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Aspiration and Independence: A tale of Lego, Learning and Universities
A couple of year’s ago to mark the completion of my PhD, my husband presented me with a Lego kit, a Lego typewriter to be precise! This was an incredibly thoughtful gift, a nod to the start of my working life where I had used a very similar typewriter daily at the Magistrates’ Court. It was also recognition of the years I had spent writing the thesis. Simultaneously, it was also rather a surprising kit, my only other foray into Lego as an adult was building a Lego Yellow Submarine some years before. That kit had taken me considerable hours to build, which I had enjoyed, in part because of my love for the Beatles. However, I digress….
I embarked upon building the typewriter, which looked rather big and scary in its box, and even more daunting when I saw the huge instruction manual and lots and lots of bags of pieces. Nevertheless, how difficult can it be to build a Lego kit? I started with confidence, working my way through the step-by-step instructions, occasionally accidentally missing a step and having to go back through the booklet. However, about halfway through, I got completely stuck, I couldn’t make sense of the diagram and turned to google. Here I found lots of articles and videos, each of which seemed to stress that this was an extremely challenging kit, one of the most complex produced to date and not for the faint hearted. Regardless, I found some information about my particular hurdle and carried on working my way through the steps.
As time went on, I found the idea that what I was doing was difficult, playing across my mind. Increasingly, as I found a part challenging, rather than working my way backwards and forwards through the instructions, trying pieces one way and another, in trial and error, I turned again and again to google. Of course, each time I did this, as well as the answer, I was confronted by the continual narrative of challenge and difficulty. As I went on, I felt as if I could not complete this kit. Then disaster struck! As I fought to put in a moving part, a part of the model collapsed, I obviously hadn’t pressed the pieces in hard enough. I found myself facing what had been almost complete model (only one bag of pieces to go) but was now a complete mess. Now, remember this is just a model, not a matter of life and death, but I felt this mistake deeply. All of the commentators, self-proclaimed Lego “experts” were right, this was not a kit for me, a mere amateur.
This anecdote, really ends there, the kit is still in pieces in its box. I haven’t been able to bring myself to dismantle what’s left and start again. The fact that I haven’t completed the kit, plays on my mind. I don’t give up on anything (my work, education and family history attest to this), but here I am defeated by a toy![i] This “failure” got me thinking about learning and teaching and the role self-belief (or the lack of it) plays in the academic journey. This chimes with recent thoughts around independence and aspiration when it comes to excelling in study.
First a proviso, this is not about my institution, but seemingly every educational establishment and more broadly society. Everywhere I look it seems that young people are being told that they are incapable, that they need support in all aspects of their lives, including studying. That university study is incredibly difficult and probably not something that can done without enormous support. Sometimes this is an implicit message absorbed on daily basis, other times more explicit, posters, advertisements advising how to defer assessments, how to get in touch with support services, where to go for financial guidance, people you can talk to and so on. Now all of these are really important, but they are not the primary purpose of a university. That purpose is to provide a space for education, for thinking, for reading, for intellectual discourse, a place full of challenging ideas, allowing individuals to develop themselves in a variety of different and sometimes, surprising ways. It is also a place to make mistakes on that learning journey. After all, if we knew everything before we started studying for a degree, there would be little point in studying.
Nevertheless, in the modern university, there is little tangible evidence that this is what a university is for. To quote Nike (1988) where is the “Just do it”. Where does it remind us, that humans are powerful, resourceful, adaptable, that we can learn anything we put our minds to, we can succeed? Where are the messages designed to build self-confidence, self-esteem, and aspiration. Yes, there is help available, don’t be afraid to ask for support! There is no stigma, you are paying for every part of your university experience. Yes, studying is challenging, but so are lots of things in life; learning to drive, holding down a job, caring responsibilities, many of which we rely upon others for support.
Obviously, there is a big difference between Lego and an academic qualification, nevertheless they both (comparatively) require a big financial outlay, levels of dedication, concentration, aspiration and a desire for successful completion. I have three degrees, each has cost me financially, temporally and emotionally. This studying has given me the lowest of lows and the highest of highs along the way, but I have grown in ways I could never have imagined at the beginning of my studies. Along the way I have utilised support from academics and university professional services, for which I am very thankful, but the hard work is mine. Even better, those three pieces of paper belong to me and me alone, they are proof of my stamina, my perseverance and my ability to bounce back again and again. Nobody, can take those away from me!
It is for all these reasons that I will complete that Lego set! But I also recognise that I may need some expert help to build up my confidence again. This time I won’t call upon academics for support, but another expert, my 11 year old grandson, who has proved time and again, that no Lego kit will defeat him! With perseverance and an expert who will gently guide and enable me, that Lego kit will be complete in no time. Watch this space for the finished article!
EDIT Sunday 18 February: Mission Accomplished
[i] Apologies to all Lego aficionados, I fully recognise that Lego is so much more than a toy.
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Policy, procedures, processes, and failure
Examine any organisation and you will find a myriad of policy and procedures that are designed to inform its processes and guide employees. On paper, these formalised ideals and directions make absolute sense but frequently they bear no relationship to reality and rather than empowering, they constrain and often demoralise. These idealistic notions of how an organisation should function facilitate the dehumanising effects of managerial diktat and engender an internalisation of failure amongst employees.
By way of an example, in the 1990s police forces began to consider notions of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in respect of crime investigation. These SOPs seemed on the face of it to be a good idea. The police service, driven by government notions of New Public Management, were being measured on crime reduction and crime detection. Performance indicators were propped up by idealistic notions coming out of government supported by HMIC and the now defunct Audit Commission that catching more criminals would engender a virtuous circle resulting in crime reduction. Nothing of course, was further from the truth. But the introduction of SOPs was meant to attempt to address police failings. These, certainly in one force, were at the outset seen as a guide, a minimum standard required in an investigation. They weren’t intended to constrain.
A small department was set up in this force to measure adherence to these SOPs and to report back where there were inherent failures. For example, on attending a house burglary, the attendant officers were required to take a statement from the householder, and they were required to carry out house to house enquiries in the vicinity. At the very least, they needed to knock on doors either side of the house that had been burgled and a couple of houses across the road. Frequently the statement wasn’t taken, or the house-to-house enquiries hadn’t been completed. It became clear that the officers were failing to carry out simple procedures. Measuring adherence to SOPs and providing feedback to promote improvement soon resulted in measuring adherence in order to enforce compliance.
In hindsight, there should have been a realisation that the SOPs, far from being helpful were in fact having a detrimental effect. Where officers could have carried out further investigations based on their professional judgement, they adhered to the minimum required in the SOPs or simply failed to comply with them fully. This was partially resultant of a notion amongst officers that discretion was being curtailed, but more notably it was driven by other processes and organisational priorities. These other processes were to do with attendance at other incidents. Graded as a priority by the control room, officers were being pulled off the burglary investigation and therefore couldn’t comply with the burglary investigation SOPs. Police forces were also being measured on how quickly they responded to and arrived at various calls for service. There was clearly a direct conflict between management ideals and reality with the officers being set up to fail in one aspect or another. There were simply not enough staff to do all the work and to manage the overwhelming demands at certain times.
One way of dealing with the failures was to link these to the performance and development review (PDR) process. The development aspect was a somewhat redundant term as the PDR was all about performance. Of course, each time the PDR came around the officers had failed to achieve their objectives. This provided lots of evidence of people not doing their job properly. In the wider gamut of crime figures officers at various levels began to realise that the only way to avoid accusations of poor performance was to manipulate the crime figures. In the meantime, those driving the behaviours, washed their hands of them whenever someone was found out, often hiding behind the SOPs and policy. The misuse of the PDR process and the consistent scrutiny of performance metrics resulted in the internalising of failure by staff. Whole systems and processes had been set up to measure failure, after all how could success be measured if it could never be achieved. Of course, it could never be achieved because the ambition and driving force behind this, government’s notions of crime control, were based on ideals and rhetoric not science. But the overriding fact was that it could never be achieved because there were never enough resources to achieve it.
The failure of course wasn’t in the officers that didn’t adhere to the SOPs or those that manipulated crime figures to try to avoid overbearing scrutiny, it was the failure of managers to provide adequate resources. It was a failure of managers to try to understand what reality looked like and it was a failure of managers to deal with the dehumanising effects of policy, procedure and processes.
Having left the police, I thought higher education would somehow be different. I don’t think I need to say anymore.
Thoughts from the criminology team 