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In de wereld komen
Pols, W.
2016
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Pols, W. (2016). In de wereld komen: Een studie naar de pedagogische betekenissen van opvoeding, onderwijs
en het leraarschap. Garant.
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¶
coming into the world. a study of the
educational meaning of upbringing,
teaching and teachership
Upbringing and teaching are not aimless activities. They are intentional. Educators and teachers have intentions with the education and teaching they give. From those intentions, they engage in a relationship with their pupils, choose the subjects they want their pupils to become acquainted with, and choose the way they want to realise it. This means that upbringing and teaching are not only a case of doing, but also of thinking. Educators and teachers work and act with children and youngsters within an educational field, and while doing this, they determine the direction they want to go. To determine a direction, is to orient oneself in thinking. That means that the field of work and action of educators and teachers coincides with a field of thinking.
This thesis deals with ‘the field of thinking’ of educators and teachers. I con-sider upbringing and teaching as overlapping activities. The literal meaning of upbringing (just as the Dutch word opvoeding) is to give care and (mental) food
to children in order to help them to grow up and eventually leave their caregiver. To teach derives from the old English word taecan, which means to demonstrate,
to show, to indicate, to point out. The Dutch word onderwijzen (to teach) has
264 summary
experiences on the basis of terms I carried with me, but also on the basis of terms brought forward by others. Initially, the terms had little meaning for me, but while working and acting (and thinking about it), they gradually acquired an educational meaning. This enabled me to develop educational concepts by means of which I approached my teaching practice. Over time I increasingly began to think about my teaching through the tokens that came from the outside. In this way I gradu-ally built up an educational theory (in Dutch: ‘pedagogiek’ which I translate with pedagogics): a value-laden, practice relevant pedagogics. I reported regularly about
my educational experiences in the Dutch educational press. I describe these expe-riences in the first chapter of this thesis.
The chapter concludes with the following question: Which concepts can be used to update educational theory as value-laden theory that is relevant for practice, what are the implications of these concepts for understanding upbringing and teaching, and the function and role of the educator and teacher? In the chapters that follow, I develop
answers to these questions. Through this I unfold the pedagogics which I built up over the years, and develop it further in dialogue with educationalists, philosophers and educational scholars. As mentioned before, tokens coming from the outside play an important role in this process. By connecting the tokens with the educa-tional terms, I was already using the explanation of my experiences, I increasingly discovered educational meanings which I developed in a network of educational concepts which allowed me to review my educational practice.
deed’ in the presence of each other. The initiative one takes, is responded by the initiatives of others. The outcome of an initiative taken by someone, can never be fully predicted. The question arises whether upbringing and teaching can bee seen as action. I argue that this is the case. However, the actions undertaken by children and their educators, by pupils and their teachers are actions under the responsibi-lity of the educator or teacher. This means that the ‘world-building capacity’ of these actions is limited. The limit is determined by the educator or teacher. That’s why I am speaking of ‘beginning actions’.
In addition to the ‘free work’ and ‘beginning actions’ of upbringing and teaching I explore Arendt’s idea of the school as an ‘in-between space’: an institution inter-posed between the private domain of the home and the public domain of the world. Within this in-between space, educators and teachers should introduce children and youngsters into the world. According to Arendt, this introduction cannot yet be a case of action, nor a case of judging. I disagree. My suggestion is that to introduce children and young people into the world means to get experience with actions and judging by which humans build up their world. This does take place, however, under the responsibility of the educator and teacher.
The tokens of Arendt enable me to differentiate between the activities of edu-cators and those of teachers. As members of the older generation, eduedu-cators and teachers introduce the younger generation into the world: they help them to acquire the material and mental tools by which humans have furnished the world; and they teach them how to use them. This is work: for children ‘free work’, for educators and teachers ‘partial work’. I call this work didactics (the Greek didaskein means
to make something clear). However, if we educate and teach we do more; we act. Educators and teachers take initiatives, but they challenge their pupils to take initia tives as well. Through initiatives, children and youngsters come into the pre-sence of each other: they appear as subjects in the world. Coming into the world is more than didactics. I call it pedagogics. The regulative idea of education is the idea that children and youngsters are ‘self-starters’: they have the capability of self-formation (‘Bildung’). This idea urges teachers and educators to think over the ‘what for’, the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of their activities. Pedagogics is more than merely learning. It deals with the capability of self-formation, a capability which becomes actual with the help of the subject matter taught by educators and teachers. With this help children and young people can come into the world. Self-formation impli-cates more than just work; it implies action as well.
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order consists of images: images the human being has of himself. According to Lacan, the I is an image. It emerges as the human identifies himself with the image that the other holds out to him. He equates himself with the image. This means that an imaginary relationship, is a dual relationship. It is characterised by identi-fication and projection. The symbolic order doesn’t consist of images; it consists of signifiers. In the first instance, a signifier is meaningless. It is a material ‘carrier’ of potential meanings. A sign, one could say, is a coded signifier. A sign consists of two riveted layers: a signifier and a signified layer. The meaning of a signifier, which is not a sign yet, can only be determined by other signifiers. Lacan calls the symbolic order (‘the treasury of the signifier’) the Other with a capital ‘O’. This order is characterised by selection and combination, by concentration and displace-ment. Lacan speaks of metaphor and metonymy. New meanings emerge if a signifier takes up the place of another signifier (metaphor) or signifiers are associated with other signifiers (metonymy). The implication of the introduction of the child into the symbolic order is the relinquishment of the dual relationship it has with the other (paradigmatic: the mother). That means that the child should accept the lack that the introduction into the order brings with it. Words stand for things, with the consequence that the things themselves are excluded. Lacan calls the excluded the real.
Traditionally, the father is the third, the one who introduces the child into the symbolic order. He acts on behalf of a signifier: in the Name-of-the-Father. The loss of the Thing (paradigmatic: the mother) which the child tried to coincide with, can only be compensated by words (signifiers). The loss, or more accurately: the lack, is the basis of human desire. This desire is fuelled by new signifiers, again and again. Desire implicates the acceptance of the law of the Other. One could call this law the law of the language as well. If the human accepts the law of language and due to this becomes a ‘speaking being’, he can be addressed by the Other and affected by the signifiers the Other is transmitting.
means that introducting children and young people into the world also means con-fronting them with the law of the Other.
Coming into the world needs the interruption of the dual relationship. In order to become a subject, a third should intervene, a third should interfere between the one and the other. The third is the third of language, the third of the signifier. The fourth chapter deals with this intervening third. In this chapter a token from the work of Serres is introduced: the instructed third. Token and signifier are the same. The instructed third is a token of Serres, but it is a signifier as well.
In the fourth chapter I discuss Serres’ book Le Tiers-Instruit (English
transla-tion: The Troubadour of Knowledge). The book deals with the instructed third, but
also with the instructing third and with the third place within which thirds can appear. Serres discusses the appearance of the third within different contexts. Four figurations can be differentiated: one of separation and mediation, one of ex- and inclusion, one of exposure and transformation and one of authorisation and restraint. A third appears within each figuration. The first figuration is the one where the child is moved from the family to the school (a ‘third place’) in order to be confronted with new ‘mediations’ (‘thirds’). The second and third figuration: what was initially excluded, is included, as a third, in the school. The child is being exposed to this, and this exposure transforms the child. The fourth figuration, that of the validity of the meaning of the third, can be determined (‘authorized’) if a place will be reserved for the Other (therefore: ‘to restrain’). The child receives thirds from the Other, but he can determine the meaning of these thirds only by means of the Other. Thirds are signifiers; the meaning of these signifiers is not yet determined. It is still open. To let oneself be taught by a third means to look for the meaning of the signifier by which one is ‘touched’. If one is touched by a signifier and looks for the meaning of it, one appears as a subject.
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of significance). Humans can give names to the things in the world with help of these (mental) tools, can order them and deal with them. To teach these tools and learn to use them is didactics, or in other words: work. But educators and teachers should also confront children and youngsters with problems: to confront them with thirds. That is pedagogics; that is acting. Upbringing and teaching are not only the transfer of material and mental tools to children and youngsters in order to know and use them. The ultimate aim of upbringing and teaching is to let children and young people appear as subjects in the world.
The fifth chapter deals with the teacher. The question I raise is what makes the teacher an educational professional. To answer this question I consult a number of sociologists and educationalists. They teach that the heart of the educational profession is the ethos of the teacher. Ethos derives from the Greek èthos which
means character. The characterful way by which a teacher stands in his classroom, is the heart of his profession. From this way of standing he shows the ‘what for’ of the upbringing and teaching, but also the ‘what’ he wants to transfer and the ‘how’ of doing this. A teacher possesses an explicit knowledge base. But the attitude from which he acts and the implicit knowledge involved, is pivotal. To underpin this stance, I use the work of Polanyi. I take the token tacit knowledge from him. Polanyi
distinguishes two forms of knowledge: subsidiary and focal knowledge. Focal knowledge is knowledge of the thing one is focusing on, subsidiary knowledge is knowledge which is subordinated to it. It enables one to acquire focal knowledge. Subsidiary knowledge is tacit. Tacit knowledge enables the teacher to act in an appropriate manner within the complex situations in which he is ‘standing’. In other words: tacit knowledge shapes the manner in which a teacher inhabits the space he dwells in; it shapes his educational attitude.
This is of great importance for teacher education. Educators and teachers do not apply knowledge; the situations they dwell in are too complex to do that. I describe an educational situation as ‘a complex and changeable constellation of particularities’. To orient oneself in such a situation (reflection-in-action) is only
possible in a limited way. To think outside the situation (reflection-on-action) offers
more opportunities. The tacit knowledge that is involved, can be retrieved only out-side ‘the complex and changeable constellation’ of the educational practice of the teacher; there it can be brought into the light of (theoretical) knowledge. Thinking outside the educational practice, should start off by the stories teachers tell. Only stories can express the complexity of practice. From this idea I make a case for the idea of educational jurisprudence.
