1 Seeing Disability Pedagogically The Lived Experience of Disability in the Pedagogical Encounter by Tone Saevi For my parents 2 Acknowledgements All that has been read in order to write these texts has been read and re-read with pleasure and enthusiasm. I have mainly read authors that write in a way that I wish I could write. The more I read, the more I admire the skill and insight that characterize phenomenological writing. It is from my heart and with all my strength that I have strived to become as good a phenomenological writer as I possibly could. My humblest attempt to write phenomenology may not have come to fulfilment yet, but what I know for sure is that all I have read and all that I have written deeply concerns me. In the same way that Bachelard (1994) writes about reading poetry, is true of me reading phenomenological literature, ”The poetic image is an emergence from language, it is always a little above the language of signification. By living in the poems we read, we have then the salutary experience of emerging” (ibid: xxiii). Through the reading and writing of phenomenology, my understanding of the nature of pedagogy and disability has been revealed, as well an emerging sense of myself as a pedagogue. This statement may sound somewhat trivial, but it is not. Accomplishing this work has truly changed my view of life in general and of pedagogy in particular. For having given me the opportunity to read, write, listen, see and understand, I am grateful to many persons. First, I thank the students and the teachers who so generously shared their lived experience of school life with me. I do not think they realized what a human and pedagogical treasure they gave to me. Thank you each and every one of you! Then, I am indebted to my supervisors, professor Otto Laurits Fuglestad and professor Gunhild Hagesæther; two steadfast scholars always ready for intelligible conversations and support. Both of them dwelling with me in my work, walking alongside me through it all. Sigrun Henriksen, Ruth Ingrid Skoglund and Jan Gilje who were there, always, to read, discuss and support my writings. Without you I would have been lost in the tangle of thoughts and research methods. Stein Wivestad, who long ago, patiently taught me to see and think pedagogically, and to follow my passion for searching for the understanding of that which is not easy to 3 grasp. Malmfrid Sletteland, my ‘personal’ librarian, who searched books and articles all over the world for me. Petter Seip who helped me tame the computer to such a degree that I finally succeeded in organizing my unmanageable texts. Thank you! Professor Max van Manen at University of Alberta, whose pedagogical tactfulness brought forth the phenomenological writer in me, and cared for my texts as if they where his own. He was the one who taught me to see phenomenologically. How can I ever thank you? Rochelle Skogen and Donna Patterson who with great concern read and re-read my texts in order to edit my English language as well as to deepen my phenomenological reflection. Thank you both! Carina Henriksson, my phenomenological sister, has been a source of inspiration and comfort. Takk, allekjæreste! Eirik, Maja, Lars and Tord, four loving young persons who have been living with me and my work for a long time. I know it has not been easy. Still, by just being you, you have helped me recognize the real meaning of pedagogy. Bergen, 15 juli 2005 Tone Sævi 4 CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. THE EXPERIENCE OF DISABILITY IN PEDAGOGY – THE QUESTION, THE INTENTION AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY........................................................................................................... 7 THE QUESTION ..................................................................................................................................................... 7 SEEING STUDENTS .............................................................................................................................................. 8 SEEING AS METAPHOR AND STRUCTURAL DEVICE ........................................................................................... 10 THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH.............................................................................................................. 12 A SHORT PRESENTATION OF THE SOCIAL/POLITICAL SETTING OF THE STUDY................................................. 13 The status of special education research............................................................................................... 15 PEDAGOGY IS TO BE RATHER THAN TO HAVE ................................................................................................... 16 Practicing the pedagogical good ............................................................................................................. 16 Pedagogical practice is togetherness ..................................................................................................... 17 The pedagogical encounter is meaningful in itself................................................................................ 18 Pedagogical practice as exemplary ........................................................................................................ 19 PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE AS ONTOLOGICAL ..................................................................................................... 19 AN ONTOLOGICAL VIEW OF DISABILITY.............................................................................................................. 20 Being disabled or having a disability....................................................................................................... 21 The difference that disability makes........................................................................................................ 22 CHAPTER 2. INTERPRETIVE REVIEW OF SELECTED PERSPECTIVES ON DISABILITY AND PEDAGOGY.......................................................................................................................................................... 24 THE DIAGNOSTIC PERSPECTIVE ........................................................................................................................ 25 Questioning the diagnostic perspective.................................................................................................. 30 THE SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE ................................................................................................................................ 32 The tyranny of generality .......................................................................................................................... 33 Questioning the social perspective ......................................................................................................... 36 THE INDIVIDUAL PERSPECTIVE .......................................................................................................................... 38 Questioning the individual perspective ................................................................................................... 42 AN ALTERNATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH......................................................................................... 44 Epistemological distinctions within the interpretive (meaning) paradigms........................................ 45 Taking an onto-epistemological perspective to establish an alternative phenomenological approach to ‘seeing disability pedagogically’......................................................................................... 48 CHAPTER 3. MODES OF SEEING ..................................................................................................................... 51 MODES OF SEEING ............................................................................................................................................ 52 ASPECTS OF SEEING ......................................................................................................................................... 56 The intention of seeing is different from the sense of seeing. ............................................................ 56 Seeing there or here.................................................................................................................................. 57 Seeing is common and personal ............................................................................................................. 58 Seeing is different from thinking of what and how to see .................................................................... 58 Seeing is to sense interpretively.............................................................................................................. 59 Looking at an object or an animal is different from looking at another human being...................... 60 Time makes a difference to seeing ......................................................................................................... 63 The seer and the seen, a unit but still different ..................................................................................... 64 The seeing ‘I’ makes a difference............................................................................................................ 65 The experiential difference of nearness and distance ......................................................................... 66 THE DIFFERENCE THAT ‘SEEING PEDAGOGICALLY’ MAKES............................................................................... 68 CHAPTER 4. HERMENEUTIC PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY ...............................................