This is a personal reflection of my experiences as a student on Birmingham City University’s (BCU) professional education doctorate (EdD) from September 2020, to date.
Martin Drury
Course Coordinator (Placements) for PGCE Primary and Early Years
“Turn and face the strain. Ch-ch-ch changes” (David Bowie, 1971)
To a certain extent, you kid yourself that you know what you’re going to get as you embark on the EdD course and then you end up in a group and it’s very different. The part-time Doctor of Education course, also known as the Professional Doctorate, or EdD, is well established and at BCU comprises a mixture of Critical Perspectives modules, the PG Cert qualification, and a 50,000-word thesis based on (usually) close-to-practice research. However, knowing the structure is one thing and the reality is yet something else again. Surprises you never expected are in store, and rest assured it continues to morph even further as you progress through the modules. It is a modern cliché to talk of journeys, but you are in for one and need to buckle up and take the curves as smoothly as you can.
I’m in my second year of the course so in the taught module stage (CP3 Pilot Study and Poster Presentation) and am probably an untypical EdD student in some ways. I suppose I was always going to be different as an administrator on the course, but there is nothing to stop you following your goal if your application is meaty enough and you have an education background (I was a teacher for over thirty years and became an Assistant Head. I still am an examiner and moderator for many exam boards). Before submitting my paperwork, I spoke to another unicorn, a fellow former teacher-cum-administrator on the EdD, before applying, as well as Dr Tony Armstrong (Course Lead) twice and that was it. Enough of my ‘wool-gathering’ (day-dreaming!), I thought! Not, of course, that self-reflection stops when you start the doctorate, quite the opposite! I was worried about my age and that I was last at university as a student well over thirty years ago: but those things really don’t matter if one has passion, clear ideas, and strong references.
The interview was challenging, and I was given a clear message that I was very literary and perhaps not EdD-minded in terms of focussing on research related to practice. The question arose of whether they would be able to find me supervisors when I got to the thesis stage. I remember showing a fair bit of flexibility in my approach as various considerations were pushed my way; but my enduring feeling was being glad it was over as I had certainly been made to sweat. Thankfully there was little time for agonising too much about answers and the brain-strain of the ordeal as I was accepted within an hour (!) which boosted my confidence immeasurably.
However, I have looked inwards since- with a first module on positionality, one has to! And I have also gazed around me a fair bit. My biggest challenge was getting beyond ‘imposter syndrome’: while I could come up with an EdD proposal involving my area of employment, placements, I know enough about myself to say that would not keep me motivated. But in terms of secondary education, aspects of which I did want to research, I was no longer ‘close-to-practice’, whereas everyone on my course was a lecturer or primary school teacher or tutor or principal or secondary supply teacher. Comparisons are invidious, but I’m only human!
Ultimately (and thankfully) my writing and involvement in discussion seemed to have held up so I’m beyond that confidence-zapper now, plus I have a creative aptitude that also serves me well. For the CP2 module I wrote a short play, although to meet the learning objectives I also felt I needed to provide notational discussion and an exegesis. Three times (as much work?) I’ve enjoyed Dr Jane O’Connor’s writing workshops and Dr Alex Wade’s Theory as Fiction reading group where I have been given the chance to deliver a small section of my horror/fantasy novel. However, I had another morale-blip in the summer term when I felt I was becoming an overly acquisitive magpie: grabbing ‘a bit of this’ and ‘a bit of that’ and lacking a cohesive knowledge hoard. I was also enjoying the tricksy wordplay element of post-qualitative reading which can be form over substance but oh-so-clever.
However, one needs to gain a broader perspective. Diversity is all grist to the mill and change is inevitable. The externals often offer something very refreshing, especially as the constitution of a cohort tends to be more education-based rather than nursing and/or life sciences. At the start of the second year, two returners joined our ranks, whilst other peers who started with me have now departed. It would be wrong to call it a carousel where people get on and off, but the journey is not wholly smooth through an EdD. Added to this, of course, it has been hard for my year-group with so many online sessions during the pandemic. When in person, one needs to make the most of who turns up and to realise that keeping going is a form of success as we sit in sessions for two-and-a-half hours without a break (the bladders of the lecturers seem more robust than we PGRs!), sometimes masked and muffly – not quite the transformation we were expecting!
And everyone individually is so different! The projects prove that, but people’s motivations vary massively: some people are in it as a form of social interaction, some have succumbed to the expectations on staff in the modern university, some want to be a Doctor, some want to delve deep, some are in it for promotion. It’s all good, but somewhat of a revelation when one is confronted with “I just want to get through the module”. One fears the worst when the demand rises to 50 000 words! But each to his own learning experience!
For myself, the word “neoliberal” has entered my vocabulary majorly; I jumped on the Henry Lefebvre Rhythm Analysis train early and enjoy the STERG sessions. To get back to the teaching and learning interface, I returned to teaching in the form of the National Tutoring programme and wrote a piece on this response to lost learning based on my experience for BCU’s Centre for the Study and Practice of Culture in Education (CSPACE) conference. I continue to move between critical positions and methodologies and find Deleuze and Guattari’s inspiring. One of my peers is doing a self-interview and is amazed he is in the trendy position while I am currently wrestling with questionnaires. However, I don’t think I’ve totally done the traditional thing with these and am finding them much more unpredictable than I originally thought, but then the EdD is no automatic armour against naivete. In the past, I have worked away at tasks stubbornly; but now find I am somewhat stop-start in approach and that it can be hard with life’s pressures to pick up and ‘swing the bludgeon’. A compendium submission seems attractive in the future rather than behemoth thesis; yet, whatever way that pans out, I am glad of assignments and fewer words than the 80,000-word requirement for a traditional PhD.
To conclude, there are challenges and rewards which one needs to embrace with equal intensity. Or, as demonstrated by J.B. Priestleyin 1932 life is full of dangerous corners where we may get stalled, or we may skid out of control or we do well to get round. Having trudged through the Autumn term only really getting excited at reading group stage, I now have an interesting alternative angle on my research interests and am gathering and analysing data for my pilot study. Exciting! I hope it continues! Optimism!
References
Bowie, D. (1971) Changes on Hunky Dory. New York: RCA Records,
Lefevbre, H. (2004) Rhythmanalysis. Space, Time and Everyday Life. London: Bloomsbury
Deleuze, G., and Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus. London: Continuum
Priestley, J.B. (1932) Dangerous Corner. London: Samuel French
