Linda Hammersley-Fletcher
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Linda Hammersley-Fletcher is a Reader in Educational Leadership and Management at Manchester Metropolitan University. Linda has a long association with BELMAS having been a Council member and edited MiE for many years. Linda's interests include the ways in which teachers can be empowered through research activity; and the tensions arising between the ethical and values-based positioning of educators versus the dictats of market driven policy making.
“Mainstream education promotes a narrow conception of listening, centred on the reception and comprehension of human meanings. As such, it is ill-equipped to hear how sound propagates affects, generates atmospheres, shapes... [ view full abstract ]
“Mainstream education promotes a narrow conception of listening, centred on the reception and comprehension of human meanings. As such, it is ill-equipped to hear how sound propagates affects, generates atmospheres, shapes environments and enacts power”. (Gallagher et al., 2017). At a time when leaders are inundated with data, standards and progress measures, it is often hard to see ‘the wood for the trees’. As teachers how often do we step back and listen - really listen? As part of an alliance of 11 schools we have engaged in research work that is developing a range of practices designed to support us to think and practice differently (Hammersley-Fletcher et.al., 2017). One important strategy that has shifted our perspectives considerably in our thinking about education was engaging in listening walks. As Gallagher et.al. elucidate, such practices help to alert us to a more multi-sensory understanding of our workplaces; they cause us discomfort in ways that challenge us to think differently about the ‘taken for granted’; and moreover, they facilitate our ability to see things in different ways and from the perspectives of others.
This paper outlines the approach taken to engaging a group of staff across a school alliance in a listening walk in collaboration with an academic colleague. Listening walks are a strategy which gives teachers’ permission to take a step back, to view our school through our senses. Walking around our schools slowly in silence, without an agenda allows us to tune into what is really happening, what are we hearing, how are parts of our schools making us feel and what is this telling me about my school? Data and perceptions of this experience were gathered through semi-structured interviews with the first author as one of the teachers involved in this activity. Data were analysed in partnership with the second author (the academic who led this activity) and findings developed in relation to themes arising from the data and literature, each used to inform the other (Morse,1994).
In this paper, we reflect on the ways in which this approach proved both challenging and helped us develop a ‘growth mindset’. Moreover, we report how some staff have now built listening walks into their on-going school development plans in order to facilitate regular planned reflections that encompass a wider understanding of the school and its environment.
