Discussing how to engage students in participatory action
Workshop on
Teaching Human
Development, Oxford,
28-31 March 2007
Jim Chalmers
This presentation covers:
1.Educational goals. Problematising the framework.
Problems of buy-in (different student experiences
of modernity, different recipient experiences of
development)
2.Engaging students: instrumentalities (classroom,
fieldwork)
‘how to engage’
Results/process:
Starting point:
passion
Next steps:
imaginative intelligence
￫ participatory action
through reduction of experiential
gaps (affinities)
through ethnographies
& studies of effective ownership
1. Educational goals.
Students as change agents:
educational goals supporting students
develop emancipatory
capabilities (agency)
is monitored/assessed e.g.
Do such actions improve
others’ wellbeing, give others
a sense of own power, enhance
choice-making, alter power
relationships?
can apply in ways that guide
the development process
so not to create greater/
other fissures/inequalities
capabilities
they can
apply to
their practice
social
transformation
can apply in ways
that narrow experience
gaps between
students/practitioners &
recipients (‘universal contexts
of experience’ )
pedagogical approach
participatory
action
through
imaginative
intelligence
(things grasped
with insight
through
experience)
Learning from each
other through
ethnographies &
investigating
effective ownership
scenarios
2. Problematising the framework.
Problems of buy-in (different student
experiences of modernity, different
recipient experiences of development)
addressing pedagogical problems
Classrooms: complex systems of cultural practice;
coordinating action with many students.
To act, first we need to master intricacies of
diverse cultural practices of teachers & students.
Second, we need to supplant the conventional
teaching framework of ritualised ‘transmission’
events, with open-ended, participatory inquiry.
addressing development problems: ownership
Ownership of interventions
through buy-in
through engagement
(through stimulating
practitioner affinities with
livelihood strategies)
addressing social problems
Does modernity make it unlikely individuals want to
act? What about “technological man’s unwillingness
to feel”? (Herbert Read).
Has imaginative intelligence (affinities, hope) been
supplanted by ‘an essential estrangement’. Does
imagery carrying empathy no longer communicate
because ‘technological man’ no longer feels for
others (because he does not care for himself)?
If post-modern individuals have no need for hope, is
there no longer the capability for feeling, no
possibility for imaginative intelligence?
That pessimism validated by an essentialist view
wholly unlike Nussbaum’s: an abstracted, wholly
isolated individual; justifies ‘experience’ solely in
terms of ‘truth’ individuals hear on TV & in the
business streets.
Truth as having a very different kind of meaning,
located within (as an impermanent, indomitable
dissatisfaction, & as an eternal longing to transform
itself). (Nussbaum, Sen, Schopenhauer, Kant),
And, this quality of truth is not lost on postmodern experiences where ‘truth carries in it the
character of powerlessness’ (Schopenhauer).
Then, how to teach/learn/act on this truth?
How is the imagination is to be cultivated?
3. engaging students:
possible instrumentalities
(classroom, fieldwork)
towards social action
The nurturing of imaginative intelligence towards
action links up with the formation of critical thinking
& the other dimensions of human being (the nexus of
intellectual, emotional, spiritual, artistic dimensions
& narrative imagination - Nussbaum, 1995, 1997).
Note that simple rationalist strategic (technical)
training limits capabilities for action.
evoking action through imaginative intelligence
......it’s always done towards "ends-in-view“; these
arise in particular lived contexts (students/
development partners).
This means connecting topics to particular students’
interests, stage of cognitive development, etc.,
within the contexts that students/teachers/
development partners live through.
Individuals elicit different lessons from a case
study/imagery – grasps what is sought at a given
time. A case study e.g. of livelihood adaptation to a
GEF project has multiple entry points re. impact/
responsiveness).
ways of evoking action through imaginative
intelligence
Do an ethnography of an individual in the informal
sector (e.g. floriculturist, organic almond grower,
weaver)
Map her world (in her terms, her language): viz.
territory, stakeholders, power relations, etc.
Do an analysis, focused e.g. on power, cultural
meanings, gender equity, sustainable development)
Evaluate how to gain the greatest good for all
concerned in such situations as producing local
product for distant markets.
The focus in this approach is on stimulating affinities
with lived experience at the ‘local’ (ethnographic)
dimensions of the buy-in process. This enriches
understanding of the concept & its uses, in relation to
the ‘distant’ aspects (viz. the discourse-shapers).
Ultimately this helps assess impact/responses to policies
& social conditions (re. justice, empowerment &
domination).
Checklist of an action learning framework: core
practices
The work teachers & learners do together is
infused from the beginning with learner choice,
design, & revision.
The role of the teacher is that of facilitator &
collaborator.
The work is characterized by active learning.
Peer teaching, small group work, & teamwork.
Connections between the classroom work, the
surrounding communities, & the world beyond the
community are clarified/expounded.