All Ireland Society for Higher Education
I've been told that if I start my presentation by saying something like 'Go mani Dia diobh' and finish with something like 'Go raibh maith agaibh' then whatever I say in the middle doesn't really matter. However, as I do not speak Gaelic, I won't even attempt to explain that.
But seriously, I'm delighted to be here at such short notice. It was quite serendipitous. I happened to be sitting next to Saranne Magennis at the SEDA Spring conference formal dinner and after about the nth glass of red wine, we decided that it might be a good idea for someone from SEDA to come over to this launch. As Chair of the SEDA Conference Committee, interested in holding our SEDA conference in Dublin, it seemed a good idea that I should, as it were, 'kill two birds with one stone' and come over to do a 'recce' in order to look for a suitable venue. I am very optimistic that we shall run a joint AISHE and SEDA conference in Dublin in the spring of 2002.
In the spirit of this potential co-operation, I should like to extend the good wishes of my colleagues from SEDA to you at the start of this initiative.
The name of your association is quite interesting for me personally. It is pronounced AISHE (AISH) and some may think it sounds like a truncated sneeze. However, in a number of my mother tongues, (I pause here because you may be wondering 'why is he saying mother tongues?'; in fact the majority of the people in the world grow up speaking more than one language and the idea of one mother tongue is very European) - in a number of my mother tongues, AISHE (pronounced ASHA) means hope. It's also a common first name for females. So, AISHE to me suggests 'hope', and my own hope is that my (secret) ambition to run a joint conference in Dublin in 2002 will come true. Indeed, I hope to see many of you there.
Unlike my colleagues on the platform, I haven't come here with a prepared speech but allow me to share some thoughts with you.
When I joined SEDA in 1995, there used to be a big fat book called the 'Smiths' Jungle of Staff Development' (complied by two people called Smith!). It was a directory of names, addresses and telephone numbers of all those involved in staff development in British universities. During the 5 years I've been associated with SEDA, there have been so many positive changes in the area of staff and educational development that the somewhat 'crude' connotations associated with the word 'jungle' are no longer appropriate.
A week ago, in Manchester, at the SEDA Winter Conference, which is primarily aimed at staff and education developers, I pointed out something that I had written in the introduction to the event, viz., that the conference programme was littered with words such as 'research', 'strategy, 'policy', 'managing change' and so on; and that in less than a decade, the kinds of activities included in, and reported on, at the conference which previously used to be carried out on the margins of higher education, had now become centre stage. So, we are part of a growing 'community of practice' that has gained both academic respect and professional 'clout'. Moreover, to reiterate one of the previous speakers, ours is indeed an exciting profession.
My colleagues, here, have referred to their 'passion' for learning and teaching, and it occurs to me that, assuming one starts learning when in the womb, I have actually been learning for more than half a century. For more than 28 of these, I have been actively (professionally) involved in 'teaching' and I'm still enjoying it! There must be something about learning and teaching which continues to keep me/us in this profession.
It is interesting to note that we are using the words learning and teaching. In a number of languages the two activities are expressed through one word. Those of you familiar with Welsh or Russian will testify to this. I suppose in colloquial English, we can use the word 'learn' in more or less the same way ('that'll learn ya'!) Referring back to my mother tongues, we don't really have a word that is the exact equivalent of 'to teach'. In northern Indian languages, we have a word, 'sikhna' which means 'to learn', and the word 'teach' is a variation or corruption of this, 'sikhana', signifying not teaching but rather causing learning to happen, or enabling learning to take place. I often make use of this little semantic feature of language when I'm working with my students. When I say 'students', these are all colleagues at Coventry University, who are completing a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in HE. I encourage the students to think that they are not so much involved in 'teaching'; more in helping others to learn. Last year, one of them wrote the following in his portfolio at the end of this course: "I now see that I shouldn't be concentrating on teaching; I should be creating conditions for learning to happen".
If there is some truth in the above, then a university 'lecturer' should be better viewed not as someone who performs pedagogic/andragogic tricks in front of students, but more as a creator of conditions where students can learn. I hope this is provocative enough for some people to start, and for others to continue, a debate around these issues.
That's the end of the heavy bit. I will finish by reporting on a light-hearted activity that took place at the Manchester Conference I mentioned earlier. At the very end of the conference, I invited the delegates to think of a collective noun for 'Staff Developers' and have promised to give a prize to the winner. Perhaps you can help me out with this task. I have the entries here, but I have not yet decided on a winner.
We had a range of offerings from the very boring - 'an academy of staff developers, a 'fellowship', a 'conference', a 'facility' etc. And then we had a list of, what I refer to as, the downright-touchy-feely-positive ones, - a 'nicety' of staff developers, a 'blossoming', a 'synergism', a 'facilitation', an 'investment' and even a 'salad' of staff developers.
I think the ones which are most interesting are the negative sounding ones. And the winner will probably come from this list. We had an 'exhaustion' of staff developers, a 'confusion', a 'conundrum', a 'prat', a 'diatribe', but the one I think, which is likely to win, is a 'swarm of staff developers'. The person who suggested this also indicated the following rationale for his choice: 'I want to suggest 'swarm' because, we, as staff developers, descend on a place - conference, department, institution. We devour everything - knowledge, experience, food, drink, and each other's company. Then we move on to the next tasty meal with equal vigour".
If I had to offer my own suggestion to the list, and I can't enter this competition because I'm judging it, the word I'd like to propose is a 'catalyst' of staff developers. However we define what we staff developers do, we are agents of change. Learning/teaching is also about causing 'change' or, at least, creating the conditions for change to happen. As staff and education developers, we have a crucial role to play in this process.
I see that as I have been speaking, the refreshments have been served at the back of the hall and I look forward to sharing some of these with you.
| [Home] | [Contact] | [Copyright] | [Legal] |