approaches, and acknowledged without choking them off through overformalised
assessment processes.
Finally, the critical importance of students being guided towards the right type of
course at the right level is confirmed. We hear from many stories the deterrent, even
destructive, effects of people being placed in classes where the demands made on
them could not be met. These effects, from school or beyond, can be extraordinarily
long-lasting. Pastoral support and teaching styles that build up cooperation between
students are crucial in fostering confidence, especially in those whose initial
experience of education was poor.
11. Change and communication: dependence,
independence and interdependence
Lydia’s case provides a link to another set of outcomes, which we also illustrate
through the case of Gareth, to do with dependence, independence and
interdependence, and how a reasonable balance is achieved between these in lives and
social contexts full of change and turbulence. These outcomes are not ones that we
specified in our original model; they have emerged from the accounts given to us.
They do, however, intersect with several of the ‘headline’ outcomes.
11.1 Gareth
We turn now to Gareth, who brings very different insights into the issue of
dependence and interdependence. The benefits of learning for him are summed up in
one rather dramatic quotation:
“ I’m not that junkie who skulks around in the middle of the night, um, who
doesn’t have consideration for other people. I can walk out of the door and hold
my head high. ”
Gareth’s schooling was distinctly unsuccessful. He rebelled totally against his
school’s ethos. This led to him being abused by a private tutor hired to attempt to
redeem his poor school performance. Following this he went to college in order to
attempt some qualifications but the main outcome of this period was to fashion his
entry into the drug culture. College was physically the place to get drugs, and socially
the location of a network of drug users, launching him on a serious drugs career,
which developed in parallel with a lucrative career as a self-taught professional
photographer. This is a clear example of a strongly negative nexus between learning
and social networks, as access to the college turned into something very different.
As time went on Gareth was earning large sums and spending massively on ecstasy
and cocaine. The community within which Gareth then functioned was extremely
powerful but, as he now sees it, illusory:
73