Educating Students with Refugee and Asylum Seeker Experiences. Maura Sellars
without any recourse to love and care. Prominent amongst these consequences are the issues of mental health and the associated lack of belonging, connectedness and community, all of which are already significant concerns for students with refugee experiences and which underpin the many psychological and social reasons for the introduction of pedagogical love.
Gidley discussed this pedagogical love in three major themes. These were higher purpose, dialogical reasoning and integration. These are each unpacked in terms of Postformal Reasoning Qualities that relate to Spiritual Development, Contemplation and Compassion (Gidley, 2016). The higher purpose relates to the need to restrict self-interest, become less egocentric and be open to be inspired to a life purpose that relates contributing towards improving the life of others. This is a direct challenge to the egocentric, producer- consumer identity that neoliberal education agenda support in their various manifestations. For many individuals, self -interest does not need the encouragement of competition, success at the expense of others, indifference and the misappropriation of blame that is attributed to those in less fortunate circumstances; all of which are evidenced in the application of economic policy to the human interactions of education. The second reasoning quality relates to dialogical reasoning, which, unlike formal thinking, does not result in winners and losers. It is an interactive dialogue in which the views and opinions of others are respected and considered in the process of discovering decision- making in which all parties can experience successful outcomes. The final Postformal reasoning quality invited a more holistic view of what is considered educative in education systems. The discipline specific, specialized and fragmented ways of teaching and learning prevent an integrated approach which acknowledges the ways in which disciplines inform each other (see, for example, Sellars, 2018) and which compartmentalize knowledge, skills, concepts and capacities.
Not only does this inhibit students’ capacities and opportunities to synthesize their learning and maximize their competencies, it does not reflect the authentic purpose of learning, which is to enhance individuals’ lives and empower them to create the prospect of change and improvement. Gidley envisaged this integrated approach as more than content integration and connectedness. In describing the [14] Postformal reasoning quality she emphasised ‘a systems approach’ (Gidley, 2016) which implies the integration of all the components of a system. In the case of education, it would be evidenced as students and teachers working together to implement curriculum and evaluation, including on assessment. Ideally, students and teachers would be working together in a dialogical process to develop curriculum and evaluative procedures. This process would not have as its focus the conquering of an elitist, narrow selection of required knowledge, but the knowledge, skills and conceptual learning that would inform, empower and motivate students to engage with their relative strengths (see, for example, Sellars, 2008) and achieve the learning they value. The implications of this understanding of pedagogical love for students with refugee experiences and the interpolation of the remaining three pedagogical values developed by Gidley will be discussed in the detail of the following chapters as the focus of authentically educating these groups of young people and children is increasingly extrapolated. These theories of teaching as an act of love have the potential to make a difference as evidenced by Freire, Noddings and in Gidley’s radical reconceptualising of education. They are each a human response to injustice and disempowerment created by self-interest at powerful levels in society. As the statistics show, the groups of people who have endured much of the suffering as the results of this self-interest and hegemony are those with refugee experiences, particularly the children and young people.
Conclusion
Many students are disadvantaged by the impact of neoliberal policies and purposes on education, but it may be students with refugee experiences who have the greatest need for educational experiences which exemplify pedagogical love and care, and respect what it is to be human. The task of teachers and others who would engage in this teaching with love and care is made increasingly difficult by the standardization and quantification of their work. Accompanied by the stresses and pressures of the need to continually improve their productivity and demonstrate their efficiency, the notion of teaching as an act of love and caring may appear to many to be almost impossible. However, the negligence of authentic scholarship and the proliferation of values that erode society, community and sense of self to profit the privileged few may easily be considered as immoral acts against humanity. This is because the values and purpose of neoliberal education systems socialize young [15] people into perceptions of public life which is egocentric and materialistic. This is further disempowering and dehumanizing for students with refugee experiences who are already at risk, despite their many strengths. These considerations alone should make compelling reasons for educational policy makers, leaders and teachers to investigate the strategies that identify as educational actions of love and care. The development of more equitable, more inclusive societies depends on reconceptualising education and restoring trust to those who have undergone the most extreme dehumanizing experiences. To do this effectively, educationalists need understanding, strategies and skills which can be customized for their own contexts, under the framework of pedagogies of love and care. The following chapters are devoted to exploring the knowledge, concepts, theories and information that can make this a reality.
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