Authentic Connectivity: a Pedagogue's Loving Responsibility
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Authentic Connectivity: A Pedagogue’s Loving Responsibility by Madeleine Azzola A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Curriculum, Learning and Teaching Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto © Copyright by Madeleine Azzola, 2014 Authentic Connectivity: A Pedagogue’s Loving Responsibility Madeleine Azzola Doctor of Philosophy Department of Curriculum, Learning and Teaching Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto 2014 Abstract I learned to authentically connect by observing the pedagogues who mentored me. My lived experience with them inspired me to base my pedagogical approach on the constructs of community and engagement that youth dismantled by displaying increasing disengagement, which transferred into disaffected relationships. This reflexive/narrative autoethnography investigates the problematic phenomenon affecting youth: the loss of authentic connectivity. I critically examine my professional journey with pre- digital, digital, and post-digital university students by analysing our common, cultural context, thereby interpreting my behaviour, thoughts, and experiences in relation to them. Hermeneutic phenomenology’s framework deepens the inquiry, as it involves a broader cultural, political, and social understanding to uncover deeper meaning in changing behaviours by reflecting on what is the lived experience of authentic connectivity for youth. My comprehensive research evidences that youth’s technological addiction has influenced rapid brain evolution, and exploded their visual and multimodal skills. Neuroscience has broadly concluded that the new forms of learning technology offers are changing the way the brain processes information. I suggest that youth are experiencing a biological conflict, the brain’s ii rapid evolution overwhelming more slowly evolving physical responses, effectively interfering with the flow of affective information that requires hemispheric transfer. Neither moving beyond the premise of intelligence as being predominantly brain-based, nor acknowledging the cooperative role our bodily intelligence plays, as the latter is embedded in our lived experience, the greater understanding of the whole of learning, and its ally, authentic connectivity, cannot be achieved. I submit that moving beyond the absoluteness of a purely scientific approach to the brain, and integrating both human and cognitive sciences are key in moving toward a more holistic, autonomous learning pedagogy, so to layer our understanding of the ‘person process’, that which includes whole thinking and whole being. To counter the affective devolution, which is detrimental not only to learning, but to being a well-adjusted person, this paper proposes a foundational shift in teacher training curriculum design by suggesting tools that foster an observational pedagogy, which seeks to teach those navigational skills that support higher-level analytical processes that can counteract the excessive reactions that impede learning, and teaching. Key Words: authentic connectivity, bodily intelligence, observational pedagogy, elemental bridges, hemispheric transfer, biological conflict, flattened affect, pre-digital, digital, and post-digital university students, interstitial thinking, affective identity, emotion regulation, bridge thinking. iii Acknowledgments I gratefully thank my parents, Fernande and Gérard Paquette, who first ignited the fire that sustains my spirit; my husband, Edward, and my children, Alescia and Zachary, whose love has expanded my life-long journey; Hélène Gravel, and her generation of builders, who provided me with the mortar that buttresses my passion for change; and Lise Loiselle, whose friendship has supported my journey, and who taught me to be patient and organic to achieve my desired outcome. I gratefully thank Dr. Edward de Bono, whose prescient work has profoundly influenced how I think about the mind, and one to whom present researchers should be enormously grateful. I gratefully thank Dr. Linda Cameron, whose support during this process has been unending, and Dr. Jack Miller, whose keen questioning sharpened my focus. iv Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... v List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... xi List of Appendices ....................................................................................................................... xii Dedicated to ................................................................................................................................ xiii Chapter 1 Conceptual Foundations ............................................................................................ 1 Background ..................................................................................................................................................1 Discussing Disengagement ..........................................................................................................................3 Living in the Gap .........................................................................................................................................4 The Case for Interstitial Thinking .............................................................................................................4 Disciplined Reflexivity ................................................................................................................................6 Adjusting my Lens: Affective Identity ......................................................................................................7 Chapter 2 Literature Review ..................................................................................................... 11 Technology, the Brain, and Behaviour ....................................................................................................11 The Study of Emotions ..............................................................................................................................15 Chapter 3 Methodology .............................................................................................................. 18 Investigating Ethnography .......................................................................................................................18 Autoethnography: Pushing Ethnography’s Boundaries ........................................................................18 Choosing Reflexive/Narrative Autoethnography ...................................................................................19 Technology: A Formidable, Global, and Cultural Influence. ..............................................................20 Conceptual Foundations ...........................................................................................................................20 Situating the Conceptual Foundations in Curriculum Studies .............................................................22 Methodological Foundations ....................................................................................................................23 Husserl and the Transcendental School ..................................................................................................24 Heidegger and the Hermeneutic School ..................................................................................................25 Merleau-Ponty and the Existential School ..............................................................................................26 Van Manen and the Phenomenology of Practice ....................................................................................27 Pedagogic Orientation ...............................................................................................................................29 Chapter 4 A Cloth of my Own Making: The Warp and Weft of a Personal and Professional Journey......................................................................................................................................... 32 Playing with Fire ......................................................................................................................... 32 Getting Burned ..........................................................................................................................................33 First Brushes with Creativity: A Fire in my Belly ..................................................................................33 The Times They Are a-Changin' ............................................................................................... 35 Winds of Change .......................................................................................................................................36 The Rise of the Franco-Ontarian .............................................................................................................37 Movers and Shakers ..................................................................................................................................37