I have been thinking a lot recently about translation work with regard to teaching PE. I’ve had two roles in my PE career. The first was as a PE teacher where part of my role was applying knowledge to inform my teaching practice. Now as a PE academic part of my role is to generate and challenge knowledge so that others can develop their teaching practice. A simplistic view I know, but it helps me to position a role that sits between them. A role that I think is undervalued but incredibly important: the PE translator.
The PE academic, someone who usually does their work in a university setting, is primarily concerned with producing, refining and defending knowledge. In their day job they tend to work with theoretical concepts and an evidence base from academic research, and this informs much of their practice. There is, in my limited experience, a concern with fidelity. By fidelity, I mean the extent to which an approach is used in ways that stay true to what it was originally designed to do and the principles that underpin it. As a novice PE teacher I was never concerned with fidelity, and now as a novice PE academic perhaps I’m concerned by it too much.
The PE academic is held to account by the wider profession. University systems check the integrity of what I teach. When I produce knowledge, more knowledgeable others support and challenge me. When I publish knowledge I have to go through peer review and then respond to scholarly debate. It is no means a perfect system, but there are checks and balances in place to prevent me from saying whatever I want.
The PE teacher, who does their work in a school setting, is primarily concerned with making something work, with real pupils, in real contexts. They work under a series of pressures: time, behaviour, curriculum, timetabling, space and wider school and education policies and accountability systems. Therefore the PE teacher is concerned with local adaptation, and what works, because the realities of teaching demand it.
The PE teacher is also held to account, probably more so than the PE academic (in my experience so far). Their teaching practice has to navigate a whole host of formal and informal accountability measures. Starting with departmental and school policies and systems. Then there are inspection systems, outcomes for examinations, ongoing performance management, dealing with parents and other stakeholders, and then every day accountability through pupils responding to practical success and failures of teaching.
The PE translator sits between these two worlds and tries to connect them. The PE translator’s role is to translate theory, research and academic ideas into forms that are accessible, understandable and support application. This translation work is not simply about simplification. It involves interpreting what has been written or published, selecting key ideas and concepts, framing and presenting them in a way that allows the audience to gain a deeper appreciation. A key part of this translation work is walking a difficult middle ground between fidelity and practical use.
So what should the PE translator be more concerned with – fidelity or local adaptation? This has been the core of my thinking and my current answer is neither. Rather they should be concerned with integrity and responsiveness. By integrity I do not mean rigid adherence or policing whether what is being advocated for is being approached properly. I mean preserving enough of the original purpose, principles and logic of a concept that it still remains recognisable and coherent. By responsiveness I mean making these concepts and approaches accessible and usable in the real conditions of PE teaching, rather than presenting them in simplistic ways that are weakly aligned to what is being proposed (or even not at all). Good translation work holds the two together. Too much concern for integrity and the idea becomes inaccessible. Too much concern for responsiveness and the idea becomes distorted.
This matters because weak translation leads to the use of concepts, ideas and terms that mean something specific, but without them being understood. People use theoretical and evidence-informed language not primarily to develop others’ practice and understanding but as an appeal to authority. People then reduce those ideas to surface features or even worse, simple slogans to hide actual practice.
More it separates the PE academic from the PE teacher even further. PE teachers think they are using and applying evidence informed practice, whilst PE academics dismiss what they are doing as poor enactment. In response PE teachers feel that PE academics are out of touch and do not understand the challenges they face. Poor translation work undermines the relationship between the PE academic and the PE teacher, whilst good translation work should bring them closer together. And surely we want a PE profession where PE academics and PE teachers work together for the good of the subject and the pupils it serves.
The great thing about PE Translators is anyone can be one. Whether they are an academic, teacher, consultant or interested stakeholder, they can offer their translation work in immediately accessible forms of content such as blogs, social media, videos and podcasts rather than being hidden behind inaccessible journals. Whilst this is a great strength it is also a great weakness, as it is a space of weak accountability. Anyone can publish, claim legitimacy, borrow academic language and concepts and present ideas as evidence-informed. I say this because I’m guilty of it myself. My blog is fundamentally translation work, and as I read back on my early posts I see questionable translation ( of TGfU, Nonlinear Pedagogy, assessment practice and application of cognitive science principles in PE to name just a few). Translation work matters for moving our profession forward, but it needs more professional scrutiny.
Obviously professional scrutiny can come in different forms. The individual that is going to use the translation work can be sceptical of what is being said and follow up on the primary sources to double check the integrity of what is being said. The profession itself can scrutinise what is being said. Translation work is not simply a PE teacher saying what they are doing in their context, it is an individual taking research and theory and saying how it can inform practice. We should hold translation work to account and challenge it, and the people who are doing the translation work, whoever they may be, need to be open to that professional critique and respond in good faith. However my focus in this blog post is on translators holding themselves to account. A starting place is to be clear about what good and weak translation work is. Below is my first attempt at articulating what that personal accountability should be:
If there is no formal system of accountability for translation, then the community has to provide one, or it is the community that will suffer. However, because translation work is part of what I do, accountability needs to start with me. I need to ensure that my work has enough responsiveness to be accessible and usable, but enough integrity that what is translated remains worth using.