Take5 #123 Punk Pedagogy – Are you a punk educator without knowing it?

This blog post is brought to you by Maria King, an educational developer and former academic librarian whose teaching and learning (T&L) practice is underpinned by punk pedagogy. You might be thinking what have the Sex Pistols got to do with education? But punk pedagogy draws its principles from the ethos, values and characteristics of the punk scene such as DIY, challenging dominant hegemonies, and thinking critically. You don’t have to like punk music to be a punk educator! But the spirit of punk certainly speaks to the emergent and liberatory nature of learning development.

What is Punk Pedagogy?

Punk pedagogy is rooted in social constructivist and critical pedagogies, and is underpinned by principles of DIY, innovation and doing things differently, thinking for yourself, student empowerment and ownership, teacher/learner reciprocity, authenticity and questioning and critiquing hegemonic systems and authority (Bestley, 2017; Coles, 2014; Torrez, 2012). Some of these principles aren’t exclusive to punk pedagogy, there are lots of shared characteristics with constructivism and social constructivism such as being learner centred, problem solving and independent learning, learning being an active and ongoing process, educators as facilitators scaffolding learning, co-construction of knowledge from shared social interactions between learners and educators, and collaboration. Punk pedagogy is a form of critical pedagogy and what sets it apart from other critical pedagogies is that it is coming from a perspective of DIY and a resistance to a perceived status quo of dominant systems and expectations. It can therefore be beneficial to incorporate this pedagogical approach to increase student ownership of learning, increase flexibility of learning, and increase levels of criticality in learners.

How does it impact my educational style?

Dines (2015) notes that punk and pedagogy can seem like paradoxical terms; a didactic method of teaching being an oxymoron to the stereotyped subculture of punk. However, I don’t think pedagogy necessarily has to mean a didactic teaching style and punk pedagogy in particular doesn’t lean towards this angle of teaching. I came across Coles, T. (2014) Never Mind the Inspectors: Here’s Punk Learning around 2020 and was initially attracted to it as I enjoy punk music and the cover really stands out! But as I read through it I realised I was relating a lot to the approaches and philosophy described, and then I sought out more literature on punk pedagogy as a result and could see myself in that as well. I realised my individual educational style had always taken this approach/philosophy without knowing there was a name for it. I think a lot of other educators are already using punk pedagogical approaches within their practice without even realising they are doing so. Here are some examples of how punk pedagogy has influenced my personal approach to teaching and learning, you might find that you relate to and recognise some of these in your own practice. 

Ownership of learning

Punk educators are facilitators of active learning rather than transmitters of knowledge, with Torrez (2012) stressing that punk pedagogy reinstates personal responsibility for learning. This idea of learning for oneself is a longstanding ethical principle of punk and a dimension of the DIY approach. In Kafara’s (2017) course, learners decide which way the course should go as much as they can, with the course built on the premise of participation rather than passivity of information consumption. Coles (2014) also stresses that learners should not be seen as passive consumers of learning, positing the need to give the opportunity to take control and ownership of their learning, seeing learning as being more effective when learners ask questions rather than answer them. I therefore approach teaching from the perspective of my role being to coach, guide, and scaffold learning, incorporating as many options as possible for learners to make decisions as part of the structure and organisation of learning experiences. This can include approaches such as not coming to a learning experience with a script or examples – and being prepared to allow the content to drift off topic. It is important not to worry too much if things seem to move away from a session’s learning objectives if the attendees are still learning and getting what they need from it. I sometimes get asked to teach on a certain topic and I will start the session by asking attendees what they would like covered on that topic and allow the content to develop organically through discussion and demonstrations and be focused on what they want to learn more about. 

Disrupt the learning space

From my own experience I have found that the move to more online teaching has made the facilitator role more challenging and an online learning experience where the educator is sometimes the only person willing to have their camera on and speak verbally and all the learners are static names and often not even accompanied by a picture evokes a ‘teacher in charge’ environment. Being in a physical space can make it easier to disrupt some of this by choosing where to position yourself, sitting at the same level as the learners rather than standing at the front for example. As educators we need to consider what we can do to create online teaching environments and activities that encourage learners to be active participants rather than passive learners. 

Active learning approaches are often the key here and I always make sure that participant engagement expectations are clear in the blurb/advert of a session, especially when learners are choosing to book to attend. I will often start a synchronous session by reiterating these expectations and explaining why I am using this approach and what the benefits of it are to the students and their learning. For example, in my previous librarian role I ran an activity for developing keyword terms for literature searching where learners added their keywords to a Padlet and everyone in the group contributed alternative terms by replying to others’ posts and I clearly explained to learners how this activity could only be successful if everyone contributed and how it would benefit the whole group. 

Punk Pedagogy and Inclusive Teaching

Another benefit of utilising this pedagogical approach is that it also aligns with a number of elements of the framework for Universal Design for Learning (UDL, CAST, 2024), particularly around learner agency and flexibility of engagement, which has always resonated with me as a neurodivergent educator. Kafara’s (2-17) course is designed to allow learners to participate in ways which suit them best, and Coles (2014) also highlights the importance of this in order to allow learning to happen at an individual’s own pace. This approach to teaching and learning design where the most common adjustments are made without individual learners needing to request them is beneficial for large numbers of students and UDL goes beyond accessibility to include wider aspects of inclusivity for other minority and ‘non-traditional’ groups.

There are a number of ways I embody this within my own practice including hybrid sessions where possible, duplicated online and in person versions of sessions, a mixture of asynchronous and synchronous support, and providing information and resources in multiple modes and formats. In my previous role as a healthcare librarian I was very conscious that a large number of my students were often on placements at different times and found it challenging to attend synchronous sessions from the optional workshops calendar so I increased the number of asynchronous video resources available. I also offered the student the option of booking on to a session they could not attend, to get access to the recording afterwards – with the understanding that they would miss the interactivity and conversational benefits of these live sessions with peers if only accessing a recording. As a number of these sessions were based around demos of resources such as databases or reference managers the questions asked by others and conversations still had relevance to those only accessing the recordings. 

Mixing modes: Accessing all areas

Within synchronous learning sessions I also believe it is important to consider and plan for flexibility and multiple modes of engagement. This could include giving options of how to ask questions/give responses such as verbally, using chat functions, or digital tools such as Padlet, Menti, or Vevox. Digital learning tools can be particularly useful for hybrid sessions when you want to ensure that all participants no matter whether they are involved in person or online have the same opportunities for contributions and engagement with the session; these digital tools can bring participant engagement and activities into a shared space and blur the lines of who is engaging via which mode. Where possible I also try to build flexibility of engagement into activities/tasks themselves, so for example giving options of whether to do something in groups, pairs, or solo if the nature of the activity allows this. Some activities and tasks may be designed in a way where working with others is a key element of the activity, however often the learning is not always reliant on this and allowing people to work alone on a task if they are still engaged and learning should not necessarily be seen as an issue. 

Another key element of learning activity design connected to ownership of learning is designing options that allow learners to decide where they need to start their learning from. Learners do not all learn at the same pace or come with the same prior knowledge and experience, so building in flexibility to account for this allows learners to tailor their learning experiences in a way that works for them. This also encourages better ownership of learning for independent learning through self-reflection and thinking for themselves to develop self-awareness, which is a key principle of punk pedagogy. This approach could be depicted as a rhizomatic model, with the roots and shoots of learning being sent out from different nodes for different learners. An example of how I have done this myself is when creating asynchronous videos to support students with academic literature searching I will create multiple videos at different levels e.g. getting started with databases, next steps of databases, and advanced database searching. This allows students to start with the resource that best suits their individual knowledge and experience, and also encourages self-reflection of deciding for themselves what their knowledge is. 

Another example of an activity that uses this principle of allowing learners to self-assess their knowledge of a topic is the SOLO taxonomy. This is particularly useful to support learners in deciding how much they currently know about something and identify what they need to do to increase their knowledge. This could be particularly useful for an activity around revision and identifying topics where more or less revision may be needed, for example, when learners have a range of topics they need to know about and need to prioritise learning. Within a synchronous learning experience this could be used to firstly allow students to assess their current knowledge level, and then choose from a range of learning activities provided based on their starting point of knowledge.

Role as an educator: Student as producer

Kafara (2017) ignores traditional hierarchies of learners and educators, with a teacher-led but collaborative learning environment, and feels that everyone involved in the educational experience can learn from each other. O’Dair and Beaven (2017) also identify teachers as learners as well, stating that learning never stops. I therefore try to incorporate activities and opportunities for learners to become transmitters of knowledge, such as designing a game-based activity of Database Top Trumps where learners explored different databases, created top trumps cards, and shared their knowledge and learning with the rest of the attendees. 

It is also important to break the stereotype of educators as ‘all-knowing’; it’s okay to not know the answer to something and admit that to students! I always take the approach of using that as an opportunity to demonstrate to students how I would go about finding the answer to something and demonstrating good information and digital literacy practices by example. Approaches like this also tie into the ownership of learning, allowing learners to find things out for themselves.

Self-Reflection 

Punk pedagogy also encourages a self-reflective approach to being an educator, with the aim of improving the learning experience for your learners. Self-reflection can sometimes be challenging and also not something that everyone does naturally so you need to consciously build this into your practice. Consider how you can incorporate opportunities for students to provide constructive feedback and act on it, and not only feedback on the content of your teaching but also on your teaching style. When reflecting on my teaching I often try to do so through the lens of punk pedagogy; does my teaching style encourage questions, involvement, debate and criticality? Do I explain tasks and instructions clearly and give options and flexibility? Do I answer questions effectively and support self-reflection and independent learning of my learners? 

I also try to identify content that learners don’t appear to understand and reflect on how I could change my approaches so that they ‘get it’; not assuming that the lack of understanding is down to the lack of the learner, or only their responsibility to take actions to increase understanding. As well as taking this self-reflective approach myself, this is also the approach I take in my current job role working on the PGCAP programme and with our institutional AdvanceHE fellowship scheme. Both of these have reflective writing as the assessment/application elements and my role is to support staff on these routes to professional recognition, scaffolding how to think and write reflectively about their practice. As a mentor and tutor on these programmes I encourage this reflective and critical approach from colleagues in regards to their own teaching and learning practice. 

Criticality of Learners

Encouraging learners to find things out for themselves is a key element of supporting the development of learners’ criticality. Kafara (2017) encourages this through the participatory learning ownership course design explained above in relation to student ownership in order to open up inquisitiveness, and support learners to recognise the importance of their own ideas and perspectives.  … 

A critical argument involves analysis and evaluation and is not just about describing the work of others, so as a punk educator we have a role to play in developing the criticality of our learners in order to analyse and evaluate the evidence. However, this can cause some challenges for students as I discovered when teaching a class on critical appraisal of research. I introduced students to critical appraisal tools and then had a complaint from a module leader when students negatively critiqued a ‘highly regarded article’ he had chosen for a formative assessment activity. We need to teach learners that it is okay to challenge and negatively critique peer-reviewed articles: criticality is an overall judgement and evaluation and even a peer-reviewed article has potential areas of weakness that could be improved. The key element of a critical argument is that when learners present their opinion, they can demonstrate how they have developed this perspective. One activity I use with learners to ensure they are supporting their arguments effectively is a highlighting task where they take their draft writing and use different colours to identify description of evidence/sources, their interpretation and analysis, and the viewpoint/perspective they are then putting forward as a result of this.

Punk it up

As educators we need to ensure that we are creating learning environments where learners feel safe to share alternative perspectives and outlooks, and not feel that completing an assessment is about finding the ‘right’ answer expected by the academic based on their perspectives. Supporting learners to look at alternative viewpoints and arguments and synthesise these together is a key element of critical practice and there are not always right and wrong answers. Both Kafara (2017) and Diéguez (2017) highlight the fact that learners with perspectives that clash with educators can cause issues, including having to change their thoughts to succeed. From my own experiences of supporting PGRs I have met more than one who has said they have had to change the direction or perspectives of their work based on their supervisor’s viewpoints on a topic and that they didn’t feel able to challenge this.

Dines (2015) sees punk as providing new ways to interrogate the world around us, and using this approach being a punk educator is about interrogating and challenging the assumptions of your discipline and attempting to disrupt dominant conceptual and institutionalised orders. Within the field of information literacy criticality can also be represented by challenging the dominant knowledge creation and publication practices to assess whose voices are being missed or under-represented if we prescribe to views where hierarchies of evidence assume peer-reviewed research published in top ranked journals to be of the highest quality and we do not consider the value of other source types. Publication bias leads to under-representation in these top ranked journals of a wide range of voices and perspectives, so as educators how can we encourage the value of other sources and search locations to find these? As a librarian I was reliant on academic staff being willing to see the value of these sources for use within academic assessments; if students were working from a brief or marking criteria that explicitly asked for peer-reviewed research sources to be used I was limited in how much I could encourage deviation from that in order to ensure students were still meeting expectations for the assessment. It was therefore the academics I needed to challenge on the expectations they were setting for students, but it can be difficult to both challenge academics as a member of professional services staff, and also challenging to persuade people to change their practice away from the dominant academic practice discourses of their discipline.

Recommendations

When you started reading this blog did you consider yourself to be a punk educator? How about now after you have read about how it influences my educational philosophy and practice? Can you see more of yourself represented by punk pedagogy and maybe you are more ‘punk’ than you originally thought? 

Reference List

Bestley, R. (2017). Art attacks: punk methods and design education. In  G. Smith, M. Dines & T. Parkinson (Eds.), Punk Pedagogies: Music, Culture and Learning. (pp. 144-155). Routledge.

CAST. (2024). The UDL Guidelines. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/ 

Coles, T. (2014) Never Mind the Inspectors: Here’s Punk Learning. Independent Thinking Press

Dines, M. (2015). Learning through resistance: Contextualisation, creation and incorporation of a ‘punk pedagogy’. Journal of Pedagogic Development, 5(3) https://uobrep.openrepository.com/handle/10547/584233  

Diéguez, D V. (2017). Should I stay or should I go? A survival guide for punk graduate students. In  G. Smith, M. Dines & T. Parkinson (Eds.), Punk Pedagogies: Music, Culture and Learning. (pp. 41-55). Routledge.

Kafara, R. (2017) ‘Here we are now, educate us’: the punk attitude, tenets and lens of student-driven learning’. In  G. Smith, M. Dines & T. Parkinson (Eds.), Punk Pedagogies: Music, Culture and Learning. (pp. 109-127). Routledge.

O’Dair, M., & Beaven, Z. (2017). Just go and do it: a blockchain technology “Live Project” for Nascent Music Entrepreneurs’. In  G. Smith, M. Dines & T. Parkinson (Eds.), Punk Pedagogies: Music, Culture and Learning. (pp. 73-89). Routledge.

Parkinson, T. (2017). Being punk in higher education: subcultural strategies for academic practice. Teaching in Higher Education, 22(2), 143–157. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2016.1226278  

Torrez, E. (2012). Punk pedagogy: education for liberation and love. In Z. Furness (Ed.), Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower. (pp. 131-142). Minor Compositions.

Author profile

Maria King is a Student Education Development Advisor at the University of Leeds, supporting staff and PhD students who teach to improve their teaching and learning (T&L) practice, and gain professional qualifications and recognition for their T&L practice. I have previously worked as an academic librarian/academic skills advisor at other UK universities and have always been interested in how students learn and how staff can take approaches to make learning experiences more affective. I am also part of the NLISN committee and the ALDinHE Neurodiversity and Inclusivity CoP with a strong interest in inclusive teaching for neurodivergent learners, as someone who is also neurodivergent themselves.