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Spirit Pedagogical Relations INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SPIRIT IN PEDAGOGICAL RELATIONS: A STUDY OF CONSTRAINTS AND POSSIBILITIES IRENE E. SIMON This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) 2006 I HEREBY DECLARE THAT, EXCEPT WHERE EXPLICIT ATTRIBUTION IS MADE, THE WORK PRESENTED IN THIS THESIS IS ENTIRELY MY OWN. WORD COUNT (EXCLUSIVE OF APPENDICES AND REFERENCES): 71,824 WORDS SPIRIT IN PEDAGOGICAL RELATIONS A STUDY OF CONSTRAINTS AND POSSmILITIES CONTENTS PAGE Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 Introduction 4 Organisation of the Thesis 19 Part 1 SPIRIT AND PEDAGOGY 22 Chapter 1 Definitions and standpoints 24 Chapter 2 Importance of the pedagogical relation 54 Chapter 3 Philosophical perspectives on spirit 71 i. Spirit in the I-Thou Philosophy of Martin Buber 72 ii. Emmanuel Levinas' Ethics of the Other 89 Chapter 4 John Macmurray's New Form of the Personal 110 Part 2 FACTORS UNDERMINING SPIRIT IN PEDAGOGY 126 Chapter 5 Culture of efficiency and technocratic consciousness 127 Chapter 6 Intensification of teachers' work 140 Part 3 RECONSTRUCTING SPIRIT IN PEDAGOGY 147 Chapter 7 Two Empirical Exemplifications 149 Chapter 8 Case study of Sarah 158 Chapter 9 Case study of Bethany 185 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 201 REFERENCES 211 ApPENDICES 224 1 ABSTRACT This study explores the possibilities for Spirit as a key term and value position in the development of pedagogical relationships in schools. It begins with an examination of the nature of Spirit from different standpoints and assesses its wider connections to the spiritual, religious and moral aspects of the human condition. This preliminary analysis lays the basic foundations from which to develop a greater understanding of the importance of these connections in pedagogy. Attention is then given to the importance of the pedagogical relationship as a central issue in education generally. The role that tradition plays in shaping this aspect of pedagogy, as a distinct practice, is discussed. Also discussed is the need to enrich and expand traditional meanings in order to meet the challenges and constraints of contemporary practice. Arguing that a renewed vocabulary of spirit is not only necessary but vital for enriching traditional meanings and practices, the study builds this renewed vocabulary in two ways: (l) through an analysis of the implications of the philosophical perspectives of Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas and John Macmurray, and (2) through the reconstruction of pedagogies of spirit in the work of two teachers. The study concludes with four recommendations for approaching the continued reconstruction of pedagogies of spirit in the development of teacher education programmes. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express appreciation to Professor David Halpin for stimulating my intellectual curiosity, growth of new ideas and helping me to address this work as Thou. Thanks to Dr. Eileen Carnell and Dr. Eleanore Hargreaves for their initial interest and encouragement. Special acknowledgements also to Michael Horton for his supportive and helpful commentaries, patience and encouragement. Last, but not least, a dedication to the two teachers - Sarah and Bethany - and the pupils whose teachings came through them, for the significant insights they contributed to the dialogue and life of this work. 3 INTRODUCTION This thesis has developed from my involvement in the education system as a secondary schoolteacher, an LEA Advisor and a TTA external assessor for the employment based routes into teaching. It has provided me with a means of teasing out the connecting threads which run through each of my different roles and represents my abiding interest and ongoing commitment to the field of education. The story started during my time as a classroom teacher, when I became aware that I was intuitively using two approaches to structure my understanding of the pedagogical experience. One approach, which I came to regard as my public one, consisted of teaching the curriculum, following the scheme of work and ensuring that students were achieving the learning objectives and outcomes specified for each lesson. The other approach I saw as bringing a kind of vitality to my work with pupils through my personal commitment and interest, not only in their intellectual development, but also in their growth towards maturity and self responsibility. In other words, there was a specific relational significance to what I was doing and hoping to achieve. This latter approach remained a background picture; an aspect of the pedagogical experience which I felt was separate from and went beyond the mere act of teaching. Indeed it is fair to say that I added both experience and language to put into words what I was trying to do and achieve. It was later, when I became a professional LEA Advisor, that two strands in my thinking converged to enable me bring a greater clarity to my earlier experience as a classroom teacher. The opportunity to work with both new and experienced teachers in different school contexts served to further confirm what I had already intuited, that there is a real difference in meaning: between the term pedagogy - III the institutionalised sense - which is equated with teaching and adherence to the standards based curriculum; and the pedagogical relation, which brings a relational meaning to what teachers are doing in their work with pupils, because they feel addressed by them and motivated to understand them in a caring way. It is in this realm that many of the themes, which have become impoverished in the mainstream discourse about pedagogy, come alive: themes such as the moral, personal, ethical and community. 4 Based on this practical experience of working with teachers I also noticed that the quality of this special relationship was the one constant factor of school experience that both teachers and pupils found meaningful and necessary for good effective teaching and learning to be achieved. When the teaching act enters the realm of the pedagogical relation, it becomes something more for the student than a means to an end; it becomes a teaching and life experience which has significance in and of itself. If this is the case, then surely greater emphasis should be placed on this aspect of teachers' work in order to isolate the qualities and actions that sustain relations that are pedagogically significant for both teachers and pupils. In response to this query I introduce the concept of spirit, as my distinctive theme, and as one of the concepts yet to be explored as a relational category within the discourse of pedagogy. WHY SPIRIT? In the next sections I will give an account of how I came to adopt spirit as my organising theme. I will then proceed to explore the concept of personhood as a means of illustrating that spirit is as much a part of what it means to become a whole person as reason or the intellect. In the course of my ongoing work with teachers, together with my reading of the literature on pedagogy, a second strand in my thinking was opened up when I encountered the writings of Martin Buber. Buber not only devoted considerable attention to the problems of pedagogy, he also regarded the quality of the pedagogical relationship as the deciding factor for inspiring teachers to accept the responsibility of their calling. I felt particularly addressed by his diagnosis of the spirit-situation of the age which he saw as being threatened by excessive functionalisation at the expense of the human spirit and human relationships: a situation he blamed for bringing about a lack of faith in spirit, especially among the young, leaving them abandoned to the "despotism" ofthe It. I read how Buber had to make the evolution himself, from a mystical thinker, to an understanding of authentic spirit which has to be actualised in the world, in relationships between man and man and between teacher and learner. I came to realise that, although Buber's thinking has influenced thinkers from a broad variety of backgrounds, it has not altered outlook in any way in mainstream contemporary 5 pedagogy. Although educators (Stevenson 1963; Winetrout 1963; Italio 1963; Rosenblatt 1971; Borouity 1971; Gordon 1973; Hilliard 1973) have studied his views on the aims and content, as well as his characterisation of the pedagogical relation, their effects have not stretched much beyond a familiarity. It has not gripped what Buber would term "the whole being" of the educator. Winetrout (1963) describes Buber as one of four prophetic voices in education who deserve to be better known by teachers. He places Buber alongside such thinkers as Albert Camus, Albert Schweitzer and Arnold Toynbee, but privileges Buber's voice as the one which speaks most directly to teachers. Although Winetrout provides a useful and informative summary of the main gist of Buber's ideas, concepts and insights, he fails to give sufficient priority to the spirit of Buber's address: which is the realisation that the most important task for the educator is to establish the meaning of the between in education (as access to the meaning of how we can become more fully human, more fully persons) and then to reconstruct this relation in each new era in favour of building more authentic and relational school communities. Other contributors, such as Rosenblatt (1971), attempt to translate Buber's writings into a framework of directives for establishing a dialogic process during the examination and evaluation of pupil progress. Whilst Rosenblatt's account provides a detailed analysis of Buber's main principles of I-Thou relating and of dialogue, he pays too much attention to the laying down of rules by which dialogue might be achieved, under-emphasising the importance of the relation that unfolds between a person who really turns towards an other as a specific person to be addressed and heard. Since no two dialogic meetings are the same, Buber maintains that each encounter between teacher and pupil is a new event each time it takes place, hence all that can be suggested is a direction - an indication of the way rather that a formal laying down of rules.
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