The Literacy Enquirer - Concerned Literacy Workers speak out about... - January 2005

No more resolutions

by Tracy Westell

Anne Moore, from Action Read in Guelph, conducted a discussion about goal setting at a recent event put on by the Festival of Literacies at OISE. She is working on updating Action Read's popular goal-setting workbook, A Dream that Walks. She discussed some of the tensions about using goals as a way of charting a learning path. As it turned out many people in the room (all literacy workers) were not all that comfortable with using goals in their own lives. Many of us found we didn't meet our stated goals and have resorted to a more organic and dynamic way of learning for ourselves. It's easy to chart a linear path that takes us towards a goal but it is much harder to predict the many complications that will arise to lead us off that path. For people marginalized by poverty, poor health, racism and other oppressions, the path is even rougher. Anne's session at OISE left me wondering why we ask learners to do what we have figured out is nearly impossible to do.

II.

I've been reading a lot about complexity theory, especially as it relates to learning and policy development. Briefly, complexity theory comes out of chaos theory, quantum physics and dissipative structure theory (in other words, it comes from scientists studying natural and man-made systems). Complexity theory is concerned with complex adaptive systems, systems whose behaviour is patterned and unpredictable. Complexity theory guru Ralph Stacey says: "A complex adaptive system consists of a large number of agents, each of which behaves according to its own principles of local interaction. No individual agent, or group of agents, determines the patterns of behaviour that the system as a whole displays, or how these patterns evolve, and neither does anything outside the system." The stock market is a complex system, our brain is, and so are ecosystems, communities and classrooms. "Complexity deals with the nature of emergence, innovation, learning and adaptation." (see the Santa Fe Institute at http://www.santafe.edu/). Policy frameworks try to engineer particular outcomes and develop certain system behaviours. (*Tosey 2002). Complexity theory says that we will have marginal success at predicting behaviours and outcomes in complex systems. Complexity theorists suggest that policy makers and others working to meet certain outcomes (goals), work instead on developing guidelines and principles - simple rules for local situations. Complex systems are the most innovative and productive when they are allowed to live at the edge of chaos. Trying to control and monitor complex systems will in fact paralyze them.

III.

Over the holidays I read an article by Harvey Goldstein "Education for all: the globalization of learning targets" (www.mlwin.com/hgpersonal/education%20for%20all.pdf). He says that many international, national and regional organizations have set literacy targets that have not been, and may never be met. If you've been working in literacy for any time at all, this will not be a surprise to you. This is a hugely complex issue that is not only influenced by education and development policies. Education systems interact with many other complex systems which educators have no control over (complexity theorists would argue no single agent or group of agents has control over a complex system). Back to Goldstein: he argues that test protocols may be invalid (he uses IALS as an example), that "teaching to the test" (an unforeseen outcome of outcomes based education) diminishes overall learning, and that setting educational targets may centralize power and control in inappropriate development bodies (such as the World Bank). He ends by suggesting new policies should emphasize "local context and culture, within which those with local knowledge can construct their own aims rather than rely upon common yardsticks implemented from a global perspective."

IV.

Having aspirations, intentions, hopes and dreams is part of being human and part of what moves us to learn. But to tie us to goals, outcomes, targets etc. developed by centralized bodies that do not live with local realities seems counterproductive. And for us as individuals to succumb to that ever-present voice in our heads telling us to set goals and punishing us when we don't meet those goals seems counterproductive. It would be good to explore with other literacy workers what kind of policies and practices might work better to reflect the complex, dynamic and organic nature of learning.

DUNDAS WEST

graphic - photo of inside of Toronto subway car

Reading a book, she says. Good. Takes your mind off your troubles. I'm wedged beside this woman, large in her long-sleeved sweater, corduroy pants.

Humid mid-summer day. She would tell me more, but I'm under the protection of poems. (No need to read the ads.) Where is she headed? I look up

near my stop. Her words send me off: Books keep you busy, keep your mind going.

by Sheila Stewart

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For more information and support:
talk to your colleagues and read The Literacy Enquirer

"Complexity refers to the condition of the universe which is integrated and yet too rich and varied for us to understand in simple common mechanistic or linear ways. Complexity deals with the nature of emergence, innovation, learning and adaptation."