Skip to main content

Teaching as an Embodied Practice


"Recognition is inextricably intertwined with selfhood and personal identity"

"the practical active knowledge that animates teaching is something that belongs phenomenologically more closely to the whole embodied being of the person as well as to the social and physical world in which this person lives"

"our actions are sedimented into habituations, routines, kinesthetic memories ... [and] are sensitive to the contigencies, novelties and expectancies of our world."

I'd like to unpack these quotations with reference to the Heideggerian term Befindlichkeit that Manen mentions and to the Greek term phronesis that he alludes to when talking about 'practical wisdom.'

Central to both of these concepts is the idea of situatedness/embodiment/being-in-the-world. For Manen, and for me, this idea of temporal, spatial and individual existence is the critical piece, oft underemphasized by students, of teaching education. It reminds me of the three-body problem in computational modeling. Given two bodies, we can enter all we know about them and a computer can easily output a model of how those two bodies will interact. Add a third body, however, and the computer can no longer handle the load of variability needed to accurately make a predictive model. This is a good analogy for the experience of teaching. No amount of knowledge in the world can prepare us for the reality of teaching in a classroom full of students, each with their own experiential pasts, bodies, and brains. Even if there were only one student for each teacher, there are simply too many variables to consider. This is why I love the way Manen emphasizes the in-between place where theoretical, intellectual knowledge meets the physical reality of existence. It's the bridge between higher-level problem solving and baser instinct; it's where the rational and the animal interact.

To my mind, there is no way to develop and strengthen these interactions other than to practice.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Green Spaces at School

It often occurs me just how weird it is that western culture makes such a deliberate, harsh division between what is Natural and what is Human. Of course, we have a bunch of dead white guys to thank for this (Descartes, Hobbes and Aquinas to name a few). [Hu]man's supremacy over the natural world went more or less uncontested by the western hegemony for a significant amount of time. Placing the natural (the garden) into an intellectual space is therefore a revolutionary counter-cultural practice. Beyond all of the physiological benefits we know green spaces provide, gardens in schools represent a paradigm shift in the way we think about our world. I personally believe that this is a critical movement towards environmental responsibility that we must continue. One of the things that struck me about the reading was the number of times students listed "slowing down" as a benefit to the gardening space. The students we will teach have all grown up in a world where time is ...
1 comment
Read more

Teaching is a Lifestyle

The idea of wholeheartedness in this article really speaks to me. Living in a society so caught up in effectiveness and time-management, it can be difficult to see the value of taking extra time to meet the needs of our students at the margins . Societal values of getting the most reward from the least effort run seem contrary to these extra steps. This balancing act of limited time, resources and energy is ubiquitous and eternal. We will never be able to reach every student or accomplish every goal. But, in my experience, the practice of reflection makes me better prepared not only to make these tough choices but also to intuit and predict the possible outcomes . The more I make  observations, think critically about myself and my practice, and implement changes, the better I become at observing, thinking critically and implementing change. On a more fundamental level, being wholehearted resonates with my personal values and my identity. I am the kind of person who becomes e...
1 comment
Read more

Why Can't Students Say No?

6 Weeks Ago Understanding and respecting consent is one of the fundamental necessities for human interaction. And yet, we have a societal tendency to undermine or ignore children's boundaries both inside and outside the classroom. Sometimes, when the child's safety is a concern, an adult must intervene. But how much do we ignore student consent in order to accomplish our goals? My interest in this area is finding out how these actions impact students' ability to learn. Moreover, how to we healthily and helpfully incorporate non-coercive practice into the classroom?  How do we balance student comfort and the learning goals? Of the three topics I've been considering, the role of consent in our lives is something I return to again and again. It seems bizarre to me that something so fundamentally expected in adulthood is so frequently ignored in our interactions with children. My mind buzzes with questions and contradictions. How do we teach our students about consent in a...
Post a Comment
Read more