Session Information
04 SES 14 B, Teachers Training and Continuing Professional Development for Building Communities’ democratic languages and cultures; informing feedback-loops to policy to dismantle systemic-injustices (Part 1)
Symposium Part 1 to be continued in 04 SES 16 B
Contribution
Both parts of this symposium address the professional challenge rapid new-deregulations of laws and standards, freeing people of human-rights (neoliberalism), have created systemic injustice, and the widest gap between poorest and richest since World War II. Mistrust leads to students, more than willing to work hard, dropping out of school without them or their families knowing how to earn a living. At the limits of poverty they beg and are vulnerable to recruitment into regimes of Violence, Uncertainty, Chaos and Ambiguity.
The professional challenge is addressed Symposium Part 2 with perspectives from 1) Albania/Kosovo experiencing youth, the nations' futures, choosing to leave home to be trafficked abroad by boats, 2) US allowing some migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, already in Mexico, to apply to enter the US as refugees, 3.i) Nigeria's urban strategies to improve secondary education to leverage cultural richness and diversity of student populations to cultivate mutual respect, empathy, and active citizenship, and 3.ii) Nigeria's rural strategies to reverse malnutrition and mobilise education to optimise nutritional value of higher yielding crops, whilst attracting youth to stay in Nigeria with hope for sustainable futures. Two themes emerge.
1. Authoritarian hierarchical top-down delivery of PISA driven curriculums in classrooms de-professionalize educators and administrators by removing their autonomy and contribution to policy making (Sahlberg, 2012). Reduced to transmitters of government ideology, teachers are prevented from culturally responsive lesson-planning using students’ baseline-assessments to inform differentiated learning-plans for success. This creates systemic injustice as students with what Bourdieu calls the system's ‘right capital’ succeed and get richer and those without drop out of school to beg, engage with trafficking of illegal goods and people, or fail at school, widening the poverty gap.
2 Capital of disadvantaged students with intersectionalities of discrimination, assessed using deficit models, is found wanting. Students’ marginalised capital remains unrecognised and no differentiated lesson-planning creates pathways to curriculum Intended Learning Outcomes. Rather, they are segregated/streamed to Special Education Needs and Disability/lower ability classrooms with low expectations. This perpetuates patterns of illiteracy and prevents accessing knowledge of community-building to stop neoliberalism and systemic injustice implemented by power of a person, not power of the law.
Presenters offer culturally relevant responses to ways their Universities' Education Departments address the following question:
1. How and in what ways can University Schools of Education act as hubs to support a school to build a professional development community of practice.
Each presenter addresses the question and themes step-by-step.
Step 1 The intricate challenges posed by climate change significantly impact impoverished families, perpetuating social injustice and impeding sustainable development. The symposium partners draw on Dewey's Professional Educators and Administrators Committees for Empowerment (PEACE) to build Participation, Experience, Association, Communication, and Environment. This theoretical foundation employing action research methodology throughout the curriculum design, delves into the multifaceted consequences of the intersectionalities of climate change, war and forced migration. The adverse effects, such as irregular rainfall patterns, prolonged droughts, and heightened temperatures for nationals and new arrivals, directly jeopardise agricultural productivity—the linchpin of rural livelihoods and peaceful communities. Lacking resources and knowledge to navigate these challenges, impoverished families face heightened vulnerability, further exacerbated by limited access to crucial information and technologies. Consequently, children from these families often confront early school dropout, amplifying cycles of poverty and social injustice.
Step 2 Adapting ‘A Blueprint for Character Development for Evolution (ABCDE) to offer five stages drawing on social contract theory, to prepare teachers to recognise bias and reverse it.
Each partner incorporates diverse perspectives and community building using the frameworks and methodologies above, to reverse local inequality, and mainstream them through powerful Higher Education networks to reverse g/local inequality.
References
Al-Abdullah, Y. & Papa, R. (2019). Higher Education for Displaced Syrian Refugees: The Case of Lebanon. In K. Arar, J.S. Brooks & I. Bogotch (Eds), Education, Immigration and Migration Emerald. Darling-Hammond, L. (2004). Inequality and the Right to Learn: Access to Qualified Teachers in California’s Public Schools. Teachers College Record, 106(10), 1936–1966. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. MacMillan. European Commission. (2023). EU Soil Strategy for 2030. https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/soil-and-land/soil-strategy_en European Commission. (2022). Industry 5.00. https://research-andinnovation. ec.europa.eu/research-area/industrial-research-and-innovation/industry-50_en Hunter, D. (2022). Do Canadian school principals predict with data? British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society Annual Conference, July, Liverpool. Kant, I. (1790). The Science of Right. http://bit.ly/3JcZgnV Leal, F., & Saran, R. (2000). A dialogue on the Socratic dialogue. Ethics and Critical Philosophy Lewin, K. (1946). Action research and minority problems. Journal of Social Issues, 2(4), 34–46. Open Government Partnership. (2023). Global Summit. https://www.opengovpartnership.org Schön, D. (1984). The Reflective Practitioner. How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books. Smith, A. (1904). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations 1776. https://bit.ly/3LjvWNo Stenhouse, L. (1983). The relevance of practice to theory. Curriculum Change: Promise and Practice, 22(3), 211-215. United Nations. (2016). Agenda 2030. Sustainable Development Goals https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300 UNESCO. (2022). Marrakech Framework for Action https://www.uil.unesco.org/en/marrakechframework-action USAID. (2021). Higher Education as a Central Actor in Self-Reliant Development: Program Framework. https://bit.ly/45JBkkU
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