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I have some questions on the word "teaching" and on the documentation of a teaching as a reliable representation of a teaching or simply a valuable inspirational tool... I find out once more for myself, by participating at "Documentation Potluck" led by Defne Erdur, that i am less interested in the content or methods of others' teaching, but more focused on my intention of finding a space/time to observe and reflect upon an experience, and make use of it for my understanding of the learning process.
The word "teaching" sounds like a one-sided transmission whereas in the classes, the person who is in charge of "teaching" is also a learner in many layers... Therefore, it seems more convenient to call this experience a learning process rather than teaching. The so-called "teacher" may simply be a guiding person through the learning process who is accompanying the others by setting the colour, the tone, the rhythm, the density of the learning space/time, in other words, by fashioning the media, in such a way that a multi-sided transmission can occur.
This person is somehow, designing an experience, each interactor finds the opportunity to explore for oneself in a shared environment/moment. This shared environment/moment -defined and specified by the intention of each participant- becomes a space of perception that opens up to a hub of possibilities that move constantly, and touch and tickle with many potentials filled with memory and imagery. Finally, this imagery may become the source of many reorganizations in the body, as a product of the learning process.
2013.07.27
Hello Aylin, great that you share your ideas about teaching contra observation. I like the idea that observation is an immediate learning process. I guess the child is learning through copying and we adults could we say we learn through copying AND through observe something or somebody?
I think a lot depend on who do you teach and if you or anybody else want to document that process. If you teach in the school, for sure it is a teaching process (classical way) but you can teach also us, other teachers by driving our attention to a new area to discover or simple just to focus on it.
In case if you have any proposal I would be happy to doc you if you can doc me - as I am also not really the person who makes documentation about his own process of teaching:-)
C U soon Marta
2013.07.27
i agree with the philosophy of teaching as a learning process very much, AND i strongly vote for transmitting this way of teaching also INTO school setting, and not keep it restricted to an already more open and somewhat innovative situation like a dance teachers symposium.
how can the school setting change, grow and develop if WE don`t make this step!
// Teacher2013.07.27
Jan,
I totally agree with you. And so with Aylin and Marta!
And actually have been trying my best to create this environment and approach in my own classes. However I have realized that this "dream" of having an open structure(?) or non-hierarchical learning is not possible if the institution or the students are not ready for it. Some of my students, when I collect feedback at the end of the year told me that they respected me so much for respecting and opening space for them but they needed more disciplining and enforcement from me? They even told me "we are students and we will always seek ways to run away and go around; we need the teacher to bring us back" ?! And I was just thinking maybe this "stage" is reached at a later age in our lives? or maybe if it is planted in earlier stages we would not need a "teacher" to put us back in track and "teach" us what we "need" to learn? All are still huge questions to investigate and already been in the air for ages I believe... and of course not only for dance education!
2013.07.28
I think a lot depends on the intensity of the shared moment of the learning activity. The person who leads the learning activity should believe in his/her improvisational capacities to play with and explore various ways of creating and triggering a learning activity in the group, -FOR the group and FOR that specific moment regarding the "quality of presence" in the group. Ready-made solutions and methods generally don't create a "lively" learning activity, a quality that feeds the "motivation" for learning, which I believe , is of primary importance.
// Teacher2015.12.14
Jan, what you describe puzzles me from time to time as well...as a student I have always appreciated when I was given space for individual experience and experiment. But even then I noticed this was not true for everyone. How much does an attitude of wanted to be reigned in go together with a want for compliment / grades?
Also, how much do we act upon the roles and how we see them: Is my focus / attitude towards material presented different as a "teacher" than as a "learner"? How can I then create environments where the "learners" can teach each other (thus changing their relationship to the material presented) - and what would need to precede that so this becomes possible?
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.