Schoolyard Bullies or Schoolyard Bimbos?

Schoolyard Bullies or Schoolyard Bimbos?Schoolyard Bullies: Messing with British Columbia's Education System by Mike CrawleyReview by: Leroi B. DanielsCanadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l'éducation, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Summer,1996), pp. 341-345Published by: Canadian Society for the Study of EducationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1495037 .

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Schoolyard Bullies or Schoolyard Bimbos?

Schoolyard Bullies: Messing with British Columbia's Education System

By Mike Crawley

Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 1995. vi+186 pages. ISBN 1-55143-043-6 (pbk.)

REVIEWED BY LEROI B. DANIELS, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH

COLUMBIA

Schoolyard Bullies deals with four major topics: British Columbia's Sullivan

Royal Commission on Education (1988); the ensuing school reform usually called "Year 2000"; what happened to Year 2000; and what has happened since Year 2000 was "abandoned" (or, as the author asks, "Was it?"). I will focus on the second and third topics -with a few cautionary remarks on what is going on now in B.C. and, it seems to me, in the rest of Canada.

The Sullivan Royal Commission may be summed up as a political move in a confused right-wing government's effort to shore up its popularity, which ended,

probably by mistake, in choosing a commissioner who had integrity and collected a good team -but who died of cancer in the last stages of the preparation of a

good report, without an educational heir. Then the commissioning government was defeated (luckily for B.C.)-and replaced by a soft socialist government. Crawley's account of how all this happened and how the new government handled the Sullivan report is detailed and persuasive. In this context, it will be

interesting to see how the radically right-wing government of Ontario will handle the report of the recent Ontario Royal Commission (1994)- which espouses the same "psycho-babble" approach to education (Daniels, 1996) as became the heart of Year 2000 (but which was much less pronounced in the Sullivan report). There was indeed, as Crawley recognizes, a mysterious swerve from the Sullivan

report's sensible talk to the miasmic concepts and prescriptions of Year 2000.

Although Crawley does shed some light on how this happened (a meeting at Whistler ski resort and the lack of a Sullivan heir), the shift was so great that there appears to be no connection between the Royal Commission report and Year 2000. Crawley thinks otherwise, but I think he is blinded by his acceptance of the Year 2000 principles. I hope a future historian will examine this missing link.

The Year 2000 approach, evident in the Ontario report as well, commits two mistakes: (a) thinking that there is "research" which can tell educators, as there

may be research which can tell medical practitioners, what will, empirically,

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 21, 3 (1996): 341-345 341



ESSAIS CRITIQUES / REVIEW ESSAYS

"work"; and (b) thinking that the concepts used by certain psychologists are actually helpful for educators. There is no such research; the concepts of psychologists are part of the problem-not part of the solution. The reason why both are mistakes is that psychology tries to treat humans as if they are simply causally driven "things" (machines?), whereas humans are things with pur- poses-often called "persons." Becoming a worthwhile teacher has far less to do with knowing what the "research" says than it does with understanding such basic ethical principles as respect for persons. Crawley misses what I suspect the most ardent Year 2000 enthusiasts were concerned about. Their worries were about the school system's possible destruction of student self-esteem. The concern is an ethical concern. But the proponents did not know how to explain this notion. Crawley quotes several people who seem to dismiss this concern. They should read Neil Sutherland's "The Triumph of Formalism" (1986). Year 2000 is not a curriculum document; it is an inarticulate argument about educational ethics. If you are required by law to be in a certain place for five (or so) hours a day (called "compulsory schooling"), it would seem not unreasonable that those in charge try to take into account who you are in what they ask or require you to do.

Crawley argues that proponents of Year 2000 were well intentioned (as, in my experience, they certainly were) and advocated (at least) five of what he refers to as "principles"-and he holds that these principles are the good things about Year 2000. The first three are active participation, recognizing different ways and rates of learning, and recognizing that sometimes we learn best individually and sometimes with others. He characterizes these three as "simple-and difficult to disagree with-principles." This review is no place to argue against these ideas-except to say that the reason we cannot disagree is that they are almost certainly tautological or totally banal. If they are principles, they are empty principles -unless they are construed as ethical principles. Learning at different rates is relevant in education only if someone creates a situation in which students are treated unfairly because learning rates are not taken into account when assigning accolades or blame.

In various places Crawley characterizes these principles as "constructivist." But constructivists have also misconstrued their message. They have conceived of their ideas as epistemological ideas. But it is not the case that, as individuals, human beings decide what is knowledge; what counts as knowledge is decided by a huge and complex set of practices and institutions. One aim of education is to get people inside these practices. But the most this argument implies for education is that, persuasively but uninterestingly, a teacher should find out what kids know before he or she tries to teach them something new. And this is an ethical message, not an epistemological one; the message is that it is unfair to expect students who do not know Y to learn X when they need to know Y in order to learn X. It is not a big step from this ethical principle to the empirical

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claim that if they do not know Y they will not learn X if a teacher does not help them learn Y. I cannot, ethically speaking, be held responsible for what I cannot do. And it is not difficult to understand why I would resent an institution that punished me if I could not learn X when I did not know Y. The major defect of Crawley's book is an honouring of banal or profoundly confused principles -as, unfortunately, does the Ontario report. In education, Gresham's law applies with particular pathos: stupid concepts drive out sensible-especially complex or subtle - concepts.

Crawley provides a clear and wide-ranging account of the conditions that led to the public rejection of Year 2000 essentially before its ideas had been widely tried in schools (assuming such trials were possible). These conditions include governments trying to get elected, bizarre interpretations of poll data by "pro- fessional" pollsters, cabinet paralysis, renewed support for right-wing ideology, confusion and indecision by the B.C. Teachers Federation, resistance from universities, and the simple-minded concepts and beliefs used by most people in their talk about education (for example, that letter grades tell parents more than anecdotal reporting). He also delves into the literature on educational change, asserting that "the people at the helm did not understand how to change a huge system like education" (p. 108). The implication is that somebody knows how- and he turns to some works of Michael Fullan and Seymour Sarason, citing with approval six "themes" from Fullan: "build a collective vision of the change; plan for evolutionary change; share power; monitor the process to cope with problems that arise; restructure the power relationships in schools; ensure concrete profes- sional development and support throughout the process" (pp. 109-110). What- ever one might think of these obviously either banal or tautological maxims, the Year 2000 folks certainly did not demonstrate common sense in much of their desperate search for consensus.

Crawley gives a marvellous account of the work of the then newly established (and soon to vanish) branch of the Ministry of Education, the "innovations branch," and of how its $6-million first-year budget was used. Their activities included filling the "the elevators of the Education Ministry building with balloons" (p. 54) and holding what he labels "Baptist Revival Meetings." I had what, in retrospect, I regard as the great good fortune to attend one of these meetings: otherwise, I would never believe anyone who told me about them. The occasion was "designed" to bring together, very belatedly in the campaign, the three major Faculties of Education in B.C. Those in attendance were presented with a prattle-and-light show that one wag characterized as "the Amway way." We were offered a history of modern times, apparently taken from Time maga- zine, and while we were babbled at from a glitzy podium, slides flashed on a huge screen a series of utterly unrelated scenes (the first moon landing!). Most in the audience were enraged, not only because the Ministry was dilatory in starting to work with us, but also because of the incredible banality of the show.

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Two other personal experiences of mine cast light on the way the people promoting Year 2000 operated. Year 2000 called for three levels of curriculum-primary, intermediate, and graduation. Three teams, consisting chiefly of teachers, were charged with writing the necessary documents. Crawley names the members of the teams-omitting the university people who were later added only when the deans of education complained. I attended, as a temporary alter- native, two meetings of the intermediate team. Crawley characterizes these teams as "somewhat at arm's length from the Education Ministry," and says that "The ministry provided support people and a couple of senior staff to act as managers or directors" (p. 57). I did not perceive the situation in the same way: the

"managers" were also censors; the Ministry kept a tight lid on information; this intermediate team at least had far less independence than Crawley imagines. And the ministerial control was essentially by those who were conceptually very naive. One said to me that he did not care whether an integrated curriculum was

good or bad, as long as it made teachers feel good. The other thing that soon became crystal-clear is that these teachers, although entirely enthusiastic about their work and about teaching in general, were not able to write coherently. As one participant says, "There was this tremendous inability to get beyond the slogans" (p. 93). This summary, in my opinion, was true of the whole Ministry.

On another occasion I was invited, along with, as it turned out, several others from the three main Faculties of Education, to a meeting in Victoria. The Ministry person would not tell me on the phone what the meeting was about. When we assembled, we were asked (swear words omitted) "What can we do about these universities?" It turned out that the Ministry had recently received the comments on Year 2000 made by the Faculties of Arts and Science at the University of British Columbia. The response from these faculties was so nega- tive that the Ministry feared it would undermine the whole project-and the various Faculties of Education were considered equally guilty, in spite of the fact that none of us had even seen the report. Some parts of some universities did work against Year 2000, but the Ministry's failure to treat the universities as significant has long been a problem in B.C.-and was with Year 2000.

In his discussion of the policies following after Year 2000, Crawley praises the Ministry's efforts to direct education towards "practical" application, the world of work, and its efforts to provide a number of innovations. Among these innovations are "Integrated Resource Packages." Crawley characterizes these

packages as "one-stop shopping resources for teachers- more than just curriculum guides, they contain course content, suggested teaching methods, print and visual resources . . . Some people hope these packages will help change some teachers' view of the curriculum as 'ground to be covered"' (p. 134). Well, I have been somewhat involved in writing some of these packages and I have done some analysis of those already produced. What they actually are is a return to

good old behavioural objectives- Bloom's taxonomy reanimated.

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Crawley is also inclined to set up a straw contrast between the Sullivan report, Year 2000, and the new moves by the Ministry, as if each were a struggle against teaching by telling and rote; he even resuscitates Dickens' Thomas Gradgrind (p. 139). This comparison does not add to a sensible discussion of schools and teachers: British Columbia does not have Gradgrind schools. In addition, Crawley fails to place B.C.'s wild ride on the educational pendulum in a larger context. Its new emphasis on vocationalism is part of a world trend. It is not clear it is a good trend.

Schoolyard Bullies is a good book. Crawley, serious, involved, seeks a fully informed view; the book is a great source of information for those of us who have lived and are living the story it tells. It may appear to be less helpful to people outside B.C. -but only if they think they need to know who, as individuals, the many people he quotes are. They are, rather, prototypical people-and, in his presentation of them, not stereotypes: the "amateur" Royal Commissioner (a lawyer by trade), the selfless and honorable former dean, the bright and articulate senior school administrators, the well-intentioned but authorially hapless teacher with a vision, the smooth senior Ministry administrators accom- panied by their insecure and, too often, conceptually naive, assistants, and so on. They represent recurring types easily recognized in school or Ministry settings. And the issues presented are prototypical issues. Unrecognized by many, what educators should be concerned with is not "What does the research tell us?" but rather "What does it mean to know something?" and "Why shouldn't we treat kids as persons?" Read with this caution in mind, even people unfamiliar with the standard chaos of education in B.C. can learn from this book.

REFERENCES Daniels, L. (1996). Student learning: Misleading arguments? In G. Milbur (Ed.), "Ring

some alarm bells in Ontario": Reactions to the Report of the Royal Commission on Learning (pp. 65-78). London, ON: The Althouse Press.

Ontario Royal Commission on Learning. (1994). For the love of learning: Report of the

Royal Commission on Learning (Vols. 1-4). Toronto: Queen's Printer. Sullivan, B. M. (1988). A legacy for learners: Report of the Royal Commission on

Education. Victoria: Queen's Printer. Sutherland, N. (1986). The triumph of formalism: Elementary schooling in Vancouver

from the 1920's to the 1960's. BC Studies, 69-70, 175-210.

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Schoolyard Bullies or Schoolyard Bimbos?