place".
19 March 2005 ... The drought is bad out this way and I come across
several drovers and their herds of cattle on the stock routes along the
sides of the road. And always, on the horizon, are the ever present dust
clouds...
20 March 2005. I am up early this morning and off for a walk. It is
lovely and cool. Even this time of year the days are still very hot and
this time of day, just before sunrise, is the only time the air feels
cool and fresh.
6th June 2005. In a small village, about an hour from Nicola's
place, I stop at a cafe. The sun is setting and has been blinding for
the past twenty minutes. When I set off again the sun has dropped below
the rolling hills. The sky is a magnificent luminous pink ... As I
continue westwards, the horizon broadens and becomes more distant, and
the sky fades to deeper shades of orange and purple. The evening star
appears. As all about me grows darker I look in vain for the lights of
Nicola's place: surely I am not far away now! At last, as I round a
bend in the road, the lights of a cotton gin appear, and soon after a
few scattered street and house lights. Almost there!
25th October 2005. I arrive about 12 noon. Rick's place is hot
(and it is only late October)... I drive ... to the caravan park to book
into my cabin. It is shaded but the air inside is still and warm. I open
all the windows and turn on the fan. Still it seems airless, so I take a
chair out onto the porch where a slight (albeit warm) breeze is blowing
. At the school I sign in and show myself to the staffroom. It is cool.
Oh so cool. Thank goodness for air conditioning ... The bell rings.
Shortly I will have to venture out into the hot concrete yard and find
Rick
I, too, am a country girl. I grew up 'out west', and
always thought I could return to live in the country, but I appear to
have lost my tolerance for the heat that is a part of these rural
places.
SENSING PLACE
We all have a sense of place; a sense of who we are and how we are
relating to the place in which we find ourselves at any given moment.
Some of us attune ourselves to this sense more than others. Some of us
are better able to 'name' it; to put into words this
relationship between our sense of self and the environment around us.
Just as the 'mother-teachers' and children in the prior study
had a sense of place--a sense of who they were in the different spaces
in their daily lives--so too did the five graduate teachers in this
second study have a sense of place; a sense of themselves as 'in
relation with' the places they had been appointed to as newly
graduated teachers.
This second study explored the relations between graduate teachers
and the unfamiliar (rural) places to which they were appointed. Five
teachers were followed through their first year of teaching. The cohort
consisted of male and female teachers, teaching in both public and
private schools, and the contexts included a four year old kindergarten
class, a K-2 class, and secondary trained teachers teaching classes from
Year 7 to Year 10, (as well as some primary classes). The teachers were
visited once each of the four teaching terms in their first year, and
were observed and interviewed. Four of the teachers also took part in a
two day arts workshop in the school holidays following the first term.
The data gathered consisted of: (i) interview transcripts, transcribed
as spoken language, in poetic form; (ii) observation notes and a
researcher's journal; and (iii) objects and artefacts collected
and/or created by the teachers. The latter were photographed. The first
phase of analysis involved both the searching for themes from the
textual data, and the creation of textual and text/image artefacts to
explore and represent different ways of knowing, and different
knowledges. These first level analyses were then explored through the
geophilosophy of Deleuze and Guattari (1988), to create different ways
of thinking about and understanding the relationship between (rural)
place and becoming-teacher.
Studies of place suggest the possibility of, and explore the nature
of, personal intimate relationships between humans and place (Abram,
1996; Bachelard, 1994; Bonyhady & Griffiths, 2002; Buber, 1958;
Somerville, 1999): describing how it is to "be bound up in
relation" with place (Buber, 1958), with the animate and/or
inanimate; and of the need for the "human and non-human to attend
to each other" (Bonyhady & Griffiths, 2002). Abram (1996)
argues that these relationships first require an awareness of and
receptivity to place; not as an object, but as a mutual relation. Prior
to their engagement in this study the teachers would not necessarily
have been aware of and receptive to the non-human in their places; and
may not have been aware of and receptive to all that was human in their
place.
To be able to explore the teachers' relations with place I
first had to facilitate their awareness of and receptivity to their
place. I began by asking each of them to "tell me about this
place"; to tell me about the rural place in which they were living
and teaching; and then I asked more specifically for them to tell me
about their relationships with others in this place, and about times of
silence and solitude.
EXPERIENCING (SENSING) PLACE
place and becoming
If we conceive of place as an experience, and as consisting of
relationships, then the places the teachers were appointed to were
different places when they arrived, to what they had been before their
arrival. The teachers' presence in these rural places changed the
places; changed the relations occurring in these places. The
participants were in places that could be mapped and charted; they were
in mutual relation with these places; they embodied place; they created
the places they inhabited; and their bodies were themselves places.
today was cold
yesterday wasn't too bad
it just depends on how frosty it is
I'm not used to the flatness
I go for a bike ride and it's flat
I like the bike riding here
this town doesn't actually do
deliveries [of babies] any more
they've taken out the facilities
another state government brilliant idea
I think the doctors were prepared to do it here
but the state government removed the facilities
and took them to the nearby rural city
and now they want us to go there
it's not
that far away
but it's far enough away to
have your own
time and your own
events
it's a busy place
you're not only the school
you're the meeting place for the parents after school
you're the meeting place for other children to be picked
up
you're the meeting place for playgroup
parents actually meet here at the school
it's not just a school
we had some rain and some of the farms were blocked off from
everything
get that out here
I see the classroom as having a really big interaction
with the environment and everything that's happening in it
because it just
evolves around all of that
have noticed the Aboriginal English
doesn't really worry me but
you notice it
I don't know how to describe it
I'd say it's more concise than how we talk
they're straight to the point
I'm sure Aboriginal English is something that
varies too
but I think we do waste a lot of words sometimes
whereas they just go straight to the point
in this town I've noticed
you've got your higher class
like even higher than middle class really
and then you've got your lower
lower class
that seems to be the two
there seems to be nothing in-between
this town is not as bad as people make
out
Place as an experience fits well with the Deleuzo-Guattarian notion
of a multiplicity (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988). A multiplicity has no
object and no subject, only events; only movements. And there are
different qualities of movement; different speeds and slownesses.
Deleuze and Guattari use the imagery of a rhizome to describe this
notion. While a tree has an hierarchical root system, a rhizome moves
horizontally, with shoots emanating from ruptures at seemingly random
points. So it is with a multiplicity. Rather than linearity, it
represents ruptures and unpredictable movements. And what is important
is not the points, but the movement between them. The experience of
place is not something that can be predicted. It is a relation that is
influenced by the experiences of the human and non-human, the animate
and the inanimate.
Just as place can be conceived of as a multiplicity, so too can
'becoming'; the development of new and different
relationships. The participants in this study were becoming-teacher.
While their physical makeup did not change, their movements did: they
were developing new relations, new ways of being.
teacher-pupil relations
Teachers' relations with their pupils are at the very heart of
their experiences of place. McConaghy et al (2006, p. 26) argue that:
While all teachers have to recontextualise their practice at least
to some extent in different rural settings, they also have to
enable their students to recontextualise their worldviews ... a
rural teacher's journey involves his or her students both
implicitly and explicitly ... [the teacher's journey is bound] with
the journeys of the teacher's students.
The importance of the teacher-pupil relation is captured by van
Manen (1994, pp. 140-141) in his use of the term pedagogy. As opposed to
terms such as curriculum, instruction, or teaching, he uses the term
pedagogy to encapsulate the concept of teaching as a relation.
liking children
respecting children
I think that's probably the biggest thing
respect
they are people
I think people forget that
I show them that I'm
interested in what they're interested in
I'm interested in them
as a person learning and developing
if I make that time
especially for the fringe dwellers
if I make that time for them
it's lovely
it's lovely
you just build on a relationship
then you've just got something to work with
It's really funny like they walk up to you and
"ohh Ms A I did this on the weekend"
I have one who will run up and probably give me a hug
half way through the day or something and she'll say
"you know I missed you over the weekend"
ooh I missed you too
that's always a balance
trying to be soft but
fair
but also disciplined
there's always that balance of
trying to make sure that they are on the
right level
and I'm being fair to them and giving them
a go
that's something
I'm conscious of that I need to work at
and continue to work at that one because
they're all individuals
I think I relate to all of them different
but I try to be fair
and even
how you actually interact with them is different because of
their understandings
of interactions
The most common word the teachers used to describe their
relationships with their pupils was respect. It is talked about as a
two-way process--if you want respect, you first have to give it.
Irigaray (cited in Casey 1997, pp. 328-9) however, contends that
"respect" misses the mark. What is needed is intimacy and
nearness. Similarly, MacQuarrie (2006, p. 49) argues that the current
emphases on observation, interpretation and analysis of students creates
the student as a 'known entity', an other, and in so doing
actually hinders the student's ability to engage in the processes
of transformation and change. Instead she suggests that it is through
'being in relation with our students'--through being present
with them in dialogue, that we can best facilitate these processes. In
interpolating Winnicot's work to the classroom she suggests that to
move to "being in relation" requires the teacher to survive
"the student's attempts at destruction" (p.41). Survival
is the abstaining from the impulse to retaliate. In Deleuzo-Guattarian
rhizomatics the notions of strata (as bodily impulses) and
destratification (as abstractions) are used to represent such movements
as these. The teachers abstaining from the impulse to retaliate is the
abstraction that frees themselves from the known and actively engages
them in becomings. After destratification we return to the comfort of
the strata but we are no longer the same multiplicities we were before
our destratification. Every movement of becoming changes the
multiplicities:
every undertaking of destratification (... plunging into a
becoming) must ... observe concrete rules of extreme caution: a too
sudden destratification may be suicidal, or turn cancerous. In other
words, it will sometimes end in chaos, the void and destruction, and
sometimes lock us back into the strata, which become more rigid still,
losing their degrees of diversity, differentiation, and mobility
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1988, p. 503).
Developing relations with and in unfamiliar (rural) places,
developing pedagogy, is a risk. In discussing pedagogy and place Smith
(1997, p. 4) contends that:
Whatever the pedagogy of place may be, it has little to do with a
warm cosy relationship with an imagined nature, and perhaps more to
do with the courage to befriend one's own mortality in the midst of
the ongoing project of self understanding.
A pedagogy of place requires a self understanding--an awareness--of
ones' relations with place, and this requires courage. In creating
an awareness of their places the teachers were indeed becoming aware of
themselves in relation to place; and in doing so they were becoming
aware of their becoming-teacher.
solitude & silence
... in our peaceful moments we are ... sensitive inhabitants of the
forests of ourselves
(a translation of Jules Supervielle in Bachelard 1994/1958, p. 187)
The teachers told me much about the speeds of being teacher in a
rural place, and I wondered about the slownesses; so I asked them tell
me about times of solitude and silence.
I've even learnt to have
time alone
when I've got 25 kids on instruments
which is quite amazing
and when I'm walking through the playground
"Miss E come and have a look at this..."
even in all of that I've learnt to
create my own space
I now understand how people can live in a city but still have
anonymity and
aloneness
what I love the most is
sitting in the car
I travel to the nearby regional centre and back
for various functions
that's my solitude
that's why I used to like doing long haul truck driving
I can wind the window down and
s-s-sing as loud as
and the only things that can hear me are the cows and the kangaroos
physically alone
not very often at home
on weekends or after school hours I can be alone at the school
it's often silent on the outside
I love silence
on the condition that noise is not far away if I need
it
it's never really silent
you've got the cows mooing
you've got the turkeys
if I go for a walk of an afternoon
a student along the road down here
he'll come outs
I get further down the road and another parent has a chat
right up around the corner another parent comes out for a chat
so
even when
it is the silent sort of time
there isn't that silence
I've started staying up just so I can have that bit of quiet time
sometimes I will put the kids to bed at 7:30
just because I need
peace and quiet
the Japanese gardens
we try to go out there as often as possible
just sit out there and
relax
its just a great place
I'm very much at peace just sitting there
and it's quiet
There was some sort of solitude and/or silence, or perhaps it would
be better described as stillness, in each of the teachers' lives.
One teacher was even able to create a space of stillness in a noisy
class of students, and a playground of children. Perhaps the teachers
needed to create places of stillness. Rather than silence, perhaps what
is important are places of stillness, of lack of movement; time and
space for inward contemplation; time for connecting with the new speeds
and slownesses of becomings in a rural place.
PLACE, RELATIONSHIPS AND 'BECOMING'
The aim of the study was to create different understandings of
rural teaching. Deleuzo-Guattarian philosophy was used in the analysis
to create new perspectives of the teacher and teaching, and to engage
with conceptions of place that enable an exploration of the relations
between becoming-teacher and place. It is these different ways of
relating and being that this study sought to explore. A becoming-teacher
is movement; it is relations with new speeds and slownesses and
different capacities. McConaghy and Bloomfield (2004, p. 103) suggest
that the displacement that accompanies the physical movement of teachers
from one location to another "presents for teachers the possibility
of new ways of knowing, being and relating that accompany the process of
transformation." Part of becoming-teacher is engaging with the
unfamiliar and being transformed by the resultant changes in relations
and capacities.
USING 'PLACE' TO INFORM TEACHER EDUCATION
Scholars from many disciplines, including cultural geography,
sociology, philosophy, psychology, education, and environmental studies,
have elucidated the significance of using place as a fundamental idea in
researching human experience.
According to Casey (1997, p. 202ff) place made its re-entry in the
realm of western philosophy 'by way of body;' through
philosophies which connected place with the body; with the notions of
lived-body. Abram (1996) too, writes of the experience of place through
the body, through the senses. For Abram, place is a sensual experience.
Feld (1996, p. 91) also writes of the sensual connection with place:
as place is sensed
senses are placed
as place makes sense
senses make place
Place is both physical and metaphysical. And place is also more
than what is experienced in the here and now. Our experience of any
place is influenced by other experiences of other places. In the two
studies presented, we have drawn upon common elements in place
literature to clarify a number of ideas about place: how space becomes
place; how people and places are mutually transformative; dimensions or
attributes of the meaning of places, and place as a significant medium
through which teachers in rural schoolrooms and classrooms develop their
pedagogy. Using place instead of context serves as a reminder of the
human agency in place making and prompts critical interpretation of the
social structures and relationships that shape everyday life experiences
in rural and remote settings.
In reflecting on the literature, writing and presenting the
narratives and interpretive accounts from the two studies, we are
mindful that they are merely our best snapshots of temporary moments in
the passing stream of life. Nespor (1997) similarly cautions that events
re-presented, analysed and interpreted in research are not static. In
our continued relationships with each family and with each teacher, we
appreciate that, in many ways, they have changed, or their situations
have changed.
The ongoing questions generated from the two studies are presented
here to contribute to the conversation about preparing and supporting
rural and remote teaching in Australia:
* How do/can teachers learn to be, become and belong in (rural)
place?
* What if teachers were better able to sense place, and to develop
appropriate relations of speeds and slownesses and capacities to respond
creatively to place?
* What if, in preparing teachers for a profession which often
requires moving to unfamiliar places (sometimes many times over the
course of one's teaching career), there was a focus on
teachers' awarenesses of, and capacities to develop, mutual
relations with place through creating awarenesses of their connections
to the places they inhabit--now, in the past, and in the (imagined)
future?
* What if directors of early learning environments, school
principals and education department personnel were to conceive of
becoming-teacher as an ongoing, multiple and complex process which,
rather than being an event contained within individuated persons for a
given period of linear time, involves relationships between all members
of the centre and school communities as well as the nonhuman, animate
and inanimate of the places in which the event of teacher occurs?
* What if there was recognition of the ways that newly appointed
teachers create and shape centres and schools and affect children, their
peers and others, rather than a focus on their 'needs' and
inadequacies and their tendencies to not stay long enough?
... perhaps rural teachers would have more capacity to develop a
stronger sense of place and its relation to them as teachers. Perhaps
.....
We write this paper with the intent that the two studies and the
questions will support more useful ways of thinking about and exploring
experiences of teaching in rural and remote settings. We also share the
two studies with the intent to invite other researchers of rural and
remote education in Australia to consider similar methods and conceptual
frameworks in their work. It is through readers' responses and
interpretations of this text, that even more provocative ideas and
questions about practice and research will be generated.
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Nicole C. Green
University of Southern Queensland
Genevieve Noone
University of New England
Andrea Nolan
University of Victoria