In my research I am seeking to understand power and agency, how we make a difference. I am trying to do that in ways that allow an attitude of gentleness, rather than an attitude of control, to be my default baseline. Gentleness is here understood as the quality of relationship that happens when the expectation that uncertainty can be or should be eliminated does not dominate in our relationships or in the situations we encounter. One of the specific notions that I have been exploring is a “pedagogy of gentleness”. Pedagogy is often taken to mean “the science of teaching”. Here I simply mean a more thoughtful and analytic approach to the “how” of my teaching. From this research I have drawn the following principles for my own contribution to a learning environment, among others:
1. There is nothing more personal, political, or relevant for me than attending to the character of my own emotional attitude in my role as an educator. How I feel on the day will have a major influence on the character of my teaching. This is what Teresa Brennan (2004) referred to as the “transmission of affect”. As Brennan outlines: “By the transmission of affect, I mean simply that the emotions or affects of one person, and the enhancing or depressing energies these affects entail, can enter into another” (3). This is consistent with the later work of critical pedagogist Paolo Freire and his insistence on the importance of “being with” (Freire 1998). I also find it important to note Megan Boler’s insistence that: “A pedagogy that recognizes emotions as central to the domains of cognition and morality need not preclude intellectual rigor or critical inquiry” (Boler 1999:110).
2. It is important for me not to seek to prescribe the outcomes or direction of a classroom. The character and quality of the interaction in the room is of greater importance to me than a clear trajectory, and the quality I am seeking to foster is consistent with Mark Smith’s characterisation of “local education” practices: “Instead of aiming for particular changes in individuals, we look to the nature of the interactions we foster – we move from a focus on product to a concern with process and praxis” (Smith 1994:36). The emotional climate I seek to foster in my teaching and learning is very much a conversational one, with an openness to detours and divergences in direction: “The specific goal may not be clear at any one time, either to educators or learners, yet the process is deliberate. Educators in these situations seek to foster an environment in which conversation can take place” (Smith 1994:63). I am reminded of the words of Derrick Jensen:
“I cannot control what my students want or are able to learn, and I have no desire to. Nor can I control whether the students like the class, and I have no desire to do that either. Nor can I control whether they are at a place in their lives to learn from anything I have to offer. … What I perceive as the direction they need to head may bear no relationship to the direction they actually need to head, the direction they’re capable to heading, or the direction they indeed end up heading. And I need at all times to defer to that uncertainty, that mystery” (2004:109-110)
3. Confusion can be fruitful. In my teaching I offer students an invitation to “trust your confusion” in expectation of the conversational quality of the interactions. This can be unsettling for students at times, but it can also facilitate a space of creativity and opportunity; Megan Boler speaks of a “pedagogy of discomfort” in which students are invited “to leave the familiar shores of learned beliefs and habits, and swim further out into the “foreign” and risky depths of the sea of ethical and moral differences” (Boler 1999:181). As my friend and colleague Paul Devlin says to his students, “Find your place of uncertainty and build a house there”.
Boler, M. (1999). Feeling Power: emotions and education. New York: Routledge.
Brennan, T. 2004. The Transmission of Affect. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Ellsworth, E. (1994). ?Why doesn?t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of Critical Pedagogy.? In The Education Feminism Reader. Lynda Stone, ed. 300-327. New York: Routledge.
Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage. Transl. Patrick Clarke. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Hern, M, ed. (2008). Everywhere All The Time: A New Deschooling Reader. Oakland: AK Press.
Illich, I. (1971). Deschooling Society. New York: Harper & Row
Jensen, D. (2004). Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.
Luke, C. and Gore, J. (1992). Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy. New York: Routledge.
Marsick, V. and Watkins, K. (1990). Informal and Incidental Learning in the Workplace. London: Routledge.
Smith, M. (1994). Local Education: community, conversation, praxis. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Stone, L, ed. (1994). The Education Feminism Reader. London: Routledge.
