In this thought-provoking podcast, Dr. Felipe Acuña elucidates the deleterious effects of neoliberal education policies in Chile, employing the evocative "bonsai pedagogy" metaphor to illustrate how these policies stifle teacher autonomy and fulfillment. Drawing upon his research on innovative schools, Acuña highlights the potential for resistance and the cultivation of joyful teaching experiences. He cogently argues for conceptualizing education as a fundamental social right and ensuring the wellbeing of educators. Acuña's insights serve as a cautionary tale, urging policymakers to eschew neoliberal approaches that exacerbate educational inequities. The conversation situates these issues within the broader struggle to envision post-neoliberal futures.
In this episode of Conversations4Citizenship, Dr. Felipe Acuña discusses the impact of neoliberalism on education in Chile. He explains how the "bonsai pedagogy" metaphor illustrates the way neoliberal policies constrain teachers' growth and creativity, leading to burnout and loss of joy in their work. Dr. Acuña shares his research on teachers working in experimental schools who are pushing back against these trends and finding enjoyment in their teaching. He emphasizes the importance of treating education as a social right and ensuring teachers are the happiest members of society. Acuña warns against implementing neoliberal education policies, citing Chile's experience with increased segregation and inequality. The conversation also touches on the challenges of moving beyond neoliberalism in South America and globally.
This episode is hosted by Dr. Peter Lang. Please subscribe to the podcast through Apple, Google, Spotify, or Amazon Music. You may also follow @c4c_ed on Twitter. We look forward to hearing your feedback. If you would like to explore participating in our podcast and submit your blog post to the C4C, do not hesitate to reach out through the online participation form or email us at conversations4citizenship@gmail.com
Stella Micheong Cheong 00:00
Hello, listeners! I am Stella Mi-cheong Cheong from Yonsei University. Welcome to the episode of Conversations4Citizenship. Today, we are thrilled to have Dr. Felipe Acuña, a researcher from the Research Center for Socio-Educational Transformation at Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez in Santiago, Chile. Dr. Acuña's work focuses on the intersection of education, socio-political dynamics, and teacher subjectivity in neoliberal contexts. He has a rich academic background, including studies at University College London (UCL), and his insights are invaluable for understanding the educational landscape in Chile and beyond. Hi Felipe, how are you doing? It's been a while.
Felipe Acuña 01:19
Hello, Stella and Hello Adam, how are you both?
Stella Micheong Cheong 01:23
We're fine. Sp, Felipe, I'm gonna open up the floor to you. So without further ado, I'm gonna hand over to Dr Adam Lang, Adam?
Adam Peter Lang 01:36
Thank you very much, Stella, and a very warm welcome to you, Felipe, as our guest on conversations for citizenship, and this is exactly what it's going to be. It's going to be a conversation. So I'm just going to leave with, uh, some questions, and we'll see where it takes us. But thank you so much for giving up your time today, and we're particularly interested in the sort of global perspectives that you can bring to the podcast. But can I just start our listeners are always very interested in people's narratives, stories. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your research journey, your trajectories and particularly how you become interested in researching the effects of neoliberalism on education and teachers? Just tell us a little bit about that, if you will.
Felipe Acuña 02:20
Okay, well, thank you, Adam. Thank you, Stella. My English is not so good since we met, because, you know, I have been living in Chile the last four years, so I don't practice too much English, but I hope that it's okay. My background, my trajectory, I started to get involved in education in the university. I was studying social anthropology, that is my BA. Education in Chile, probably we're going to speak more about this, is very particular. It´s very particular, and it had some things. For example, is part of a neoliberal regime, a very intense neoliberal regime. So that, when I started to work as an anthropologist, I did school ethnography for a long time, three years going to schools, and I was a little bit impressed of how teachers were experiencing the school life, a lot of burn-out, a lot of malaise and suffering. So what is happening? My leading question was, what is happening with teachers? What is happening with their work? And I started to read here, there, and I could see that it was not something that was happening only in Chile. Then I connected with some of the work of Dr Stephen Ball, the terror of performativity, that is a very like well-known text, and it made a lot of sense to me, it was a good way of seeing how neoliberal neoliberalism gets into you and do things to you very specific, like taking out all of the joy of your work and leaving teacher doing something very technical. So, so I started, like trying to understand better why are we doing this to teachers? Why are, like, trying to comprehend a little bit more the negative aspect of what was happening in schools, a little bit impressed, really. And you know, then, we met in London. I did a PhD. It was very important years to have a formal study of PhD. Have the time to read and to analyse better.
Adam Peter Lang 05:14
So obviously, by the way, your English is brilliant, considering you've not spoken it for four years. But if we, if there's some misunderstanding of what we say, do ask for some clarification. Okay, our listeners are global. We're interested. We're all interested in hearing and learning more about today, the Chilean context, perhaps a little bit obviously, some of the dynamics that are at play there, as we speak today, but also in your history, but particularly recently, going back to I think there were students weren't there not that long ago, school students that took strike action, which is significant within your country. I just wondered what there's a constitutional change or not that's so called occurred. I mean, is there anything you just want to share for a moment with our listeners a bit about where you find yourself in Chile at the moment, what your reflections are on that?
Felipe Acuña 06:13
Yeah, well currently we have a progressive government—we are in the second year out of four of a progressive government—but this government doesn't have a majority in parliament so the program of this government was to de-neoliberalize society—to take neoliberalism out of society—out of state—the public policy—and so on. This is very difficult if you don't have a majority and want to do this democratically—so most important policies that were part of the program are not really going very well because you have to do many negotiations—and those negotiations narrow down policies—and their effects—well—we don't know yet—but it's been very difficult—not only that—but where do we go? What is—or how is—a different model society? What are principles—and what direction does society take after 40 years of deep neoliberalism—to move towards another model? We aren't clear on where we should go—we aren't sure because neoliberalism over these 40 years has created common sense—it has created ways of life—it has created ways of thinking—ways of feeling—so it's not easy moving forward especially if you're unclear where—and I think that's one difficulty for societies wanting beyond neoliberalism—where—to move—to move there—is unclear—we're at that moment—in Chile—trying moving—but unclear where.
Adam Peter Lang 08:25
What's going on in your country? Is that having any impact on other countries in South America, Central America? Do you think or not, or is there a pushback? Are people learning from the Chilean experience? Or, as you say, it's not clear, and it’s very early days. But I just wondered, yes,
Felipe Acuña 08:45
It's early days. I mean, in South America, that is, well, the things are very unsettled, because you have, well, you have a strong populism all around the world that our near country like Argentina, they have Mallei now that is kind of someone that doesn't believe in democracy, basically. And you have this, this kind of Bolsonaro, and a new right that is not a neoliberal right, or is neoliberal, but also anti-democratic right, like Trump and so on. And you have those kind of new forms of right emerging. We have that also in Chile, José Antonio Kast, but also you have a left that is trying to reorganize, not clearly. So all the South America is in that, in the in that moment. So why? Why is this happening? Because the old consensus between what you guys in London have like the Blair labor with the Third Way, the third way is not working. So that's the real thing. That's the new thing that that that way, the third way, so mixing state with market is not working. So when that exploded, in a way, because of the injustices, the inequalities. Covid was very important to see that. So the pandemic, a lot of people suffered because they didn't have to eat, you know, to eat, so you have these big numbers, and everything's okay, but at the at the end of the day, if you don't have to eat, things get really, really difficult. So we had a model of neoliberalism that doesn't, doesn't allow you to solve your basic needs. And that's when the right started to create a new model. And the left is trying to create a new model. So on both sides, we're trying to create a new model of society. One is more authoritarian, and one is trying to be more democratic. But I think both are a little bit lost in how to move, how to move, and society is quite lost. I think our difficult years are difficult years. It's not clear where, where you can move for all people that are involved in trying to understand society.
Adam Peter Lang 11:34
Our podcast conversation citizenship was actually sort of born and came about during the pandemic, covid, 19 pandemic. And I think in a minute you can reflect, I think that's about the time you went back to Chile, actually, from London. But what impacts do you, I mean, our listeners again, are very interested in this, on what impacts do you think the pandemic has had or hasn't had in Chile, particularly on education and young people in your country?
Felipe Acuña 12:04
Well, I have done some studies on that, on the meaning of education for school communities, particularly students and teachers. And what we have seen is that the school is losing sense for young people, so they don't see why go to school, especially younger people. Adolescents. In primary is still more clear. But in secondary school, the question is, why I'm going to this spaced to be seated eight hours per day, listening to someone speaking to things that I can download, or I can see online, and it's not clear what the sense of school is today. And the pandemic was that. So you are two years a little bit less connected online, you can put on off your camera, so you're listening to this feature saying something, but you're in your bedroom, you're connected in a different way. Of course, there are a good experience, that work. But what put into the to the front line was that the cognitive knowledge is not the most relevant thing in the school, is the experience of being with others there. So the experience of…you're playing with others, talking to others, your peers, in that sense. How do we think again what this space is, this experience of school doing to our children, our young people. We have to start everything again. In a way, the number of policies the school is subjected teachers, students, so big and so different policies and even contradictory policies, evaluation policies, standardization policies, market policies, and all that embedded and like trying to do something that is not always coherent. Well, that is something so well, that's one, And what is the concrete effect of that, a lot of mental health problems, a lot, a lot with young people, so depressions, so there is a like a boom of mental health problems and problem of a conviviality, so relationship among students and relationships among students and teachers. So a lot of a lot of problems. In that sense, it's like society got very intense, and the school was like assuming of that intensity, it's difficult. Now schools are for teachers is very difficult today, being a teacher maybe one of the most difficult times to be a teacher. Well, thank you.
Adam Peter Lang 15:29
Now, one things that I again, our listeners are very interested in this is sort of dichotomy or difference between the way in which the global north or the global south are viewed and seen, I mean, you studied both in London and in Chile, and I just wondered if you've got any views on that, about how academia, maybe the media has approached that whole dynamic. There are obviously beginnings of a debate about it. Now, aren't there about how that's not a fair comparison or not fair dialog? I don't know what you think from where you are in Chile particularly. Do you have any views on that?
Felipe Acuña 16:11
Yes, I think that we continue to have like the idea that things that happen in the north, the global north, are, better, in a way. So, for example, we have a policy that gives you money to go to study abroad, but you need to go to universities that are well ranked, in the university ranking, and the first 100 universities are from the global north, so mostly London or UK and United States. So the government, the state of Chile, thinks that the education provided by the global north is better that the education that they can provide. So in the instead of putting all that money in producing like doctoral program programs, we feel like within the country, you use that money to kind of contract a service of doctoral schools abroad. And I think that that is a way of subordination, colonialism, that is embedded in the in the way of thinking of the of the education, of the policy the policy makers have that kind of view of their own education. That's one thing. Why that is important. Because, for example, my supervisor, Dr Stephen he had like nine different doctoral students from Chile, from Colombia, from different Brazil from different parts. So, of course, the way that he can view, like the way of seeing the world, was enriched by the experience of having all these students. So you create more difference in a way, because, like, the is kind of, like the global north now concentrates an important, like, critical awareness of what is happening in terms of knowledge. Because they are they, they have the most, the most powerful, like, I'm going to say, industries of production of knowledge, university and they can live of that. They can live, really live, it is very important for the economy of this country, especially the UK and the United States. And of course, that everything has one side and the other in the other the from the experience point of view, that of what I lived. Well, I could, I could meet people that it was impossible to meet if I had stayed in Chile. So I meet people. Well, you guys meet people from all over the world, and really all over the world, so and we could talk and analyze our experiences. So you have these paradox if you stay in this place, maybe you're going to work only with Chileans, and you got maybe a narrowed view of what is happening at the world. And if you go abroad, you have a broader view perspective of what you are doing and what is happening, what is happening in Korea, what is happening in London, what is happening in the States, in Brazil and Ethiopia. So we had a different experience, Finland, and you can say, “Okay, this is happening”. And for me, “okay, teachers are having these problems here, and there. This is not a problem just from Chile”, and that's for me. By way of thinking, is very important to say, Okay, this is happening here, there, there. So what is the specificity of Chile and neoliberalism? You need to be more critical to say, Okay, this is particularly of this, well, that kind of Paradise.
Adam Peter Lang 20:16
Okay, Paradise. That's right. No interesting. And we'll come back to some of those points and themes in a moment. But recently, I read your fascinating, most recent paper, one of your most recent papers governing teachers’ subjectivity in neoliberal times, the fabrication of the bonsai teacher, and in that you talk about or introduce the concept of bonsai pedagogy, if I've got that right, I just, I thought that was very interesting. I just wondered, I will obviously put on for our listeners the reference to that article, that paper. But can you explain what that term is and how it relates to your work. Okay,
Felipe Acuña 21:03
Okay, the idea about bonsai pedagogy, I, I took that from two scholars from Latin America, Hugo Zemelman and Estela Quintar. They speak, they use that metaphor to analyze a little bit what neoliberal is doing in schools. What I did was to take the concept a little bit further like, to put like organise, what is, what they mean, with this kind of pedagogy? So if you imagine a bonsai, maybe it's quite simple a sense, if you imagine a bonsai, the bonsai is not a tree. It's not a tree. It's like a technical production of a small tree. So to do a bonsai, you need to cut the roots, you have to wire the trunk, and you have to clip the leaves so it doesn't get doesn't grow. So you have to contain the growth of the tree. So that is the art of the bonsai. So you keep the tree very minimal. So if you take that metaphor and you put it into the schools, the container of the tree. The tree is the teacher. Or you can say the pedagogical experience of the school can be also the tree and the container of the tree, apparently, is the school. So a teacher had today a teacher is very difficult for a teacher today to grow beyond the school experience, the classroom experience, so the teacher is contained within the classroom, so you need to you don't have the time. Don't have time. So that is one element time, lack of time, because of you have to do a lot of things, a lot of things, a lot of things, paperwork. So you take work for home, then you have these strong policies, very strong policies that are performative policies, that is Stephen Ball’s work, like that are wiring your trunk so policies like a standardized test with high consequence, what they are doing to you is saying you have to go with there. So you have to concentrate on teaching math and language and in this particular way, in this particular way of evaluating, this particular way teaching and so on. And then you also have policies that are evaluating your own work as a teacher, so you have grades, and you have to knowledge test and so on and so. And the last thing is that your creativity, so you don't have time your practices are being guided in a very strong way. And finally, your creativity is being damaged in the sense that it's not possible for you to create something new in your classroom, because you are being told that you have to focus, probably by your leaders that are also being told what is important so the whole value of what makes sense and meaning the school is minimal, minimized, shrunk and kept contained. And that's the idea of the bonsai. And why is important this metaphor is because it connects well with the most important metaphor that we have to analyse teachers work. That is the idea of the technical work, the robotic teacher, but the robot, the machine. The machine doesn't have like life. The machine is a machine. So it's a technical thing. So. And when people, a lot of people speak about proletarization of teaching, they use that for the technical metaphor, but the bonsai is alive. So if you want to study subjectivity, that is what I am interested in. It's interesting to see that you become small. You are alive. You're not a machine. You're alive. But you think that you cannot grow any further. So you become attached to that minimal being, and that may do something to you, as a teacher, make something in the sense that this little by little start to kind of kill the joy of what you're doing. And by the end of the day, you have people that leave the profession that have a lot of medical problems, health problems, burnout, so on, so and with a lot of people, I mean, a lot of people, like one out of three in Chile have problems that one out of three, right? 30% so that's the bonsai pedagogy. The idea that you have to remain small. Have a lot of conditions that do that, and also you, you become attached to that idea.
Adam Peter Lang 26:29
Well that's fascinating. And I think visually, it's a very interesting way of looking at things, to open up a debate and discussion. And I know in that article, that paper, that you say, I think figures, 40% of teachers under 30 have left teaching by the end of their fifth year in your country. But you also, I'm not sure whether it's you say it was Pedro says it talks about mentioning the soul of the teacher is at stake. Can you just elaborate a little bit more on that? What do you think he was saying, and how you've drawn that out in your findings?
Felipe Acuña 27:10
Yes, well, that idea, I connect that because it was a direct reference to the terror of performativity, that article of Stephen that he wrote on 2003 so a long time ago. And I think that teachers themselves, like when they try to speak about what is happening to them and theoretically, what is at stake is the soul. So what we mean with soul, so the soul is a way of organizing yourself awareness. You can put it like that in a Foucauldian way. Of course, it is not so another way going to be different. But from that point of view and the soul, what is the soul for these teachers is, is the possibility to enjoy, to enjoy what they are doing, to have freedom and autonomy, to take risk, to elaborate and experiment different possibilities with their work within their work. So being a teacher has become something very homogeneous, very regular, where you don't have the liberty, the freedom, the autonomy, you are being told what to do, how to think, how to feel, and that is what is at stake. So if you take out the soul, you take out all of the important, all the important in education, your killing experience, the experience of having a pedagogue in front of you, someone that thrills with what wants to teach, the experience that he wants to create, because he understands who you are, and he's trying to create something for you. And if you try to regulate that and governed that, you are killing education. Basically, that's one of the problems. Teachers don't want to go to school. Students don't want to go to school. So the school is going to end as an empty institution with nobody there, or everybody obliged to be there, because you have to be there wanting to there.
Adam Peter Lang 29:45
okay, and I know I see now I think I'd like to you to tell us a bit more about it. You're working on a slightly different angle on that, or different end of it. What, safely, very interesting. Project actually working with schools and teachers. I'd like you to tell us a bit more about it, but I picked up that the phrase is focusing on the enjoyment of their work rather than the discomfort. So I think I'd be, we'd be interested to hear a little bit more about what you're doing
Felipe Acuña 30:16
Yes, I think that for the PhD was, for me, like finishing like 10 years of research of teacher suffering, in a way. And was like, Okay, let's try to understand this. And so for a long time before doing my PhD, and during my PhD, I interviewed a lot of teachers and have this conversation. So what is wrong your work in a way, or what is happening? And I kind of knew that story a, and it's a sad story, and also, for me, it's like, it makes me angry, you know, like, like, I don't, I don't like what I am hearing like this is so unjust, and why I like it so absurd and irrational in a lot of ways. Coming back to Chile and during the pandemic pandemia, I was like, Okay, how do I find a different way of speaking, a narrative like you started of teachers that doesn't speak from the suffering, but speak from the enjoyment, and it's not so easy, like, how do we do and not because I have found a lot of those teachers, but they are like a lonely wolfs inside a school, you have someone doing something that they really enjoy, but the institution, not it's not the place, not a joyful place like I got. I applied to a project that it got the funding, that is studying teacher subjectivity that are working in experimental context and experimental. I use the category in the sense that a place, a school, that is doing things that like the school, is alive. So the first year, that was last year, was trying to find those schools. So we found five of them. That's what we can manage. It's not that they're only five, like as a team, we find five schools that we can go and now currently, we are talking biographically using this technique, this approach, that is biographic narrative and conversation is so different, what they are saying, but we are listening something. So I am trying to say, like, I'm okay, I think that I understand what it's doing neoliberalism to teachers. So now the rest of my academic life of work I am going to work in how we move out of this. And a way of moving out is to sharing narratives and conversations and experience of teachers that are enjoying their work. So putting that to a conversation and the suffering out, not to say that there's something not occurring, but to say at other things occurring. We need to fight for the things that we enjoy, the things that we want. So need more clarity of what is the things that make a school experience an alive one a significant experience for teachers, for students. So that's what I want to share.
Adam Peter Lang 33:46
You're working in, I think five schools you said that, have you got sort of five themes or topics that you've come up with that you're beginning to talk about with the teachers that they've discussed with you, those areas that give them more less discomfort, as it were. Do you want to share what those are? Or was it too early in your research?
Felipe Acuña 34:09
It's a little bit earlier where, because every one of these schools is experimenting in a different area. So to have one that is an artistic school, one that works with indigenous people. So they are doing an intercultural curriculum, another one that is working on sustainability and other working on gender topics. So they are, they're experimenting in a particular kind of dimension, and that dimension is the one they're trying to explore. But what is common is that they kind of the school is moving, and they are moving in with the school. And it's not only one teacher is the school project. That's, in a way, to trying to the experience that is generating is different. And what I am interested in what is doing to the experience of teachers, of teachers that we know that this system doesn't enjoy working well to be part of a project that is really alive. And what you hear is like, I like to go to my work. I like to wake up in the morning, and that's very recomforting, just to hear that I want to get up in the morning and go to work, because I enjoyed my work. That's it. Just hearing that, that is why I have been hearing this last two months, doing the interviews. I say, Okay, we are in a good path, because that's the thing. And now we are going to have more interviews like during the year October, we're going back, and the idea is to try to analyze, what are what are you doing as a teacher? How you are, in the bonsai pedagogy, how are you becoming a tree? How are you growing as a teacher? And to connect this movement of the growth of a teacher and to share, but to analyze and share. I think is important for Chilean teachers and, probably in other parts, to feel that they are not defeated. They can, they can push the boundaries. They can fight for what they really believe that is important in education, because they know what. He always knows what, maybe not always, but a lot of them know what is important, what is not important.
Adam Peter Lang 36:50
That's very interesting. I mean, it's a sort of microcosm of a sort of universal theme, actually, I think we find in our podcast when we're talking about education and schools. Thank you. I mean, in season three of our podcast, we are looking at methodology a little bit, and we're looking at different ways of researching. I just wondered at this stage, have you got any thoughts on that are the key influences, sort of lenses, thinkers, scholars? You touched on those? Anything you want to share with us or with the listeners about ways in which you see your work in the world, or any areas of development and so forth?
Felipe Acuña 37:33
Yes, well, currently, I come from anthropology, so ethnography has always been like, like, the most important approach, like, how to connect through being there, being there. But currently, I have been working with narratives. I did narratives in my PhD, I connect. I try to ensemble some of Freire, Paulo Freire ideas with some of Hugo Zemelman with some of a little bit more post structuralist like Foucault and Judith Butler giving an account of themselves. So trying to put all those things together, and because taking Butler, the way you narrate yourself is the way that you're saying, Well, this is who I am. You are always saying, I am this to someone else. So you need another to create yourself, and that creation is never one that is ended. It's always moving, that is like the idea of Butler. It's always instable and I like that idea. I like that idea that subjectivity is always that is always moving. And the narration, I have found that I like a lot to do interviews where you only have one question or very little questions, so you have a long time with the person like an hour, for example, what I am doing now is like, Okay, we have this hour, or we have this time. Can you tell me your story as a teacher, that's the question. That's it. Of course, some people can talk with that question for an hour, and other people are going to speak like 10 minutes, and then are going to remain silent, and then you have to go back. Okay, you can tell me a little bit more of these or that, but I don't have, like, a structure, guideline of questions. It's like a very, very loose and I like that because it has in the interview some ethnographic aspect of moving, moving through the conversations and Well, currently I am working with the with the ideas of Clandinin and Connelly, with two guys that's working with like narrative inquiry, and has been very important to read their work, because they work with John Dewey idea of experience. So I am connecting that, like importance of experience, of narrating their experience, with all the things that I have been reading. And so narrative is not something new. It's a very old thing. You know that guy serial, but it's interesting to do it once and again, because I think that you start to get the logic of what you're doing in the PhD I did, but I didn't really went deep on the epistemological consequences of the artifact that I was using. And now I think that, for example, if you are going to do a biographical narrative, you need to really take care of the space. It has to be an intimate space. If you I did on Friday, a narrative biography in a in office, where the person I was interviewing, there were other people, and it didn't work. Didn't work. It doesn't work if you don't have the space for the person to really feels, to create intimacy, and that makes sometimes might be out of the school, and that's still in a different setting. You know, is something very obvious, for instance, but it's important when you realize, Oh, it didn't work. Didn't work, because the person was speaking of a role, of role as a teacher, but in a very like restrictive way, and you couldn't have a feeling of the person that inhabits that role. And that's what I am interested in the complexity of being living a role of teaching so that, and it works very well. When you can manage to create a good space.
Adam Peter Lang 42:28
No, thank you. My last question before I pass over to Stella, it's just really, I mean, how could we I'm talking about myself, really in London, but how can our listeners find out more about the kind of work that you and your colleagues in Chile are up to your research. Sounds very interesting. Researching writing in the field of education, particularly, and in citizenship education, are there any passports, any ideas you think about things that we should be looking at,
Felipe Acuña 43:00
I think, well, all the different universities we don't have, like a citizenship congress for education, but it is something that is present Congress one in October, a big one, and It's probably going to be like a conversion thing, yes, that
Adam Peter Lang 43:30
don't worry. Maybe you could reflect on that and send us some examples of conferences, courses, or people that you think are interested in looking at in Okay, in your area, because sometimes that isn't as we're not aware of it as much as we should be sometimes. So that's what one of the things our podcast is trying to address. It's trying to give voices to different groups, academics and researchers in different parts of the world. Anyway? Look, Felipe, that's been fascinating. Thank you so much. I'm going to pass over to Stella.
Stella Micheong Cheong 44:06
Thank you Adam, and thank you, Felipe, really good. And I've learned many things from your recent work in your doctoral research as well. And then, well, I've heard Chile. Chile was one of the first country to implement neoliberalism policy, or neoliberalism in education that you mentioned earlier, your new government also implement neoliberalism as a new model, so what lessons can be learned from Chilean experience, and how can these insights informal educational policy in other countries? Can you share your thought?
Felipe Acuña 44:57
Yes, of course. Don't go through neoliberal policies! Please don’t go there! The gift of Chile for educational policy around the world is this is a wrong way. It's a wrong way. You're going to produce inequalities, you're going to produce segregation, you're going to produce standardization. That produce a suffering among teachers. We're going to produce a lack of sense for the school experience, for teachers and students. So don't go through this way. So don't believe in voucher policies, in high standardization with high consequence. That's not work. Really doesn't work. So we are the lived experience that it doesn't work. That is what we is a very painful gift, but it's a gift for humanity in this time. So humanity along education. People interested in location, please see Chile. Read the things that we have been writing. A lot of people in Chile, people who work in this area, they're going to say, everyone, almost everyone, the same. So we have more segregation. We have more inequalities. So it doesn't work neoliberalism. You don't put market to organize schools and education. you don't do that. We have to find another way, and that way, it might be the state, might be communities. We don't really know how to know, but we have to--it is a social right. Education is a social right. We have to treat it as a social right. It should be an equal right for everyone, it should be somewhat some experience that you enjoy, importantly, significant teachers, people who work in school, should be most happy people in your society. You have that old phrase you can measure the quality of a society, for the quality of how they treat their teachers. We treat teachers very bad. That reflects very bad in their society. That is one of the things that you can say from neoliberalism. It's a bad idea.
Stella Micheong Cheong 47:14
Yeah, I do agree. Brilliant. Well, I believe the level people before wrapping up. Would you like to share with our listener a little about, a little bit about what you are currently working on, or is there anything you'd like to mention that we haven't we haven't covered that it is important for all of us on #conversations4citizenship to reflect on.
Felipe Acuña 47:48
Thank you very much. Brilliant. Connect with people and share views along the wall. It's using what I was telling you before, like one of the best things for like going abroad and to keep the network alive. It's really so thank you very much to be true, because it's a very important thing to put a little bit of continue and energy things that sometimes you get into the job work and you don't have the time you want to connect to say hello, Stella, and this is our way to keep it alive. Thank you very much.
Stella Micheong Cheong 48:39
Oh, wow. I know you are super busy these days, (yes), so it's pleasure hearing about your research and your personal story because I didn't know that you were anthropologist, (okay), and you've talked about many things the current situation in Chile, and also you share your personal experience during covid-19 pandemic. I definitely sympathize your feeling, your emotion or thought during the pandemic. As a human being, we realize we are all a vulnerable being, but at the same time, we also try to keep positive as an educator and scholar, and that's why that Adam and me, other colleagues, we started this initiative, alright, and then also I'm really interesting narrative, as you might recall, I also applied biographical narrative inquiry to my doctoral research, which is really fantastic. And now I'm writing a book on data storytelling, hopefully I will finish this book by next year. (Fingers cross) Okay, I’m closing the episode. I am Stella Cheong. thanks for listening to Conversations for citizenship. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe to Conversations 4 Citizenship. And look for us on Twitter @c4c_ed (conversations4citizenship). A transcript of today’s conversation with Dr. Felipe Acuna can be found www. conversations4citizenship.com. This episode of Conversations4Citizenship was produced by me, Stella Cheong, Adam Lang and Kamille Beye, recorded and sound mixed by Stella Cheong. Many thanks. Take good care. Bye Bye everyone!