🦁 Hierarchy can kill…
…the contribution, knowledge, experience, skill of those who don’t have the title, the status, the position to be heard.

ℹ️ Democracy of knowledge and recognition of what people bring to the table can be lost by hierarchies.

🏫 I worked on a project over 2021 which comprised a team of head teachers, class teachers, special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs), deputy head teachers, teaching assistants, (I’ve tried not to write that list in a hierarchical structure!) and myself as a research. In reality, quite a few of us had experience ‘on the other side’ i.e. the school staff had research experience and I have school experience.

🌐 We worked together to build an ADHD resource for school staff that made us of all our different knowledge, experience and skills, so that it was based on good evidence, was suited to a school context, and used language that any of us could understand. It’s here if you want to take a look: www.attic.org.uk

👉 But one person shared this during our time together:
“I’m not a teacher and sometimes that…gives me less opportunities really, and because lots of things like this are teacher-led but I probably have more experience with the behavioural side of ADHD, without a doubt, you know. I’ve been doing my job for fifteen years. So not a short time and probably work with some of the most challenging children and have done different environments…but have less opportunity with things like this because everything comes with a label of being a teacher.”

🧠 We talked about democracy of knowledge, that academic knowledge or clinical knowledge wasn’t given a higher status than tacit (know-how) knowledge of the vast experience that staff were bringing to the table. We talked about hierarchies and roles, that higher status within the school system didn’t necessarily mean you know more or have more experience supporting a child with ADHD. And we talked about the ways to foster trust and confidence so that everyone can share.

✅ ❎ It’s not necessarily that hierarchies are good or bad. But are we listening to the voices of those that don’t always get heard, that have a powerful contribution to make, and that could teach us from a place of significant experience and skill?

Is there anyone ‘lower’ in the hierarchy than you that might be good to listen to today?