Dear Paul,

You ask the following: How can public debates on education reforms become more holistic and anchored within socio-political contexts and critical social science research,

As I see it, such debates have given rise to holislic approaches.

For example, at pre-primary and primary level there is now a widespread agreement that children should learn about the three "Rs": Reading, writing and reasoning, but also about the three "Cs": Care, concern, and connection.

At the secondary level, there is now a widespread agreement that teachers should be more mentors and organizers of learning experience and situations such that their students understand, reinvent and reconstruct everything they learn than simple trasmitters of ready made and established truths imposed on students from outside.

At the higher school level (college and university) there is an agreed upon idea that professors are there to teach and learn, and that students are there to learn and teach.

These three examples show that at any school level unidirectional approaches are being replaced by holistic approaches.

KInd regards,

Orlando

Dear Paul R. Carr

To accomplish the desired reform of education it should be context-related process. To achieve this, stakeholders and policy makers should consider many aspects, such as: improve the quality of education to sustain growth in the situation of fast population increasing and a difficult economic condition, reduce pressure on government spending by increasing value for money spent on education, reduce the financial load of education on families, advance equity in educational opportunities and performance, and enhance relations between the education system and the labor market to reduce the high rate of unemployment among youth.

First thing first; just because Finnish model is successful in Finland, it is not necessary that it will be successful elsewhere as well. However, we can't completely ignore it either since there are certain aspects that are applicable in every context ; quality of teacher training, their salaries and the prestige in teaching profession.

However, a large number of countries, including large ones like China, India, Mexico etc. have much less education budget per capita than compared with Finland. Hence higher salary or better training programmes have to be compromised.

Nevertheless, every educational reforms need to be centered around skills that are necessary for a child to grow up with to be relevant in the societies 10 or 15 years from now. Awareness of cultural diversity, inclusivity, internationalism, IT skills, environmental awareness, vigilantism, human rights, skills are among the few that instantly come to my mind. Any educational debate must center around these.

Greetings Orlando, Mohamed and Norman,

These are all very helpful points that you have made. Public debate is necessary in order to cajole and shape political decision-making, I believe. I have always been mystified why so much good, solid, meaningful and critical educational research is either omitted or diminished within formal education circles at the broadest level. I can think of anti-racism, critically-engaged democracy and more dialectically-engaged forms of interculturalism to start, which have all been extensively elaborated on with the educational research field(s). All is not dour, though, and there have been some important changes over time. Yet, in relation to public debate, it can be discouraging to see the focus placed on peripheral issues as opposed to the meaning of education for societies. In Canada, for example, this usually means highlighting, almost exclusively, spending and costs, eliminating school boards, or increasing class sizes in order to pay for everything (as in the recent case in Ontario). Money is an important part of the equation but so is what and how we learn and engage and develop. There are many incredibly creative solutions and proposals out there, yet the public debate is, generally-speaking, in my view, quite tepid and reluctant to take them on, which leaves us with similar "social reproduction" issues and problems that have existed for quite some time now. Lastly, teacher-education is presently at a cross-roads, of sorts, and is but one part of the equation, one that I hope will receive more attention from all sectors of society.

Thanks for your comments, everyone! Best regards,

Paul

As research becomes more 'international', a dilemma can be that research might not match local and national priorities. In a recent paper, I review some of the opportunities and dilemmas of the 'internationalisation' of research in the field of Education; see:

Conference Paper Strategies for globalizing research in the educational sciences

Thanks, Keith!! I quickly perused the paper, and you raise many excellent points. You also connect with the literature on global citizenship education, which, I believe, is increasingly critical and necessary to prepare a shift in/from national(ist) thinking.

In the United States, the private universities and schools can sort of do what they please and express any sentiments that they choose. However, public education is publicly funded. Faculty and students have freedom of speech and expression. However, sometimes when the debate becomes more violent or action orientated the politicians become involved. They can not prohibit you from saying anything, but they sure can cut your funds. This can have all kinds of negative consequences for the university. Just look at the recent controversies at the University of Missouri. Funds were cut by the legislature, people were fired, enrollment was negatively affected and the university endured a whole lot of negative publicity.

Debates only work if they are approached with a deep commitment to doubt and uncertainty. One mustn't speak from the perspective of "I'm right about this." Instead, one must speak from the perspective, "Here's why you should agree with me about this." The difference is extraordinary: By making gestures of inclusion to the audience one begins to re-shape one's view, changing it in important ways that can not be done alone.

Hi Paul. This is a part response only to your detailed question. An holistic approach to schooling is my research area. It will be 15 months before I can/will publish and initiate discussion. These few points meantime. In short, I don't know, but want to participate.

(1) There is no agreed concept of what holistic approaches mean - yours refers to socio-political contexts and research. Others refer to 'whole child' approaches - both child-focused and child in context. Others to ways of learning ...

(2) In the USA ASCD has adopted 'whole child in context' advocacy that is widespread through Publications, Conferences, Stakeholder identification and collaboration and a national Health body (ascd.org)

(3) 'Holistic' approaches in various forms have been advocated for 30 years in the USA and in Toronto by specific scholars and educators, yet .....

(4) Holistic approaches are also represented in Eastern philosophies and some schools - but their influence in the West is negligible

(5) Concepts of pedagogy deemed 'holistic' by some - Steiner, RE - operate outside the mainstream of public education and there are few examples of dialogue and investigation

The dominant modality and 'theory' of schooling is 'instrumental'. It is a brick wall.

My only idea at this stage is for educators &c to collaborate around the different interpretations and keep gathering widespread voice and momentum... Best. N

Hi Neil,

Thanks for those thoughts.

On the one hand, it is important to define, elaborate and engage in relation to our concepts, perspectives and proposals, which was a central part of my query. On the other hand, I am concerned that, what I believe to be, the over-arching framework intertwined with social inequalities may be under-stated, under-played or even omitted from the debate. This may be partly epistemological, part socio-political, part educational, and parts of other things as well. Having said that, I do believe that we do need much engaged and deliberative discussion, debate and dialogue, which was at the base of my question. And I also concur with you that educational associations and academic literature need to be more generally integrated into the broader conversation about educational policy, leadership and programming.

Best regards,

Paul

Hello Mr. Carr. The main point of my investigation is centered in the formulation of a public policy in basic education. I created a model and I applied in México. My conclusions are that the education actors have their own interest and the fight to influence in the formulation of the educational politics. Of course, they have different impacts in the implementation and in the teachers roles, not always positives, preserving the status quo and the international educational directives.

It says: public policy. It should be: politic

Hola Daniel,

Totally agree with you. Public education policy can never be detached from the broader socio-political context. The large P politics seems to mean that political party platforms and elections should determine the meaning and orientation of education, despite these two manifestations being largely devoid of meaningful deliberative debate on education. Political debate is often used to leverage funding against broad-based social justice reforms, although the wording and

narrative can sometimes be attractive.

I've been to Mexico several times in the last few years, and can appreciate the multiple challenges, layers and obstacles to targeting some of the central issues facing that society, and others. Social inequalities are not prioritized in education, in a broad sense, and the political debates aimed at somehow addressing them are fraught with hegemonic road-blocks. But... there are vigorous debates taking place in other venues, and this is where some, hopefully, transformative change can take place at several levels, including cajoling the formal, institutional sectors and levers of power.

Thanks for your engagement, and all the best.

Paul

Hello again Mr. Carr. In our Mexican government, we have a centralized system including education. The federal level is the most powerfull of all. In addition, the executive branch is predominant among the other powers (legislative and judiciary). If the Secretaría de Educación Pública (ministry of education) improvise in the formulation of the educational policies, the implementation and results may be undesirables.