Practice-based research – SF & Inquiring Attitude

““Math is the only subject where you can buy 76 melons, and nobody will ask you why!”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1945) writes in his fanciful book "The Little Prince" that adults can only understand the world of children if adults ask children themselves to explain it. This is excellent advice for anyone involved in practice-based research in education.  In Rudduck and Flutter (2004) we read about a survey "How I'd Like Schools To Be" published by the Guardian (2001) in which 15.000 pupils aged 5 to 18 participated. The top five ideas can be summarized as beautiful schools, comfortable schools, safe schools, listening schools, and flexible schools. Partly as a result of the research, a process was initiated in which voicing students is critical to learning, shaping the conditions for it. Woodhead and Faulker (2003) formulated the research participation of students as follows; " ... significant knowledge gains result when children's active participation in the research process is deliberately solicited and when their perspectives, views and feelings are accepted as genuine, valid evidence." (p. 31). Paulo Freire (1921-1997), a Brazilian education scholar, also focused on dialogue and participation and he had a lifelong concern for the oppressed. His words challenge all who teach to reflect critically on the meaning of the act of teaching as well as the meaning of learning. Freire (2005) argues that when teachers open themselves or recognizing the different roads students take to learn, teachers become involved in a continual reconstruction of their own paths of curiosity, opening the doors to habits of learning that will benefit everyone in the classroom.

From this perspective, Freire takes the stand that; ‘Listening to all that comes to us, regardless of their intellectual level, is a human duty and reveals an identification with democracy and not with elitism’ (p. 72). His point of view is grounded in the idea of emancipation through empowerment. It is about the equality between the positions of students and teachers, when they respectfully engage in dialogue during the cooperative activities, where one person does not act on another, but rather the two work with each other. Collaboration in this way builds social capital and includes wellbeing both during school life and later on when out in society. Freire emphasizes that he could not ‘give’ participants a voice but rather that his work ‘provides’ participants with right to a voice.

Returning to the term solution-focused attitude, this includes respect, involvement and curiosity about what the pupil brings forward and appreciating it. Attuning to and supporting the desired change, offering appropriate support, utilizing the competences of learners and activating resources also play a significant role in this attitude. Reframing, noticing and reinforcing progress, and experimenting with ideas or inventing new habits are also useful activities. Littrell and Peterson (2005) examined how language shapes the way we understand the world. They state that language is a way of structuring the world and give meaning to it. Reframing a situation can be a helpful thing to do as we all know by experience.

A solution-focused attitude means that a teacher assumes the competence or ability of a pupil or youngster. This leads to a solution-focused language repertoire since our thinking feeds our language and vice versa. The teacher asks solution-focused questions. How did you manage to do that? What made it work so well for you in the group? You worked hard anyway, how did you keep it up? How would you like to proceed now? These questions are not for you to collect information, they are for the child or the student to find their own path, their way of understanding, coping, insights or plan of action. The focus is on possibilities in the future, successes, academic progress, exceptions; moments when the issue was small or didn't matter. The focus is on what is going well, and the child or student is the source of the solution.

Please allow me in this context to share a concrete example of a school that always warms my heart. At the Dr. Gonzalo Garza HS in Texas, a Solution-Building Alternative High School, the focus is on identifying students' abilities. It was around the millennium 2000 that Insoo Kim Berg helped create this HS with her vision and inspiration during the time that Mrs. Baldwin was head of the school. Dr. Linda Webb, principal, works with her team now on Alternative High School Programs that are Solution Focused. She shared her personal story "The Red Shoe" that she told us in Utrecht during a master course on SF at Fontys University. She recorded her story, and the link is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiAdwNsEOB4

Franklin, Streeter, Webb and Cuz (2018), mention that an important aspect of diagnostics within Solution-Focused Work at Garza is the identification of strengths, competencies, or 'exceptions'. The strength-based approach at Garza HS is a central theme. Identifying strengths, creating goals, positive expectancies, and positive emotions for success is necessary to build confidence so that students can believe that a solution is possible. It is quite possible to focus on strengths. At the same time, the staff shows that they are attentive to concerns too. The authors also focus on how to create a Solution Focused Student Support Team in order to establish a Social Action Plan that fits a student and his or her environment

“Wear something positive to school, it always fits!”

An inquisitive attitude is not an 'empty' skill, it has a central function in the professional practice of teachers. This attitude requires you to be open and critical with regard to your own work and that of others in the organization. You ask useful questions about this; after all, what you do is who you are. As a teacher, as a professional, you want to understand a given situation better, to get to the bottom of it or unravel it, because you want to achieve a certain goal, such as working together with your pupils, or to work in a goal-oriented or action-oriented way. As a teacher, you are open-minded and also motivated to find out more about a pupil or content from a curious attitude that is part of your professional identity or self-understanding. This means that being a teacher-professional you naturally want to do a 'good' job and continuously want to improve your performance.

Professional identity is the - too often - forgotten heart of professional development, which in our time, cries out for attention, especially with issues that touch on self-direction, resilience, wisdom and excellence (Ruijters, 2018).

 Working with professional identity means making it explicit, clearing it and maintaining it, but also strengthening connections; between 'me' & 'we', between our profession & organization, between our professional and personal development.

You are hereby invited, as a courageous professional, to carry out a research program as a serious experiment in your setting, together with students and colleagues to critically examine and investigate your practice on a subject that strikes your attention. I wish you luck and for sure too - a lot of pleasure and inspiration.

Jos Kienhuis; solution-focused practitioner and educational psychologist.

Contact: info@joskienhuis.com

References

Franklin, C., Streeter, C.L., Webb, L., & Guz, S (2018). Solution Focused Brief Therapy in Alternative Schools. Ensuring Student Success and

Preventing Dropout. Routledge; New York-London.

Freire, P. (2005). Teachers as Cultural Workers. Letters to Those Who Dare Teach. Expanded Edition. Boulder, Westview Press.

Littrell, J. & Peterson, J. (2005) Portrait and Model of a School Counselor. Lahaska Press; Boston/New York

Ruijters, M. (editor) a.o. (2018). Je Binnenste Buiten. Over professionele identiteit in organisaties. Vakmedianet; Deventer.

Rutter, J., Flutter, J., (2004). How to Improve Your School. Giving Pupils a Voice. Continuum; London, New York.

Woodhead, M., Faulkner, D. (2003). Subjects, Objects or Participants? Dilemmas of Psychological Research with Children, Chapter 1,

p. 9-35, in Christensen, P., James, A. Research with Children. Perspectives and Practices. Routledge Falmer; London, New York.