Dr Alison Hardy is a writer, researcher, lecturer and podcaster. You can find out more on Alison’s website: dralisonhardy.com and hear sharing ideas on her Talking D&T podcast.
This term I’ve led a new programme for early career teachers (ECTs), the programme runs alongside their training or school-based programmes and links to the Learning to Teach Design and Technology book.
The opening session, ‘What’s my place in D&T?’, was led by me and based on chapter 1. The second was led by Sarah Davies and Matt McLain, and focused on lesson planning and pedagogy. More people came along to the second session than the first; whilst this could have been for lots of reasons, I joked with Matt and Sarah that they were obviously more popular than me! But more seriously, it could be people were late discovering the programme, others maybe didn’t see the point of exploring the history of D&T and their place in that history.
It was this last thought that stuck with me the most (I’m comfortable with Matt and Sarah’s higher popularity rating!): Was this the wrong session to open the programme with? Maybe early career teachers at the start of their careers are more in need of practical content – how to plan a lesson – than an abstract discussion about the place and purpose of D&T? In their first few weeks is more about surviving a lesson than having a philosophical discussion.
Who am I, in my ivory tower with my head in the clouds, to decide for them? What gives me the right to think ‘I know best’? I could say my 11 years in teaching, my 10 years as a teacher educator, my research and current practice gives me this right. But in taking this position, I forget one important point: student teachers are adults, not children. Their maturity, experiences, motivations and needs are different than children.
My programme design reveals my subconscious belief that ECTs benefit more from starting with the bigger picture – the place and purpose of D&T – and then narrow down to nuts and bolts, planning lessons, etc. Because (my argument goes) by having the bigger picture ECTs can reflect on where their planning and pedagogy fits and leads them. My reflective question to them as they move through is: Do your lesson objectives match the bigger picture of the purpose of D&T?
But now I’m thinking I might be wrong.
Now I wonder if it should be the other way around.
When ECTs begin teaching, it’s about survival, getting through the lesson, the day, the week. They come with their motivations and experience to teach this amazing subject. So maybe the focus should be on that – survival and then build in the tools for longer term existence of themselves, engagement of their pupils and the subject.
With the attrition rate in teaching so high particularly in the first 5 years, we need to support these early career teachers and maybe me talking about my work and my beliefs isn’t the way to do it.
I need to step back in time to think about what I was like when I taught my first D&T lesson at the age of 19. I learnt how to braze the night before because that was all I needed to know for the lesson – I learnt because I had a problem to solve.
Yes, I still believe ECTs need a conceptual and historical framework to support and think about the purpose of their subject, where they fit and to understand themselves in D&T better, but maybe the beginning of their journey isn’t the right time.
In my next blog post, I’ll share my thoughts about how thinking about andragogy*, that is adult learning, has helped me reflect on and plan my programmes for adults.
*Andragogy is a word used in adult education. Malcolm Knowles is the main proponent of this idea. He doesn’t define andragogy as such, rather he explores assumptions we make about adult learners. Next time I’ll unpick his 6 assumptions and how these can help rethink how we support beginning D&T teachers.
(Endnote: If you listened to John Finnemore’s Cabin Pressure series, you’ll have recognised the title from Douglas Richardson’s role playing in Ipswich.)
