Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education
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On Avoiding Reductionist Pitfalls in Education - A review of Systems Theory for Pragmatic Schooling: Toward Principles of Democratic Education
No full textMultiple Possibilities: The Multi-literate Lives of Three Children
No full textThis paper presents findings from an eleven-year ethnographic study which describes how three children used different sign systems to become literate, to define who they are and to construct their literate identity. They each engaged with literacies in powerful and life transforming ways. Each child used multiple literacies to learn, understand and create meaning more fully; using their motivated interest in a preferred literacy to scaffold their learning of another literacy.In analysing this rich literacies use I have come to understand that literacies are complex in their conception and use and that all sign systems (e.g. art, dance, reading, writing, videogaming, etc.) operate using common semiotic principles. Sign systems as literacies are multimodal, meaning-focused and motivated; they involve specific social and cultural practices which differ depending on site and community. During every literate act the children in this study made extensive use of the semantic, sensory, syntactic and pragmatic cuing systems to make meaning, regardless of the literacies used.
Transforming Teacher Education Thinking: Complexity and Relational Ways of Knowing
No full textIn order that teacher education programs can act as significant scaffolds in supporting new teachers to become informed, creative and innovative members of a highly complex and valuable profession, we need to re-imagine ways in which teacher education programs operate. We need to re-imagine how courses are conceptualized and connected, how learning is shared and how knowledge, not just “professional”, but embedded knowledge in authentic contexts of teaching and learning is understood, shaped and re-applied. Drawing on our study of a locally developed program in secondary teacher education called Transformative University of Victoria (TRUVIC), we offer a relational approach to knowing as an alternative to more mechanistic explanations that limit teacher growth and development. To ground our interpretation, we draw on complexity theory as a theory of change and emergence that supports learning as distributed, relational, adaptive and emerging
Reconceptualizing dominant discourses in early childhood education: Exploring ‘readiness’ as an active-ethical-relation
No full textThis paper considers that the landscape of early childhood education in England is dominated by discourses of \u27readiness-for-school\u27 and \u27readiness-for-learning’ that act to heavily stratify the educational spaces inhabited by young children. The \u27ready-child\u27 is constructed as a normative identity towards which the ‘unready’ child is expected to progress. The confinement of children within such predetermined subject positions is considered problematic, as inevitably not all children will achieve these normative ideals, resulting in their exclusion from positions of \u27success\u27, as defined by dominant educational narratives. In response to these concerns, this article seeks to disrupt dominant conceptualizations of \u27readiness\u27 in the context of early childhood education, attempting to produce a rupture in the educational landscape, expanding space for alternative ideas, theories and practices. In a deliberate move away from concepts that relate \u27readiness\u27 to predefined goals, outcomes and identities, this article explores the possibility of thinking with a complex logic in order to generate new ideas, understandings and practices. Approaching complexity from the ‘outside-in’, this paper draws in particular on the concept of \u27becoming\u27 (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), exploring \u27readiness\u27 as a complex process of emergence, always open to the unpredictable and the new. It is argued that ‘readiness’ is part of an open-ended ‘becoming’, rather than a pre-defined ‘state’. Drawing on the work of Deleuze (1983), Deleuze and Guattari (1987) and Dewey (1899/2010; 1916), this reconceptualized idea of \u27readiness\u27 does not hark back to romantic notions that might consider all forms of development equally valid or desirable. This paper argues, instead, that it matters greatly what and how children ‘become’ and as such, ‘readiness’ for these emergent ‘becomings’ must be considered an ethical and political endeavor.
Getting Out of the Way: Learning, Risk, and Choice
No full textStudents learn best when teachers get out of the way. Unfortunately, university classrooms continue to be intensely teacher-centric, are driven by the teacher’s agenda and calendar, and embrace simple models rather complex alternatives. These simple types of learning environments frustrate students’ development of the risk-taking and choice making confidence they need in the workplace. Bain (2004) makes the point that environments embracing choice as a priority, welcoming risk taking, and nurturing students who make mistakes, are better at preparing students for professional success. In this paper, we intend to provide context to the conversation about how learning-risks and agency impact and promote the individual growth of the student when the teacher gets out of the way.Combining a Rapid Assessment Process (RAP) (Beebe, 2001) informed by Action Research (AR) (Stringer, 2007; Schön, 1983; Argyris, 1993) we devised an experiment to determine if a university course would invite more student growth when the environment changed from being teacher-centric with highly structured assignments and critical assessments, to one that embraces the tenets of complexity theory. The purpose of this approach was an attempt to challenge the status quo; to show how complex interactions between risk-taking, agency, learning culture, teacher-facilitator-mentors, peers, coursework, and outcomes are important to students’ preparation for successful professional work. To accomplish this we experimented within a software development course at a large university in the northwestern United States and found students appeared more prepared to move on to the professional workplace when they had experienced risk taking and agency in a learning environment based on complexity theory precepts
