Building School Communities

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Building School Communities


Address by Rick Flowers to Fort St School, 3rd April 2002 I am going to present nine different traditions of building school communities. By doing this I will be placing your deliberations this evening in historical and international perspective. There have been many grand visions and projects in the field of school – community relationship building. Generally speaking, there have been many disappointments in the field of school – community relationship building. It is not regarded as part of the core business of most schools. This sober note then begs the question: what value is there in thinking about, let alone planning, building school communities? What value is there for Fort St? Let me begin answering this with more questions. Why do we need schools to educate? Can there be education without schools? Why can’t we rely on communities? Conversely, why do schools need communities? Can schools devise and manage education without communities? That leads one to ask… what are communities? ….. There are many different notions of community. Some notions are defined by local geography, or religion, or political values, ethnic ties, a shared loyalty to a football club, economic interests, children going to the same school, and an endless variety of other factors. It is partly because of this huge diversity of notions of community that I am going to sketch different traditions of building school communities. As I sketch each tradition the leading question that I suggest you use to appraise it for Fort St is - In what ways might communities enhance teaching, learning and experience in Fort St? Parents and School Community In NSW, when one mentions school – community relationship building most teachers will initially associate this with the relationships between the school and parents. That is why I am sketching this tradition of a school community relationship first. Parent participation can take two main forms: Assisting teachers with programs and activities – be it sport, lessons, arts or other. Participation in school governance – be it the School Council, working committees etc. This means that parents participate in the formulation of the school’s educational goals and policies. There is considerable debate within the education community concerning the appropriate nature and form of parent participation in schools and schooling. For example, there are different views about whether parents should be involved in selection of teaching staff. There are contesting views about whether the research provides any evidence that higher levels of parent participation lead to better levels of learning for students. In the forum invitation a question has been posed: how can we engage more broadly with the parent community. The question I’d pose alongside this is: how much value will this particular sort of school - community relationship add to a school like Fort St., already known for its long traditions of academic excellence, tolerance and diversity? Might other types of school – community relationships add more value? Students and School Community For example, another type of school – community relationship is that between the school and its student body. What role do students play in decisions about the school? How much value do students participating in governance add to the school experience, to the quality of teaching and learning? How much value is added when explicit efforts are made to strengthen a student-centred learning culture…? where notions of student responsibility, student initiative, a sense of student community are nurtured? Is it worth considering an argument that there are not sufficient resources or time to build relationships with communities outside the school, and that it would be more productive to concentrate on building a strong student community? Local Neighbourhoods and School Community From an international and historical perspective one of the strongest traditions of the nine I am sketching this evening is the community schooling movement. In this tradition the focus is on the possibilities and desirability of Fort St strengthening relationships with neighbourhoods / communities in the local areas surrounding the school. The first community school was probably the New Institution opened in 1816 in England. Designed by the socialist pioneer Robert Owen it was the centrepiece of his model new town New Lanark. It was a non-sectarian educational, social and recreational centre providing free full-time schooling, a venue for adult classes, public lectures, dances and meetings. In the USA dual use of school premises had been growing since the first recorded example in 1810. By 1857 in some places the legal right to use school premises for political and social events had been secured. …. To illustrate… Port Community School in Missouri had, besides regular school activities, a vacation school, agricultural short courses, cadet work for rural leadership, and the maintenance of social and economic clubs, musical organisations, nature study clubs, etc. for the young people as well as for their parents. In Scandinavia a large Folk High School Movement began late last century….. combining high school, adult and further education. The Folk High School Movement is credited with playing a significant role in the rapid community and economic development of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland this century. Americans and Scandinavians proclaimed the need for a new school that would: Develop a community oriented curriculum Be an educational and cultural centre Be an art centre and gallery, containing works of the highest quality Serve as a museum preserving the archives and history of its community House the local library Provide community health services For Henry Morris, who was the Chief Education Officer of Cambridgeshire from 1922 to 1954 a school should be the centre of the local community – the village hall and reading room, the evening classes, the sporting activities, the agricultural education courses, the Womens’ Institute, the British Legion, Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, the recreation ground… as the community centre of the neighbourhood it would be holistic… it would break down the divisions between school and community, between school and further education…. Imagine Fort St like the following description by a visitor to a community high school in Cambridgeshire…… “My first visit took place during the evening. The school was a blaze of light with every corner of the building seemingly in use. The car park was overflowing and the entrance a crush of people, all ages and, one suspected, backgrounds purposefully heading for their destination. …… Visited an English class taught by head of English. 20 plus students, one pensioner, ‘return to learners’ and four ex-pupils under 21 including young woman attempting exam for third time. Ex-pupils all felt comfortable about returning – “we were treated as adults from the day we arrived at 12 years old so why should this be different.” Youth worker running disco with part-time staff, some young people dropped in after classes or sports, others moved between the refreshment lounge dominated by evening class participants and the disco. ….. Left about 9pm just as a volleyball team arrived for game. Features of the community schooling movement…. The school as a centre for social, sporting, recreational, cultural and educational provision….. ie sharing of facilities and extension of community access to school resources and expertise. Negotiated and locally defined curriculum… relevant to the local community. Participative management The school as a base for community development and social action. Encouraging collaboration with community development agencies and other education providers. “The community school seeks to obliterate the boundary between school and community, to turn the community into a school and the school into a community.” But how relevant and how possible is this in NSW, for Sydney and for Fort St.? Schools no longer serve a community with identifiable boundaries. They compete for pupils and for funding. The politics of funding make it difficult to manage an integrated approach to arts, sports and educational activities. Australia’s multicultural community…. Long history of church-based schooling alongside public education…. Mean that few high schools can claim or hope to be the centre of community life. The school curriculum and exam requirements are already so full and demanding there is no time and space left for ‘other’ activities. Schools try to prepare individuals to lead fruitful lives. How do students and families at Fort St. view what constitutes a fruitful life? I suspect it has less to do with engaging in service to the local community and has more to do with creating opportunities to do exciting and adventurous things in a world well beyond the local geographical community of Fort St…… Schooling will have increasingly less to offer in terms of preparing oneself for a role in the community, and will become more focused on preparing one for work in the global economy. There are, of course, many different sorts of jobs in the global economy. What sort of jobs and what sort of roles does a school like Fort St aspire to help prepare young people for? Let’s think about the different categories of jobs. World-class jobs….. professionals who obtain highly specialised jobs and who have gained highly sought after qualifications…. Their livelihood is directly linked to demand and interest from outside the local economy. Local support jobs….. they support the local economy. Owners of jobs which import goods from the outside, medical personell, manufacturers of locally used products, service shops, and those who run local transport and communication services fall into this category. Community-based jobs …. Butchers, corner store proprietors, chemists, cleaners, are grounded in community need and demand. What interest do Fort St students and their families have for community….? Do students and their families want the Fort St experience to be locally defined? Do they want it to be defined by a sense of community? In a large metropolitan region like Sydney, high schools don’t serve their ‘local’ communities so much as they serve a national and global economy. Schooling has never been so closely tied to labor as it has been in the last part of the 20th century and during the emergence of a pervasive global economy. People’s health and well-being are tied more to their employment prospects and less to resources in the community. Separatist Causes and School Community There have been grand traditions of building school communities, largely based on building local geographic communities, of building democratic traditions, etc….. but more prosaic traditions are building separatist communities ….. cultural communities, religious communities, …… for example, Aboriginal community schools, Islamic schools, Church of England schools. For Fort St. these sort of separatist school – community relationships are of little relevance. Independence, Community Action and School Community Imagine if current and past students, teachers and families at Fort St. agreed as a school community to take a stance on certain political issues…… for example, aircraft noise or refugees and asylum seekers. A school community would be strengthened by a shared commitment to undertaking some sort of community action. The school would, for the time of the campaign, become part of a wider community coalition. Might this sort of school community building effort enhance teaching, learning and experience in the school? There is a long and proud tradition of building school communities through struggles to define an independent voice and convey a commitment to political values. In the late 18th and well into the 19th centuries many working class communities in England developed, managed and controlled their own schooling and informal education networks. This was at a time when the Establishment seriously contended that either the working classes do not deserve the privilege of schooling or if they do go to school they should only learn menial skills. This working class self-education movement organised independently run schools, study groups, a free radical press, and other learning activities. Education was overtly political inasmuch as it was driven by a desire to enable working people to understand their society, and to help them transform it for the better. There are contesting views about what is worthwhile education. Some would argue that this sort of education for community action does not fit in a school curriculum. Others might argue that such learning could define Fort St as more independent and more community minded…. and that in the long run this would help student lead more fruitful lives. Community Service and Business Partnerships and School Community In this tradition schools organise community service projects and work-experience projects for students. There are three aspects to this tradition to highlight. The first aspect is that of schools, especially privileged and elite schools, being of service to disadvantaged communities. During the nineteenth century numerous public schools in England and North America established residential settlements in deprived inner-city areas. These enabled current and ex-students to undertake projects designed to improve the moral and social well-being of the under-privileged... this is community service….. offers young people a genuine learning opportunity rarely available within the classroom. The second aspect is that of building partnerships with businesses for fund-raising purposes. The third aspect is that community service and business partnerships provide valuable opportunities for students to engage in project-based learning activities. In some cases, this provides opportunities for people in community service agencies or businesses to act as mentors to school students. Consumerist and Market-Driven Communities and School Community With the increasing proportion of private schools and the encouragement of public schools being more specialised….. schools are being defined increasingly by their marketability…. How popular are they? How many students are there on the waiting lists? What do they offer that other schools don’t. And so, school communities are increasingly defined as groups of consumers willing to apply and pay. There are those who argue that these sorts of school-community relationships add more value to the quality of teaching and learning than any other forms of school-community relationships. There are tensions. On one hand, there are proud traditions of public education, of inclusive education, of education that does seek to foster values of democracy, sharing, egalitarianism, mateship, caring, tolerance and compassion, of concern about our environment,…. (of community?). On the other hand, there are strong traditions of individual pursuit of wealth, of consumerism – urging parents to view themselves as autonomous consumers shopping in a market place for the best deal for their child. Community Cultural Development and School Community Well…. What do we mean by community? ….. anything outside the school that contributes to the facilitation of learning….. if that which the student learns outside the classroom affects her or his scholastic learning, then it must be taken into account by schools if they intend to be relevant in the educative development of the student. So…. Let’s consider the educative influence of media… TV, radio, magazines, newspapers and the internet play an ever-increasingly important role of education and learning. Schools are just one player. Can media companies contribute to the goals of schools? How many hours do students spend in front of the TV or video compared to the time spent in school? I understand that Fort St has plans to build a Performing Arts Centre. This sort of project presents various opportunities. One scenario is the Performing Arts Centre is simply offered as venue to groups outside the school…. The shared facility approach. Another scenario is to use the Performing Arts Centre to help Fort St school position itself as a cultural development player. In other words, the school would invest resources to enable students and staff collaborate with arts and cultural workers outside the school to devise and produce performances. The productions would be seen as project-based learning activities…. Not just about drama and arts….. but about content matter across a range of subject areas. The productions would be regarded as opportunities for students and staff to learn what others outside the school think is important. Could there be a film co-produced by the school and a media company? Why shouldn’t the school spend money on media productions? An Inward Sense of School Community Perhaps it is utopian, for a selective high school in Sydney today, to think of building community by looking outwards. Perhaps it is more constructive to support enduring efforts to build a sense of community by looking inwards. Emphasis on the importance of building a sense of community within schools is hardly new. Numerous strategies have been adopted including: Compulsory dress codes imposing uniformity Encouragement of team games Sponsorship of collective productions – school trips. School plays, Imposition of rules requiring respect for the rights of others and good manners Creating an ambience of community within the classroom through group activities, collaborative learning, décor and layout. Participation in competitions with other schools fostering acceptable forms of ‘us against them.’ Organisation of clubs and social activities which draw students together, cement friendships and encourage a common identity. Creation of caring ethos often supported by specialist staff such as year co-ordinators, counsellors Democratising management structures