PETE MULLINEAUX – FEELING OUR WAY –
DERN CONFERENCE PAPER 2009 MOVING FROM EVALUATION TO
RESEARCH
INTRODUCTION –
My main contribution to our discussion is an examination of what could be termed
‘emotional awareness’ and its relevance to our understanding of the learning process
particular with regard to DE. By emotional awareness I mean recognition of how our
opinions, attitudes, ways of seeing and consequently our behaviour as individuals,
groups, societies and governments are informed and influenced by our feelings.
Bearing in mind the title of this conference Moving from Evaluation to Research I
also hope to illustrate how a greater understanding of this factor might tie in with a
learning approach which seeks to shift the focus towards research and away from
traditional models of evaluation. I intend drawing on several projects I’ve been
involved in as a drama/creative writing facilitator to illustrate the above points.
A FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION
While looking at photographs showing examples of child labour, a young student, not
much older than the ones in the photos, asks the most fundamental question – how can
people treat one another like this? Confronted by oppression, exploitation, war, greed,
atrocities such as the holocaust, we all ask how and why we/they do can these things.
This question cannot be fully answered by pointing to information and facts as if this
can be the totality of our knowledge. To answer these questions we also have to dig
beneath the human psyche and throw light on what motivates our behaviour. I could
not give a simple straightforward answer to that child’s question. What I could offer
was to explore the situation. In drama we can uncover evidence (information) but also
feelings. Through empathy we connect our own feelings to those of others. This
deepens our understanding of the world and adds a crucial layer to our learning. With
this type of learning we’re also more likely to own our sense of ‘knowing’ which in
turn informs our desire to act. I’m reminded of a recent article in the journal Policy &
Practise, where Ros Wade identified what she called an ‘affective level’ of learning,
which makes us feel that we want to change things. (i)
QUALITY LEARNING –V- KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION
Many critics within DE, from diverse perspectives, view our formal education
systems as compromised by having to feed students the tools and information they
need to fight for a place in our highly competitive, market-driven winners/losers
society. Values central to DE such as sharing, caring, fairness, unselfishness which in
many instances have been nurtured at home and at primary level are gradually
relegated at secondary level and upwards, to the fringes. The main drama becomes
competition and results. As Jenna Coriddi asserts, ‘many schools still view knowledge
as something to be learned and collected, instead of seeing it as a process with which
students can continually question the world in which they live.’(ii) No one is exempt
from this survival of the fittest scenario – academics, researchers and educators also
have to compete for attention and funding and continually prove themselves.
Ros Wade also questions the value of learning situations that pander to the very ethos
of inequality and injustice that DE is trying to confront. She quotes David Orr –
‘Education is no guarantee of decency, prudence or wisdom’. (iii) There is also the
question of what actually constitutes ‘knowledge’. Quality learning as outlined by
Wade and others is the antithesis of knowledge acquisition for its own sake,
cramming and striving for points simply to be better than the next student. Instead, the
learning advocated is more about critical thinking, keeping our minds open to
outcomes, questioning ready made answers, embracing uncertainty – multiple
viewpoints – teacher and pupil learning together, re-discovering, re-searching and
ultimately re-making the world. As an ideological and pedagogical approach this is
also fundamental to drama in education, which emphasises process rather than
product, something I will return to later in this paper.
AFFECTIVE LEARNING/EMOTIONAL AWARENESS –
In talking about an ‘affective element’ I understand Wade to be referring to the impact
of a vital component in learning situations which deeply affect us and have the
potential to bring about change. This component is largely ignored in formal
education situations. She quotes Orr: ‘It is not education but education of a certain
kind that will save us’. (iv) In other words - how and what we learn is vital. My
contention is that this ‘certain kind of education’ is one that embraces emotional
awareness. To illustrate this I’d first like to begin with a project which was not part of
DE but nonetheless was focused on learning about oneself and the world; and where
the need to engage with the emotions of the participants was of paramount
importance.
TASK FORCE COMMUNITY EDUCATION PROJECT
While living in London, I worked with the voluntary group Task Force – creating and
facilitating pioneering community education projects in schools. The schools chosen
were at the time termed ‘sink’ schools - under-achievers with major difficulties and
significant numbers of ‘problem’ pupils. In one school, I met a group of pupils, (boys
aged 14-16) along with their teacher. He was happy for me to do more or less what I
wanted, but at the same time took an active interest in the project. When I asked the
pupils what they did in their social time it turned out that one of their favourite
pastimes was throwing stones at the windows of a local squat where gays lived.
Questions about their motives revealed a range of responses from just for a laugh to
more homophobic reasons. When asked if they actually knew any gay people, they
replied ‘No way!’ I then asked if they’d be willing to meet with the people who lived
in the house. They were intrigued, brash – OK, why not. I went to the house, met the
residents and told them about what was happening. They were very positive, agreeing
to meet the kids. I set up a meeting – which proved to be a profound learning
experience all round, benefiting both sides. Attention to the participants’ feelings was
central to my approach from the beginning. I taped the pupils in discussion - before,
during and after this encounter. At first this revealed prejudices, misunderstandings
and confused feelings. Later on, some of these feelings changed or at least attitudes
were modified and I witnessed some of those ‘affective’ moments Wade was referring
to e.g. a realisation that the gay occupants were people just like them who watched
telly and ate cornflakes.
Later the project morphed into one on ‘social myths’ where dramatic role-play was
used to explore the theme further. However, in the original project the learning took
place mainly within the real world, rather than through a fictive lens. I’d like to draw
two conclusions. In my opinion the success of this project was largely due to the fact
that the boys’ feelings were taken on board from the start. At no point did I over-rule
any feelings or attitudes I did not agree with. This had the effect of not alienating
those involved but actively encouraging their participation. Secondly, monitoring
their feelings and reactions from the start elicited valuable information that could be
linked to the process throughout and was not just a final evaluation. This ‘research’
fed back into the project and was able to influence its direction and outcomes.
Leaving research to later, having to re-search, has the added disadvantage that it’s
hard to re-capture significant moments of learning and pin them down. Had I waited
until a final evaluation – the impact of the participants’ feelings would have been
retrospective and although useful as a learning experience for future projects, would
clearly have lessened their impact on the project in hand.
DE PROJECT 1) ‘JACKIE & HER BEANSTALK’
I wish to refer to this project as a vivid example of DE in action. In particular I want
to show how we used an exploration of feelings to help answer the question Wade
alluded to, what makes someone care enough to become interested in development
issues and become an activist?
‘Jackie & Her Beanstalk’ was the title of a 2007 DE project and drama presentation
connected to Afri’s (Action from Ireland) annual Feile Brid conference in Kildare. (v)
Here I worked with a group of transition year girls from Loreto School, Crumlin in
Dublin on the theme of ‘seeds’ and food sovereignty. I began though with what I
believed to be a more immediately accessible situation where we imagined ourselves
on a beach trying to save seabirds covered in oil. Afterwards I asked them how they
had felt during the exercise. Feelings ranged through sad, angry, frustrated, ashamed,
helpless, energised and many more. From these findings we created a fictional
character called Jackie who embodied these emotions. It was important she had
positive and negative feelings – in fact Jackie turned out to be quiet a contrary
character! The group then looked into her past for key moments that might have
influenced and shaped her thoughts and attitudes. The process of developing Jackie
out of a dramatic exercise based on feelings (further developed through discussion
and reflection) gave her a depth of character that in many ways personified the
participants’ own feelings and experiences. During the play she went through
different learning curves and as she learnt, so did we. So when ‘Jackie’ ends up doing
such daredevil things as saving seed banks in Iraq and confronting the global seeds
giant Monsanto the students were able to relate to her, or at the very least have an
understanding of where she was coming from.
DE PROJECT 2) UNDER THE MASK
I’ve chosen to highlight this project an example of the way in which shared feelings
can enable apparently disparate groups to find common ground in a situation where
opinions might have divided them. It also re-enforces the importance of researching
the feelings of participants at an early point so that the findings can inform the course
and development of a project.
Under the Mask was a particularly challenging project where the aim was to bring
together teenagers from Youthreach (in Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo) to work with recently
arrived adult asylum seekers staying in local hostels. In such a highly charged
learning situation emotions were running high. From the outset the kids confessed to
anxiety, fear – ‘will we say the right thing – show ourselves up?’ There was also the
fear of the unknown, a latent fear and distrust of strangers, outsiders. Not surprisingly,
despite their interest in the project, the asylum seekers who took part shared similar
feelings. Early ‘research’ revealed important information - the kids in Youthreach
were there because they’d been ejected from normal school. There were feelings
connected to this of anger, resentment, self-loathing, hurt. For their part, the asylum
seekers had been through their own difficult and often harrowing emotional
experiences. To ignore these findings was not an option. From early on, I was aware
that what both sets of participants were feeling would have to be at the heart of the
project. This was true also in light of the multiple development issues and themes
involved.
To begin with, the young people and asylum seekers were continually mixed in small
groups to explore questions such as – What gives me my identity? Who do I share this
with? What are my hopes and fears? What am I afraid of? What makes us distrust?
What feelings do we share? We used drama, song, childrens’ games – as well as
visual art. Masks were made to represent how we felt and to get around language
problems. This also enabled everyone to ‘play’ together and as much as was possible
to formulate questions and answers from which we could all learn.
NB: as part of the presentation, a DVD of the project will be shown. (vi)
The success of this project was largely due to the sharing and honouring of the range
of feelings that emerged. Facilitating this created an atmosphere in which all those
involved wanted to find out more about the other and in so doing more about
themselves.
DE PROJECT 3) A PIECE OF THE CAKE
A Piece of the Cake’ is a play-text and learning program for teaching development
education through drama. (vii) A central feature is how emotional awareness can be
built into the learning situation and linked to development issues such as equality,
fairness, tolerance and justice and to wider issues of global justice.
Dealing with feelings or emotional awareness runs the risk of becoming or remaining
on a personal or individual level. A Piece of the Cake, designed with young children
in mind, takes us in a very simple way from the individual to the general. In it we
learn how one character’s feelings of being hurt and treated unfairly can move us
from a personal to a global context and back again, which is what DE is all about.
The text is based on a modern version of the traditional Little Red Hen story. In the
older version she asks those around her in the community for help to make bread. She
doesn’t receive the help she needs, then when the bread is baked she refuses to share,
thereby punishing them. The rather ‘Old Testament’ moral is – it’s a tough lesson but
they’ll learn.
Using the play-text we begin by homing in on Little Red Hen’s feelings. We ask what
is she feeling when those around refuse to help her make a cake in this instance? The
children respond: sad, upset, hurt, let-down, disappointed, angry, lonely, mad. This
helps us understand how and why we can feel hurt or aggrieved by the actions or inactions of others. It leads us into understanding why we wish to punish others – first
as individuals, then in other circumstances as gangs, clans, ethnic groups or entire
countries. This line of enquiry brings us a little closer to answering that fundamental
question asked earlier in this paper – how can we treat one another this way?
A further development connects us directly to the world of DE when new angles and
perspectives are opened up, new factors introduced. Now the children are asked: what
if Little Red Hen and the rest of her family own the land and are the only ones who
have an education? What if the others are poor? What if the land originally belonged
to the others and was taken from them? What if some of them are child labourers?
This shifts our discussion on fairness, equality and justice from the personal to the
global and invites the participants to re-evaluate previously held assumptions and see
things from an entirely different point of view. We then go on to consider how Little
Red Hen’s cake is eventually divided – who gets the biggest slice etc. As we move
from broad discussion around themes of fairness and equality to more complex issues
such as access and ownership of resources, child labour and food sovereignty, it’s
important to keep ourselves at the centre of this enquiry – how would we feel in these
situations? Would our feelings differ depending on who we are?
OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO FEELINGS
Students, teenagers in particular, can sometimes appear at first encounter, dull,
lifeless, disinterested, passive, even exhausted. Others are energised but often in
inappropriate or unhelpful ways, e.g. hyper-restless, judgmental. However behind
those blank faces, seemingly resigned to their fate, are people with feelings – anxious,
bored, sad embarrassed – a whole range of dizzy but largely invisible emotions. A lot
of energy goes into masking these feelings, so as to appear cool and unfazed. Being
too enthusiastic is frowned on, a collective protection mechanism that both serves and
hinders. Treating students holistically, honouring and acknowledging their feelings
and allowing them to influence whatever is being worked on is essential if we are to
break through the apparent apathy. When it works it’s amazing to see these same
pupils come alive, laughing, building up a sweat, becoming more comfortable with
themselves and each other, using their bodies, openly allowing themselves to enjoy a
learning situation. We are reminded that at the heart of all creative activity
(instinctively in a child but often dulled as we get older) is play. Play is about
exploration and discovery, a space where the world can be re-invented, where
outcomes are open and not pre-determined. Play, in a broad sense of playing with
options, possibilities, is at the heart of all development learning and although often by
necessity sidelined in the regular classroom has surely to be embraced when exploring
development issues.
CONCLUSION: MOVING FROM EVALUATION TO RESEARCH –
Through outlining the above projects, I’ve attempted to demonstrate the value of
emotional awareness in learning situations particularly as regards DE. In my own
experience it forms the basis of ‘affective’ learning i.e. learning that can genuinely
bring about change in an individual. I’ve also tried to show that an essential aspect of
this approach is on-going research into the feelings of those involved which in turn
feeds into and affects outcomes. What is happening at every moment in a project and
to every participant is important and can’t be overlooked. This runs counter to
traditional methods of evaluation that have relied on looking at results: how did such
and such a pupil perform at an exam or on the night of the show? Also, evaluations
from the participants themselves can be overlooked. I’m reminded of a 2nd class child,
playing the part of a stomach in a project called Know Yourself – Know the World,
who observed, ‘we sometimes stuff our stomachs to mask our feelings.’ (viii)
Exploration and process is at the heart of DE rather than results and product. In
keeping faith with this, I believe emotional awareness has a key role to play in any
transition towards a research-based approach to assessing educational worth.
Pete Mullineaux – September 2009
References:
Ros Wade (2008) ‘Education for Sustainability – Challenges and
Opportunities’ a focus article in Policy & Practise issue 6 on Education for
Sustainable Development.
(ii)
Jenna Coriddi, (2008) Editorial: Policy & Practise – A Development
Education Review, issue 7 on Development Education and Research. From the
Centre for Global Education, Belfast.
(iii) Wade, op cit –
(iv)
Wade, op cit –
(v)
Pete Mullineaux, (2008) this project was discussed more fully in an article
‘Development Education in Action – feeling our way’ in Policy and Practise
issue 6.
(vi)
Under the Mask – (DVD) Yellow House Productions, (2006) available from
Mayo Inter-cultural Action, Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo.
(vii) A Piece of the Cake – Act a Story Publications, 2007.
petemullineaux@gmail.com
(viii) Know Yourself – Know the World, (2006) by Pete Mullineaux. A learning
resource linking a multi-disciplined arts approach to a DE theme,
hardcopy/DVD. Published by Learning Horizons Education Company, Dublin.
info@learninghorizons.ie
(i)