Abstract
In this chapter, we briefly revisit the key themes and ideas of the book before picking up the argument that: (1) that education always occurs in local sites and that changing education, no matter how it is imposed or encouraged, always sets in train processes of ‘site based education development’; and, (2) that a theoretical, practical and critical orientation towards site based education development can serve as the vehicle for revitalising education and re-invigorating the students, teachers and school and system leaders who live and work together in the communicative spaces of education. We argue that the notion of site ontologies, fundamental to our ontological view of practices, is crucial in theoretical, political and practical terms. On this view, practices like education occur in sites, amid particular kinds of arrangements to be found there, and changing education requires changing not only educational practices but also the practice architectures that make them possible. Our empirical work has led us to the notion of site based education development, by which we mean the development of the practices and practice architectures of education in every site in which education is practised. Since education always occurs within particular sites, changing education, no matter how it is imposed or encouraged, must always set in train processes of local, site based education development if change is to be effected and secured. We think that the notion of site based education is especially important in an era of schooling: an era of standardised curricula, professional teaching standards, and high-stakes external assessments. In an era of schooling, site based education development has the potential to be a powerful vehicle for revitalising education and re-invigorating educational practices and practitioners.
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Notes
- 1.
It is as if some of the curriculum developers of the 1970s and ‘80s, especially in the US, saw themselves as gods animating the worlds they imagined. Perhaps when they thought of the importance of their words, they had in mind the opening verse of the St James translation of the Gospel according to St John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Perhaps they thought they occupied a similar location in relation to the teachers and students whose work they sought to form. In any case (to switch religions), like Icarus, they flew too close to the Sun.
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Kemmis, S., Wilkinson, J., Edwards-Groves, C., Hardy, I., Grootenboer, P., Bristol, L. (2014). Revitalising Education: Site Based Education Development. In: Changing Practices, Changing Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4560-47-4_9
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