This blog is the second in the series I call Profoundly… This article engages with new materialism which challenges dualisms such as mind/body, inherent in humanist philosophies. I employ this approach to imagine a performative assessment model for Students with PMLD.

Definition: Assessment is a consideration of someone or something and a judgement about them (Collins Dictionary)

Let’s begin with a tracing

Regardless of the framework, model or tool we have at our disposal to assess students with PMLD, ultimately any consideration or judgement is framed by evaluative conditioning (stimulus-response), contingency awareness (cause and effect), object permanence and memory (see Imray and Hadfield 2019; Imray and Colley 2017; Imray and Hinchcliffe 2014).  I suggest the phenomenon central to assessment is the process of learning. This is understood as the interaction between learner and environment (Standards and Testing Agency 2020; Ware 2003). The concepts defined above, dominate the approach to assessment, creating a closed knowledge system. In other words, our understanding of the process of learning (as experienced by a student with PMLD) is limited, and the nature of assessment is fixed.  

French philosophers Deleuze and Guittari (1988/2004) define a closed knowledge system as a ‘tracing’. “Tracing’ is important as it establishes a ‘particular status quo’, for example, where students with PMLD are situated within a national framework of curriculum and assessment (Hickey-Moody 2008 Pg.356). This ‘tracing’ is best exemplified in the presentation of ‘Routes for Learning’ (Welsh Assembly Government 2006).  Evaluative conditioning, contingency awareness etc. are founded on dualistic assumptions.  The dualism refers to the separation of mind and body whereby the process of learning is centred in the brain. This is evidenced in the recently published guidance for assessment entitled ‘the engagement model’. The Standards and Testing Agency (STA 2020) suggest we can “prepare the brain” to help with memory (Pg.11). So, how can we reconceptualise the relationship between the learner and their environment in order to challenge brain centred approaches to the process of learning?

Here is the problem

The theories of learning that underpin evaluative conditioning, contingency awareness etc., are predicated on internal mental representations and external objects in the world. This is evident in PMLD education through the promotion of objects of reference. The expectation is that an object will come to represent something to the student, whether it be an activity (paint brush for art) or place (tree bark for park) (Jones et al 2002). Bergson (1988) challenges this internal mind/external world by asserting that perception is not representational but is rather concerned with the action and movement of a body. Therefore, this implies that the process of learning is performative rather than representational. 

A performative stance means that “knowing does not come from standing at a distance and representing but rather from a direct material engagement with the world” (Barad Pg.49). Furthermore, Barad (2007) asserts that a performative stance is an embodied practice as opposed “to matching linguistic representations to pre-existing things” (Pg.59). Fundamentally, I want to conceptualise a performative model of assessment for students with PMLD. 

Here is the theory

The concept of reflection pervades education as a metaphor for knowledge, which is apparent in theengagement model guidance. The STA (2020) suggest that “reflective pedagogy is when teachers and other professionals have a good understanding of how children develop” (Pg.13). The concept of reflection relates to ‘mirroring’ or ‘sameness’ and as such fails to recognise difference. Haraway (1992) proposes a different optic phenomenon, which is ‘diffraction’, arguing that “diffraction does not produce ‘the same’ displaced, as reflection and refraction do” (Pg.300). Diffraction allows us to conceptualise a performative assessment model in order to explore emerging ‘difference’ instead of capturing the ‘same’. 

Barad (2007) draws on the concept ‘diffraction’ from quantum physics. In short, diffraction refers to emergent phenomena that occurs from the moment two waves encounter one another. Barad (2007) illustrates this by considering what happens when two pebbles are dropped in a still pool of water, thereby creating waves which expand and overlap to form a new wave. This is referred to as a diffractive pattern and the pebbles are referred to as the diffractive apparatus. Haraway (1992 Pg.300) states that “a diffraction pattern does not map where differences appear, but rather maps where the effects of difference appear.”  In other words, we are not looking at the effect of the pebbles dropped in the pool but at the subsequent effects that emerge from them being dropped. 

The western world asserts that learning processes are situated in the mind, and as such, occur through interactions between human beings (Lenz-Taguchi 2010, my emphasis). Acquisition is a metaphor for learning which implies that knowledge is like an object that we can collect and represent in the mind (Plauborg 2018). Instead, Plauborg (2018) suggests that acquisition is “of something we already were and are a part of” (Pg.4). Lenz-Taguchi (2010) argues “as humans we must understand ourselves as material objects in the world, just as any other being and matter” (Pg.47). Therefore, the process of learning is not about the interaction between the learner and the environment but is rather about emerging from an intra-action between all entities, human and non-human. It is an entanglement with the world rather than engagement with something. Barad’s (2007) Intra-action is the central concept for the development of a performative assessment model. 

Intensive Intra-action 

I propose the term ‘Intensive intra-action’ here as a performative assessment model. To clarify, it does not relate to communication, as in ‘intensive interaction’, just merely a play on words. I want to consider new ways of knowing that are both embodied and material. Intra-action relates to ‘learning as enacting change’ focusing on the relationship, not only between humans, but all matter i.e. real and natural objects, technology etc.(Rotas 2016). This is pertinent as the curriculum we create for students with PMLD is based on the material, namely objects, for example in sensory stories, messy play and sensory curriculum areas (art, cooking).  These relations are created through movement, which can be as subtle as a blink of an eye or a wiggle of a finger. Therefore, Rotas (2016) posits that “knowledge-making is an emergent event of relation with animate and inanimate matter” (Pg.182). 

In order to illustrate this, I will provide a concrete example. It is evidenced by Elly Chapple in ‘The shoe-ness of a shoe’, an observation of her daughter. It is best expressed in her own words here: –

I remember clearly when I watched Ella for a period of nine months repetitively work her way through the box of shoes at our front door. It’s a crate, nothing glamorous, but boxes are helpful for things having a place when you can’t see. She would sit daily, twice a day, prior to going anywhere and go through the entire shoe box, mouthing and feeling every single one. Laces, Velcro…,, zips, leather, suede, fabric, different sizes, smells and shapes. … After nine months, one day she simply put the last shoe down, turned from the box and stood up. She sat down in her chair and promptly said ‘boots’ and indicated to her foot. (Chapple 2019) 

So, taking ‘intensive intra-action’ as the performative assessment model, what are the key aspects that we can draw from this illustration? Thinking diffractively, I am able to challenge external notions of obsessive behaviour precisely because we are looking at what emerges from Ella’s intra-action with the shoe, as opposed to focusing on the repeated interaction with it. It illustrates that learning occurs from intra-action from both human and non-human entities, as demonstrated in Ella’s relationship with the box of shoes, not just the shoes but the space it inhabits and the box that contains them. It asserts the acquisition of knowledge as something that is already there, and that Ella is a part of. Movement is central to the learning process; she is feeling different aspects with her mouth, hands and fingers. Knowledge emerges from Ella’s intra-action with matter; with the textures of the laces, Velcro, leather and zips. It demonstrates an entanglement rather than an engagement. She is not merely engaged with the shoe, but through her performative actions, matter (both human and non-human) creates the event where knowledge emerges. Therefore, the process of learning is an ongoing ‘becoming’, in juxtaposition with notions of fixed outcomes; and as such is enacted in practice (Orlikowski and Scott 2015).

Let’s be Cartographers

The ‘tracing’ or concepts such as evaluative conditioning, contingency awareness etc. and the current theoretical foundations for the assessment of students with PMLD, fail to recognise their lived experiences. Imray and Colley (2017 Pg.84) argue education asserts that “children must learn like us and learn to be like us” and we miss the opportunities for students to ‘direct’ their own learning in a meaningful way. It also perpetuates ‘sameness’ over recognising ‘difference’. Lenz-Taguchi (2010) states “pedagogical practices are being increasingly mainstreamed and normalised” (Pg. 4), which I suggest affirms our obsession with ‘sameness’. Interestingly, Carpenter (2011) argues we are ‘pedagogically bereft’, in other words, lacking the responsive teaching and learning approaches for those with complex and profound learning disabilities. What perplexes me is why do we refer back to the same theoretical foundations for the learning process if this is the case?  

So instead, let’s be cartographers. I refer to the concept of ‘map’ as defined by Deleuze and Guittari (1988/2004). A cartographer creates maps, which are ‘open and connectable in all dimensions’, ‘susceptible to constant modification’ and can be ‘adapted and reworked by any individual’ or ‘social formation’ (Deleuze and Guittari 1988/2004 Pg.12).  Diffraction as a concept can help us. As Haraway (1992) suggests “Diffraction is a mapping of interference, not of replication, reflection, or reproduction” (Pg.300). Furthermore, Barad (2007) argues that ‘the notion of diffraction’ provides “a tool of analysis for attending to and responding to the effects of difference” (Pg.72). Students with PMLD are a heterogenous group. We need to be able to constantly modify, adapt and rework how we think about the process of learning and ensure we have a meaningful assessment model. Conceptualising our assessment practice as performative allows us to be creative and responsive, to acknowledge our entanglements with the world as the foundation for knowledge creation and celebrate the ‘difference’ that students with PMLD bring to our lives. 

References

Barad, Karen. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.

Bergson, H. (1988) Matter and Memory (N.M. Paul and W.S. Palmer Trans.) New York: Zone 

Carpenter B (2011) Pedagogically Bereft! Improving learning outcomes for children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorders. British Journal of Special Education 38 (1) 38–43.

Chapple, E. (2019) The Deafblind world: The ‘Shoe-ness’ of a Shoe. Accessed from https://www.specialneedsjungle.com/the-deafblind-world-the-shoeness-of-a-shoe

Deleuze, G. and Guittari, F. (1988/2004). A Thousand Plateaus. Bloomsbury

Jones. F, Pring, T. and Grove, N. (2002) Developing communication in adults with profound and multiple learning difficulties using objects of reference International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders vol. 37, no. 2, 173–184 

Haraway, D. (1992) The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for inappropriate/d Others. In Cultural Studies Ed. Grossberg, L. Nelson, C and Treichlar, P. New York: Routledge 

Hickey-Moody, A.C. (2008) Deleuze, Guittari, and the Boundaries of Intellectual Disability Pg.353-370 in Disability & the Politics of Education, Ed. By Gabel, S.L. and Danforth, S. Peter Lang Publishing 

Imray. P, and Colley. A, (2017) Inclusion Is Dead: Long Live Inclusion. Routledge Focus 

Imray, P and Hadfield, M. (2019) EQUALS Pre-formal (PMLD) Curriculum EQUALS 

Imray, P. and Hinchcliffe, V. (2014) Curricula for Teaching Children and Young People with severe and profound and multiple learning difficulties: Practical Strategies for educational professionals Routledge 

Lenz-Taguchi, H, (2010) Going Beyond the Theory/Practice Divide in Early Childhood Education: Introducing an intra-active pedagogy. Routledge 

Orlikowski, W. J. and Scott, S. V. (2015) Exploring material-discursive practices. Journal of Management Studies, 52 (5). pp. 697-705 

Plauborg, H. (2018) Towards an agential realist concept of learning.  Article in Subjectivity October 2018 Springer Nature Limited

Rotas, N. (2016) Moving Towards Practices that Matter Pg.179-196 in Pedagogical Matters: New Materialisms and Curriculum Studies Ed. By Snaza, N. Sonu, D. Truman, S.E. and Zaliwska, Z. Peter Lang 

Standards and Testing Agency (2020) The Engagement Model Crown Publishing

Ware, J. (2003) Creating a responsive environment for people with profound and multiple learning difficulties 2nd ed. David Fulton Publishers 

Welsh Assembly Government (2006) Routes for Learning: Assessment Materials for Learners with Profound Learning Difficulties and Additional Disabilities. Cardiff. Welsh Assembly Government.