After reading Antje’s comments about the teacher’s role in causing further violence toward the Other , I went in search of the article she quoted written by Sharon Todd: “On Not Knowing the Other, or Learning from Levinas” (2001). I felt reading and resonding to this article was important to my knowledge and understanding of ethical action relevant to poverty in childcare. A theme that keeps repeating itself in my learning is Levinas’s view of the responsibility of the educator: ‘the educational ethic of knowing’. (2001; p.67) Todd continues: “teaching often falls into a form of rhetoric, an influential device for getting students to learn about how people came to be designated as Other and what needs to be done in order to change this”. (2001, p. 68). This to me means that by the very nature of teaching children what we know about world poverty we are furthering the violence done to the Other. Herein lays my struggle: how do we educate our next generation of adults to do better at caring for the world than we have done in the past? Perhaps schools should use technology to connect classrooms with the citizens in villages around the world to learn firsthand from the people who live there. Through discussion and readings, I am moving away from needing to know the other and moving towards the “openness to something new, something totally other beyond the self”; which Levinas refers to as “the approach to knowledge with an ethical relation to the difference”. (2001, p.68) This openness is what is replacing my old need to hold knowledge about groups of people before I feel comfortable interacting with them, particularly families I am mandated to work with based on programs I present attached to government funding. Through thinking about the interconnectedness between ethics and education, I see the cracks in what I held as true: the belief that I must arm myself with knowledge before entering an uncertain relationship. I now recognize that I must reconsider the information I have taken for granted as knowledge about the other and set it aside to renew my practice based on a quality relationship accepting and defining difference. Todd leaves me with unanswered questions: What makes ethics possible in education? What makes education itself a condition of ethical practice? If I continue to work in children’s support programs, I must leave room to listen to those children and their families who participate without prejudging or bias (as Levinas would say educational ethics) I will encourage all children to develop relationships with each other that are non-threatening. If responsibility is inescapable because of the ‘impossibility of indifference to the other’ then my interactions with others profoundly matter to my understanding of ethics.” (2001, p. 70-72)
I end with a quote from Carla Rinaldi about Reggio Emilia centres:
“The teacher is not removed from her role as an adult, but instead revises it in an attempt to become co-creator, rather than merely a transmitter of knowledge and culture. As teachers we have to carry out this role with the full awareness of our vulnerability, and this means accepting doubts and mistakes as well as providing for surprise and creation…Listening means being open to others and what they have to say, listening to the hundred (and more) languages have to say…Listening legitimizes the other person, because communication is one of the fundamental means of giving form to thought. The communicative act that takes place through listening produces meanings and reciprocal modifications that enrich all the participants in the exchange. Listening legitimizes the other person, because communication is one of the fundamental means of giving form to thought. The reciprocal communicative system enriches all participants.” (2005, p.97)
This thought takes me to a new place in my role as an educator; without the knowledge that I held previously, I feel somewhat empty as I wait for authentic understanding to trickle in. I am realizing that having the patience to listen and reflect is going to be vital if I am to succeed in this new way of approaching teaching and learning. What affect will this new way relating have on my feelings about my previous years of teaching practice?
Resources:
Dahlberg, G. and Moss, P. Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education, 2005; New York: RoutledgeFalmer
Todd, Sharon, “On Not Knowing the Other, or Learning from Levinas”, Philosophy of Education; 2001, York University
I too feel a sense of emptiness as I continue to struggle being comfortable with not knowing or not needing to know especially when there are continuous pressures from parents/families and other colleagues wanting and expecting knowledge and concrete information from me. I still feel the urgency to have some preconceived ideas regarding the other so that they can feel assured and at ease when I am responsible for them. However, I feel troubled taking on this role and in thinking about it more, I realize that this might be an expectation that I impose on myself (and in turn to others) so that I feel prepared in my encounters with the other.
ReplyDeleteReading Todd's (2004), Teaching with ignorance: questions of social justice, empathy, and responsible community, has provided me with a sense of refuge to begin to feel comfortable with the uncomfortable state of uncertainty. In her article, Todd (2004) argues that responsibility for the other lies not in what we know about the other and the necessity of knowing them is not the priority.
"Rather, where the pedagogical insistence lies is in terms of how the other calls me into question, requiring me to listen and learn from her in order to respond responsibly. Teaching with ignorance requires a suspension of presuming to know…It is from a place of non-knowledge, then where my responsibility becomes heightened. If I am exposed in a gesture of communicative openness to the Other, where I can feel-for the other, I can listen, attend, and be surprised. It is only in this way that the other can affect me, move me, touch me. Out of this state of ignorance, where I am not laying claim to another's experience, the being-for initiates a togetherness that disrupts the very transparency of communication and the conventional modes of togetherness we find ourselves in, and in this it becomes truly radical" (p. 349).
I connect her thoughts and ideas to the pedagogy of listening which Dahlberg and Moss (2005) encourages us to consider and exercise, especially as we discuss ethics in our practice and in early childhood education. Pedagogy of listening welcomes the other, respects their differences, listens to their "ideas and theories, [and] questions and answers" (p. 100), and engages in their struggles to make meaning of the world with little or no emphasis on trying to fully understand it as a whole (Dahlberg & Moss, 2005). I end with another connection to Todd (2004) where she states that "teaching with ignorance…[is] a way of thinking through some tensions for creating and sustaining forms of social togetherness that respects difference" (p. 350).
I think I will forever be in a state of uncomfortability and uncertainty; however, I believe that this is necessary in the process of being an ethical practitioner.
References:
Dahlberg, G. & Moss, P. (2005). Ethics and politics in early childhood education. New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer.
Todd, S. (2004). Teaching with ignorance: quality of social justice, empathy, and responsible community. Interchange, 35(3), 337-352.
I too feel a sense of emptiness as I continue to struggle being comfortable with not knowing or not needing to know especially when there are continuous pressures from parents/families and other colleagues wanting and expecting knowledge and concrete information from me. I still feel the urgency to have some preconceived ideas regarding the other so that they can feel assured and at ease when I am responsible for them. However, I feel troubled taking on this role and in thinking about it more, I realize that this might be an expectation that I impose on myself (and in turn to others) so that I feel prepared in my encounters with the other.
ReplyDeleteReading Todd's (2004), Teaching with ignorance: questions of social justice, empathy, and responsible community, has provided me with a sense of refuge to begin to feel comfortable with the uncomfortable state of uncertainty. In her article, Todd (2004) argues that responsibility for the other lies not in what we know about the other and the necessity of knowing them is not the priority.
Rather, where the pedagogical insistence lies is in terms of how the other calls me into question, requiring me to listen and learn from her in order to respond responsibly. Teaching with ignorance requires a suspension of presuming to know…It is from a place of non-knowledge, then where my responsibility becomes heightened. If I am exposed in a gesture of communicative openness to the Other, where I can feel-for the other, I can listen, attend, and be surprised. It is only in this way that the other can affect me, move me, touch me. Out of this state of ignorance, where I am not laying claim to another's experience, the being-for initiates a togetherness that disrupts the very transparency of communication and the conventional modes of togetherness we find ourselves in, and in this it becomes truly radical (p. 349).
I connect her thoughts and ideas to the pedagogy of listening which Dahlberg and Moss (2005) encourages us to consider and exercise, especially as we discuss ethics in our practice and in early childhood education. Pedagogy of listening welcomes the other, respects their differences, listens to their "ideas and theories, [and] questions and answers" (p. 100), and engages in their struggles to make meaning of the world with little or no emphasis on trying to fully understand it as a whole (Dahlberg & Moss, 2005). I end with another connection to Todd (2004) where she states that "teaching with ignorance…[is] a way of thinking through some tensions for creating and sustaining forms of social togetherness that respects difference" (p. 350). I think I will forever be in a state of uncomfortability and uncertainty; however, I believe that this is necessary in the process of being an ethical practitioner.
References:
Dahlberg, G. & Moss, P. (2005). Ethics and politics in early childhood education. New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer.
Todd, S. (2004). Teaching with ignorance: quality of social justice, empathy, and responsible community. Interchange, 35(3), 337-352.