answering the questions (one)

When you are working with your students in class, what do you feel about the source of power that is legitimating what you are doing? 

I hated it so much that I no longer teach in a classroom. People are kidding themselves if they think they do not do the work of the government. Egg Head (aka Christopher Luxon) is talking about interpellation at the moment. If your school doesn’t inforce the phone ban, “they” will send in ERO to “help” you achieve the ban. I personally support having a discussion on phones – I just brought my child a phone. It is a “wise” phone, a tradie phone.. It is all phone, no internet, no games, and hard to text. It is a non addictive phone. There are no endorphin hits from it! and it is what she asked for as I gave her all the information on smartphones. She has seen the effect of a phone on me with all my adult skills and seen that I am less accessible. She knows that a lot of her friends do have problems with devices. She knows it is hard to turn a TV off, and then you remember when you do, what all your plans were, and nothing got done. I gave her the opportunity to learn this, so we should let school kids?  I am not saying there wasn’t the odd rant and spitting of the dummy by both of us.

I heard a science teacher say phones are how she manages the behavior of the students who “do not” want to learn – they just play with their phones at the back of the class. 

The National Party’s PR machine has been using interpellation for years – repeat the same dogma until the easily interpellated believe this. It has an avertising name that I have forgotton, and has been used internationally and here for years.

When I was in a classroom, I was fortunate to have a range of ages of kids in the class. I asked the kids how they wanted to run their own literacy session (that was handed down to me) and one student (6) came up with an exellent system that we implemented and it gave them much more control over choosing what they wanted to focus on with their learning (a mix of stuff they liked and stuff they identified needed work, and they did it all as a group working together). I had to write on her report that she was NOT meeting standard!! Her excellent system was probably the longest conversation she had with me – as she was paralytic with shyness around adults. We were not working on whatever National Standard she flunked. I fortunately left pregnant when National Standards came in, but not until after a terse discussion with my principal. I would have been happy to have practiced passive resistance and not written to national standards.

In the “classroom” I teach in now – firstly I am aided by the classroom itself (outside and large), secondly by not having to conform to “teaching” as a didactic act. All the things I say in our morning briefing/safety hui have to have a logical consistency, eg. if you show respect to our tools (saws, hammers, pliers) by using them for the correct purpose and bring them back, they will be there when you want to use them! Usually I say “We have one rule that rules them all” the kids chorus (some portion of kids have been coming for a while) “be Kind” (so well inerpellated), and I ask what it looks like, who to and they tell me… then some kid pipes up about keeping the briefing brief and off they go. I will occasionally model things like, picking up a hammer and saying loudly “is any one using this” and take it back to the shadow board. The children spend the day manufacturing conflict and resolving it themselves. I will shadow kids that I can see don’t have skills in joining in play with others and give them help. If I feel the need, I will remind the kids in the briefing that we are all different ages and stages in development and to use more words rather than less. I do not have the same expectations of all the students. This is independent of age. It took one kid days before they realised the briefing was on the whole enjoyable as I often tell stories of mine and others’ (my kid read Eats Shoots and Leaves and is teaching me to use apostrophes) mistakes, and joined us. I tell the children that we succeed as a group and give examples – if a child suffers from hypothermia, we all have to stop to look after that child, so play stops. We need to help/remind each other so we all succeed. Hmmm, now I write this, I am wondering if it is too weighted toward individual responsibility. I tell the children openly that they should not need us and we have a legal responsibility of having one adult to 10 children. If they want to leave the  site, they have clipboards, and if they find 10 kids, an adult will go with them where they have all decided they want to go. I endevor to try not to have power over them.

What is driving you to do the things you do?

Childhood is a short period, I want children to feel free. To understand what freedom and the responsibilities within that are! (as compared the lack of freeedom of thinking within the group claiming to be for freedom at the anti-vax protests). I think children come out wanting to learn (biological imperitive for survival), and we tell them what to learn, what to read, assess what they are reading, and they become stupid. Someone (not the only person to tell me) told me last night that my child should go to school so she could “learn she can’t always learn what she wants” she has to “learn there are things she has to do”.. as if any child is not inculcated to this in the first few years of life. This persons opinion boiled down to a highly negative statement.

It is ideology of course but where has this ideology come from? 

From having to relearn about dinosaurs from a 3 year old who knew more than I did yet could not read and could be hard to understand except when it came to using long accurate words about dinosaurs.. From not being interpellated to school?… because from birth I have not recognised authority? I know we made schools up? My whole background has been emersed in nature – including looking at what is natural for children (it ain’t being in a classroom, how would such physical bodies have that in their design)? A deep understanding of how we put people in boxes? and a total interest in accepting people as they are? Having a wide range of friends spanning many generations? my very own old people?…. I DO NOT KNOW.

What are the main tenets of the ideology that you have bought into as a teacher?

I reject most of the tenets of the ideology behind the conventional understanding of the word teacher, but it is what I do.

That the child is not wrong. I should adapt to the child, not the child, to me. That idealism is trying to make the world as you want it, not something that can never exist. Democracy is good for children and the community..

There seems to be a contradiction as we talk about our system promoting individualism, as they it is only individualism within certain parameters as actual individuals are not considered within the system. You are not allowed to be an individual, yet we promote the idea of winning as individuals vs the group. A system that actually lets individuals be who they are would allow more success as a group as there is inherent in being human a concern for others, wanting to MAKE community – this has to be taught away.

Who/what benefits from your interpellatory activities as a teacher? (We like to say it is students of course but who else?)

Me. The kids of today will be deciding when I get my pension, how they treat poor people, what kind of hospitals there are when I need them. If public transport is funded…