Notes on:
Honan, E (2004) '(Im)plausibilities: a
rhizo-textual analysis of policy texts and
teachers' work'. Educational
Philosophy and Theory 36 (3): 267 -81
Dave Harris
This is about seeing texts as rhizomes, used
critically to understand the relation between
teachers and policy texts the [sounds like a
massive sledgehammer to crack a nut]. It is
a critique of neoliberal philosophy and
managerialism which have become widespread,
including some examples in Australia and the
USA. Professional worker has become
devalued, so social critique is essential in the
interests of democracy and social justice.
Deleuze helps by seeing the relationship between
texts and readers as rhizomatic.
The main contribution of post structuralism is
'the disruption of "methodolatry"' (268), or
fetishism of methods. There has been much
controversy about whether or not Deleuze had a
method, including St Pierre's indifference to the
search for correct meanings. Buchanan sees
this as central to Deleuze's work, and urges us to
avoid any attempt to slavishly apply Deleuze and
to think in terms about liberating creativity:
this is why for him the major interest is in how
Deleuze works. This paper is written in the
same spirit, to explore multiple effects [and to
bend it to the cause that she had already?].
A textual analysis using rhizomes will disrupt
commonsense understandings like those found in
policy makers wanting to bureaucratize [looks like
a pretty slavish application to me] .
Teachers have always had an uneven relationship to
policy texts, and Ball says we need to look at the
adjustments which teachers make as much as what
policy makers say. Assuming that policy is
important implies a reading of them as 'linear and
monological' (269). There are instead many
and varied readings of texts [must be in
principle, or actually are?]. Texts are also
multi dimensional. We should read them as
rhizomatic, defined, as in Thousand Plateaus as
a multiply connected network, joining up semiotic
chains and relations of power [and, to be fair,
'"social struggles"', apparently on page
seven]. A rhizomatic analysis will address
these multiple readings rather than seeing the
text as a simple repository of truth or
knowledge. This in turn will help us
understand how teachers adjust to policy,
including pursuing lines of flight. Possible
mappings are infinite, since linkages are
infinite. We also need to address the notion
of the subject, in this case of the teacher, as
constituted 'not only within the rhizomes of the
policy texts, but by and through the various
discursive systems in which teachers are located'
[including, presumably, her discourse of
struggling professional teachers and social
justice]. We should map connections,
including links between contradictory work and
ideas, in order to reveal new linkages and
discontinuities. This is 'rhizo-textual
analysis', and she has already done one.
She does not want to slip into method, but she has
formed some 'methodological
considerations'(270). She starts in the
middle, in order to keep herself open to
discontinuities and ruptures and rejects the usual
understanding of texts as linear, as in the term
plateau. She tries this out on various
syllabus documents in Australia and the USA,
concerned with the teaching of English, which are
considered as 'discursive plateaus', a
multiplicity connected to other multiplicity by
underground stems, in the words of the
masters. The multiplicities are formed by
familiar discursive patterns relating to
particular pedagogical approaches—based on skills
or growth or development or whatever. These
discourses are now considered as plateaus [seems a
movable feast], and she wants to look at the
linkages that connect them [in order to search for
the machine or the virtual or the phylum?].
She cites Grosz on the assemblage as a linkage of
elements, fragments and flows [empirical
multiplicities, so to speak?].
We have to realize that rhizomes are made of lines
of segmentarity and stratification in one
dimension, and lines of flight or
deterritorialization in another. She found
that connections were being made between 'what
seemed to be disparate "lines of flight"', which
allowed teachers to pursue their own particular
lines of meaning (271) [connections in the
discourses, or by teachers themselves? It
seems both—both texts and teachers produce
'equally (im)plausible readings']. In turn,
she had to ask how teachers as subjects formed a
provisional linkage within policy texts, and
thought there were 'different subject positions
made available to teachers' [the only
options? No intertextuality or transversal
semiotization?].
In particular, texts construct teachers as 'both
regulated and effective', authorized versions of
teaching, the curriculum, the student and so
on. These versions can be contradictory,
although they really work together 'to enable
teachers to produce their own plausible positions
within the texts' [they lay out authorized
options]. The regulation of teachers has
been influenced by corporate capitalism producing
and needed two airlines schools to the system
requirements, while limiting the options for
teachers to resist. Regulatory mechanisms
have become apparent, for example, in the
Australian States writing texts that assume their
authority and set out their assumptions which are
simply to be transferred to teachers. This
in turn requires devaluing the status of teachers:
one way to do this is to focus on what teachers
are supposed to do, assuming that teachers will
simply operate these requirements. Other
stakeholders are also addressed, again weakening
teachers' unique claims to expertise. The
syllabus is supposed to be 'teacher proof' (273),
connected to work intensification and deskilling
as in Apple [but deskilling is set in an orthodox
Marxist understanding of capitalism, requiring no
Deleuze]. The views of the community takes
up the popular view that you are an expert if you
have been to school.
Even though these trends challenge the notion of
teacher as professional, they are still expected
to be effective, to be flexible and dutiful. Goals
are set out in the texts but not really
prioritized. Post fordist management seems
dominant, with specific guidelines to complete
management practices. This invokes 'the his
superhuman effective teacher...omniscient in her
knowledge of each individual child' (274),
responsible for individual development and the
resolution of equity issues, [looking rather like
the development of Foucaldian technology to manage
inner lives]. Professionals develop their
own expertise, and again are required to possess
interpersonal, communicative and executive
qualities, to construct a suitable environment, to
be able to plan and evaluate, even undertake
classroom research. They should mirror other
qualities of the modern manager. Is about
governing the population, keeping detailed
records, regulating the self and others.
Teachers respond in different ways, and
rhizo-textual analysis lead to gathering examples
of teacher talk, videotapes of lessons and
interviews to see how connections are
established. An initial picture that emerged
was an understanding of the teacher as a
bricoleur, assembling meaning for practices.
Policy texts are only one example of input, and
substantial differences with them can
emerge. [One example has a teacher
explaining that she does not teach formal
functional grammar despite what the policy
requires, and accepting that this will get her
into trouble. She just thinks other things
are more important, and that grammar can be
acquired from other teachers. Another
teacher agrees to teach functional grammar,
but has found it difficult, and blames herself:
she is coping by addressing certainly bits of
functional grammar that she can work with.]
These are not contradictory ways of coping, since
both use policy texts as part of 'a complex
assemblage of meaningful practices'(277)
[otherwise the whole paranoid discussion would
look pointless if it was just so easily
ignored?]. This is bricolage, or taking
'quite different paths through the rhizomes of the
texts', yet still offering a plausible
readings. [Then an odd bit, explaining the
emergence of the importance of teaching functional
grammar in the professional training offered to
teachers at the time. This emphasis 'lent
official status to this "line of flight"', so a
line of flight means any path through a
rhizome? We have the old split between
kantian and hegelian critique here—on the one
hand, any path can indicate the existence of the
rhizome, but this will not automatically lead to a
political critique of a particular path].
It is not possible to describe ignoring the
official path just as resistance, which is a term
that has been overused says Ball. It is
however an 'agentic' choice, and these depend on
how fluid power relations are, and how power does
or does not operate as an affect in Deleuze's
terms, and if so, whether or not it is met with
passivity or reaction. Agentic possibilities
must always be present, but this will not always
appear as passive resistance.
'I am deeply committed to the recognition of
teachers as professionals who engage in rigorous
theoretical work as they create assemblages of
meaningful practices'(278) [so no need for further
analysis then?]. Policy texts try to narrow
the options, however and deny complexity and the
essential bricolage of teacher work. Policy
texts will never be sufficient on their own [so
this is the shift to political critique?]; texts
are never just linear; readers always have more
options than the official path, because rhizomes
have multiple entry ways etc. Policy developers
need to construct different kinds of texts that
allow for multiple entry ways and equally
plausible but different readings. In this
case, an open discussion of a variety of teaching
approaches and models, including some outcomes of
educational research might be offered [in other
words, treat teachers as autonomous professionals.
This is been one example of how to use
Deleuze. There is no insistence on
particular methods to establish particular groups
of educational researchers. St Pierre is
right to insist that your Deleuze might not be
mine [so anything goes, even fascist readings],
because we all have different assemblages.
Researchers might still share the diverse
possibilities, however, becoming '"circles of
convergence"' (280) [another term in Thousand
Plateaus] , while of course retaining the
notion of the rhizome. This paper is one
illustration of what might be done.
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