Table Of ContentStudent Voice and
Teacher Professional
Development
Knowledge Exchange
and Transformational
Learning
David Morris
Student Voice and Teacher Professional
Development
“The ultimate goal of educators’ professional learning is to enhance their posi-
tive impact on students. Notably absent in these efforts has been the perspectives
of students on how best to accomplish that. In thoughtful and practical ways,
David’s book provides long-needed guidance on how to gain and use the essen-
tial voice of students in planning effective professional learning experiences for
educators. All levels of educators will find his insights helpful.”
—Thomas R. Guskey, Professor Emeritus, University of Kentucky, USA and
Senior Research Scholar, University of Louisville, USA
“David Morris makes concrete the possibilities for authentic student engage-
ment in teacher professional development. He presents a dialectical engagement
between theory and practice through a rich case study, to critique the potential
for democracy in schools through students-as-producers of their own educa-
tional experiences. Inside a humanist tradition in which empowering relation-
ships emerge, this returns to the idea that the educator must be educated: and
who better to do so than the students themselves?”
—Richard Hall, Professor of Education and Technology, De Montfort
University, UK
“Anyone planning to design professional development for teachers to engage
with technologies should read this book. David Morris has given serious atten-
tion to innovative and trust-based partnerships between pupils and teachers as a
foundation for teachers to develop their use of technologies. The implications
are profound – the book forces us to wonder how any professional learning can
be designed without pupil partnership as a major consideration.”
—Caroline Daly, Reader in Education, UCL Institute of Education, UK
David Morris
Student Voice and
Teacher Professional
Development
Knowledge Exchange and
Transformational Learning
David Morris
London, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-23466-9 ISBN 978-3-030-23467-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23467-6
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This book is dedicated to those who departed between 2009 and 2014. In
memory of my brother, Phil; my mother, Ros; my father, John; my aunt,
Emmie; my beloved mother-in-law, Shigeko, and my best friend Nick
Thornton who was proud—while he was still here—to wear the Teach a
Teacher badge.
Preface
It is important to understand that this book not only reflects the culmi-
nation of over twenty years’ experience in education as a teacher of chil-
dren and adults but also stems from my own experiences of the education
system as a child and from my own experience of adult life. I received my
schooling during the 1960s and 1970s and the climate in schools back
then, as well as the social and pastoral attitudes towards children, was
very different to how they are at the time of writing this book. I have one
distinct memory from 1971 when I was nine years old and was in what
would now be Year 5. It was in the middle of winter, perhaps a January or
February afternoon, and it was a Design and Technology lesson where we
were making wicker baskets. I’m not sure why, but the permitted materi-
als included the use of needlework pins, perhaps to hold the work in
progress in place. It was, possibly, through a lack of engagement, teacher
supervision or clear instruction (class size 37), or plain malevolence that
two of my classmates chose to walk around the classroom and use the
pins to prick other children in the arm. This was, obviously, a terrible
thing to do, but there was no discussion and they were sent to the
Headteacher (with a note written by the teacher) and later returned to
the classroom extremely distressed. They had been caned and I was
shocked to see the extent of the damage to their hands which, to me,
conveyed an early and powerful message concerning the underlying bal-
ance of power between pupils and teachers.
vii
viii Preface
It wasn’t until 1986—seven years after I had left school—that corporal
punishment was finally banned in UK schools and so the threat of being
caned by a teacher was still a part of my student experience during my
secondary education. This is not to say that my teachers weren’t humane
or that I didn’t enjoy good relationships with them. Indeed, in contrast to
the episode described above, I have one very powerful memory from
1974 of my then form teacher. During form time, the class was allowed
a certain amount of autonomy and we were asked to undertake a research
project of our choosing. It took some persuading but eventually our form
tutor allowed myself and my friend to do our projects on David Bowie.
At the time, and at the age of thirteen, this seemed both an incredible
freedom and luxury—to be able to read music magazines in class as part
of our research without having them confiscated and never to be seen
again. Although neither of us mentioned it, I think we were both aware
that our teacher had placed a significant amount of trust in us and in turn
we very much respected her for that and we worked extremely diligently
on our projects.
To place the above personal experiences in their historical context is to
understand that at the time, any notion of student voice or canvassing the
opinions of pupils was almost non-existent in schools—including the
school I attended. There were student prefects, and I was one of them,
but our role was primarily to enforce the school rules of pupils not being
allowed into the buildings during break times rather any notion of
empowering the prefects by giving them a role with responsibility. The
antecedents of student voice will be discussed more fully in Chap. 2, but
for now it is pertinent to note that there were educational thinkers at that
time such as Lawrence Stenhouse who in 1975 in his book, An Introduction
to Curriculum Research and Development, promoted the importance and
value of listening to what pupils had to say. However, it wasn’t until
1989—three years after corporal punishment had been banned in
schools—that the cornerstone of the principles of student voice was put
in place in the form of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
the Child (UNCRC)—five years prior to my decision to become a teacher.
I entered the teaching profession at the relatively late age of thirty-four
and so since leaving university, I had acquired a range of vocational expe-
riences which included work as a computer operator specialising in
Preface ix
desktop publishing. The work, however, became repetitive as well as
unfulfilling and after becoming a father in 1990 and having a second son
in 1992, the way I viewed the world changed, as well as how I perceived
my role in it. My own father had been an absent father as I’m sure was the
case for many fathers in the cultural climate of the 1960s, where you
never saw a man pushing a pram. Maybe as way of compensating for my
own childhood experiences I couldn’t spend enough time with my chil-
dren and, being self-employed, I had periods of time when I wasn’t work-
ing and so I was able to be fully involved in their social and educational
development. To me, this was not just a pleasure but a luxury, and it now
seems somewhat archaic that shared paternal leave didn’t arrive in the
work place until 2015. In 1994, when my oldest son was four, I embarked
on a primary Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) at the
Institute of Education (IoE) and entered my first teaching post the fol-
lowing year. At that time, the internet and subsequent ‘knowledge revo-
lution’ had not arrived in schools or in peoples’ homes, and the job I
would apply for in 2004—as Senior Lecturer with ICT—and the posi-
tion which I held when I began work on this book—did not yet exist.
London, UK David Morris
Acknowledgements
This book is based upon a Doctoral thesis in Education which was com-
pleted at the University of East London in July 2017. I will be forever
indebted to my trustworthy Director of Studies, Professor Gerry
Czerniawski, who saw this journey through from start to finish, through
thick and thin, and without whom the completion of this expedition
would not have been possible. Thank you so much for your faith and
belief in me.
I would also like to thank my supervisors—Dr. Alex Alexandrou, Dr.
Ayo Mansaray and Dr. John Trushell—who guided me at various points
along the way and without whom I would never have seen the light. A
special thanks also goes out to my friend and confidant Dr. Dave
Cudworth who kept me sane throughout the journey.
A book is never the product of one person’s effort or labour alone and
so I would like to express my gratitude to Eleanor Christie and Becky
Wyde at Palgrave for their belief, patience and support in getting my
work published. Thanks also to all the teachers and pupils who gave freely
of their time to talk to me—without you there would be nothing to write
about. Further thanks go to the Headteacher of the school and my gate-
keeper for letting me become a part of their community. I am unable to
name you here, but you know who you are.
The author would like to thank the following people for their kind
permission in allowing him to reproduce their work in this book:
xi
xii Acknowledgements
Prof. Michael Fielding – University College, London
Prof. Thomas Guskey – University of Kentucky
Prof. Roger Hart – City University of New York
Dr. Caroline Daly – University College, London
