Name: Simon Clarke
Occupation: Professor of Education, The University of Western Australia
Location: Perth, Australia
I first met Simon (red shirt with the perplexed expression) at the Leadership for Professional Learning Symposium in Cambridge, England. We engaged in a group called “Positive Disruptions for Necessary Change,” which discussed how we can shake up education in order to change the classroom one step, one leap, one bound at a time. This group enriched my knowledge of international education in so many ways; I am still overwhelmed by it. I came to discover that nations around the world face issues regarding educator leadership due to curriculum standards. Teachers around the globe are stuck inside standard-mandated boxes that prohibit their ability to bring the real world, real passion, and change into the classroom. Children struggle to grasp real-world concepts and learn to resent education as a result. Simon had plenty to say about this. He is an Australian academic who conducts his research in education through the University of Western Australia. It was truly a pleasure working and collaborating with him for the short day we had together. Simon describes this toxic system through the term, “utilitarian zeitgeist,” which made our entire group laugh. But it was one of those laughs that you get when you talk about how messed up our presidential administration is: we laugh to numb the pain of our reality. I got the chance to chat with Simon about international education and I’m thrilled to share his wisdom with all of you.
"What was your attitude toward school? Your parents? The government? What was your experience at university?"
"Most of my education was undertaken in England before I emigrated to Australia. It’s fair to say that my interest in education was sharpened by the fact that my father was a ‘headmaster’, and much family life revolved around his dedication to schooling. I was also influenced by incidents that occurred in my schooling that I found somewhat baffling. For example, on my first day at primary school, when I was 4 years old, I couldn’t understand why the teacher humiliated me in front of the whole class because I had mistakenly used the playground equipment when it was officially ‘off limits’. This was not an auspicious start to my school career! Similarly, my performance in my first year of grammar school was deemed to be underwhelming because I ended up coming 24th out of a class of 33 in the end of year exams. Had it not been for the wisdom of a new principal who decided to change the existing policy, this performance would normally have consigned me to a ‘lower’ stream for my subsequent duration at the school. Episodes such as these, along with many others, helped to fuel my curiosity regarding the efficacy of the education process. This curiosity was further reinforced when I was given back my first assignment at university. It was an essay about Bede’s ecclesiastical history of England into which, at least by my standards, I had made a considerable intellectual investment – in fact, I was rather proud of it. The feedback I received, however, was parsimonious and deflating, ‘a pedestrian effort, C'! It was this juxtaposition between the intended curriculum and the experienced curriculum that I found so fascinating. Indeed, during my Masters course, I was introduced to a concept that I found particularly poignant, namely, the ‘hidden curriculum’. This is the curriculum comprising everything that is learned by students (and others), alongside the overt curriculum, whether intended or not. One of the foremost advocates of the hidden curriculum at the time was David Hargreaves whose seminal research in Britain’s comprehensive schools indicated that for many ‘working class’ students the main outcome derived from the hidden curriculum was a profound sense of damaged dignity that remained with them for the rest of their lives. What a fascinating enterprise education is. For some it can be empowering and liberating, but for many others it can have a truly debilitating impact. If only one could make a difference!"
"How did you end up in the career you had today? What is it exactly that drove your passion for education?"
"Like many Arts graduates, whom I have encountered, I rather drifted into teaching. It was an occupation that seemed familiar, even secure, but it also held the promise of my becoming what the renowned scholar of teacher education, Lee Shulman, describes as the ‘enlightened, passionate intellectual’. The excellent teachers I chanced upon in my own schooling were able to influence, motivate and inspire students to learn, by being committed, enthusiastic, well prepared, and knowledgeable. These teachers also demonstrated the simple yet profound observation that the quality of teaching and learning is ultimately governed by the quality of the relationship that exists between teacher and student. As such, teachers of this ilk took the trouble to know and understand me (among others) as a person, and they created an environment, both inside and outside the classroom, that was conducive to learning. Needless to say, it was these teachers who played their part in inspiring me to gravitate towards the teaching profession.
One of the most rewarding responsibilities I had when I was a teacher was being a director of staff professional development. This was a particularly formative period in my career for two reasons. First, because it enabled me to witness, first hand, the extent to which teachers develop their agency when participating in ‘appropriate’ professional learning. It was, in other words, a powerful depiction of leadership for learning in action, although I didn’t necessarily recognise it in that way at the time. The second reason why this period was such a formative one in my career was because it generated so many potential avenues for research. This was a phase, at least at the school in which I was working, when a number of contentious changes were being implemented, and the intersection of effective leadership and organisational improvement became especially apparent. Hence, the provenance of my Doctoral pursuits that, in turn, led to the second stanza of my career in the university sector, teaching, researching and supervising in the broad field of educational leadership."
"At our symposium, you referenced disrupting the, "utilitarian zeitgeist of education." How is this concept reflected in the Australian school system? Are people aware of the issue and working to fix it, or has it been swept under the rug?"
"In his 2010 visit to Australia, Robin Alexander, who chaired the seminal, as well as the scathing, Cambridge Primary Review, made the following comment; I say nothing about how this tale might resonate in Australia, that is your business, not mine. Like the poet Wilfred Owen, all I can do today is warn’. The tale in question, of course, was about the preoccupation within the British Education policy environment with standards, tests and targets, which, it was held, had served to undermine, rather than enrich, education.
There is, however, a similar thrust that seems to be driving contemporary Australian education policy. This can be seen in the instrumentalism of government initiatives as well as the marketised environment of schooling. The market values of competition, consumer choice, performance measurement and accountability underpin the politics of education as does the determination to expand self-management practices in school systems. Accordingly, national testing began in 2008 and every year, all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed on the same days using national tests in reading, writing, language conventions (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy. Parents are provided with reports detailing their child’s performance against national standards, national achievement levels and the national mean. Furthermore, results are reported on the ‘MySchool’ website (a government mandated initiative to provide as much online information as possible about schools to consumers). This website makes public a synthesis of performance data and comparisons with ‘like’ schools from national tests, with the aim of facilitating the interpretation of results and comparisons between schools by any interested party.
This is but a fleeting glimpse of the ‘utilitarian zeitgeist’ to which I refer, applicable to so many education jurisdictions throughout the world. Needless to say, this zeitgeist is the cause of much vigorous face palming among educators, not least because as Billy Bragg (the well known British protest singer) has pointed out, ‘not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that has been counted, counts’! One of the reasons, however, that I subscribe to the concepts and principles of ‘leadership for learning’ is because it is, at least to some extent, counter orthodoxy, and it has the potential, in the long term, to ameliorate some of the potentially corrosive effects of contemporary education policy."
"Finally, what is your most fond memory of the symposium?"
"I always enjoy participating in events that promote the deepening of knowledge and expertise as information and insights are shared, common issues debated, innovative ideas tested, and tacit understandings are developed. I was also impressed by the extremely generous measure that constituted a ‘glass’ of wine at the bar. I find that red wine, in particular, provides much needed sustenance for contending with the occasionally perplexing world of education!"
