Welcome
Hi. Welcome to my blog. A brief personal introduction.
I'm Patrick, a 35-year old currently working as an educator in a small town in New Zealand. I used to be a budding social psychology researcher, studying mate selection and sex differences - that is, evolutionary and social psychology. However, I flunked out before finishing my PhD (though after collecting some pretty interesting data). Here's a couple of papers I was involved in producing:
Fletcher, G. J., & Kerr, P. S. (2009). Why dispositions won ‘t go away. Behavior and Philosophy, 37, 119-125.
Fletcher, G. J., & Kerr, P. S. (2010). Through the eyes of love: Reality and illusion in intimate relationships. Psychological bulletin, 136(4), 627.
Fletcher, G. J., Kerr, P. S., Li, N. P., & Valentine, K. A. (2014). Predicting romantic interest and decisions in the very early stages of mate selection: Standards, accuracy, and sex differences. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(4), 540-550.
Leaving the doctoral programme was the most difficult choice I ever had to make, both because of its ramifications and because of the many considerations I had to weigh up. I was diagnosed with ADHD part way through my PhD study, and after leaving academia, considered what career might better suit my proclivities. After a stint as a stay-at-home dad, I found myself in an extremely fulfilling role as an early childhood teacher, flourishing in part I think because unlike with long research projects, playing with preschoolers is immediately rewarding on a daily basis.
However, I am an almost pathologically analytic person (I guess I "caught" this from my father, the astrophysicist Roy Kerr), and kept noticing low-hanging fruit in terms of the contributions a psychologist might make to education. Children who (I thought) showed quite substantial signs of autism were not being effectively referred on, and teachers lacked the training to adapt their approach in an appropriate way. It became apparent that as an educational psychologist, I could make a real difference. I was reluctant to return to university without careful consideration, however, so waited almost 3 years before enrolling in a graduate educational psychology programme at the beginning of 2018.
I was aware of social constructivism during my previous studies - it had been a source of disillusionment for me even though it wasn't particularly influential in the departments I had worked within (at the Universities of Canterbury and Auckland). But I was totally blindsided by the hegemonic status that social constructivism has within education, and, as I've come to learn, especially in New Zealand. So far as I can tell, the standards of intellectual rigour I'd come to expect in the academy have been largely abandoned in favour of identity politics and pop psychology. Though, of course, some lecturers were better than others!
I am a very low self-monitor and find it difficult not to speak out when I see problems. This was typically a strength during my earlier studies - psychology, and philosophy before that - because it ran parallel with the university's ethical, not to mention legal (in NZ) mandate to act as a critic and conscience of society. Therefore, I had come to expect that critical thinking was encouraged. Not so in the ed psyc seminar room. Critical comments too often led to awkward silence. I found myself wondering if other students were affected by a "emperor's new clothes" effect - not wanting to jeopardise their careers. However, I view my skepticism and hard-headedness as a necessary condition for my usefulness as a future psychologist, and so I feel I have little choice but to share my concerns about the discipline.
I've generally been a very high-achieving student, having earned As and A+s throughout my graduate studies before this year. But my grades in educational psychology were much less consistent, in spite of my high aptitude, passion, and best efforts. To my surprise, my application for the internship year was not even shortlisted for an interview - feedback cited concerns about both my understanding of educational theory and application, and my limited cultural competence. It is clearly very difficult to impute motives in such circumstances, but I do wonder whether by calling too many sacred cows into question in the classroom, I may have positioned myself as an ideological threat - one easily dealt with in such a nascent career stage.
This experience has enhanced my drive to affect a change in the education system. I've just recently started work as an underpaid teacher aide, but I felt the need to begin this blog in order to ponder some of the issues in education, psychology, politics and culture, as I see them.
I'm Patrick, a 35-year old currently working as an educator in a small town in New Zealand. I used to be a budding social psychology researcher, studying mate selection and sex differences - that is, evolutionary and social psychology. However, I flunked out before finishing my PhD (though after collecting some pretty interesting data). Here's a couple of papers I was involved in producing:
Fletcher, G. J., & Kerr, P. S. (2009). Why dispositions won ‘t go away. Behavior and Philosophy, 37, 119-125.
Fletcher, G. J., & Kerr, P. S. (2010). Through the eyes of love: Reality and illusion in intimate relationships. Psychological bulletin, 136(4), 627.
Fletcher, G. J., Kerr, P. S., Li, N. P., & Valentine, K. A. (2014). Predicting romantic interest and decisions in the very early stages of mate selection: Standards, accuracy, and sex differences. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(4), 540-550.
Leaving the doctoral programme was the most difficult choice I ever had to make, both because of its ramifications and because of the many considerations I had to weigh up. I was diagnosed with ADHD part way through my PhD study, and after leaving academia, considered what career might better suit my proclivities. After a stint as a stay-at-home dad, I found myself in an extremely fulfilling role as an early childhood teacher, flourishing in part I think because unlike with long research projects, playing with preschoolers is immediately rewarding on a daily basis.
However, I am an almost pathologically analytic person (I guess I "caught" this from my father, the astrophysicist Roy Kerr), and kept noticing low-hanging fruit in terms of the contributions a psychologist might make to education. Children who (I thought) showed quite substantial signs of autism were not being effectively referred on, and teachers lacked the training to adapt their approach in an appropriate way. It became apparent that as an educational psychologist, I could make a real difference. I was reluctant to return to university without careful consideration, however, so waited almost 3 years before enrolling in a graduate educational psychology programme at the beginning of 2018.
I was aware of social constructivism during my previous studies - it had been a source of disillusionment for me even though it wasn't particularly influential in the departments I had worked within (at the Universities of Canterbury and Auckland). But I was totally blindsided by the hegemonic status that social constructivism has within education, and, as I've come to learn, especially in New Zealand. So far as I can tell, the standards of intellectual rigour I'd come to expect in the academy have been largely abandoned in favour of identity politics and pop psychology. Though, of course, some lecturers were better than others!
I am a very low self-monitor and find it difficult not to speak out when I see problems. This was typically a strength during my earlier studies - psychology, and philosophy before that - because it ran parallel with the university's ethical, not to mention legal (in NZ) mandate to act as a critic and conscience of society. Therefore, I had come to expect that critical thinking was encouraged. Not so in the ed psyc seminar room. Critical comments too often led to awkward silence. I found myself wondering if other students were affected by a "emperor's new clothes" effect - not wanting to jeopardise their careers. However, I view my skepticism and hard-headedness as a necessary condition for my usefulness as a future psychologist, and so I feel I have little choice but to share my concerns about the discipline.
I've generally been a very high-achieving student, having earned As and A+s throughout my graduate studies before this year. But my grades in educational psychology were much less consistent, in spite of my high aptitude, passion, and best efforts. To my surprise, my application for the internship year was not even shortlisted for an interview - feedback cited concerns about both my understanding of educational theory and application, and my limited cultural competence. It is clearly very difficult to impute motives in such circumstances, but I do wonder whether by calling too many sacred cows into question in the classroom, I may have positioned myself as an ideological threat - one easily dealt with in such a nascent career stage.
This experience has enhanced my drive to affect a change in the education system. I've just recently started work as an underpaid teacher aide, but I felt the need to begin this blog in order to ponder some of the issues in education, psychology, politics and culture, as I see them.
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