Relational learning and (well) being

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Relational learning and (well) being
Leigh Burrows Learner Wellbeing Professional
Learning 12.3.10
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Sigmund Freud

• Education, healing and governing are the three
  impossible professions.
• In Britzman, D. (2009). The very thought of
  education. NY Suny Press

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• The Claremont Study (in Bingham Sidorkin,
  2004) identified the main issues affecting
  American public education as identified from
  inside the classroom by students, teachers,
  parents and administrators as being
  relationships.

• Participants feel the crisis in schools
• is directly linked to human relationships
• (i Bingham Sidorkin, 2004, p5)
• Bingham, C Sidorkin, A (2004)
• The Pedagogy of Relation an introduction
• In No education without relation. Peter Lang.

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A relational paradigm in education?

• A focus on the opportunities for growth through
  generating new forms of connectedness that can
  foster the wellbeing of everyone involved

• In creating mutually enhancing connections we
  can transform all the institutions in our lives,
  from school to workplace to home (p22)

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Relational learning

• Effective relationships and trust
• are pivotal in facilitating learning
• (Rogers, 1983, in Bingham Sidorkin, 2004)

• Trusting, personal relationships are the bedrock
  of academic success
• (Erickson, 1987 in Bingham Sidorkin, 2004)
• Bingham, C Sidorkin, A (2004)
• The Pedagogy of Relation an introduction
• In No education without relation. Peter Lang.

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• Teaching is building educational relations
• ( Bingham Sidorkin, 2004, p6)
• Educational relation exists to include the
  student in a wider web of relations beyond the
  limits of the educational relation (p6)

• Relations are not necessarily good
• (p7)
• Bingham, C Sidorkin, A (2004)
• The Pedagogy of Relation an introduction
• In No education without relation. Peter Lang.

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Intrinsic motivation for learning?

• Sidorkin (2002) argues that students lack an
  intrinsic motivation for learning in an
  institutional environment - which is the basic
  condition of schooling.

• He sees the only way to get around this
  obstacle is to either
• force students to learn using a host of direct
  and indirect forms of violence that educators
  have invented over the centuries
• build a community where kids will love their
  teachers and will agree to do the school stuff
  too (p.128)

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Weaving the connections through relational
practice

• Domestic violence service
• Holiday and after school care
• Steiner/waldorf community school
• HS spec ed and English teacher
• Learning difficulties support team
• HREOC cases
• ENU
• Learner Wellbeing team- seconded
• Flinders University
• consultancy

• Relational learning topic
• Aiming to create wellbeing generating contexts
  for vulnerable young people
• A recurring theme - autism

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Working relationally?

• While there had been a number of positive
  outcomes from a holistic and relational way of
  working, that I had developed in the field, at
  that time I lacked a sophisticated understanding
  of the theoretical underpinnings

• I needed a coherent philosophy to assist me
  to stay true to my own values and beliefs in the
  face of the community opposition I at times
  encountered through advocating a relational
  approach to autism.
• PhD ARC Linkage project.

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• I felt awed by the power of relationship and
  connection to make changes, even when there is a
  total deficit in emotional attachment, as in
  autism  
• Through my work I had begun to see that many of
  these young people were slowly able to become
  what Emmet (2000) calls a little self who is
  emotionally connected to his family and others
  (p2) with a gradual reduction in their
  difficulties in relating

• However, having learned to do something is
  not the same as understanding why it works
• (Sidorkin, 2002, p10).
• Many successful educators often do not realise
  the reason for their success according to
  Sidorkin (2002)

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Working relationally?

• Autism is characterised by a deficit in the
  essence of relating, closeness and connection,
  limited capacity for imagination and a tendency
  towards fixation

• The culture around young people with autism can
  also be characterised by difficulties in
  relating, closeness and connection
• And perhaps even by a limited capacity for
  imagination and a tendency towards fixation.

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No education without relation

• There is a very practical need for relational
  theory that can penetrate the world of practical
  teachers thinking and mainstream policy making
• (Bingham Sidorkin, 2004)

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Towards a pedagogy of relation

• A shift from a pedagogy of behaviour to a
  pedagogy of relation.... If we can get teachers
  to pay attention to relationships rather than
  behaviours it will be a step forward (p4)
• There is a lack of teacher authority in
  schools which necessitates the development of a
  pedagogy of relation (p5).
• sidorkin.net/pdf/towardPR.pdf

• How do I know if my classroom relationships are
  of trust, respect and care?

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a pedagogy of relation

• To understand a school one needs to understand
  its relational field which is unique for each
  school
• (Sidorkin, 2002)
• We need to pay less attention to what we
  do and more to the relational context in which we
  do those things (p129).

• According to Sidorkin (2004) good schools
  definitely feel right which can be part of what
  defines a good school.
• Mums gut instinct replaced by facts

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Assessing relational contexts

• Jordan (1998) describes dominant anti-relational
  biases in Western culture
• Aggressive or dismissive attitude towards
  vulnerability
• Tendency to blame the victim
• Active devaluing of empathic responsiveness
• Objectification of human beings
• Creation of judgments about superiority and
  inferiority around difference

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At the school Id like, wed have..

• Enough pencils and books for each child.
• Laptops so we could continue our work outside and
  at home.
• Drinking water in every classroom, and fountains
  of soft drinks in the playground.
• Clean toilets that lock, with paper and soap, and
  flushes not chains.
• Large lockers to store our things.
• A swimming pool.
• No grading, so we don't compete against each
  other, but just do our best.
• Teachers treat us as individuals, where children
  and adults can talk freely to each other, and our
  opinion matters
• Children on the governing body, class
  representatives and the chance to vote for the
  teachers.
• A school for everybody with boys and girls from
  all backgrounds and abilities,

Images of The School I'd Like from Burke and
Grosvenor (2003)
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School cultures

• Schools for Sidorkin (2002)
• comprise a multitude of conflicting interests
  of teachers, administrators, different groups of
  students, parents, political and ideological
  parties etc
• Sidorkin, A. (2002). Learning Relations, impure
  education, deschooled schools and dialogue with
  evil. New York Peter Lang, p132).

• Similarly Hargreaves (1992) argues that
• School culture is made up of
• competing groups like loosely connected and
  often antagonistic city states. (p320)
• This can often be reflected in the staff room
• Hargreaves, A. (1998a) The emotional politics of
• teaching and teacher development with
  implications for
• educational leadership, International Journal of
• Leadership in Education, 1, pp. 315336.

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Teacher relational wellbeing

• According to Hargreaves (1998a),
• teachers most extreme and negative
• feelings appear when they talk about
• their colleagues
• the structures of schooling
• the effect of changing educational policies upon
  them
• Hargreaves, A. (1998a) The emotional politics of
• teaching and teacher development with
  implications for
• educational leadership, International Journal of
• Leadership in Education, 1, pp. 315336.

• Teacher behaviours directly shape
• the relational qualities of the
• classroom (Avenell, 2009)
• (in Avenell, 2009, Relational Pedagogy.
  Australian Educational Leader. 31 (2). pp31-2. In
  topic reader

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Why can the relational view be difficult for a
number of educators ?

• For Noddings this has to do with the Western
  tradition of individualism
• An unwillingness to accept that while no
  individual can escape responsibility for his or
  her actions, neither can the community that
  produced him or her escape its part in making him
  what he or she has become.
• Noddings, N (nd ) Caring in education. Available
  at
• http//www.infed.org/biblio/noddings_caring_in_edu
  cation.htm.
• http//

• Also for Noddings it has to do with the
  widespread notion that teacher knows best, that
  teachers are expected to know and to be able to
  provide answers
• We do need to know and initiate the young into a
  community of knowing
• But we cannot be sure what everyone needs to
  know......

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Building positive relationships?

• Teachers work
• (DECS 2001)

• Relationships for learning
• The teacher should develop and maintain working
  relationships which support a cooperative,
  collaborative and congenial learning climate and
  foster links and foster links with the home and
  community

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Relationships for learning and wellbeing

• Effective relationships and trust are pivotal in
  facilitating learning.
• (Rogers in Bingham Sidorkin, 2004)

• Trusting, personal relationships are the bedrock
  of academic success
• (Erickson, in Bingham and Sidorkin, 2004)

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What is a good teacher?
Mitchell Weber (2007). Thats funny you dont
look like a teacher UK Taylor Francis.
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A good student teacher
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Getting on the students wave lengths

• educators beginning with the assumption that they
  know nothing of the internal experience of the
  student since pre-judgements do little to foster
  genuine inquiry in the learning relationship

• the capacity of the educator to have empathy and
  secondly, to communicate empathy to the student.
• this means the learner having a sense of the
  educators contactfulness or presence
• Erskine, R (1997)Theories and methods of
  integrative transactional analysis in Relational
  Schools available at
• http//www.relationalschools.com/

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Student teacher relationships

• Teachers are more likely to view as problem
  students and to discipline them - those whose
  learning styles are least similar to their own
• (ONeil, 1986, in Kise (2007)

• Some classroom management problems are due to
  clashes between teachers and students who are
  direct opposites - eg
• perceiving and judging
• sensing or intuition
• thinking or feeling
• (Jungian/Myers Briggs types)
• Kise, J (2007). Differentiation through
  personality types. Corwin Press.

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Relational wellbeing providing school support
for young people with Asperger Syndrome

• The focus is on an alternative, relational
  wellbeing approach that aims to increase the
  capacity for relatedness and everyday wellbeing
  for vulnerable young people
• ARC Linkage Flinders/DECS research overall
  topic wellbeing

• Case study research 6/7 teacher assisted to
  provide a more dynamic and enabling classroom and
  school environment for Jack an 11 year old with
  Asperger Syndrome who had expressed a deep sense
  of isolation, loneliness and a craving for
  friendship.

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Restoring the pathways to relational wellbeing
and learning

• A relational approach to practice and inquiry
  requires us to be intellectually, spiritually,
  emotionally and bodily engaged, with flexibility
  and at a true willingness to listen, see and
  understand
• (Finlay Evans, 2009, p109)

• Developing a young persons capacity for social
  interaction and understanding alongside
  supporting the capacity of parents and
  professionals to find his or her wavelength
  through participating in mutually enjoyable,
  meaningful and developmentally tailored
  activities.
• (PhD research- case study)

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• The future wellbeing of the planet depends
  significantly on the extent to which we can
  nourish and protect not only individuals or even
  groups, but the generative process of relating
• (Gergen (2009)

• For Avenell (2009) this means that as educators
  we all need to model and live out the behaviours
  for establishing positive relationships (p32).
  

Thank you
leigh.burrows_at_flinders.edu.au