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AGENCIES
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Informal Education In Schools And Colleges
In recent years there has been a significant growth in the numbers of informal educators working in formal educational settings like schools and colleges. We explore the phenomenon – and some of the possibilities and problems involved.
There has been a significant growth in the numbers of informal educatorsworking within schools and colleges in Britain and a number of other countries. As we will see, three factors have been especially significant in Britain:
The narrowing of the focus of classroom teachers and lecturers particularly as they deal with increased workloads and the national curriculum.
A growing belief in the need to attend to learning beyond the classroom if educational achievement is to rise and if people's orientation and skill base is to remain relevant to the economy (e.g. Bentley 1998; Leadbeater 2000). An aspect of this has been the growth in use of problematic notions such aslifelong learning.
A desire to ensure that school and college life is marked by reasonable behaviour and is attractive to potential students and their parents.
In the United States we have seen a parallel growth in interest in full-service schooling(Dryfoos 1994) and a concern with 'helping in the hallways' (Hazler 1998). Similarly, those schools that have tried to grapple with the notion of multiple intelligences have had to look at create a variety of environments for learning - many of which embrace the informal. In this article we will see that there are considerable pressures on, and issues for, informal educators in these developments. However, there are also great possibilities and some significant spaces to engage.
Recent developments in school policy and practice
Primary schooling
Within the primary education field in the UK there has been a tradition of using the notion of informal education to describe the more fluid, 'open' and apparently progressive forms of schooling that developed in the 1960s (e.g. McKenzie and Kernig 1975). As Blyth (1988: 11) has commented, informal pedagogy has 'figured spasmodically in English education from quite early in the industrial age and even before. Robert Owen and, later, Samuel Widlerspin are examples here. However, there was a particular moment when 'informal education' came to the fore:
Certain words have acquired a peculiar potency in primary education, and few more so than ‘informal’. Never properly defined, yet ever suggestive of ideas and practices which were indisputably right, ‘informal’ was the flagship of the semantic armada of 1960s Primaryspeak . . . spontaneity, flexibility, naturalness, growth, needs, interests, freedom . . . self—expression, discovery and many more. (Alexander 1988: 148)
Many of the thinkers (e.g. Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Dewey and Bruner) that we would see as informing the development of informal education as a conversational form are also important influences on this movement (see Blyth 1988: 7-24). However, since the 1960s the terms of educational debate have shifted dramatically. When we look at discussions of primary schooling the noun 'informality', rather than the adjective ‘informal’ was much more likely to be used by the late 1980s (see Jeffs and Smith 1990: 5-6). Thus, instead of informal education, it was possible to examine informality in pedagogy, in curriculum, in organization, in evaluation and in personal style (Blyth 1988). By the mid 1990s, the British government 'espoused the simple nostrum that the key to enhanced standards and economic competitiveness was an unrelenting concentration on basic skills in literacy and numeracy, to be addressed mainly through "interactive whole-class teaching"' (Alexander 2000: 2). It became far less common to hear informal approaches to primary education being advanced as a blanket alternative to formal ones.
However, with the failure of many of the formalizing initiatives such as literacy hour to engage the interests of children there has been movement. In addition, growing resistance on the part of schools and teachers to the ways in which a broad and balanced primary curriculum has been compromised by the national tests and strategies has played a part in the search for pedagogic alternatives. We have seen the reappearance of projects as a means of organizing work, and a stronger emphasis on dialogue and upon less didactic activity. Recently, and rather symbolically, the Cambridge Review of Primary Education called for the development of local community curricula with explicitly communal foci:
... by building on children’s knowledge and experience, by engaging children educationally with the local culture and environment in a variety of ways, and by involving children in discussion of the local component through school councils and the work of the CCPs [community curriculum partnerships], the community curriculum would both give real meaning to children’s voice and begin the process of community enrichment and regeneration where it matters. (Cambridge Primary Review 2009: 53)
While the words 'informal' and 'informality' are not used with any regularity (other than referring to learning) we can see some familiar themes appearing in the Cambridge Primary Review:
Teaching and learning should engage with the big ideas, key processes, modes of discourse and narratives of subjects so that they understand what constitutes quality and standards in particular domains ... Learners should be encouraged and helped to build relationships and communication with others for learning purposes, in order to assist the mutual construction of knowledge and enhance the achievements of individuals and groups. Consulting pupils about their learning and giving them a voice is both an expectation and a right ... Informal learning, such as learning out of school, should be recognised as at least as significant as formal learning. (James and Pollard 2008: 17; 19)
The scene looks set for further movement.
Secondary schooling
If we approach informal education as process that is conversation-driven then we can see that there are various spaces for activity within schools and colleges. One significant tradition of work has been the school-based youth club. A second has been an interest in extra-curricular activity - in part a throw-back to some of the ideals and practices of Victorian public schools. This has often found expression in sports, hobbies and arts clubs and groups. A third has been work undertaken with children and young people around schools councils. A fourth, and fundamental form, has been the everyday conversations that emerge in the classroom, or in encounters in hallways, canteens and play areas. Such activity does not necessarily have the funding and resources it needed, and is 'offered on a personal basis by committed teachers' (Andrews 2001: 14). Historically, within the UK these activities have typically involved lecturers, teachers and students working together with just a small sprinkling of additional characters like youth workers and youth tutors. In the United States there has been a stronger tradition of the involvement of other 'specialists' like coaches.
Since the early 1990s within UK secondary schools and colleges there has been a significant extension and broadening of activity. This has involved a growing army of personnel including classroom assistants, informal educators, youth workers, learning mentors and personal advisers. Sometimes this has taken a particular organizational form such as in the new community schools in Scotland (modelled after the US notion of full-service schooling), mostly it has arisen out the an incremental growth driven by new policy initiatives. In further education colleges there has also been an expansion in the numbers of mentors, advisers and youth workers.
Activities have included, for example:
Working with students to set up study clubs and circles (to follow particular academic interests), and 'homework clubs' (spaces to do the work).
Encouraging and supporting the development of groups around enthusiasms and interests such as music and sound systems, environmental issues, and cross-community reconciliation.
Developing alternative educational provision for young people experiencing difficulties in mainstream classrooms.