At the launch of our new blog series, senior lecturer in Early Years and Primary Education, Dr. Viki Veale, challenges readers to consider what we mean by ‘pedagogy’, reflect on the relational nature of teaching and learning, and reclaim the narrative about teachers’ professional practice.
Dr Viki Veale (October 2024)
Viki Veale is a senior lecturer at St Mary’s University with over 30 years’ experience of supporting learning and development. Her research centres on the professional development of teachers and the promotion of social justice.
What is pedagogy?
The term ‘pedagogy’ describes the process of leading learning. Pedagogy involves collaboratively constructing and exploring ideas, encouraging agency, autonomy, playfulness and a willingness to take risks (Cremin and Chapell, 2019). It is a creative process that focuses not just on the transference of knowledge, but on the lasting, transformative nature of learning. When pedagogy is viewed as the construction of knowledge through the process of disequilibrium, assimilation and accommodation described by Jean Piaget (1964) the role of the pedagogue becomes that of provocateur or ‘more knowledgeable other’, who disrupts existing knowledge forcing students into the ‘zone of proximal development’ where deep learning takes place (Vygotsky, 1978). Rather than focusing on the technical act of teaching, pedagogy is a relational process.
Why do we need to talk about pedagogy?
The term ‘teaching and learning’ appears to have replaced the word ‘pedagogy’ in dominant discourse about education. This is problematic because it suggests that teaching and learning are distinct acts, independent of one another. The separation of teaching and learning is such that it has been argued that education has become an act of compliance (Alexander, 2008) in which long standing traditions of pedagogic thought have been disregarded in favour of ‘a decontextualized series of interventions with narrow objectives’ (Hordern and Brooks, 2023:800). It is challenging not to perceive this as an existential threat to our professional practice as educators.
In discussing pedagogy rather than ‘teaching and learning’, we reclaim schools and other educational settings as communities of practice committed to learning. They are social settings; enabling environments in which knowledge is not something to be received and retrieved but something with which it is possible to have a reciprocal relationship. This respectful approach to learning and being a learner involves creating the conditions in which both can thrive (Hart, 2010). The art of the pedagogue is in creating not just a physically safe learning environment but a psychologically safe one in which learners are agentic beings, valued members of the community who are confident in taking risks and comfortable with not yet knowing all there is to know.
Why does it matter?
While the term pedagogy may have fallen out of favour in neo-liberal discourse about education, it is still at the heart of wider discussions about 21st century learning. In future facing discussions about education, students are seen as active participants in the learning process who must be empowered to develop the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to shape a world that does not yet exist (OECD, 2019). Creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication are not only key 21st century skills, but also some of foundational elements of critical constructivist pedagogic practice.
Rather than a semantic irritation which has inspired what could be perceived as a rather polemic outpouring, by insisting that we reflect on pedagogy rather than ‘teaching and learning’, I challenge readers to reconnect with the relational nature of our work. Educators are not robots who implement policies and prescribed practices, we are creative, critical thinkers who collaboratively contribute not only to our student’s educational experiences today, but to the future of society: the way we communicate this is crucial.
Insisting on the use of the term pedagogy helps move discourse beyond the dominant narrative of teaching as a technical, performative act, towards an understanding of our work as a relational process. In doing so, the importance of what we do to create the conditions for human flourishing is acknowledged. It is time to reclaim the narrative, what we do is so much more than ‘teaching’.
References
Alexander, R. (2008) Still no pedagogy? Principle, pragmatism, and compliance in primary education. In Norris, N (ed). Curriculum and the teacher: 35 years of the Cambridge Journal of education. London: Routledge. pp: 331-357.
Cremin,T. and Chappell, K. (2019). Creative pedagogies: a systematic review. Research Papers in Education. 36 (3), pp. 299-331.
Hart, M. A. (2010). Indigenous worldviews, knowledge, and research: The development of an indigenous research paradigm. Journal of Indigenous Social Development, 1(1A), 1–16.
Hordern, J. and Brooks, C. (2023) ‘The core content framework and the ‘new science’ of educational research’, Oxford Review of Education, 49(6), pp. 800–818.
OECD (2019). OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030: OECD learning compass 2030.
Piaget, J. (1964). Cognitive Development in Children: Development and Learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 2, 176-186.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. London: Harvard University Press.