Problem Solving
and Educational Action
John F. Schostak
Currently, problem solving has become something of a vogue term.
It is characterised by a project or thematic approach, discovery learning,
individual and small group work. Although, many of its adherents
claim that it integrates curriculum areas, in secondary education it
tends to have a subject base and is most closely associated with the
sciences, maths, social and business studies. Primary schools
tend to have a more integrated approach. Nevertheless, problem
solving does tend to imply some academic form of enquiry whether in
geography, art, biology or environmental studies. Those kinds
of problems that are associated with the self, the emotional, the social
tend to be separated off into areas like Personal and Social Development
or even re-located within the province of 'special needs'.
In this paper I want to integrate these areas under the province of
educational action.
What counts as a 'problem'? and, what counts
as the kinds of problems that schools are willing to allow pupils to
solve? How does this 'education' enable people to leave school
ready and able to be problem solvers, ready and able to act?
Three Classes of Problems
1. The academic/conceptual activity
This is the kind of problem that seems to fit most easily within the
teacherly role. It is a relatively familiar sight to see children
working in groups attempting to solve a problem that has been either
set up by the teacher, or less frequently, one that has been determined
by the children's own interests and curiosities. The following
example is one easily recognised as the typical problem solving situation
engineered by a teacher. It is 'progressive' to the extent that
it appeals to discovery forms of learning and involves children in group
work. It is guided to the extent that the teacher has defined
the problem, it is recognisable as relating to an aspect of the 'subject'
curriculum, yet its solution is relatively open-ended and requires imaginative
input from the pupils:
Lifting a 10g mass a distance of 5 cms. Pupils aged 13.
The scene is a large science classroom of a secondary school.
The teacher is setting up the period's activities. It
is work which is being built upon previous work. The teacher
begins by ensuring the pupils are fully aware of the task.
Consider the following transcript extract:
T: (...) if one person in an entire group
doesn't know what the task is then we need to go back to this stage
..... Alan what do you understand as the task?
Alan: (...untranscribable)
T: Right so you're actually, basic resources you
were given, or told you could use you've got on a piece of paper anyway,
haven't you? You've got the whole list down on the piece of
paper. And we've said that you, you can't use other items,
right? You just use the ones that are available.
So, the task - make sure that we've all got the same understanding
- what you didn't mention Alan was time, OK? It was, the task
was to lift a ten gram mass a distance of fifty centimetres in the
quickest, or the shortest possible time. OK then? So we
have an understanding of the task -
obviously after that how you solve that task and all the stages you're
going to go through - We did talk a little bit about, thinking, making
plans, evaluating. Do you remember the critical reflection which
you're very familiar with from (team day?) and everything else,
actually thinking, is that a good idea, do I need to adapt that idea?
Trying, you know, something practical, run a - Do you remember we
used the word prototype once before when we were working, we used
the word prototype. Now actually, having a look at how
that works: Do we need to change any of the design features
or any thing like that? So, it's an ongoing process.
To round off, the teacher asks if there are any questions. One
pupil asks for a pump but is told "No, that is not a part of the resources.'
Another asks for a drill - yes, that will be made available. After
this period of explanation, the pupils then move into their pre-established
groups.
In reflecting upon the transcript, we see that the teacher:
a. seeks to ensure a common understanding of the task
b. clarifies the stages of the task: thinking; making
plans; evaluating.
c. provides relevant technical vocabulary, e.g., 'prototype'
d. reminds pupils of previous relevant experience that might
help them.
This is a structure established by the teacher, its parameters closely
controlled by the teacher. Nevertheless, within these
parameters, there are opportunities for choice and for a degree of divergence.
For simplicity let us label this kind of approach 'Teacher-led with
controlled choice'. The teacher direction is everywhere
in evidence. In essence, the problem solving activity is something
drawn from outside of the pupils' interests, curiosities and needs.
It is located within the teaching intentions of the teacher. It
is perhaps hoped that the pupils become interested in the activity but
that is really a matter of the teacher making a subject interesting
rather than the pupils having come to her with an expression of interest.
Many teachers define their educational role in terms of making subjects
interesting, or in terms of generating motivation to do something.
Criticisms of the method employed, the understanding
of the teacher with regard to discovery methods, the development of
problem solving activities and understandings of group dynamics can
all be made. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that the kind of
problem solving being carried out appeals to the cognitive terrain which
fits easily into the traditional work of the teacher.
2. The resolution of problems in conduct/manners
Typically, conduct and manners are in the realm of discipline and pupils
have only the choice either to obey or suffer the consequences of disobedience.
The control of general conduct is seen to be essential to classroom
order and teacher control. Rather than a problem to be solved
in the sense example 1 it is rather a problem of control, resolved by
commands. Politeness, being silent when the teacher is explaining
something, not fidgeting, moving in an orderly fashion and so on provide
the focus and are typically considered unproblematic. Nevertheless,
conduct and manners can become legitimate issues for problem solving
activities in the form of such questions as: how would you like
to be treated by others? What does it feel like being treated
in different ways? What are the problems in conduct pupils experience
at school and in the community? How might these be resolved?
The forms of conduct can be a major issue in schools with particular
children, usually those considered having behavioural problems :
Most of the teachers treat you like dog
muck and surely you are not going to stand for that so you start to
treat them like it. Then they don't like it so they send you down
the houseblock. Then you get into lumber. Most teachers can
give pressure but just can't take it. They make me sick. Most
people learn more in the outside world than they do in school itself.
If the teachers treated the pupils with a bit more respect things
would be a lot easier. If a teacher wanted to talk to you about something
you have done they might wait until you are by yourself instead of
pulling you out of a crowd, instead of making a show of you.
They wouldn't like it if you made a show of them.
This is a pupil who has largely dismissed schools as being places which
routinely insult and disregard her dignity as a human being.
The point here is not to apportion blame. The teachers could easily
point to her 'behaviour problems' as the source of the trouble.
The issue here is the obvious breakdown in dialogue and conciliation.
There is a real problem that the structure of this particular school
could not solve. It is not an isolated problem. And it is
not one that is easily resolvable through demands for increased discipline,
or complaints from politicians that the authority of teachers has been
eroded and needs to be re-asserted.
3. The Resolution of Personal and Social Problems
This class of problem seems to fit the least easily within schooling.
Often it seems to shade into social work, or worse, therapeutic counselling.
Problem solving strategies involving self-image and confidence have
readily entered the repertoires of most teachers. It is widely
accepted that self-image is an important factor in learning. Sexual
harassment, racism, bullying, and other forms of anti-social behaviour
do frequently fall under Pastoral, special needs, discipline functions
or a generalised concern for personal and social development.
Other emotional and social problems however, seem to lie outside of
the traditional work of the teacher: emotional problems caused
by parental divorce, or a death in the family; violence at home,
or in the street; the pressures of poverty or illness. Sensitive
teachers will of course, respond sympathetically to a child experiencing
such problems. However, to go further is not typically seen as
the teachers' role. This, I believe, imposes an unreasonable limit
upon the role of education in the lives of people. Ideas, conduct
and action to satisfy or resolve personal and social needs or problems
in the world cannot be arbitrarily separated.
In a recent study of alcohol education,
it was found that most young people knew very well the facts and attitudes
relating to alcohol. Yet, in social situations, parties, discos
and so on, a different set of criteria for decision making was employed.
The following is a typical response which produces the distinction between
the real self and the inhibited self:
Drink "does relax you" she says "Before you get to the merry stage,
you get a bit laid back". Drink is socially useful "You feel, you
don't sort of think "When am I going to get into this conversation
that everyone's talking about, you sort of..you feel free to do what
you want".
She has always considered that "your true self" comes out when you're
drunk. Sober people tend to want to conform to each others' expectations
"but as you go through the amount you have you become relaxed and
you feel free to say what you want and then you begin to get further
and further into it until you don't care if they're going to accept
what you say or not. So you just say whatever you want, what comes
into your mind as you are not trying to hold anything back, your true
self is beginning to come out". She says that even when she doesn't
drink she says things to shock people "because it really annoys me
when people go "Oh my God, what is she doing?". I just don't like
it and I don't think people should be shocked by the way other people
behave. So I deliberately try and shock people anyway".
A number of issues arise here that are important in the social development
of an individual. How in the context of education could they be
raised and handled? What are the appropriate procedures that do
not close down discussion, but open up real critical reflection upon
an individual's experience?
Educational Action
What is the purpose of education? The answer to this, of course,
varies according to one's vested interest. Sociologists and historians
have criticised schooling in terms of its role in re-producing social
inequality, in being the agents of social control, and of restricting
educational opportunities to the selected few. Recently conservative
politicians have criticised schools for introducing progressive ideas
which have led to a fall in standards and a growing disrespect for authority.
Some have gone so far as to blame the economic decline of the UK on
failures in the educational system. Schools are a political battleground,
a focus of political action. Political control seeks to reduce
or control choice whether through financial means as in the Local Management
of Schools, or through the formulation of laws as in the Education Reform
Act, or the manipulation of the curriculum as in the development of
the National Curriculum.
This reduces education to a service industry,
dominated by political will and the fluctuations in interest and demand
of a quasi-market for educational services. In order to resist
such moves, educationists need to affirm education as a critical discipline,
a perspective capable of producing its own forms of action and organisation
in its own right. Education is too often regarded as a non-subject,
merely an occupational category through which the real subjects are
taught, merely a rather inferior stage of life thankfully left
behind upon entering the 'real world'.
What then, is educational action as opposed
to political action?
Educational action arises within an educational
relationship which enables all members of the relation to formulate
and engage in action to meet their needs, interests, desires.
An educational relationship unites individuals in a common purpose -
to enhance the range of possibilities through which they can enrich
their experience, develop their powers and organise their lives according
to needs, interests, desires. Education is, as I have elsewhere
defined it, a form of play which suspends the seriousness of hierarchies,
categories and perspectives in order to explore alternatives.
As such it is in contrast with schooling or training which moulds and
socialises the individual into forms of thought, belief and conduct.
These two are inevitable for the self to develop and to act within the
world.
Perspectives always ask for belief, they set out their criteria for
validity, certainty, plausibility and so on. Education exists
at that moment when all such perspectives are merely possible; when
each are just possibilities to play with, to vary, to 'see what happens
if...'. The educational moment exists like a hinge from which
hang all other possible perspectives. From the hinge-like point
of education all other perspectives are articulated just as the door,
because it is hinged, opens the way into other rooms or domains.
In general terms, then, an educational moment is successful and powerful
if it opens up alternative worlds of possibilities.
It is through this play with possibilities that 'the consequences of
choice are drawn out' (p.211). Having chosen, it is time to act.
However, action is subject to the processes of denial, legitimation
and control. Educational action focusses attention upon these
processes in the formation of opportunities for individuals to engage
in action and express theirselves.
The focus for educational action is everyday
life, the whole range of experiences through which individuals express
themselves. As in the case of the Alcohol Education research,
another project recently undertaken has been research into 'Arcade Cultures'
issues were raised which were not only of personal but also of social
concern. It was found that arcades, alcohol, drug, sexual behaviour,
violence, gang behaviour and so on, frequently arose as a nesting of
problems and issues. The educational issue is: has education
nothing to contribute to the discussion and resolution of such issues?
How could they be approached in schools?
Schools as Centres of Personal and Social Expression
Educational action establishes schools as centres of personal and social
expressivity as opposed to being agents of censorial organisation.
That is to say, there are no taboo subjects if they are within
the experience of the children. No problems are excluded.
The basic question is: how can schools act as resources to help
children to make decisions about their own lives and carry them through
into courses of action? The responsibility is not taken away from
nor imposed upon individuals.
Much current primary school practice has already
adopted many of the values and procedures through which teachers become
project managers, or consultants in the design of projects, and
forms of expression. Secondary teachers claim that TVEI
and the new GCSE with its increased focus on problem solving, discovery
learning and project development mean that their role has also changed
significantly. The essential structures and strategies for
the development of schools as centres for personal and social expression
thus already exist, at least in embryonic form.
The general focus for personal and social expression
is the introduction of choice where responsibility is progressively
shifted from the teacher as determinant of curricular activities, to
the relationship between teacher, the individual pupil, and the school/class/group
through which a purposeful negotiation takes place.
Principles and Procedures
Three kinds of problem were earlier described: cognitive, conduct/manners,
and the personal/social. All three are implicated in educational
action. In the solution of such problems Educational action is
not value free. Since it focuses upon issues of personal and social
concern it engages in the negotiation of value (to self and to others)
in practice. In practice, this negotiation depends largely upon
the construction of 'feedback cycles'. In order to engage in educational
action teachers and pupils must be able to sustain critical inquiry
into their negotiated courses of reflection and action. Action
research provides already a model for the development of the principles
and procedures through which educational action may be undertaken within
a school. However, there is a difficulty. Action research
may be hi-jacked by managerial and surveillance concerns if it does
not have a sound ethical underpinning. This is particularly
so where individuals feel vulnerable in a given situation, where they
are making known sensitive, or controversial views and information.
I have elsewhere developed general principles
relevant to action research which can be modified or form the basis
of guidelines for any project . For the wider purpose of
framing educational action, a modified form of these follows:
- All personal, or sensitive information provided in the process
of the negotiation of activities will not be made public outside of
the negotiation group unless otherwise permitted by the individual
or group. As a general rule, in the release of such information,
all names of people and places will be anonymised (or fictionalised)
unless otherwise negotiated and agreed. That is, a principle
of confidentiality will underlie all research and educational
transactions
- A principle of openness will underlie all
research and educational transactions. This promotes the
value of laying bare the underlying agendas, interests, needs, desires,
hopes, and so on that motivate, block and either make life worth living
for turns it into a nightmare for the individual. It is through
openness that the agenda for educational action can be formed.
Such openness will be protected by the principle of confidentiality.
- All actors (staff, children, parents) involved in the research
have an equal right to be informed, and to engage in any decision
making directly affecting them. These rights relate to the
principle of empowerment fundamental to all forms
of educational action and research if it is to generate change in
a community of actors.
- All actors have the right to say 'no', the right of reply
and the right to have a voice in the affairs of any research or form
of action that affects them. These rights refer to the
principle of freedom fundamental to human rights.
- All actors have the right to self expression, initiative and
action. This is the principle of action.
Acts of domination are subjected to the principle of freedom, the
right to say 'no'. As a principle which protects the rights
of self expression, it is important to underline the need to protect
minority views and the diversity of opinion and forms of cultural
conduct.
- All actors have the right to support. This right refers
to the principle of mutual support.
This list may not be exhaustive. Furthermore, no one principle
acts in isolation from the others. Together they form a basis
for further discussion, in order to avoid abuse of rights and freedoms.
Within the community of the classroom, teachers are powerful figures
in the lives of children. Similarly, within the community of the
school Headteachers are powerful figures in the careers of their staff
and their pupils. Such power relations, may lead to abuse.
Knowledge is power. And knowledge of other people is power over
people. Education which promotes expression and action must be
subject to the exercise of ethical principles.
So, what kinds of procedures may be adopted?
1. suspension of hierarchy
Hierarchy, and the role of the leader tends to suppress the ideas, and
the agenda of concerns of others. A deliberate suspension of hierarchy
is required if the ideas and input of all is to be promoted. Group
members therefore need to be aware of their strategies of domination.
This can be effected through the development of feedback cycles.
2. the generation of feedback cycles
There is a wide range of techniques for the promotion of feedback as
a means of guiding reflection and judgement and practice. The initial
task of feedback is to identify the ideas, issues, needs and interests
which provide the focus for educational action. This can be accomplished
through:
- the analysis of conversations. There is typically much
talk which takes place during the course of work or non-work activities.
Often these can provide clues to underlying interests, problems and
curiosities.
- analytic interviews. These involve a particular form
of interviewing strategy which requires three roles. Children
and adults are formed into groups of three. The roles are:
interviewer, interviewee and observer. The interviewer can only
ask questions. No comments, or ideas may be provided by the
interviewer. Rather, it is the role of the interviewer to draw
out the ideas, opinions, beliefs and so on of the interviewee.
The interviewee has the role of answering the questions, and elaborating
upon comments. The observer has the role of recording the interview
and ensuring that the interviewer only asks questions.
This technique is very productive in the formation of ideas and can
be used in brainstorming sessions.
- consultancies. The question is: who is the expert
on a given subject? Who can provide advice? The answer
may not always be the teacher. Since different pupils have different
interests and abilities consultancies may be arranged where one helps
another. This evokes the principle of mutual support.
- thinktanks, plenaries, performances, discussion and evaluation
sessions can all be set up through mutual negotiation as a means
by which children and teachers can share, debate, explore and form
evaluations of ideas, beliefs, and work carried out.
3. increase access to information and material resources.
As children begin to become decision making centres, then the procedures
through which increased access to information and resources need to
be developed. To feed everything through the teacher as the manager
and controller of resources would be time consuming.
5. procedures for the discussion, negotiation and resolution
of issues in personal and social conduct
As in any group, disputes are likely to emerge. The procedures
through which disputes are to be resolved need to be considered.
Processes of 'talking through' problems can be applied by the pupils
themselves without formal intervention by the teacher. (See, Schostak
1990)
6. procedures for the action stage
In educational action, it is important to stress that activities undertaken
should have a real value to someone. This value can be personal
or social. Some personal projects may seek to overcome personal
feelings of shyness, increase social skills, or personal knowledge of
some area of study, or seek to overcome emotional problems. Others
may have more direct importance for a group or community. In any
case, the sense of something real achieved is the end product of educational
action. The action should flow directly from the exploration
of ideas, interests and needs.
An Example of Educational Action from Portugal
The context for action can be briefly illustrated with reference
to a project in the process of being developed in a poor rural community
in the mountainous region of Northern Portugal. The school
(consisting of just 12 children) is isolated, the teacher works alone,
her own under school aged child at the back of the classroom.
These range from 5 to about nine years old. She is not used to
this kind of school. She has worked with older children following
distance learning television programs. A school based project
was set up involving the theme of 'hygiene'. During a meeting
with a team of visiting support/advisory teachers the remark was made
that the program could begin with a good hosing down. The children
were dirty and their hair full of paracites.
The village economy was largely subsistence.
However, with the building of a new dam nearby, migrant workers were
disrupting the culture although adding to the economy. The role
of the support teachers was to develop the quality of education in relation
to the needs of the community. Besides developing an educational
project, the team also tried to establish links with a health care team.
The initial thoughts were to establish a project centring upon health.
However, as the teacher at the school pointed out, the parents believed
that the children were healthy and were clean. They objected to
being told that the children's hair was infested. The teacher
had tried to make the mothers help. She bought the medicine that
was needed and gave it to the parents. But the parents refused.
The teacher also pointed to several children and said that they and
their parents had a problem with alcoholism. Again, the parents
refused to listen to the teacher.
It became important to tackle the problem from
a different angle. It was decided to introduce the teacher to
a style of working being developed in other schools in the region.
Essentially, it consisted of empowering the children by eliciting what
was on their own agenda of concerns. If health matters were important
to them, it was reasoned, then the agenda of concerns would reveal this.
Through the children's concerns the agenda
of concerns of the community itself could be mapped. Health and
welfare could be seen not as a set of concerns that outsiders pressed
upon the community but as integral to the community itself. In
this way the work of the Project through the advent of the computer
in the classroom and the Project's philosophy was able to generate a
real change in practice.
By comparing this example with other more developed
approaches from teachers with more experience of the project, a pattern
emerges. This pattern can be outlined as follows:
1. Identify the agenda of concerns
- The children must produce a list of issues that they are concerned
about. This can involve aspects of the community or
their own personal interests or situation.
The proceduresrequired to do this are:
a. form the children into manageable group sizes
i. ensure each group
has an older child, or an adult who can ensure each child takes
a turn to contribute
their own ideas,
ii. the adult or older child
writes down each child´s contribution
b. write the combined list of issues on the black board
2. Discuss the list of issues
- This can be done by getting the children to discuss the following
kinds of questions:
- which issues/questions/problems can be categorised together?
- if there is more than category, do each of the categories fit
together to produce an integrated study of a village, region,
or a way of life?
- How could a study be produced that the class would be interested
in doing?
- what would be the purpose of doing a study?
- how should the study be organised?
- who should be the audience for what is produced ?
3. Decide how the study is to be organised
- Each child must have a role to play. The important task is
to ensure that nobody is excluded from the project. It is here
that the teacher must be very aware of group dynamics. Dominant
children, the talkative ones, the ones who seem to have a lot of good
ideas can very easily take over the project. It is important
to ensure that the social skills and the educational skills of the
quiet ones and the one´s who have problems expressing themselves
are developed. Therefore ensure that there is a clear distribution
of tasks amongst the children.
a. what are the different tasks to be accomplished
in order to develop the project? These may include for
example:
i. interviewing: parents,
neighbours, experts, administrators, employers, government
officials, politicians etc ; and recording
the interviews.
ii. observing and making an account
of for example:
- social customs
- traditional or modern ways of working
- a typical day in the life of a member
of the community
iii. collecting artifacts, documents, artwork,
songs, proverbs, stories etc of the community past and
present - collect also the accounts of how these are used, what
they mean etc
iv. illustrating the theme imaginatively
as well as historically by describing, making stories, poems,
paintings
4. Identify the curriculum potential of the project
- Once the children have decided upon a project they consider to be
worth developing, the teacher can explore the wider curriculum potential
of the project with the children. This can be done by considering:
- its historical dimensions:
- is this a local history? Are there historical documents
available? Is it an oral history? Are there people
alive who can recall that history?
- its geographical dimensions
- its potential for the stimulation of talk and of writing
- its potential for using information technology software
- its scientific and mathematical dimensions
5. identify the potential of the computer as a recorder,
processor and mode of
expression
6. the use of the products of the study
The children should be involved in decisions concerning what use should
be made of the work they have done. Possibilities include:
- a. exhibitions - locally, or to a wider audience
b. publishing locally or more widely books, articles
c. contacting the media
d. computer networking - i.e., transmitting data to others
Conclusions
Educational action can be integrated into the life of a community as
the Portugese example exemplifies. Problem solving, then arises
within the context of personal and social expressivity.
It may not be any single teachers' intention, but the effect of much
in the current forms of school organisation is to divide and arrange
people into mutually opposing groups where one group seeks to exploit
another group in the production of its own interests in terms of material
wealth and social power. This is governed by the censorial arrangements
of schooling which partition, standardise and rank order the resulting
classes of children. Educational action seeks to break down the
partitions which people erect between each other and to draw people
into dialogue, into communities of action and self and social expression.
References
Schostak, J. F. (1983) Maladjusted Schooling. Deviance, Social
Control and Individuality in Secondary Schooling, London and Philadelphia,
Falmer.
Schostak, J. F. (1989) 'Developing more Democratic Modes of Teacher-Pupil
Relationships: 'The Early Years Listening and Talking Project',
Journal of the Educational Research Network of Northern Ireland.
No. 3. 2-24.
Schostak, J. F. (1990) 'Practical Policy Making in a Primary School',
Journal of the Educational Research Network of Northern Ireland.
No. 4. 171-189)
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