Becoming ‘real utopian’ teachers in a ‘post-pandemic’ world: lessons from our Cambridge PGCE trainees
In my editorial for our previous JoTTER volume 13 (linked HERE), I discussed the issue of ‘becoming a teacher in an age of uncertainty’, especially given that our cohort of trainees publishing in that volume had gone through our PGCE programmes here at the faculty during the challenging first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. In that editorial, I talked about the acronym ‘VUCA’ – volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (Valladares, 2021) – in relation to those trainees’ experiences of becoming teachers during the pandemic, also posing the following questions around those early career teachers: what are their interests and concerns, as early career practitioners of education, around their students’ educational experiences in these challenging times? What have they set out as priorities for their early career practice, and how have they positioned themselves, through their PGCE research projects, when attempting to address these interests, concerns and priorities?
Looking at our new cohort of trainees publishing in this current JoTTER’s volume 14 (linked HERE), those questions still remain. Trainees’ publications in this volume 14 were developed during their 2021-2022 PGCE studies, when the COVID-19 pandemic was still ongoing with all its associated implications to the education sector (e.g., school closures, online learning, mental and physical health impact on students and staff, etc.). However, this 2021-2022 cohort of trainees was also studying at the (arguably) tail-end of the pandemic, with online learning, school closures, etc. already becoming less frequent across English schools, especially at the time their projects reported on in this volume 14 were being developed. As such, what we see in these trainees’ publications could be considered as happening at a ‘liminal space’ (Turner & Abrahams, 1969) of education: a space where education, and its practitioners, were starting to move from ‘becoming teachers during a pandemic’ onto ‘being teachers in’ – as phrased within academia (e.g., Carr, 2020; Carrigan et al., 2023; Rolph, 2022) and educational policy (e.g., DfE, 2022; UNESCO, 2020; UNICEF, 2023) – a ‘post-pandemic world’i .
Of course, this liminal space in which trainees publishing in this volume 14 undertook their PGCE studies and projects is also a space of contradictions and uncertainty: while the pandemic has been officially declared to be over as a global health emergency ii, its legacies to educational practices, experiences and systems are still ingrained in our ‘post-pandemic world’ iii, also compounded by a series of other interconnected challenges related to wars, persistent global and local inequalities, environmental crises, etc. (Malm, 2020; Valladares, 2021; Wrigley, 2022). One does not need to go too far away from education to see such connections clearly, as illustrated by growing focus on issues of: educational ‘catch-up’ (DfE, 2022); students’ wellbeing, behaviour and absenteeism (Hunt, 2023); teacher recruitment and retention challenges and teachers’ wellbeing (Kim et al., 2022; Worth, 2023); among others.
As such, in this editorial I argue that our former trainees’ work published here can also be said to be ‘utopian’ (in the way recently proposed by philosophers and educators): a kind of work that speculates about “alternative systems or practices of education […] that contrast with and challenge conventional educational understanding and practices” (Burbules & Warnick, 2006, p. 491). As I have discussed elsewhere with a colleague teacher educator, “while, for many, ‘utopia’ represents some form of goal that is unreachable, it can be thought about differently” to mean a re-imagination of different, novel and alternative ways of doing education in practice (Gandolfi & Mills, 2022, p. 3). In other words, within ‘real utopia’, practitioners embrace the tensions between dreams for a better future and ideas that are grounded in real, practical possibilities (Wright, 2010), seeking to create a space for openness, hope and novelty within their work professional practice (Facer, 216). I then call these trainees’ publications pieces of ‘utopian work’ because they inspire (and are inspired by) new visions for education in an era where the status quo – i.e., a ‘pre-pandemic’ approach to education – is not fit-for-purpose anymore for a ‘post-pandemic’ world. As ‘real utopias’, our (now former) trainees’ projects and publications, professional development and work are not “finished products, but as Wright (2010, p. 7) argues, [they] help to provide ‘the core, organizing principles of alternatives to existing institutions, the principles that would guide the pragmatic trial-and-error task of institution building’” (Gandolfi & Mills, 2022, p. 4).
The articles published by our PGCE trainees in this volume 14 can then be seen as academic pieces of real utopias because they offer us insights into what early career educators hope and enact for the future of education in this ‘post-pandemic’ world. As I also mentioned in my previous editorial to volume 13, our hope with the Cambridge PGCE is to support a profession where early career teachers feel supported and prepared to be these agents of real utopias; that is, to propose, enact and reflect on what education in England, and beyond, should be about in these post-pandemic times. But what are the hopes and practices of our (former) trainees publishing in this volume 14?
Social justice, inclusion and diversity within education
The first salient trend we can find across the papers in this volume 14 is our trainees’ deep commitment to wider issues of social justice, inclusion and diversity within educational practices. Following the longstanding tradition of utopian thinking within the ‘social justice and education’ scholarship (Collet-Sabé, & Ball, 2023; Fielding & Moss, 2011; Halpin, 2003), through their PGCE projects these trainees raise important questions connected to (re)thinking issues of inclusion and diversity in our post-pandemic world, drawing on a wide range of social justice-related schools of thought – such as inclusive pedagogies, agency and empowerment, feminist theories, decolonial and anti-racist education, socio-emotional and wellbeing theories, and socio-economic (in)equalities – to reflect on and enact elements of social justice as part of their own practices. In particular, across this volume 14, we find our former trainees engaging, through school-based projects, in a wide range of ways with this complex theoretical landscape surrounding social justice, such as:
• A study around the concept of ‘Fundamental British Values’ (FBVs) grounded on pupils’ voices, decolonial and anti-racist education, and exploring its links to notions of what it means to be British within our growing multicultural, but still systemically racist, communities (Catrin Osborne).
• Still on this landscape of multicultural communities and education, an investigation into the area of ‘religious diversity’ within the Religious Studies curriculum, particularly posing the question of how religious studies teachers might authentically bring diverse religious perspectives into the classroom to avoid tokenism, stereotyping and misrepresentation (Zoë Grainger).
• Drawing on feminist theories, a study examining the impact of feminist teaching pedagogies on girls’ attitudes towards mathematics against the backdrop of pervasive challenges to the recruitment of girls and other minoritised groups into the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) (Rachel Burns).
• A study proposing the examination of the inclusion of pupils with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and with Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties (SEMHD) into mainstream classrooms from the perspectives of pupils themselves, especially in relation to classroom dynamics and through probing understandings of what an ‘inclusive classroom’ actually is/should be (Jenny Kennedy).
• Grounded on increasing challenges related to socio-emotional and wellbeing, including of SEMHD, another study looking into issues of pupils’ emotions and self-regulated learning after more than two years of disrupted school experiences and against the backdrop of growing concerns around wellbeing, anxiety, and inequalities in academic progression within English schools (Grace Hinton).
• Also emerging from this concern around inequalities in post-pandemic academic progression, a study examining the perspectives of pupils from different socio-economic backgrounds, particularly focusing on Pupil Premium as a variable for comparison, around their home learning environments during and after school lockdowns (Hannah Lyden).
• And, lastly, a study looking into ‘service’ children’s (i.e., those with family related to the armed forces) perspectives on their feelings around agency and learning experiences when having to constantly move between schools during their primary education years (Bryony Parkinson).
Among these articles, what we then see is our trainees’ commitment to an engagement with a wide range of issues surrounding social justice as part of their own classroom and school practices and, very importantly, to approaching their work as practitioners through (re)imagining ways of doing education that are more socially just, as recently asked for by several scholars (Collet-Sabé, & Ball, 2023; Gandolfi & Mills, 2022; Francis et al., 2017). In particular, what these trainees’ projects show us is that even though ‘social justice’ does not feature prominently in educational policies and practices at the national level in England (Ball & Collet-Sabe, 2021; Gandolfi & Mills, 2022), they are nonetheless committed to (re)building a post-pandemic education sector grounded on such concerns.
Languages and The Arts in Education
Closely connected to these issues of social justice, we also find a second salient topic among some of our trainees’ research projects in this volume 14 of JoTTER: that of the place of the arts and of languages within education in the state sector in England. As recently argued by both scholars and educators (Bath et al., 2020; Collen, 2020; Jermyn, 2001; Whittaker, 2021), the worrying trend around the decrease in offer and importance placed in languages and the arts as school subjects across the country is in itself an issue of social justice, which has become even more complex with the current over-emphasis on very narrow priorities in post-pandemic ‘catch-up’ endeavours (DfE, 2022). With the current scenario of the arts and languages disappearing from state schools and being positioned as the purview of young people attending private schools onlyiv, it is encouraging to see our trainees’ commitment to valuing, and to raising the profile among their wider school communities, of such areas across our state schools. In this volume 14, we find, for instance:
• A study examining the notion of ‘orality’ within young people’s engagement with poetry, particularly drawing on oral cultures, dialects and transformative pedagogies, and challenging the presence of too narrow views on ‘Britishness’, ‘Standard English’ and ‘cultural capital’ within current teaching and assessment practices within the English curriculum (Emily Thomas).
• A project around ‘singing for pleasure’ in primary school and its benefits to children’s wellbeing and learning, especially focusing on obstacles and challenges to such kinds of practices after transition into older age groups (Henrietta Shaw).
• A study investigating the role that play and art-based games can have in the Key Stage 4 Art classes in order to challenge its current over-emphasis, through teaching and assessment practices, on standardisation and individualism (Megan Jones).
• A study exploring the role of phonological awareness in learning of a second language in the context of Modern Languages classes in England, with a particular focus on students’ feelings and confidence around oracy practices and skills when learning additional languages (Hannah Crossman).
It is then encouraging to see our trainees, both at our primary and secondary PGCE programmes, engaged not only in raising their young students’ aspirations within the prescribed national curricula, but also in pushing the boundaries around the ways in which such curricula position languages and the arts as part of these young people’s school experiences. Beyond a narrow focus on individualistic and standardised assessment-driven teaching and learning practices around these subject areas, what we see here is their commitment to harnessing languages and the arts into supporting students’ enjoyment and wellbeing within education, also drawing on these areas’ historical connections with utopian practices via their close links to creativity, imagination, social justice, social transformation, etc. (e.g., Busby, 2022; Vittoria, 2019).
At the start of this editorial, I proposed that our former trainees’ publications in this volume 14 showcase their engagement with ‘real utopian’ practices in this post-pandemic world, that is, with re-imagining and enacting different, novel and alternative ways of doing education through their own school and classroom practices. In particular, I hope to have outlined above how their studies embrace their dreams for a better future for education against our several post-pandemic challenges, while still grounded in real, practical possibilities – as proposed by Wright (2010) around pathways to achieving social transformation and social justice. Through seeking to create inclusive spaces grounded on openness, novelty, agency and diversity, these early career teachers have been challenging taken-for-granted ‘pre-pandemic’ assumptions about education since the start of their professional trajectory, thus offering us a glimpse into what a ‘post-pandemic’ reimagination of education can look like.
Haira Gandolfi, Cambridge, 2023
*With thanks to my colleagues across the Primary and Secondary PGCE programmes here in the faculty, whose insightful lectures, workshops, reading lists and informal conversations have inspired several of my comments above.
References
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Bath, N., Daubney, A., Mackrill, D., & Spruce, G. (2020). The declining place of music education in schools in England. Children & Society, 34(5), 443-457.
Burbules, N. C. & Warnick, B. R. (2006). Philosophical Inquiry. In J. L. Green, G. Camilli & P. B. Elmore (Eds.), Handbook of complementary methods in education research (pp. 489-202). Taylor & Francis Group.
Busby, S. (2022). Applied theatre: a pedagogy of Utopia. Bloomsbury Publishing.
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[i] Most, if not all, of us involved with education have come across terms like ‘post-pandemic recovery’ or ‘post-pandemic reset’ being used recently in relation to education, both in England and internationally.
[ii] https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/05/1136367
[iii] In many ways, the use of the prefix ‘post’ here could be challenged in a similar way to how Decolonial scholars working in the field of Social Sciences discuss the adjective ‘postcolonial’, which is still very commonly used in that area.
[iv] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/12/art-drama-languages-and-geography-to-become-preserve-of-private-schools-as-state-sector-cuts-bite & https://advisor.museumsandheritage.com/news/tate-urges-government-to-level-cultural-playing-field-for-state-and-private-schools/