“We just 100% feel so much more positive about the future,” Shelley explains.
Cruz's behaviour is not perfect - he still has blips - but there is a marked improvement.
“He is much more able to control himself. He is able to apologise, reflect on what he's done,” says Shelley.
“He's still working hard at his behaviour but he's learned to accept responsibility.”
Milligan adds that his self-esteem is much improved. “The way he holds himself around peers has really changed. He has built his confidence, and realises, ‘I'm worth being somebody's friend,’” she says.
Shelley has not received a single phone call asking her to pick Cruz up from school since he returned to mainstream education.
She is still in regular contact with the teachers but has now learned to take a different approach to managing his behaviour.
“My attitude with the school before was, ‘I'm so sorry, sorry for his behaviour.’
“Now, I say, ‘Let's work together, let's help him.’”
Shelley also knows that Hawkswood will be there to support her and Cruz if there are any lapses in his behaviour.
“They've left the door open. So any problems for him or me, they'll get involved, which makes me feel confident,” she says.
The Labor Party has pledged to create a A$280 million research institute to “take politics out of the classroom” and “put an end to decades of ideological battles about school education”, if it wins the next federal election.
Announcing the policy, Shadow Education Minister Tanya Plibersek said:
Politicians shouldn’t tell teachers how to do their jobs, or be using schools as ideological battlegrounds.
Baca juga: Labor's struggle to remain 'the education party'
This “ideological battleground” is not just plucked from thin air for political point-scoring –– it reflects viewpoints that are deeply embedded in Australian society. Schools are sites where social privilege is reflected and reproduced for the next generation, and the disadvantaged have opportunities for economic and social mobility. And teaching and teacher education are “inherently and unavoidably political”.
Education research itself is also inherently political and can never be objective and value-free. Yet Labor’s proposal favours a particular and well-critiqued research approach.
The medical model won’t work
Labor’s pledge would inject much-needed funds into education research. But its announcement problematically evoked a biomedical model of research and teaching practice:
Just as doctors draw on the best new research when they are deciding how to treat their patients, we want to better support teachers do the same for their students.
When applied to education, the model is less convincing. Dispensing a pill is unlike dispensing a curriculum. The effects of an educational experiment also can’t be easily measured – unlike, say, a reduction in blood pressure. And the medical metaphor is premised on deficit: both students and their communities are seen as problems that need to be treated.
Baca juga: How school teachers could become the foot soldiers of education research
So, this model – where teachers are viewed as clinicians, and models of teacher education are marketed – hardly seems appropriate.
The rise of such ‘institutes’
Over the last 25 years, the number of research institutes designed to gatekeep knowledge production and its distribution in education settings has grown. The US and UK governments have established organisations that are commissioned to producing research programs and filtering policy-sympathetic evidence to schools.
The Institute of Education Sciences in the US has a research wing – the National Centre for Education Research – which carries out “deep research” focusing on “scientific evidence”. But the infamous No Child Left Behind reform, which was a “costly disaster” in its inability to tackle disparities in childhood achievement, leveraged the “scientific evidence” of the biomedical model in its formulation.
The UK’s equivalent, the National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales, espouses a broader approach to research than its American equivalent. It says the randomised controlled trials of the biomedical model are just one approach to research, and “are not suitable for all research and evaluation”.
There is an assumption underpinning Labor’s assertion that its institute will be independent of government, and that commissioned science can deliver a value-free solution to education issues. This assumption does not account for the politics of senior executive appointments and the research funding decisions that support government promises.
Funding bodies privilege particular kinds of research, located in particular contexts, for particular purposes. This funding is often filtered into “policy-informed research”, rather than research that provides evidence to inform policy.
Australia already has several bodies
Australia already has an existing national, independent, not-for-profit research organisation: the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). However, like its UK equivalent, it charges for programs and research.
The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) is an additional organisation that produces, brokers and profiles education research for use in schools.
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How we can enhance the link between research and practice
Four alternative ideas to enhance the link between research and teaching practice that could easily be implemented are:
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Field Trip: We will be out of the building on Tuesday, February 27 from 8:50-11 a.m. Students will travel to Central Wesleyan Church in Holland to see the Grand Rapids Symphony perform.
Eloquence Day: Parent volunteers are busy preparing for Eloquence Day, which will take place on Thursday, March 29. More information will be shared as we near the date, as we will need plenty of volunteers to serve students on the day of the event. All students should plan to wear nice clothing for the event–no jeans, please. Opportunities to acquire appropriate clothing, either through donation or by borrowing from one another, will be discussed in class and made available to those in need.
Puberty Health Lesson: The 5th grade students will participate in the puberty health lesson on Friday, March 9. The students will be split into two groups: Mr. Cochran (our P.E. teacher) will instruct the boys, and Mrs. Lokker, Mrs. Bosch, and I will instruct the girls. Students will watch a short video and have an opportunity to ask questions. If you are interested in viewing the video in advance, you can check it out from the office starting tomorrow, February 26. If you would rather not have your child participate, please let me know.
