The School
Revering fine scholarship is nothing new. In the famous painting by Raphael, The School of Athens, we see an idealised representation of the classical knowledge canon. In the centre are Plato and Aristotle, surrounded by other luminaries, who in some instances double as Raphael’s contemporaries (such as Michelangelo and Raphael himself). What it demonstrates is the high regard in which scholarly enterprise, discussion, the arts, contemplative thinking and writing was held both in the Renaissance and the classical world. And this is not to ignore eastern scholarly traditions.
How does Raphael’s allegorical ‘school’ fit into our own development of the contemporary school or educational institution, where the demands can be overwhelming: for example those of delivering a rigid standardised curriculum, skilling for the world of work, formal credentialing, tertiary expectations, co-curricular programmes, service activities, digital proficiency, parental consultation and leadership development.
Why teachers should aspire to be Scholars
Frank Furedi wrote a piece on Why teachers should aspire to be scholars1 and believes teachers do not take scholarship seriously enough to lead their classrooms:
…a high-quality system of education depends on a cohort of teachers who have mastered their subject to the point that they can use their scholarship to guide their pupils through difficult intellectual terrain.
To build a culture of educational professionalism, I believe teachers and school leaders need a reason to re-position themselves as scholars and believe themselves to be scholars.
What is ‘scholarly’ in a tech-savvy age?
Just to complicate matters, we are not living in classical Greece, or renaissance Italy, or Elizabethan England with the likes of Roger Ascham, tutor to the Princess Elizabeth... we are in a time when, as David Korfhage writes, What is ‘scholarly’ in the age of the internet?2
If we structure our research program around old media, students will lose the research skills they need to fund the emerging new forms of scholarly work.
This is very different to when many of us learnt about research and completed tertiary study, and it would be very different to many of our teachers. Being agile, being curious, experimenting and evaluating is what we want our students to be utilising every lesson. Teachers should role model all they expect of their students. And by the way, the arts have been encouraging and teaching these attributes for decades.
Sphere of Scholarly Networks
To quote Erica McWilliam3:
High powered devices have allowed us to access a world of continuous information flow, relentless ecology of interruption and distractibility that is both our servant and our master … teachers who continue to work as a cog in the supply chain of schooling, delivering and assessing disciplinary content in traditional ways, will find themselves outside their students’ learning networks.
The nature of contemporary employment which is more flexible, contract-based and mobile means there are fewer opportunities to reward depth of experience and knowledge. The reason to value fine scholarship even more in this context is undeniable.
The refreshed interest in Big Data to interrogate, interpret and inform strategy and new knowledge is not unsurprising. In the Age of Absurdity, Foley sees a widespread preference for low-challenge living at the very time the need for higher order thinking about data and its uses has never been greater (McWilliam 2012). The general rejection of ‘difficulty’ has implications for the need for a renaissance in scholarship. But what type of scholarship is it?
Perhaps 21st century scholarship is elucidated by David Perkins in The Mind’s Best Work, where he highlights the importance of “pattern recognition, creation of analogies and mental models, the ability to cross domains, exploration of alternatives, knowledge of schema for problem solving, and fluence of thought.” (McWilliam, 2012)
Networked participatory scholarship is an area of research and worth investigating—particularly with its relationship to traditional scholarship and research practices alongside reputational and identity development. Bon Stewart4 posted a blog about her thesis problem in which she notes:
Within this public participatory intellectual sphere, networks of scholars and emerging scholars develop across multiple technological platforms, engaging with each other and each other’s work regularly … Social networking sites such as www.academia.edu have emerged specifically for scholars, while reference management tools such as Zotero and Mendeley have gradually intergrated networking capacities for scholars to recommend, share and tag resources.
Stewart cites Velentsianos and Kimmons’ observations about networked participatory scholarship where scholars’ participation in online networks is to “share, reflect upon, critique, improve, validate and otherwise develop scholarship” (2013) as opposed to the scholarly legacy of traditional academia with distinct characteristics which are “analogue, closed, removed from the public sphere and monastic” (2013).
The implications for our own scholarly practice and role-modelling must surely take into account this newly emerging model for participatory scholarship.
Repositioning scholarship in every teacher’s and student’s thinking is not only possible, but critically important—it highlights its nuanced relationship to the past and the contemporary contexts; the role in schools; professional work; collegial collaboration; and educational leadership:
We are also reminded that in a society which thrives on multimedia, busyness and over stimulation, students and teachers alike need to be given opportunities to slow down, to contemplate, to listen and to know how to engage in reflective practices. Contemplation may give rise to radical being...5
To contemplate scholarship is fundamental and inherent to exceptional teaching and learning. Fine scholarship can be the key to educational change and reform in this uncertain world of slippery change and fast fixes.
Footnotes
1https://www.spiked-online.com/2012/07/18/why-teachers-should-aspire-to-be-scholars/
2 Note: David Korfhage’s article is not longer available online
3 McWilliam, E., Sweet, C. and Blythe, H. (2012) Re/membering Pedagogical Spaces, in R.G. Carpenter (Ed.) Cases on Higher Education Spaces: Innovation, Collaboration, and Technology, Noel Studio for Academic Creativity, Eastern Kentucky University, USA.
http://www.igi-global.com/book/cases-higher-education-spaces/69212
4 Stewart, B (2013) from scratch: a dissertation research problem, take two
5 Ibid.
