THE URBAN LEARNING FOUNDATION

AND THE NOTION OF A LEARNING COMMUNITY.

Ian Bliss

ABSTRACT

The Urban Learning Foundation works with schools and trainee teachers in the East End of London. It is in the nature of the inner city that diverse groups and individuals seek to accommodate to each other in circumstances of social and economic stress. For many students that means that they are in an unfamiliar and even threatening environment, learning the unfamiliar culture of the teaching profession, and working with pupils from unfamiliar cultures. There is an examination of some of the “stories” told by the students as they seek to apply their skills in the “diverse and contested processes” which make up those cultures. The notion of inducting students into learning communities is explored. The aim is first to identify some of the referents students use as they develop their “communicative competence”, and secondly to examine the support which students need and are given by their course in London.

Keywords: urban schools, initial teacher education, competences, teacher expectations, multculturalism, anti-racism.

A PERSONAL STATEMENT

I am worried about bolt-on courses on multicultural education or anti-racism, about courses which give students information without giving them the experience to make sense of that information I am worried about notions of culture and competence conceived as static inventories of items rather than contested processes, and I want to question courses based on such notions: you are given some lectures on the cultural heritage of one group or another; you write an essay about it; you visit an inner city area; you have a debriefing session; and you answer a question on what you have observed. I suspect that such courses at best run the danger of teaching students to say or write the things their tutors want them to say or write, and at worst of providing just enough information to reinforce the stereotypes that students bring with them - or both, in that they write the one and believe the other.

Tate accuses trainee teachers of being corrupted by relativism. I want to argue that Tate is wrong. These trainee teachers worked from very clear moral and professional principles, but recognised that the struggle to apply them appropriately to the complexities of the real world admits of no simple resolution. Polonius established an entirely reasonable set of general rules in “Hamlet”; all of them when applied at the wrong place and in the wrong way led to disaster.

THE URBAN LEARNING FOUNDATION

The Urban Learning Foundation was described by HMI (1991) as being “in many ways a model for the organisation of urban teaching experience for provincial ITE students”. It is more than that, and perhaps if it were not more than that , it would not be able to do that particular job so effectively. However it is on that aspect of its work that I want to focus.

The Urban Studies Centre was established by the College of St. Mark and St. John in 1972/3 as a unit for “action research in the initial training of teachers”. It continues its work as the Urban Learning Foundation from centres in Tower Hamlets and Newham. The core of its work was to provide courses in London of a term for students from Marjons and later from other Church of England teacher training colleges; increasingly it is moving in the direction of providing its own teacher training courses, initially PGCE Upper primary, but with the aim of its expanding its provision in future. It works with schools, teachers and other agencies on small scale, locally based research projects, like for example one completed recently on the use of interpreters in schools. Another recent project is a co-operative scheme on managing primary education for teachers from Bangladesh - obviously a significant group in relation to the Bangladeshi communities in Tower Hamlets.

An intention in 1972 was to explore some of the professional implications of Plowden and Halsey, in particular, to “explore the relationship between school and community in the inner city”.

Among the formal aims was

“to provide an all year round supplementary service in an inner city area which links the activities of the school with the life of the neighbourhood and with other social activities and develop new forms of activity.”

Writing in 1985 the Director defined the rationale in relation to students from provincial teacher training institutions:

“teachers and others are better able to make contact with young people and so develop deeper understanding of needs, interests and cultural values thorough practical involvement in a variety of community settings....Tower Hamlets and Newham can prove to be something of a culture shock but one which may gradually bring them towards a deeper understanding of themselves as individuals and of the institutions or organizations of which they are temporarily a part ... a residential course located in an inner city area which is witnessing rapid social change has an immediacy and relevance that students are quick to appreciate.”

As a result of an evaluation by John Raynor in 1977/8 (Raynor J 1981) the statement of aims was expanded to include “to develop in- service courses for local teachers , particularly those who have completed their initial training at the Centre and who are now teaching in the area.”

And that is a matter of some significance in terms of numbers. HMI (1991) refer to ULF as a major source of recruitment for Newham and Tower . Last year two thirds of the NQTs appointed to Newham were from ULF - 60 out of 90 last year, and that has been the general pattern in Newham for five years.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE COURSE FOR “PROVINCIAL STUDENTS”

It is a residential experience, and it is very rare for students not to live in the residential accommodation provided by ULF, and the kitchens and the bedrooms provide a focus for discussion within the student community. Some of that is personal as students seek to come to terms with experiences that have disturbed them, - that might be the student who reported herself sobbing over the telephone to her boy friend that no she hadn’t been raped or mugged but some five year olds had been really horrible to her, or the group of young male PE students who didn’t get served in a pub and were told later that it was because they looked too much like police officers on a drugs bust, or others who were abused in a pub because they were students and anti-Nazi slags.

Living together is demanding - but living as a part of a community is demanding.

The occasions when students said

“I really needed to talk about it to N when I got back home. Thank goodness for N.”

were matched by

“Living in the house can be a strain at times. it is of course very supportive, but I have been tolerant of so much since I have been here”

or

“The only place you can be on your own is in the bath and there’s always a queue for that so you can’t stay even there for very long.”

or

“Relationships are intense and personal, and this can be quite difficult to handle. It can be personally invasive.”

Much of the talk is professional. The students share ideas about teaching, sometimes at a pragmatic level, sometimes at a theoretical level as they try to make sense of what they are doing. Examples will be given later, though they would probably reject the word theory. Theory they tend to define as what they do in College, and that they have on numerous occasions suggested is unrelated to the world of their experience

“Most things are covered in college, but when you’re sitting in a lecture room you can’t relate to it - you’re the pupil there and it all goes over you”

“You come back to college and you get shut up in a lecture room, and the adrenaline stops and you lose all your enthusiasm.”

Needless to say they see no contradiction between that position and their frequent complaints that the colleges do not do enough to prepare them for work in London.

***

For most student teachers work at ULF will include, in addition to the time spent in school a community or complementary experience, a community project, an adult literacy project, or a drop-in centre, a parent and baby group, or an exploration of agencies dealing with refugees. The complementary experience is intended to develop an understanding of children and of the processes of teaching by developing an understanding of the communities which shape them.

Many students commented on the difference between reading about issues and negotiating relationships with people. For one the thing that stuck in her mind was the fact that some young lads refused to accept a cup of tea from her when she was serving in the canteen of a youth club because they had identified her as a teacher. For another it was a matter of being brought up against inter-ethnic tensions:

“A blind Sikh was standing outside in the gateway as we approached. He asked N to read a letter he had just received. N did so but afterwards explained she had been apprehensive because he was a Sikh and there’s a lot of tensions between Asians and Sikhs. And last night two Sikhs had entered a mosque and stabbed an Asian. I’m not surprised she was worried. She said she stopped because he called her sister. I wonder if she would have stopped if I hadn’t been there.”

It will be necessary , though easy enough, for that student to clarify her terminology - but the details of the use of the word sister and the reality of the fear are things which it would be much harder for that student to get at second hand. Students extend their experience of social contexts, of people and cultures seen not as abstractions but as human beings. There is evidence that they are developing confidence and competence in making relationships and a genuine insight into themselves as people and as teachers. The images of people and cultures seen not as abstractions but as human beings.

***

There are also course meetings.

“The function of these meetings is to support and strengthen students’ practical activities by examining some of the theoretical implications of their work and to share common experience.” - again this is a formal statment of aims given by ULF. They were seen as providing a useful opportunity to listen to or work with people they might not otherwise meet, from the language service perhaps, or people with specific expertise in child protection issues. Often though, particularly when course meetings took up a regular weekly slot, they were seen as problematic interruptions to the intensity of their focus on school.. For these students the time after their return to the colleges has provided the opportunity for reflection - for sorting out their understanding of inter-ethnic tensions or the politics of unemployment. However some have suggested that the tutors in the colleges lack the experience and the knowledge of inner London schools to help them, and maybe even the inclination to do so.

Students perceive as being more important the personal and professional support given informally by ULF tutors in addition to the normal processes of supervision / mentoring in schools. The tutor responsible for the Newham centre suggests that their success in recruiting and retaining students is influenced by the fact that students have to walk past a glass fronted tutor office in order to reach the living accommodation. So there is always a possibility of what has been referred to as “by the way” discussion;

“Students won’t want to bother you, and they won’t want to make the effort to come downstairs to see you, they don’t want to bother you, but if you say “hello, how’s things” then they can talk about the happy day they had or the terrible day they had, they feel looked after and supported and if you can catch the little things early on then its easier to deal with the big ,ones.

They feel supported but they make open-eyed decisions about coming; that’s why the head teachers want them. By the end of ten weeks here they have made friendship groups and they are making open-eyed decisions - and the support continues when they get a job here - they have their induction meeting in June and they meet every other week - it’s educational but they build strong ties as a social group. And because we keep them they work with teachers who have done the same things and know the same people. Most of those who come here want a job here, and head teachers want them, and they stay.”

The issue is presented as an architectural one - but it is clearly also one that is about people as much as buildings. It depends of the negotiation of particular kinds of relationship between tutor and student. It is also demanding on the time and the skills of tutors - weakening the boundaries between tutor and student can be demanding on both.

CULTURE AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

For the Director , writing in 1981 (in ed Raynor J (1981)), “the centre itself is not a static institution but a focus for the ever-changing relationships between the staff, the students and the people who live and work in the east end of London.” A teacher-tutor scheme was established in 1980. The rationale at that stage stressed that, “the training processes is undertaken as a collaborative venture.” That was written in 1981, and schools in Newham have been happy to see ULF taking the lead in a PGCE consortium in 1996. The experience of placing students over the years in a range of community agencies has built up another network of communication. There has been an increasing emphasis on Continuing Education. There have been projects seeking to recruit local people into the teaching profession, by working with them to identify their views and their needs, by giving them information, and increasingly by recruiting onto courses people from within the local population. Research activities have had a local focus and have stressed the importance of wide local involvement. The students who pass through ULF take jobs in local schools, they continue to live in the area, and they help to induct the next generation of teachers into the profession.

And this introduces the idea of a learning community.

A learning community , like any other community is defined by its culture and the course at ULF assumes that culture is best seen not as “a scientific object nor a discrete and stable symbol system....(but an)...internally diverse and actively contested...process”. (Said E, quoted by Jackson R (1995)) To become a part of that community is to learn to take part in that process, to develop communicative competence.

Communicative competence within a culture was defined by Hymes (1971) who stresses that it involves the ability to apply (and sometimes not to apply) the rules appropriately, in other words to take part in the process of negotiating the rules as members of a community,:

“He or she acquires competence when to speak, when not, what to talk about, with whom, when, where, in what manner...”.

Those who have communicative competence can “accomplish a repertoire of speech acts....and evaluate their accomplishment by others”, and this competence is “integral with attitudes, values and motivations”.

For Hymes competence - unless you are talking about the unreality of ideal fluency in a homogeneous and static community - cannot be usefully defined as a “systematic inventory of items”; the controlling image underlying such a view is “of an abstract isolated individual, almost an unmotivated cognitive mechanism, not except incidentally, a person in a social world.”

And what Hymes says of communicative competence in general, is equally true of that kind of communicative competence which defines the skills of a teacher. In looking back to Hymes for a notion of competence I am seeking to question whether mechanical models of competence defined in terms of inventories of skill and knowledge represent any more of the truth than definitions of language to be found in traditional grammar books. Obviously there are close connections with the work of Schon (1987), or the notion of professional craft knowledge as defined by Brown and McIntyre (1993), or the processes of “critical self reflection” defined by Mezirow (1990), but I am anxious to hold on to a perspective which stresses the importance of community and which suggests a way of thinking about the notion of competence.

Orr (1987), quoted in OECD (1991), in examining the learning of trainee photocopier technicians stresses the importance of sharing experience and exchanging stories. These stories “almost never concern routine maintenance or problems that everyone knows how to fix....they deal with the machine and customer behaviour within the context of the specific situation...they not only provide new information that illuminates the working of the machine but also specific applications of the information...in ways that are useful for persons of differing levels of expertise, with different understandings of the model.”