Slowing Down the Process of Change

‘The acceleration of speed has had largely detrimental consequences with the decline of the public sphere, the erosion of the democratic process and the increased power of the military complex.’

(Bartram, 2004, 289)

Photo: Bert Kaufmann

• Social and technological acceleration

• We appear to have less and less time to achieve more and more

• Blurring of the boundaries between elements of life

• ‘Progress’ expected in ever briefer time frames

• Paul Virilio – development of the theory of ‘dromology’

• Social and political acceleration, particularly related to technology

• A compression of time as a consequence of geopolitics, technology and the media

• But acceleration and speed can be damaging

• Neoliberalism uses the data and information explosion to measure and control increasingly complex systems

• Virilio argues that acceleration allows for disinformation and confusion

• Politicians are able to hide, embed and control as the media becomes their ‘dromological troops’

• ‘speed is power itself’ (Virilio, 1999, 15)

• Those outside of government increasingly in a reactionary position

• Speed of change erodes debate, ensures less resistance and bypasses the democratic process

Dromology – an educational genealogy

• The advent of ‘deliverology’ under New Labour. Bringing data centre stage

• Fetish relating to examination outcomes

• Need to show constant increase in outcomes leading to quest for the ‘magic bullet’

• Coalition, rapid, systemic change

• Untried and untested change

• Since 1997 rapid move towards marketisation/privatisation – proxy market mechanisms.

‘The proletarian, we read in Gilbert Simondon, is a disindividuated worker, a laborer whose knowledge has passed into the machine in such a way that it is no longer the worker who is individuated through bearing tools and putting them into practice. Rather, the laborer serves the machine-tool, and it is the latter which has become the technical individual – in the sense that it is within the machine-tool, and within the technical system to which it belongs, that an individuation is produced.’

(Steigler, 2010, 37)

• Eriksen (2001) identifies two forms of time, ‘fast’ and ‘slow’

• ‘Slow’ time allows for deliberation, thought, debate.

• Dromological nature of education (and wider society) drives out slow time.

• Fast time is becoming dominant

Eriksen identifies six problems with this change:

• speed is an addictive drug • speed leads to simplification

• speed creates an assembly line (Taylorist) effect

• speed leads to a loss of precision

• speed demands space (it fills gaps in the lives of others, just consider your e-mail inbox!)

• speed is contagious, spreading and killing off slow time

• Recourse to ever more complex data systems allows rapid generation of targets and tracking sheets which become regarded as ‘truth’.

• Learning must be ‘measured’ in every lesson, and progress assessed- sometimes not even every 50 minutes, but every 15!

• The illusion persists that we can ‘know’ the extent of the learning of every child at the end of every lesson.

• The desired speed for learning and progress has demanded the space of professional dialogue and reflection.

• Data systems are ‘fast’ processes – they give the illusion of progress, of learning – and so the acceleration of education has in part gone hand in hand with ever greater reliance on numeric data, both internal and external (league tables for example).

May lead to a view of teachers and teaching assuming:

• Good teaching may be emotionally demanding, but is technically simple• Good teaching is a quick study requiring only moderate intellectual ability• Good teaching is hard at first, but with dedication can be mastered readily• Good teaching should be driven by hard performance data about what works and

where best to target one’s efforts• Good teaching comes down to enthusiasm, hard work, raw talent, and measureable

results• Good teaching is often replaceable by online instruction

(Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012, 14)

What Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) call a business capital view of teaching

A Dialogic Alternative

An alternative view is that of professional capital

Professional Capital = Human Capital + Social Capital + Decisional Capital(Hargreavs and Fullan, 2012, 88)

• HC – development of knowledge and skills in teaching• SC – interaction and social relationships – working in groups• DC – discretionary judgement (a major characteristic of professionals)

This requires space and time

The Finnish Bit

• Danger of policy tourism

• Not a case of transplanting a policy, more a frame of mind

• The Finns decided they needed to improve their system in the 1980s

• 30 years later they could be argued to have done pretty well

• Deliberate, debated, consensual change.

Some possible approaches

- Reorientation of meeting time to debate and discussion rather than focusing on data and administration

- Whole school action research projects

- Support for teacher professionalism

- Closer school/university research and masters links

- Time-space for experimentation and risk-taking

• Close data-driven inspection systems

• Replace with development teams – dual role as both inspectors and critical friends

• Locally based – extended time in each school

• Network builders

• Not cosy – but supportive

• At HE level, development of time-space for scholarship

• Development of Freirean writing groups, developing scholarship out of personal experience and concerns.

In an ever more complex world, characterised by acceleration……

….it is those who have spent time engaging, understanding and building capacity who will act in the most positive and sure-footed ways when they have to act quickly.