Aporias in Teacher Education Researching the Impossible Bill Green Charles Sturt University Australia Bergen 2014 t eaching as the art of the impossible Taubman 2014 ID: 244155
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Slide1
Negotiating Aporias in Teacher Education:Researching the Impossible?
Bill Green
Charles
Sturt
University, Australia
Bergen
, 2014 Slide2
teaching as “the art of the impossible” (Taubman, 2014)education as an “impossible profession” (Freud, Britzman)teaching the impossible profession?
Teaching the Impossible Profession: Alexander Mackie and the Project of Teacher Education
Researching the impossible?Slide3
increasing regulation & controldistrust of teachers & teacher education, bordering on contempta enduring problem of governmentalitypopulational rationality, etc.
a
‘mass’ profession vs a ‘quality’ profession?
organic professionalism
vs bureaucratic professionalism
The battle for teacher education; or, Struggling for the soul?Slide4
the ‘subject’ of teacher educationor rather, the body-subjectits very character – its soul…
i.e
ethical/moral & intellectual formationh
ence, a matter of ethical
& political import
Struggling for the
soul
of
t
eacher
e
ducation?Slide5
professional practice, learning &educationpractice theory & philosophythe ‘primacy of practice’ thesisa long philosophical heritage
p
hilosophical-empirical inquiry
Practice theory – “… a
‘family of theories’ that challenge individualist and cognitivist understandings of practice as the application of theory with understandings of practice as material, embodied and orchestrated arrangements of ‘doings and sayings’
[…],
complexly located in space and
time […].” (Lee &
Dunstone, 2011: 485)“Professional practice … consists of speech (what people say) plus the activity of the body, or bodies, in interaction (what people do, more often than not together) – a play of voices and bodies. In this view, practice is inherently dialogical, an orchestrated interplay, and indeed a matter of co-production.” (Green, 2009: 43)
Re-thinking ‘practice’
Slide6
A (different) practice turn?Slide7
PRAXIS
APORIA
PHRONESIS
The ‘Primacy of Practice’ ThesisSlide8
action
decision
knowledge
A reformulation?Slide9
PRAXIS
APORIA
PHRONESIS
The ‘Primacy of Practice’ ThesisSlide10
Note: this “old, worn-out Greek word … this tired word of philosophy and logic” (Derrida, 1993: 12)“… aporia
, the
undecideable moments in which the teaching subject is faced with an irreconcilable yet urgent decision” (Janzen, 2013: 382)
“
… the ghost of undecidability
haunts every responsible decision.”
(Wang, 2005: 51
)
Thinking aporiaSlide11
impossibilityundecidabilitydecisionresponsibility
“… it is because responsibility is infinite that the decision is always
undecidable.” (
Critchley
, 1999: 108)
Related conceptsSlide12
impossibilityundecidabilitydecisionresponsibility
“… it is because responsibility is infinite that the decision is always
undecidable.” (
Critchley
, 1999: 108)
Related conceptsSlide13
“You are obliged ceaselessly to act” (Anna Freud, [1930] 1974: 74).“
There is no way out of
aporia, but in this impasse, active engagement with the impossible becomes imperative for creating new forms of life.” (Wang, 2005: 47
)Slide14
“Since school is an institution that is constantly reformed, the teaching profession is a profession characterized by an almost constant discontent with teachers. The ‘desirable’ teachers are always different from existing teachers.”
(Ingrid
Carlgren, 1998: 317)
“… the
inherent impossibility of education—we can never know or predict what someone knows or thinks—and it turns that impossibility into an invitation to study.”
(Peter
Taubman
, 2014: : 16
) The ‘impossibility’ of teacher education Slide15
“… an unresolvable paradox at the heart of the project of teacher education – something that is, indeed, constitutive of that project, that enterprise, that undertaking
.” (Green & Reid, 2010/2015 – in preparation)
“With
problem
one knows what to do; there is a method for working out the puzzle. Aporia
, however, Derrida defined as ‘the point at which the problematic task becomes
impossible’…”
(Gregory Ulmer, 2012: 310 )
Thinking (about) teacher educationSlide16
researching (im)possibilitynegotiating aporiast
eaching
& teacher education
A theoretical & philosophical challenge?
ConclusionSlide17Slide18
Deborah Britzman (2014) “The Other Scene of Pedagogy: A Psychoanalytic Narrative”, Changing English, Vol
21, No 2,
pp 122-130.Ingrid
Carlgren
(1988) “Where Did Blackboard Writing Go?”, Journal of Curriculum Studies
,
Vol
30, No 6, 613-617.
Jacques Derrida (1993) Aporias, Stanford, California: Sanford University Press.Simon Critchley (1999) Ethics–Politics–Subjectivity, London & New York: Verso.Melanie D. Janzen (2013) “The Aporia of
Undecidability
and the Responsibility of Teacher”,
Teaching Education
, Vol. 24, No. 4, 381–394
.
Peter Taubman (2014) “The Art of the Impossible” Professional Study and the Making of Teachers”, English Journal, Vol
103, No 6, pp 14-19.Gregory Ulmer (2012) Avatar Emergency, Parlor Press.Hongyu Wang (2005) “Aporias, Responsibility, and the Im/Possibility of Teaching Multicultural Education”, Educational Theory, Volume 55, Number 1, pp 45-59. Selected References