Don’t let the ‘cult of performativity’ get you down! Reflect, Recalibrate, and keep pushing on.
“It was as if I had missed one of the key takeaways of my own workshop, which is, an individual, and or, institution, cannot claim to value neuro-inclusion if they continue to sustain and perpetuate the ‘cult’ of the neurological and performative ideal practiced in rated measurements. ”
This blog entry is in part an insight into one of the key findings of my doctoral research, ‘the cult of the performative teacher’, as well as a piece of personal reflexivity following a workshop I delivered to a group of further education professionals.
Accountability measures and performative outputs are the bread and butter of the English education system. The Ofsted framework influences and shapes what ‘outstanding’ and ‘good’ teaching should look like in policy and practice. Schools and colleges are in a constant state of Ofsted readiness, consequently, so much so, they engage in what Perryman et al. (2018) refer to as acts of ‘stimulation’. In an education system where the practice of surveillance is the norm (in unannounced ‘lesson walks’, and routine observation of teaching practice and administration), teachers self-stimulate by ensuring they are always Ofsted ready; this ensures they are always on high alert, and ready to perform.
I argued in my doctorate a key symptom of this ‘stimulated’ readiness is the formation of a cult like teacher figure, I referred to this as the ‘cult of the performative teacher’. The performative expectations of what it is to be an ‘outstanding’ teacher, stimulates teachers into creating resilience strategies and techniques to manage the expectations of accountability and performance measures. For neurodivergent teachers the situation is more taxing, the ‘stimulation’ they experience is bilaterally layered, first they perform by adopting resilience strategies to act and process in a neurotypical way. Second, they further adapt, and exercise resilience strategies in order to meet the cult figure of the performative teacher formed and perpetuated in response to performative education policy and practice.
Recently I found myself in an interesting paradox, as a neurodivergent professional delivering a training session on the need to recognise neurodiversity in the teaching workforce, to a group of neurotypical (this assumption is based on the attendees not identifying themselves as neurodivergent) senior leadership team members, who would then go on to rate my workshop presumably based on neurotypical assumptions of how the workshop should be delivered, on how I, as the workshop facilitator should act, speak, interact. For me, the greatest part of the paradox lay in the fact that I was ready and willing to ‘self-stimulate’ to open myself up to the performative evaluation process. As soon as the workshop session ended, I sought out one of the conference organisers and asked if there would be evaluation forms, and if so, could I be informed of the evaluative rating, including any evaluative feedback. The ‘cult’ of the performative output was too seductive, I was willing to be reduced to a rating, of ‘Excellent’, ‘Good’, ‘Satisfactory’, ‘Unsatisfactory’.
It was as if I had missed one of the key takeaways of my own workshop, which is, an individual, and or, institution, cannot claim to value neuro-inclusion if they continue to sustain and perpetuate the ‘cult’ of the neurological and performative ideal, practiced in rated measurements.
On receiving the ‘evaluation’ from attendees, I was elated and disappointed in equal amounts, the majority rated the workshop as either excellent or good, but there were a couple of ‘satisfactory’ ratings. Immediately, I focused on the ‘satisfactory’, and in my response to the organiser I asked if there was any *qualitative feedback to support the satisfactory ratings so I could reflect and improve for the future – however, while I was typing I thought, “hang on….shouldn’t my focus be on the ‘excellent’ and ‘good’ feedback so I can do more of that!”. I stopped recalibrated, and ended with the mindset whatever the rating it doesn’t matter, quantifiable ratings provide a sort of quasi-proof, they are performative and more importantly, as an evaluative tool, provide no insight into how one might develop or indeed how one might ‘improve’.
So why does this all matter, and how does it relate to neurodivergent teachers and neuro-inclusion?
If employer schools and colleges want to embrace the neurodiversity paradigm, and not just the term ‘neurodiversity’, they need to think more holistically about their approach to ‘improvement’ and move away from the seductive stimulation that comes from reductive evaluative ratings.
As a neurodivergent professional, structured feedback with clear explanations, and pointers (if appropriate) enable me to better process and learn from the feedback given. We have all been at one time, or another, ‘outstanding’ and ‘requires improvement’ in our practice, we must acknowledge that such ratings do not define us. Neuro-inclusive practice requires us to focus on developing, encouraging, and empowering, all education professionals, but especially neurodivergent education professionals, who are measured by a neurotypical in design inspection framework, one which does not recognise the existence of neurodivergent teachers, nor does it provide guidance on how neurodivergent teachers can be accommodated in the lesson inspection process.
Let’s move away from the ‘cult’ of performative, teacher, trainer, manager, and for that matter human being! And instead do more to appreciate the neurodiverse make up of the FE workforce.
Make the difference, be a champion for neuro-inclusion!
*Side note, none of the attendees provided any qualitative feedback to support the rating they had given.
References:
The construction of teachers with specific learning differences (SpLDs) as subjects in the English Further Education sector: an exploration of the contribution of policy techniques, policy process and performativity.
O'Dwyer, A. (Author). 2 Oct 2021
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis
Perryman, J., Maguire, M., Braun, A., Ball, S. (2018) Surveillance, Govermentality and moving the goalposts: The influence of Ofsted on the work of schools in post-panoptic era, British Journal of Educational Studies, 66(2), pp. 145-163.
