Wuthering Heights — Landscape, Learning, and Change in Education
Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff’s dwelling. ‘Wuthering’ being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones. (Wuthering Heights, Chapter 1)
I had the good fortune to live in York for a few years and to have the opportunity to travel to Scarborough and some of the places talked about in Bronte’s novel with some regularity. I loved my time there. I particularly enjoyed the train trips between Manchester and York, especially the portion through the Pennines. I would stare out the window at the picturesque valleys, mist-shrouded hills, quiet canals. It was soothing and idyllic. Every step that I took while I lived there, whether it was across the cobblestones of city squares, or over field and moor felt filled to the brim with echoes of memory and history.
However, it can also be a dark place, a gloomy place, an inhospitable place filled with stony silences and cold, damp, unrelenting wind — especially in January and February! It is into this contradictory context that the house in Wuthering Heights has been placed. It is a strong house, well-constructed, and able to withstand the predations of the weather. Indeed, the house seems more of a bunker than a place to live, with ‘deeply set’ windows and defensive ‘jutting stones’. This type of construction is necessary because of the ‘atmospheric tumult’ the house is exposed to. In contrast, the trees and other living around the house are ‘stunted’ and ‘gaunt’ and malnourished, ‘craving alms of the sun’. While the house isn’t withering, it isn’t really growing or thriving either — what it is doing is surviving, or perhaps more precisely — persevering and enduring. What a place!
It is my contention that the metaphorical ‘house’ that represents our schools has been built in exactly the same kind of environment, and that this is to explain for much of the situation that we currently find ourselves in as we attempt to ‘live’ our professional lives there.
I have read, and written, a great deal about change in schools. It is really hard to achieve for a number of reasons related to teaching (fatigue from constant change, poor leadership, lack of capacity, lack of resources, lack of time, disconnect with realities of practice or needs of kids and families) and many factors that are beyond the control of educators (political agendas, economic disparities, the influence of outside organizations, legislation, religion, geography, systemic inequities).
It is also hard because of the construction of the house we have built. Education, as an institution, is incredibly durable. It has to be because of the roles that schools fill in our society. Schools are relied upon to provide care for children to allow adults to work. Schools are needed to provide respite-care for families who have students with significant needs. Schools are required to supply our societies with workers. Schools are tasked with caring for the mental and physical wellness of students. Schools are the place where children are socialized into the norms of society and the expectations for living in community. Oh, and schools are also expected to pass on knowledge and skills…
Though this house is strong, like Wuthering Heights, the impacts it has on human growth and development and learning are not necessarily healthy. Too often, we starve kids of the things that they need, and persist in giving them things that they don’t. Many become like the trees that grow around Wuthering Heights, stunted, and twisted, and craving for something more.
The building and the landscape affect the people in Wuthering Heights, just as the institution of school and the wider societal landscape shape our learners. I don’t think many would argue with this. We have examined student outcomes for decades and looked for ways to change the system by changing the landscape or changing the house. Neither of these has proven to be easy to do, and some would say that they are by definition impossible. School change is a slow process and by the time that it catches up to new architecture (like computers, social media, etc.), the world has already moved on to something else. The same is true for changes within the societal landscape. Not only is speed a consideration, but the fact that society tends to vacillate and shift back and forth complicates the possibility of schooling ever truly being a reflection of society — take the current firestorm of LGBTQ+ positioning as a perfect example of this.
Teachers exist, I think, at a third point in this ecosystem, connected to institution and society, just as characters in the novel are intertwined with the setting of the action. However, unlike the novel, teachers have the explicit charge, and most importantly, the agency, to help students become the best, most capable version of themselves. In some ways, teachers are expected to grow straight, tall, strong trees in the absence of adequate or healthy soil, water and sunlight!
Teachers attempt this, I think, through the leveraging of three key elements: relationship, pedagogy, and content. Relationship is critical because nothing can be achieved that requires personal risk without trust which comes from authentically knowing another. Pedagogy represents the professional knowledge and discernment that educators have to know how to present information and provide feedback.
Of relationship I will say little because I think what I might say would be obvious and have been better stated by many, many other writers. Suffice it to say that learning is an inherently social activity, and that without connection and trust, learning and growth are not possible, or are not possible to the extent that they should be. To those who might say that many great ‘discoveries’ have been made by lone humans working in cramped offices with poor lighting late into the night, I would say that even learning on this level represents a conversation between the learner and those who have come before, though this may only happen in the learners own mind. I would also add that all human interactions, I think, contribute to this forward progress. We are always learning, I think — so the casual coffee with friends, the smile and wave from a neighbour on a daily walk, the interaction with a store clerk — all of these contribute to every step forward we take in our understanding.
Content is crucial because deep learning is not possible without deep thinking. It is impossible to think long or deeply about simple things. As Alexander Pope famously said in his poem ‘A Little Learning’
A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
We simply cannot ‘drink deeply’ when the pool is shallow. Encountering deep content it is like climbing the first and seemingly largest mountain in a range of mountains. We begin the ascent believing that when we reach the peak we will have reached the highest point and the end:
the first clouds and mountains seem the last ;
But those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labours of the lengthened way ;
The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise !
Deep content consumes not just a lifetime of learning, but whole ages of humankind. Learning ‘large’ is always (or should be) our goal, and that is only possible with great content.
Pedagogy, the third component, represents the art and science of teaching (if there is such a thing). It refers to the factors we consider when we plan for learning, how we deliver content, how we construct learning experiences, and how we evaluate. Pedagogy has become both muddied and bloodied in the past twenty years. Muddied in that there is no consensus on what constitutes good pedagogy, and because what is generally considered good or effective in the moment can change quickly and drastically — there seems to be no solid ground. Bloodied because pedagogy has been caught up in a larger societal and political argument about ideology, and that has meant the word has been co-opted by governments and lobbyists. Teaching and learning is no longer an essentially human activity about the improvement and growth of the individual, it is instead a way of ‘indoctrinating’ youth to a certain worldview with political implications. Pedagogy has become a battlefield. Sadly, governments have sought to claim pedagogy by passing laws and regulations that greatly limit the moves that educators can make within their classrooms, and where this is not possible, sought to shame educators for employing approaches that it feels does not reflect its values. I would add that content is not immune from this meddling — the book bans being implemented and entertained by many jurisdictions are just one example of this (in my opinion) overreach.
And this brings us back to the stately, slightly decrepit, house on the hill. Our schools, like Wuthering Heights, have become places where learning no longer thrives, but where it endures in spite of the harsh conditions. Buffeted by political winds, limited by systemic structures that struggle to change, planting seeds in thin soil that lacks the richness of our history, our diversity, and our world, we wonder at the students we produce.
It may come as some surprise, that I write this with hope for the future of our house.
If you have read the novel (I will do my best not to spoil for those who have never read it — do by the way!), you know that something has changed at the end. Lockwood, the narrator, describes the scene for us:
We were in April then: the weather was sweet and warm, the grass as green as showers and sun could make it, and the two dwarf apple trees near the southern wall in full bloom…. I was comfortably revelling in the spring fragrance around, and the beautiful soft blue overhead…(Wuthering Heights, Chapter 34)
Spring has arrived at Wuthering Heights. Life returns and seems to thrive (as much as it can here) and the wind and sky seem softer and more welcoming. Even though the house remains the same, it has changed, and unsurprisingly, it has changed because of the people who abide there. Their actions speak to this change. The young couple is in the midst of arranging a “little garden” — they are planting seeds, a sign of new beginnings and I think a sign of hope.
As teachers, I do believe that planting seeds is an apt metaphor for what we do. Many will know this familiar saying or a variation of it. I include the version that is part of a Chinese proverb:
All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today
But from where does this hope come? For me, it has arisen from a strange place, unlooked for. In fact, it has come from a place that I thought had been closed off to me, and because of the seeds it has planted, it has allowed me to reconsider my understanding of pedagogy and content and to imagine a house that is like the one at the end of the novel.
It has come from Math.
A subject that I struggled with. A subject that I dreaded teaching. A subject that I had been told I had no aptitude for and should leave undisturbed on a shelf. A subject that I believed was perfect and flawless like Keats’ Grecian urn.
Math has been, for lack of a better word, humanized for me. Thanks to a fortuitous connection on Twitter (never X) with Sunil Singh a new world has been opened up for me, and so for my students. I have been fortunate over the last year or so to get to know him and to learn from him (and to share conversations about music and bbq!), and so has staff at my school. We have gone on a journey through 4 sessions and countless texts and conversations in-between. I am very appreciative to my Board for supporting this adventure.
While the content has been Math and the importance of deep content, for me it has also been about pedagogy and about how and why I do what I do with kids in classrooms. Unsurprisingly, along the way it has also reinforced for me that learning is a collaborative, social, and relational journey.
Here are my takeaways, as a elementary school principal trying to work in (and renovate!) this house.
Pedagogy has become something that we as educators tend to hide behind when we are uncomfortable with content. This makes our teaching stiff and our content shallow. It does not have to be this way. Pedagogy is not a monolithic thing, I believe. There is no one right way or science to teaching. Certainly, there are ways of working that can be more effective, but to say there is ‘one way’ is to insult the expertise of teachers and diminish the importance of content and relationship in the triad I mentioned. Any element of teaching and learning will have fluidity and will grow and change — or should. Since teaching is about people and people are different as individuals, and as generations, and as cultures, and in so many other ways, pedagogy needs to be different. Effective pedagogy, I think, considers these differences and uses them to help inform teacher moves.
At its worst, the retreat into ‘a’ pedagogy is seen in our math classes. The over-reliance on text books, canned questions and tests, perfect examples, and ridiculous ‘real-world’ problems has flourished as a safe way to teach math. But it treats math like a dead subject, like some remnant of life kept floating in a hermetically sealed jar. It ignores the cultural history and significance of math. It pretends that math came from nowhere, instead of celebrating the amazing stories of the people and ”somewhere’s” it actually came from. I understand and am sympathetic to the reasons teachers (especially in the elementary panel) have made this retreat. As generalists it places teachers in a vulnerable place to teach concepts that they may be unsure of themselves. The solution to this is firmly within the scope of our principals and vice-principals (of which I am one!) — model risk taking, celebrate failure on the journey of learning, and support the chances teachers take in their pedagogy. Work with them and alongside them, not as a supervisor or a judge, but as a co-learner. But as we continually remind our kids and as I almost always read on report cards — take risks in the service of learning!
Another current issue in our understanding of pedagogy is, I think, a misapprehension about what application of concepts is and when it happens in the classroom, as well as what ‘real-world connections’ and extensions really are. We often treat application and extension as things that happen after the learning, which supposes that the learning will suggest the application and extension that should follow. I don’t think this is the case, and I think that a reliance on this kind of pathway has resulted in learning not being as ‘sticky’ or as deep as it could be. Here is a moment where content becomes critical. When the content is deep, application and extension emerge from the learning at the same time. In practice this means that the questions and wonderings that come up as the topic is explored are critical and should be encouraged. However, when the content is simplistic, these moments do not happen, and it seems a bit ludicrous that they would suddenly appear after the content has been taught. This requires teachers to be open to uncertainty, and comfortable with not knowing the answer to something. Again, I sympathize with educators who do not feel they can work in this environment. In secondary, I know that the emphasis that is put on subject mastery and the teacher’s positioning as key to this knowledge means that it is an exceptionally scary thought for many. Again, principals and vice-principals can help with this. It is important that our teachers know that they are not slaves to the curriculum, and that the curriculum is not the be all and end all of learning. How many of us found that we progressed quickly in a particular topic, past the point that would have been covered in a grade or unit because we were fascinated by something? I would suggest that all of us, at one point or another were in this place. We should encourage this type of learning. When we start with the curriculum, I think we are already at a bad place. We should start with the student. What does the student know? What do they need? What are they passionate about? This, for me, is the point where relationship, content, and pedagogy all meet, and this is the place where real teaching and learning begins.
Finally, a couple of thoughts about content. Math in particular, but many other subjects as well have suffered because of the silo’ing of content we engage in generally at school. Cross-curricular learning, when it happens, tends to follow the same pattern as ‘application’. We engage in it after the learning, which I think reinforces the idea that subjects are still generally monolithic and self-contained. Again, I understand the reticence of educators to flip the script here. They have limited time and required elements to teach, and daily schedules that they have to stick to, not to mention assessment and reporting requirements. It would be unreasonable to expect teachers to abandon this structure entirely, nor do I think it would necessarily be good pedagogy. However, I think as principals and vice-principals we can support the classroom habit that a portion of time to be dedicated to this kind of open-ended and open-minded learning. The key is to start with rich content, a deep question, a wide-open wondering and to be comfortable with the silence you will initially be confronted with. Too often we jump in to fix things for students or to show them a pathway that we are all too familiar with. Leaving time for messy learning, experimentation and wondering is critically important and as administrators we need to be vocal in letting our teachers know that this isn’t wasted time! I firmly believe that students will find the connections to what is interesting and meaningful in their worlds for themselves if we do this, and that if we do this regularly we will build habits of thought in them that will serve them well for the rest of their lives and be transferrable to whatever subjects they pursue.
I have learned that all content has a story. For me, this was revelatory. I was drawn to literature because I loved stories, and I think in some ways I felt disconnected from learning that I felt didn’t have a story, that was ‘just facts’, theorems, information. My long-standing poor relationship with math is probably just as much a result of this belief than it was my difficulties with the way it was taught and my lack of success. Why would I or should I try any harder to master something so cold and dead? Why indeed? I think we truly do a disservice to our students if we leave them with this impression. Everything we teach should be like another page in a story that they both reading and writing for themselves! What a powerful thing to impart to our students, what a gift!
What seeds to have planted! What might grow from this soil?
As educators we live in this house that was built before we were born. As individuals we can do little to change it, but we can make it our mission to use our agency and our pedagogy, content, and relationships to make its rooms and grounds a place where students are nourished and allowed to flourish. School should not be a Procrustean bed, designed to force students in a prescribed size and shape — but a wonderland where students can find themselves, connect with fellow wanderers, and better understand their world. It should be a place where students are given the opportunity and space to be more than we are, not simply to become copies of us.
For me, this is where change lives and breathes in education.
