Raising Standards of Learning: A Step Towards Development

Paper for Raising standards of learning, one step at a time, The Seventh Annual School Leaders and Educators Conference, Leadership and Development: Capacity, Generation and Calibration Bardejov, 3 4 November 2023 Professor David Oswell, Deputy-Warden for Research, Enterprise and Knowledge Exchange, Goldsmiths, University of London

Children increasingly face wicked problems tested to factor in resilience, creative and critical thinking in order to equip our future generations with the skills they might need equip our future generations with the skills they might need wicked problems and we as educators are Capacity Human Capital Generation Human Development Calibration the Human more than Human 1

Tame problems are managed; Critical problems are commanded; Wicked problems are lead. A wicked problem is complex, rather than just complicated, it is intractable, there is no unilinear solution, moreover, there is no stopping point, it is novel, any apparent solution often generates other problems , and there is no right or wrong answer, but there are better or worse alternatives. (Grint, 2005) 2

Human Capital Capacity Human activity as capital - Schulz, Becker the Chicago Economists, 1960s. Individuals responsible for investing in their own skills, as an economic investment; an investment in their learning and development Entrepreneurs of the self Life, lifespan and biopower Knowledge economy, growth in higher education Robbins etc etc cognitive and symbolic capital Happiness and affective wellbeing are core elements now of human capital development i.e. it s not simply cognitive 3

Human Development Generation Childhood is an intense period of growth Growth is understood as locked into the human body, as an internal motor that is linear, one-way, and has a clear structure of progression A deficit model But also a generational model, inasmuch as investment in children secures benefit in future years securing greater certainty in the future, i.e. a temporal control strategy 4

Nineteenth century observational studies Twentieth century developmental psychology (notably Piaget) and anthropology (Mead) What s significant is not only the conceptual centring of the child, but also the growth of ways of gathering data on, recording that data and placing the child at the centre of an adult scientific gaze (e.g. through diaries, laboratory studies, etc). 5

Human more than Human Calibration Thinking and creating with No centred subject, different ontologies, relational, interdependent, systems (More than) Human Capital Accumulation non-human entities, insecurity and dynamism, consistency and cohering over generations, over time 6

Lessons for Wicked Leadership Cyborg Collective, teamwork but more than teamwork Pastoral Care for a generational dynamic of people and systems Craft and Vision, a new sociological imagination 7