Rethinking Pastoral Care

Una M Collins, Jean McNiff, Una M Collins, Jean McNiff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781134649006
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The issue of pastoral care and how a teacher effectively provides it is currently a topic of great debate in the media. With teachers increasingly bearing the brunt of their pupils' difficult personal lives, they feel under pressure to do the 'right thing' and to do it in an informed and professional manner. This book investigates how teachers can attempt to give good quality pastoral care, whether as a form tutor in the first instance or in a managerial role further along in their development. It uses practical case studies as examples of what can be achieved, and explores the theory of this subject, making is the perfect resource for teachers, counsellors and undergraduates on PGCE, BEd and BA courses.

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CONTEXTUALISING THE WORK

Úna M. Collins and Jean McNiff

This book is about pastoral care and action research. Although there is an intuitive link between the two concepts, they have not until now been made explicit. We believe that making the link visible will contribute to thinking in both fields: how the value of care can be made central to the methodology of action research, and how a critically reflective stance will raise our awareness about the need for care.

In this chapter we reflect on our own ideas regarding pastoral care in the secondary school, and action research as a form of disciplined learning for practising teachers.

Úna’s reflections on pastoral care

In a paper presented to a European conference on pastoral care at the University of Warwick I developed the theme of ‘Fiche Bliain ag Fás’ (Twenty Years A-growing) (Collins 1998), using the title of a well known Irish/Gaelic novel. My thesis in that paper was that pastoral care as we now define it was always the experience of the ‘good’ school in Ireland, but it was not named or formalised. I argued that from 1974 to 1994 there was a gradual, sometimes difficult journey to the current position of recognising, owning, training and experiencing pastoral care in almost all secondary schools in Ireland. In 1994 came the first public statements acknowledging the need for pastoral care in official Department of Education literature (National Education Convention Secretariat, 1994).

The following is a personal reflection on my experience in that journey.

The recognition of current needs

In 1972 I began my work as a school guidance counsellor in a large state community school. Community and comprehensive schools were new in Ireland in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and their introduction marked a significant development in the articulation of needs, both academic and social, in secondary schooling. The introduction of guidance counsellors in schools was expected to be the response. Through reflection on my experience in this new situation, I realised that one person could not, and perhaps should not, respond to all the needs. A systemic or whole-school approach would be needed for the school to respond effectively to emergent trends such as larger numbers, coeducation, comprehensive intake, comprehensive curriculum, and socio-economic difficulties.

Acquiring new learning

I went to Swansea University and studied with Douglas Hamblin and later with Leslie Button. The British system of pastoral care, which had developed in response to the needs experienced during the initiation and expansion of comprehensive schools in the 1950s, provided very useful guidelines for our experience in Ireland in the 1970s. My first visit to a pastoral care summer school in Swansea in 1974 was followed each summer into the 1980s, and on each visit there was an increase in the number of Irish teachers and counsellors who attended. This was a critical time of learning.

Sharing the learning

Each school year I became more involved in the provision of inservice education for school staffs. The expressed needs became more clearly articulated by principals and teachers, by parents, and by the students themselves. Inservice for staffs was random; there was no formal provision. Indeed, we had to deal with many difficulties about the meaning of the term ‘pastoral care’, and one of the teachers’ unions had difficulties about how it was being introduced into Irish schools. Dealing with these difficulties enabled us to learn more about teachers’ needs, and the structures that would support teachers.

Clarifying the learning

The most significant piece of this journey for me has been recognising the multitude of perceptions about the term ‘pastoral care’. For some it means a programme in personal and social education. For others it means having a class tutor responsible for each class. I have heard it described as a ‘back door for religious education’, and, conversely, a ‘front door for mere humanism’! Through my journey with students, with teachers, with parents and with university educators, I have learnt that all of these and much more contributes to an understanding of pastoral care. Pastoral care is that which the student experiences in their school life. It is the spirit, the culture, the heart of the school. It is the recognition, respect and support which each can claim as a right and as a responsibility within the learning community. The words provide a label through which we can wonder, question, share experiences and work together.

Institutionalising the learning

The 1990s saw the present piece of this journey. I had an opportunity to work full time in the provision of inservice education for school staffs, and, with the full cooperation of the National University, Maynooth, to offer full-time postgraduate study for teachers in pastoral care. This has been a significant milestone for Irish schools. We are currently providing a Higher Diploma in Guidance Counselling in a pastoral care context. Graduates of the studies have now formed the Irish Association of Pastoral Care in Education (IAPCE), and this body provides short inservice courses in all parts of the country. Parallel with these developments, the National Department of Education and Science has recognised in its literature, and in its provision of resources, the need for formal pastoral care (see National Education Convention Secretariat 1994:51–2; Government of Ireland 1995:156–9). Excellent work has also been happening in the development of programmes and of methodologies in personal, social and health education in the work of regional Health Boards, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), and with the founding in 1996 of the Irish Association of Pastoral Care in Education (IAPCE). The threads are beginning to show a pattern.

Resourcing the learning

In Ireland, we have lacked resources for a whole-school approach to pastoral care. In 1980 my Pastoral Care: A Teachers’ Handbook was a small beginning. This was reworked and a second edition was published (Collins 1993). IAPCE has begun to publish a series of books which will be of assistance to teachers, and that work will continue.

This book in the journey of learning

The teachers who studied in the Pastoral Care Diploma were required to be reflective in their study and in their practice. Action research methodologies became the discipline for the dissertations. This book reflects how that succeeded…and the journey continues.

Jean’s reflections on action research

I came to action research via pastoral care. A consistent aim in my research is to write up my learning episodes, and I have told the story elsewhere of my first encounters with pastoral care (McNiff 1986) and with action research (McNiff 1993). I also studied with Leslie Button during the 1980s, and only retrospectively do I now appreciate that he was ahead of his time in linking the ideas of pastoral care and action research. He said that teachers and students should be actively conducting research into what they were doing, both in terms of the content of what they were learning, and the processes through which they learned (Button 1974). Button’s ideas were congruent with those of Lawrence Stenhouse, who imagined curriculum as a creative process in which teachers and students engaged thoughtfully about the nature of their work and relationships (Stenhouse 1975). Stenhouse popularised the idea of teacher as researcher; and it is in the ideas of theorists such as Button and Stenhouse that initiatives such as the Higher Diploma for Pastoral Care have their genesis.

I would like to give a brief summary of what I understand action research to mean. In our Editorial Preface we noted that there are several different interpretations of action research, and the one we have adopted is the living educational theory approach developed by Jack Whitehead and other researchers who have worked with him. I think it would be true to say that all interpretations of action research commit to the same core values and principles, and these act as significant features that identify action research as moving beyond empirical or interpretive research in terms of its methodology, epistemology and social purpose. These key features include the following:

• The individual practitioner is in charge of their own work; when they investigate their work it can become research.

• Research can be viewed, as Stenhouse (1983) said, as systematic enquiry made public; action research also embeds an explicit social intent of improving a situation.

• The individual does not work alone. While the research is undertaken by the individual who concentrates on what they are doing, the researcher always recognises that they are in relation with other people. Whatever the researcher does influences other people in some way, and whatever other people do influences the researcher in some way. It is a reciprocal relationship. People can never be out of relation with other people, even though their relationships might be conducted at a distance in space and time.

• The research must be subjected to the critical scrutiny and validation of other people. The individual cannot justify claims about having improved something unless other people approve that claim. This becomes very delicate when the researcher makes claims about her own subjective understanding. If a person says that her understanding has improved there is no way anyone else can validate that. The authenticity of subjective claims to knowledge is always open to question. The tentative nature of subjective claims to understanding leads, one hopes, to scepticism about one’s own knowledge; opinions are always held loosely, and are open to challenge. Action researchers do not lay claim to absolute knowledge; everything is tinged with caution.

Work using the living educational theory approach can be seen in a variety of contexts. One in which its use value can be clearly seen is the work undertaken by the Ontario Public School Teachers Federation and the Teachers College (see Halsall and Hossack 1996; Delong and Wideman 1998; see also Hamilton 1998, for accounts of work in the USA; Atweh et al. 1998, for accounts of work in Australia).

Doing action research in this way requires researchers to engage in a dialectical form of question and answer that aims to address questions of the kind ‘How do I improve my practice?’ (Whitehead 1989). The questions and answers follow this kind of sequence:

What is my concern, or my research interest?

The researcher identifies a particular issue that they want to investigate.

Why am I concerned, or interested enough to think about this?

The researcher reflects on their educational values, and checks whether these values are being lived out in practice. If not, they might decide to do something about the situation, so that their practice can come more in line with their vision of what they would like to happen.

What do I think I can do about it?

The researcher thinks creatively about possible courses of action that could be taken to improve matters.

What kind of evidence can I gather to show the situation as it is?

The researcher gathers data to show the reality of the situation. There is a variety of data-gathering techniques, and the researcher decides, often in consultation with others, what kind of techniques might be most appropriate to their particular situation. They identify working criteria, in relation to their aims and objectives, about how they are going to show their situation, and, later, how it might develop. They highlight important pieces of the action, as it is captured by the data, and those episodes are pulled out as evidence to show what is happening in a focused way.

What will I do about it?

The researcher decides on a focused action plan, and begins to monitor their work, to see how it might be impacting on other people such as the students they are teaching.

What kind of evidence can I gather to show that I have made a difference for good?

The researcher gathers data at periodic intervals to show how the situation might have changed. There is always the hope in education that the difference will be for good, but sometimes things do not turn out as one might expect. Action research is seldom tidy. However, the way we deal with the situation is important. If we deal with it in an educational way, we assume that we will be working in ways that are beneficial and life-giving for others. The researcher aims to show the new situation by production of evidence to reveal specific pieces of action and how they relate to the criteria that have been identified. Researchers always need to be aware that things are on the move: the research questions, how the data is organised, their own thought processes—everything might change. It can be very destabilising.

How can I explain that difference?

The researcher has earlier identified criteria by which to gauge whether or not their work has improved. These criteria might be obvious: are the students smiling more, for example, or is she as teacher talking less? In all research there must be some kinds of criteria by which to judge progress. Different research traditions require different kinds of criteria; and those different kinds of criteria require differentiated standards of judgement and assessment techniques to show that movement has taken place. In empirical research, criteria to show the effectiveness of the research project would be mainly related to behaviours, and a good research design would aim to render the research replicable and generalisable. In action research, the criteria would relate to the process of growth and educational understanding, as well as demonstrate overt actions and behaviours. Good action research would demonstrate its authenticity and use value in the life of the researcher(s), and its relevance to the lives of other people would be clear. There are strong debates about these issues throughout the education research literature.

How can I be reasonably sure that any conclusions I draw are justified?

Action researchers always need to check that what they say has happened really has happened. They might like to think that people have benefited from their interventions, but is this a reasonable assumption? A researcher always needs to check with their research participants. How can the negative feedback be built in with the positive? How can a balanced interpretation be given? This is a laborious and painstaking task, and, at the end of the day, one can never be absolutely sure that what someone is saying is completely true. However, we have to proceed on reasonable guesses, otherwise we should never make any progress, so we go on good faith, aware that we could be wrong, and that we need to season our work with scepticism. Doing action research is a salutary exercise.

What will I do then?

If the situation has improved, and the researcher can support that assumption with validated evidence, they may choose to proceed with this good practice. However, they will always need to subject that practice to constant evaluation. Becoming satisfied with a situation carries its own danger of complacenc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editorial Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Contextualising the Work
• 2. Pastoral Care and the Millennium
• 3. Revisiting the Pastoral Care School
• 4. Action Research, a Methodology of Care
• 5. Transition Year and Personal Development
• 6. The Silent Majority
• 7. Three Schools… Becoming… One…
• 8. Sir! Sir!
• 9. Relate, Negotiate, Innovate—Effective Class Tutoring
• 10. Challenging Students’ Perceptions of School
• 11. Making Collaboration Real
• 12. The Bully Within
• 13. Making Care Visible
• Bibliography
• Index