The Delusion of Status-Conferred Authority

Posted on | June 14, 2009 | 28 Comments

That small group of far-thinking Scottish educationists who came up with the idea of TeachMeet knew what they were doing when they established the basic form and function of the concept: an informal gathering of equals designed to give a platform to everyone who wanted to be heard, a firm foundation in the practices of teaching and learning, an opportunity to teach others and to learn from others in a mutually supportive, non-prescriptive atmosphere. It promoted a recognition that we are all learners all of the time and, critically, a further recognition that no one has any more right to be heard and to be listened to than anyone else. Whether implicitly or explicitly, the Scottish mythologies of egalitarianism and enlightenment were captured in the seemingly simple concept of the ‘unconference’, a neologism that some have taken a dislike to, but one that will stick nonetheless because it works.

So, through the good works of those on Islay and elsewhere who established a vibrant virtual community around a wide-ranging conversation about what education might, or should, look like in 2020, a highly disparate group of approximately 50 people descended on the island last week to meet and continue the virtual conversation face-to-face for one brief day. Amongst that group were, of course, teachers from primary, secondary, further and higher education, teachers from the widest range of ages and experiences imaginable, from student-teachers and probationary teachers to one or two who had already retired, some current and past headteachers, people from the national agencies in Scotland, such as LTS and SQA, a member of HMIE (who, incidentally, understood perfectly the nature of the event), people from various management and administrative levels in Scottish local government, one or two from the private sector, some who worked in or alongside education but were not themselves teachers, and one or two who were simply interested in joining the discussion. All were made very welcome.

The key to the event on Islay was that is was just one very short, though highly enjoyable and much-anticipated, episode within a broad and varied conversation that has been going on for some time in the virtual space and which will continue long after the pleasures of Islay fade from the minds of those who attended in person. It is a conversation that has involved many more people than those who were able to make their way to Islay, some of whom, indeed, held a parallel online event via FlashMeeting, and it is a conversation that will continue to expand in the coming weeks and months by any and every means at our disposal. The opportunity to insert a physical component into the virtual conversation was an important one to take, and the success of the event on the day certainly justified that desire.

For me, however, the most interesting aspect of the event was found in the attitudes and behaviours of a very small number of attendees at the event. These were people who, evidently, see themselves as senior players in the education system, either in local government or in school management, and who therefore proceeded to bless the room with their words of wisdom on any and every topic that arose. These were people who, for whatever reason, were quite unable to recognise and acknowledge through their own attitudes and behaviours the complete irrelevance of their formal status to the event. Even their body language spoke volumes: while everyone else sat in the body of the hall around the tables provided, this group, for the most part, stood apart at the back of the room. Their apparent unwillingness to join the throng, consciously or unconsciously, came across as a demonstration of detached superiority. It is, unfortunately, a common sight in education worldwide to see, in full flow, those who feel the need to impress not just their views on everyone else, but the unquestionable authority and rightness of those views. Most of the time, it is entirely misplaced.

It was enlightening, for instance – and, frankly, rather amusing – to be lectured on the primacy of face-to-face contact in education by people who have no active online presence whatsoever, and to be told that being ’stuck in front of a screen’ is no substitute for ‘real’ education (no definition proffered, of course). Watching the antics of those who suffer from the delusion that their formal status somehow confers authority on them was a salutory experience in a setting designed precisely to eschew such nonsense. In that particular setting, amongst that large group of people whose very presence at the event was the outcome of a long, complex and always-stimulating series of online interactions (through the Edu2020 wiki, through Twitter, through blogs, through online meetings, and through a whole host of means that these f2f-zealots simply neither know nor have any inclination to investigate) it did strike a slightly jarring note.

The positive effect, of course, was that this attitude of status-conferred authority, and the gushing and voluminous platitudes that we had to listen to as a result, established the perfect foil for all those in the room who understood precisely the nature and purpose of the event, who were aware that the event itself was just a small but significant part of a very much wider discussion, and who, because of their willingness to engage positively with the virtual, were therefore able to recognise clearly the singular lack of authority of these people in this context.

Technorati Tags: edu2020, education2020, islay, authority, status, teachmeet

Category: Web 2.0, authority, community, education, elitism, leadership, learning, social networking, social technology, teaching, technology

Comments

28 Responses to “The Delusion of Status-Conferred Authority”

Ryan Lanham
June 14th, 2009 @ 2:56 pm

Agreed, but to say this goes against the whole of the system. PhDs, degrees, etc. are all status-conferred authorities. They are, in short, union cards.

To change this system augers social change so radical it is almost impossible to comprehend.

In short, we may need charlatans to run our society as it is.
Gordon Brown
June 14th, 2009 @ 3:18 pm

John,

Your post captures my thoughts and feelings perfectly. A further irony was that the strident advocates of ‘face to face’ interaction physically detached themselves from any chance of actual ‘face to face’ conversation.

The fact is that the very nature of a virtual community undermines the power of those who value their own status so highly – I suspect that’s why it seems so threatening to them. But as Mr Dylan said “You’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone”.

Regards,

Gordon
John Connell
June 14th, 2009 @ 3:56 pm

Ryan,

I’m afraid you compleely miss the point I make. If you read it again you will see that I am not arguing against status per se, or even against accreditation, of whatever kind. I do however argue that no one, whatever their status, should ever assume that their status gives them an automatic right to be regarded as an authority – that, they have to prove each time they speak, write, debate or discuss.

Indeed the greatest charlatans, in my experience, are precisely those who ask others to defer to some misplaced definition of authority based on status, real or imagined, and who fall down whenever they are asked to prove that authority.
Ryan Lanham
June 14th, 2009 @ 4:26 pm

John,

Then I don’t think I misread you at all.

I believe you are unwilling to jump to the powerful conclusion your logic points toward: It is that no one can have reasonable status outside a constantly vetted reputation scheme.

In short, action is status. Expertise is earned and not conferred and peers are the public, not some priesthood. This is problematic in some fields–like science–where it would take time to be “out there.” But it is happening in areas like medicine where reasonable people now regularly disagree with the priesthoods about what is and isn’t valid.

I believe it is healthy. Down with sinecures and priesthoods. Up with presbyteries. That ought to make someone from the north of the UK happy.

Ryan
John Connell
June 14th, 2009 @ 4:43 pm

On that basis, I did misread your point, Ryan. However, I still don’t understand the final point you made in your first comment: “…we may need charlatans to run our society as it is.” That doesn’t seem to chime with the rest of your message.
John Connell
June 14th, 2009 @ 4:44 pm

As for priesthoods, Ryan, I would say a plague on all their houses
Ryan Lanham
June 14th, 2009 @ 4:57 pm

John,

Keep it up. The blog is very good. You don’t get enough notice for the role you play…Jon Husband, Stephen Downes, George Siemens, Michel Bauwens and a few others are in that core I always look at reasonably closely…you are there too. Therefore I suppose I am saying thank you.

As to my final sentence above…it was meant as a bit of sarcasm, but it didn’t come out in such a way as to be easily interpreted as such.

R.
Mr T's Teaching Blog » Blog Archive » Education2020 – an ‘unconference’ on Islay
June 14th, 2009 @ 5:16 pm

[...] people have already starting blogging about the event including John Connell with a provocative and as always excellent post on the way some people would not enter fully into the spirit of things. An [...]
John Connell
June 14th, 2009 @ 5:41 pm

Thanks, Ryan – much appreciated!
Some thoughts on un-conferences @ whereisab
June 14th, 2009 @ 6:38 pm

[...] I think an independent host makes a huge difference. They wouldn’t have to worry about loud voices, as they could state some simple ‘wait your turn’ or ‘7 minute’/’2 [...]
Neil Winton
June 14th, 2009 @ 7:51 pm

A thoughtful and thought-provoking write up, John. For me, what is apparent is the division between those who know that there need to be changes and are actively engaging in trying to make sense of them, and those who are clinging on to the old regime — no matter how irrelevant it has become for the society in which we expect our pupils and children to engage after they leave school.

I have encountered those who are quite open in saying that the Curriculum for Excellence means we don’t need to change what we do or how we do it, and in most cases, I have found that this is because of a profound lack of understanding, or even fear, of the way our pupils learn. I truly believe that they are wrong. Change is not only necessary, it is inevitable. To believe otherwise is, quite frankly, to ignore everything that has happened since Tim Berners-Lee proposal for a world wide web in March 1989.

Of course, the real crime is to think that the technology available to us should be leveraged to serve the old way of doing things rather than seeing how it can enable everyone to work smarter, better, faster… Rather, we should be seeing how technology can liberate us from the mainly didactic model of education that is so pervasive in our culture and schools. I find it slightly ironic that the need to embedd ICT across all subjects has long been recognised by bodies such as the HMIe (Scottish school inspectors), and yet those who should be leading the changes — indeed, those whose role is to lead change in schools — are often the most resistant to doing so.

As you know, I am a secondary school English teacher. Reading and writing are the life-blood of my subject, and I don’t think anyone would argue that the ability to read and write (along with arithmetical skills) are essential to success in most of the spheres that are valued by society. They are the essential building blocks which will allow us all to learn… but that doesn’t mean that we need to confine ourselves to reading and writing “the same way that we have always done it”… because, of course, we haven’t always taught reading and writing in the same way — as a quick visit to the Scotland Street school in Glasgow will demonstrate. The real joy I get from teaching English is in seeing young people realise that there is more to books and plays and poetry than they first thought, and with the ready access to knowledge afforded us by the internet and technology, I am doing them a great disservice by not showing them how to research and evaluate information from every possible source (be that print or online).

You may be interested to review the FlashMeeting that ran parallel with the Islay unconference. Our discussion was fairly wide-ranging and inclusive, and we finished by trying to picture how we would wish schools to be. I made the point (at about 2:58 hours in) that I would like to see schools being places where pupils are encouraged to find things out, where teachers are not spending their time saying “No, you can’t do that” and instead are saying “Yes, you can do that… and you can also try this, and this and this…” I want to see schools as places where people push themselves and where learning is as natural as breathing. Reading your comments above about those in ‘authority’ makes me realise that we still have a long way to go… Shame.
literacyadviser
June 14th, 2009 @ 8:10 pm

John,
Strong words indeed, which is no less than I would expect from you. Well done. I was one of those unable to get to Islay at the weekend but it sounds like it has been a great event. I didn’t take part in the FM either I have to say as I went for a few drinks with a colleague who was leaving work and……well you know how it goes.Now I am having great fun imagining who it is you might be referring to in your comments. Aye, the establishment in Scottish education – I’m minded of Burns’ unco guid! As I’ve said once or twice before, in TES and elsewhere (sometimes to my cost) there are some real barriers to progress in terms of Curriculum for Excellence, and not many of them are classroom teachers. I honestly believe the biggest barrier to progress is elitism, or the fabled vested interest in the status quo. As time passes from the publication of the original CfE vision the interpretation of it becomes more and more conservative. However, the cause for optimism is in what the likes of Andy, Iain and all those at Islay are doing in their day-to-day practice.

Bill
dave t
June 14th, 2009 @ 8:15 pm

A good post as always John. And Neil hits it on the head yet again with the above.

I too am tired of being told to use ICT to improve attainment and get the kids working really hard only to come up against either a wall of IT ‘experts’ jealously guarding their empires and not allowing teachers into them to sort what the kids need not what the IT expert thinks they want. The other is the usual problem of not having enough PCs that work effectively or Net access being blocked to everything useful!

We need to get rid of these aloof experts and get teachers involved a lot more.

But I also regret that there are too many dinosaurs with “DSCA” in the staffroom who will fight change because it means that they have to start teaching for the first time in years. ‘I’ve been teaching for 20/30 years’ often means they’ve been saying the same thing 20/30 times.

Ironically I’m a new teacher (2 years since NQT) I’m 51 and have had 23 years in the Army beforehand. I wrote the new school website, use twitter, set up blogs for my students and upload resources to Dropbox and a separate English website. I let them know that they can ask for help outside school under controlled conditions (public posts or tweets for example) and will answer their requests by return. Yet many of the young staff (under 30) dismiss Twitter and wikis/blogs etc! To them going online is a social thing, not for use within school!

I think we should recognise DSCA as a plague within education and stamp it out. Fast.
Gerald Haigh
June 15th, 2009 @ 7:38 am

John, a brilliant blog, and I’m moved to join in. Over the years– and there have been many, let me say – I’ve learned instinctively to try to see the other side of the argument. So although all of the above is sound, very recognisable, and even though I wasn’t there, I still feel the need to add this.
I wonder two things. Firstly, whether there was any attempt positively to draw these resistant people in, trying to find points of contact and probing for areas where they have experience and expertise. Isn’t that what good teachers do all the time? And what good department heads do with their doubtful colleagues?
And secondly, there is a very recognisable and worrying tendency in all areas of public discourse to ignore and dismiss the lessons of the past. The wheel is constantly being re-invented and those who were there at its first appearance (and the second and third) , and are very familiar with the issues that came up then, are often bemused by this. Perhaps there’s a bit of that going on here? Yes, I know, one of the things no innovator wants to hear is, “We tried that back in….and it didn’t work then either.” That’s terribly negative, and crushing. But just occasionally, were it put with more understanding and sensitivity and evidence — and listened to — it might at least start a useful debate.
Margaret Alcorn
June 15th, 2009 @ 8:04 am

Great blog. Thanks John – really sorry I missed it. I think Gerald’s blog makes an important point however. These people – whoever they were (dying to know) -turned up and so indicated an interest in the discussion. Is it possible that their unwillingness to engage, and their retreat into old familiar mantras might have been motivated by a lack of confidence and a fear of feeling excluded?
As a bit of a newcomer to this world – slow learner but trying hard – there seems to me to be a very strong and powerful community in Scotland around the e-world. It can leave those who are at an earlier stage of their journey feeling just a wee bit left out.
John Connell
June 15th, 2009 @ 8:53 am

Gerald/Margaret,

I understand fully the points you make and, largely, agree with them. This was by no means a geek-get-together (otherwise I would not have attended), but a genuinely inclusive group that involved people from all parts of education and none. However, it was a group that did include a number of people who have been working very hard in applying a wide range of technologies in education, testing the boundaries of what works and what does not, all at a very practical, classroom-based level. I can therefore understand the reluctance of such people to hear someone dismiss such work as ‘being stuck in front of a screen’ – I have to say that even these remarks were heard politely and were responded to in fairly understated terms at the time. In any case, the subjects of my post above were very far from ‘being unwilling to engage’ – the problem was that they were all too willing to engage, but only on their own terms, and volubly!

So far as learning from the past is concerned, the group on Islay was by no means a bunch of education neophytes – there were many there who have seen the wheel re-invented more than a few times. I should also say that the starry-eyed techno-zealots, if there were any there, were far outnumbered by those who were there primarily to discuss education in its widest sense, and not simply technology. The agenda on the day proves that: assessment, learning spaces, relevant skills – these are not the natural habitat of the geek.

As for Margaret’s final point, I have to say that personal perception must play a part here. It would be a mistake to see that community – and there certainly is one – as some kind of cabal – it is, rather, in my experience, a very loose grouping of people with varied interests, varied levels of expertise and widely differing views on the utility or otherwise of digital technologies in learning. It is also just one small part of a genuinely global conversation that is going on continually through various means, virtual and otherwise. If you have a genuine interest in the uses of technology generally in education, whatever your level of knowledge or expertise, it is a very simple matter to join in the conversation. Like every community, it has its zealots and its sceptics, its nutters and its pragmatists – as with every community, you quickly learn which are which.

Finally, I would not want the main point of my post – the confusion of status with authority – to be diluted by a discussion about views on technology in education.
Jim
June 15th, 2009 @ 9:07 am

Interesting post John, and also the ensuing comments/views. For me I think you make a good point regarding the fact that “status does not infer authority” and the need for “authority to be continually earned etc”. I agree with these points!

That said, I came here this morning to find out what were the real highlights of the event in Islay – I hope that this was not all that you felt worth of reporting about the event. I assume that the scope reporting here does not mirror the overall value of whole events content?
John Connell
June 15th, 2009 @ 9:13 am

It was a superb event, Jim, and I will certainly be posting on the more substantive, and more important, aspects of the event within the next day or so. I just felt the need to make this particular point first
Alan Britton
June 15th, 2009 @ 2:40 pm

John

This is the only space I can find to pass on my apologies for being unable to make it along last week as planned- a severe bout of tonsilitis which meant that I lost my voice among other syptoms. Perhaps this might not have been a bad thing under the circumstances you describe above!!
Hope to hear more, and find out if there’s any way to follow up.

Alan Britton
John Connell
June 15th, 2009 @ 2:51 pm

Hi Alan,

The above did not spoil the event at all, to be honest – it was a great discussion with a great bunch of folks overall. In a way, what I describe here only added to the room for humour around the debate

Keep your eye on the Edu2020 wiki (and all blogs, Twitter etc) to keep up with what is definitely an ongoing conversation.

Cheers,

John
Joe Wilson
June 15th, 2009 @ 4:59 pm

Very priviledged to be with 23 Commonwealth Countries this week – challenges that teachers face in some of these countries would make anyone humble.

We have got to change – shift into a different gear -and be it led from top – bottom or even from changes led from outside. Our all too precious system in this very global economy – must change -it is not for the egos – but for the learners and their futures.

Policy makers at any level should blog and twitter as part of their responsibility to Civil Society. We have too many old warhorses with old prejudices that can’t stand the light of real scrutiny.

More school to school links – in a global context would make any learner ,teacher , HT , HMIE , SQA , LA or other Educational Administrator – see and learn about how applied learning needs to become – four capacities+ some – we have a way to go and curriculum for excellence is just a wee start.

Anyone who arrives in any workplace will know from day one about global competition.

Look forward to following and learning from the 2020 debate
Gerald Haigh
June 15th, 2009 @ 5:04 pm

And not once has anyone mentioned the eponymous malt whisky.
Hilery Williams
June 15th, 2009 @ 6:37 pm

Imagine this.
A teacher who, like many others, spends much of her non-working life reading, thinking, breathing education, is denied permission to attend an event not unlike the one described here. Denied, because she does not have a strategic role in The Authority (though the manager’s name was not Mrs Coulter!). Denied because it is not her place to have opinions about the future of education. She is to wait patiently until her superiors deliver directives, which she should then carry out. And to stop being so uppity.
This, despite the fact that she offers to cover the (not inconsiderable) costs (or to take unpaid leave); despite the fact that she needs no supply cover for the 31/2 hours she needs to be away from the chalk face; despite the fact that the rhetoric of distributed leadership is loudly proclaimed.
The teacher requests a rationale for the decision. Others are attending, so the quality of the event is not necessarily in doubt. It must be a question of status. Another professional – one with a larger pay packet – is referred to. The event is pronounced ‘bone fide’. (No one was to know that the reality reflected a little the hierarchical mindset of her own managers.) After many negotiations, the teacher (eternally grateful for the beneficence of her betters) is allowed to go.
Bu when she returns she shares her learning only with those colleagues with a like interest, surreptitiously so as not to rock any boats. And she dreams of a future education system in which all are recognised as learners; one in which even those who have taken conscious decisions to remain in the classroom are treated with equity and respect.
But she’ll be long retired by 2020.
Gerald Haigh
June 15th, 2009 @ 7:34 pm

The days of top-down control of teaching and learning are surely numbered. There’s a strong tide flowing the other way. The Nuffield Review of 14 — 19 Education and Training in England and Wales, in the preparation of which I was honoured to play a very small role, is a powerful ally in this respect. Published a couple of weeks ago, it looks back to a time when it was assumed that teachers were rightly assumed to be the key curriculum developers, a role that was usurped through the Eighties and Nineties by government and its agencies. It wants the position restored —
“It is a disservice to the role of teaching to see teachers as mere ‘deliverers of a curriculum’ – something devised elsewhere for transmission to the learners. Rather is teaching an engagement of minds between teacher and learner….”
And in a key recommendation it demands,
“The redistribution of power and decision making such that there can be greater room for the voice of the learner, for the expertise of the teacher….”
“Education for All — The Future of Education and Training for 14 — 19 Year Olds” by Richard Pring et al. Routledge 2009
Gerald Haigh
June 15th, 2009 @ 7:37 pm

Repetition of “assumed”. Bong! Sorry.
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