**2. The over-simplification of classroom teaching and learning**

There is widespread support in the literature for the view that primary classroom learning and teaching are not straightforward processes. Davis and Sumara [1] note that most teachers will attest to the unpredictability of learners' responses to teaching. Eisner [2] described teaching as "an inordinately complex affair" and others, [3–5] have framed teachers' roles in terms of managing uncertainty and problematizing unpredictability. Shulman [6] is unequivocal in describing teaching as "perhaps the most complex, most challenging, and most demanding, subtle, nuanced and frightening activity that our species ever invented". Descriptions of the facilitation and elicitation of learning by teachers themselves [7, 8] also acknowledge the unpredictable, dynamic and often messy, uneven nature of learning, and Alexander et al. sum up the argument with the assertion that "one cannot begin to understand the true nature of human learning without embracing its interactional complexity [9]." The case for learning and teaching being far from straightforward is also captured succinctly by Schon, who described teachers' work as operating in the "swampy lowlands" of everyday life. For him, "the problems of real-world practice do not present themselves to practitioners as well-formed structures. Indeed, they tend not to present themselves as problems at all but as messy indeterminate situations [10]." Considering this, it seems reasonable to suggest that what pupils learn in the context of school classrooms does not flow mechanistically from teachers' input and is not entirely within the conscious control of either teachers or pupils. This is not to argue that learning is not a function of teaching, but that pupil learning must be driven by more than merely the influence of teachers and teaching. It seems reasonable to hypothesize that teaching input is filtered through a range of networked factors resulting in learning occurring sometimes because of, sometimes despite, and sometimes irrespective of what teachers do.

Notwithstanding these depictions of the complex nature of learning and teaching, including from teachers themselves, a popular portrayal in policy and public discourse runs counter to this, presenting teaching and learning as simple, linear, causal, and mechanistic activities [11] reflecting a technical rationalist view of the profession [12, 13]. In this conception, teachers simply apply instrumental "teaching" solutions to address well-formed "learning" problems. Discourse and national agendas concerning teaching, learning, pupil progress, curriculum, standards, and teacher professional development are typically driven by this input-output conception. In the dominant policy discourse, "outstanding" teaching is often narrowly defined as the meticulous planning of lessons to meet specific, predetermined objectives [14] and despite years of reform in the UK and comparable education systems, the language of policy [15] still partially depicts a transmission and absorption notion of teaching and learning. This leads to the popular notion that if teaching is "outstanding" learning will (or should) be too. Tessellating policies of national testing, league tables, school inspection, and teacher competency descriptors firmly position teachers as the lynchpins [16] of pupil progress with the consequence that they are routinely held accountable for a phenomenon (learning) which appears to be only partially within their control.

This technical rationalist positioning of teaching alludes to an absorption and output conception of learning and learners. However, the pupil end of any learning and teaching relationship is no less complex than the teaching end. In any given school classroom "the persistence of inequities in student achievement [17]" speaks to a range of factors influencing learning. These include inherited and environmental

#### *Classroom as Complex Adaptive System and the Emergence of Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101699*

predispositions such as cognitive ability, personality, confidence, task commitment, and risk-taking tendencies along with influences from home and school ecosystems. More ephemeral factors influencing volition such as social dynamics, nutrition, mood, and even weather may also play a part. Research from several paradigms offers insights into learner factors and their effects on learning outcomes. Bronfenbrenner's [18] Ecological systems theory, for example, presents a framework for describing community and environmental influences on individuals. According to the model, interaction with other individuals and institutions across five levels of systems (from micro to chrono) shapes the individual's growth, learning, and development. These include family, peer group, school, media, and health care policies for example. Research into the emergence of gifts and talents in school-age learners [19, 20] has highlighted common elements, which typically correlate with high performance, including general cognitive ability, environment, personality, self-confidence, and chance. Numerous studies from the field of psychology [21–24] illustrate how personality influences readiness to learn and learning outcomes. Common findings suggest that the long-established "Big Five" personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) interact in statistically significant ways with learning. Studies of class emotion and mood [25–27] reveal how pupil interactions, on/off-task behaviors, and learning can be influenced by interpersonal features including regulation, negotiation, and resistance. Despite wide-ranging acknowledgment across multiple disciplines that learning is influenced by a complex array of converging and mutually interacting factors (those mentioned above and many not mentioned e.g. working memory, self-efficacy, parents' education, personal health, and cultural expectations to name a few), its depiction remains largely characterized in public discourse by the receiving and remembering of information and the mastery of a set of skills. This is evidenced most clearly in the way that policy developments in the United Kingdom, and comparable education systems, over the last 20 years have striven to routinize teaching.

It is against this landscape, in which teaching and learning are characterized quite differently in policy and media to how teachers and pupils experience them, and how research frames them, that this discussion chapter sits. I have previously suggested [28] there is a need for more accurate depictions of teachers' work and its relationship to pupils' learning. As Hardman [29] points out, there has been a failure of simple causal explanations to adequately account for the complexities of school and classroom learning, because, according to Davis & Sumara learning tends to "defy simplistic analyses and cause-effect explanations [1]". Complex adaptive systems (CAS) theories may offer valuable insights about ways that learning emerges in classrooms and my hope is that advancing this discussion will contribute to unpicking current over-simplified thinking about teaching and learning and offer new perspectives on pedagogy.
